Stats that will reshape your world view VIDEO

Check out the following:

Stats that will reshape your world view:  Hans Rosling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

or google You Tube Hans Rosling for other choices

Philadelphia principals fired in cheating scandal

January 24th, 2014

Motoko Rich in The New York Times…

“Three Philadelphia Public Schools principals were fired last week after an investigation into test cheating that has implicated about 140 teachers and administrators, a spokesman for the district said Wednesday. The action follows years of investigating the results of state standardized math and reading tests taken from 2009 to 2011. The investigation, conducted by the school district and the state department of education, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, identified 33 schools — including three public charter schools — where an analysis of test answer sheets found a suspicious number of wrong answers that were erased and made right…”

Mission U.S.: Teaching History through Games

Posted on January 22, 2014 by curiouscat4           

Curious cat is a professor of politics and international relations at Webster University.      

               

Last weekend I had the privilege to attend the first annual CUNY Games Festival in New York.  The conference brought together academics and game designers to discuss means and methods of using games in higher education.  For me it was certainly a ‘these are my people!’ gathering and while I enjoyed presenting my own work (on my interdisciplinary World of Warcraft course), the highlight was learning about a variety of games that are available and useful for the college classroom.  Ill be posting about many of them in the coming weeks.
The first is Mission U.S, a series of free online games aimed at teaching American history to 5th-8th graders.    Designed by historians, each of the three games casts you as a fictional character at a crucial time in history–as a printmaking apprentice on the eve of the American Revolution in Boston; as a young slave in 1848, or as a Northern Cheyenne boy in 1866. They are all essentially single-player role playing games.  The major events are set (you cannot, for example, prevent the Boston Massacre) but you are free to take sides and actions as you choose.  For example, in the first Mission, you can choose your words or actions to support the Sons of Liberty, or to remain loyal to the British.
The games are most appropriate for history courses, but could also certainly be used as an out-of-class assignment to inform introductory or niche courses in American Politics.  For example, I always start my introduction to American Politics course with the historical background preceding the Revolution and the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. The first mission could either substitute or complement that lecture, and really set the stage for students to understand the complaints of the colonists and how their experiences informed the writing of those documents.
I also quite enjoyed the gameplay.  Despite the pitch at a younger audience, the games would work quite well for the college crowd.  The interface is easy to use; the gameplay fairly simple but filled with interesting choices that impact the game (the path you choose does matter in terms of options available to you later); and the graphics pleasing.  The games are divided into chapters, which makes it easy to assign concrete chunks to students, and you are free to save the game at any time.  The creators also made educational guides for instructors available, which include lesson plans, learning goals, how-to guides, and cheat sheets.
Again, this is a niche game, and political science professors may find more value in playing it for their own interest and refresher than as an assignment to students.  It may be something to pass on to your colleagues in history–but it also may prove useful in various American Government courses.

Op-ed by Tom Friedman Jan 18th: Home run!

Obama’s Homework Assignment

Jan. 18, 2014

By Thomas Friedman: NY Times

PRESIDENT OBAMA will deliver his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, but, for my money, his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, already gave it. Just not enough people heard it.

So instead of Obama fishing around for contrived ideas to put in his speech — the usual laundry list that wins applause but no action — the president should steal Duncan’s speech and claim it as his own (I won’t tell) because it was not a laundry list and wasn’t a feel-good speech. In fact, it was a feel-bad speech, asking one big question. Are we falling behind as a country in education not just because we fail to recruit the smartest college students to become teachers or reform-resistant teachers’ unions, but because of our culture today: too many parents and too many kids just don’t take education seriously enough and don’t want to put in the work needed today to really excel?

Is this the key cause of income inequality and persistent poverty? No. But it is surely part of their solutions, and it is a subject that Obama has not used his bully pulpit to address in any sustained way. Nothing could spark a national discussion of this more than a State of the Union address.

I’ll get to Duncan’s speech in a moment, but, if you think he’s exaggerating, listen to some teachers. Here are the guts of a letter published recently by The Washington Post from a veteran seventh-grade language arts teacher in Frederick, Md., who explained why she no longer wants to teach. (She asked to remain anonymous.)

After complaining about the “superficial curriculum that encouraged mindless conformity,” she wrote: “I decided that if I was going to teach this nonsense, I was at least going to teach it well. I set my expectations high, I kept my classroom structured, I tutored students, I provided extra practice and I tried to make class fun. ... I quickly rose through the ranks of ‘favorite teacher,’ kept open communication channels with parents and had many students with solid A’s. It was about this time that I was called down to the principal’s office. ... She handed me a list of about 10 students, all of whom had D’s or F’s. At the time, I only had about 120 students, so I was relatively on par with a standard bell curve. As she brought up each one, I walked her through my grade sheets that showed not low scores but a failure to turn in work — a lack of responsibility. I showed her my tutoring logs, my letters to parents, only to be interrogated further.

“Eventually, the meeting came down to two quotes that I will forever remember as the defining slogans for public education: ‘They are not allowed to fail.’ ‘If they have D’s or F’s, there is something that you are not doing for them.’ What am I not doing for them? I suppose I was not giving them the answers. I was not physically picking up their hands to write for them. I was not following them home each night to make sure they did their work on time. I was not excusing their lack of discipline. ... Teachers are held to impossible standards, and students are accountable for hardly any part of their own education and are incapable of failing.”

I got an almost identical letter last month from a high school teacher in Oregon: “Until about 1992, I would have at least one kid in every class who simply wouldn’t do anything.  A bad class might have two. Today I have 10 to 15. I recently looked back at my old exams from the ’80s. These were tough, comprehensive ones without the benefit of notes. Few would pass them today.  We are dumbing down our classes.  It is an inexorable downward progression in which one day all a kid will need to pass is to have a blood pressure. The kids today are not different in ‘nature.’ ... The difference is that back then, although they didn’t want to, they would do the work. Today, they won’t. ... This is a real conversation I had with a failing student who was being quite sincere in her comments: ‘I know you’re a really good teacher, but you don’t seem to realize I have two hours a night of Facebook and over 4,000 text messages a month to deal with. How do you expect me to do all this work?’ When I collect homework at the beginning of class, it is standard out of a class of 35, to receive only 8 to 10 assignments. If I didn’t give half-credit for late work, I think most would fail.”

Now you have some idea why Duncan gave this speech to the National Assessment Governing Board’s Education Summit for Parent Leaders. Here’s an excerpt:

 “In 2009, President Obama met with President Lee of South Korea and asked him about his biggest challenge in education. President Lee answered without hesitation: parents in South Korea were ‘too demanding.’ Even his poorest parents demanded a world-class education for their children, and he was having to spend millions of dollars each year to teach English to students in first grade, because his parents won’t let him wait until second grade. ... I [wish] our biggest challenge here in the U.S. was too many parents demanding excellent schools.

“I want to pose one simple question to you: Does a child in South Korea deserve a better education than your child?” Duncan continued. “If your answer is no ... then your work is cut out for you. Because right now, South Korea — and quite a few other countries — are offering students more, and demanding more, than many American districts and schools do. And the results are showing, in our kids’ learning and in their opportunities to succeed, and in staggeringly large achievement gaps in this country. Doing something about our underperformance will mean raising your voice — and encouraging parents who aren’t as engaged as you to speak up. Parents have the power to challenge educational complacency here at home. Parents have the power to ask more of their leaders — and to ask more of their kids.”

Citing Amanda Ripley’s new book — “The Smartest Kids in the World, and How They Got That Way” — Duncan said, “Amanda points a finger at you and me, as parents — not because we aren’t involved in school, but because too often, we are involved in the wrong way. Parents, she says, are happy to show up at sports events, video camera in hand, and they’ll come to school to protest a bad grade. But she writes, and I quote: ‘Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergartners learn math while they still loved numbers.’ ... To really help our kids, we have to do so much more as parents. We have to change expectations about how hard kids should work. And we have to work with teachers and leaders to create schools that demand more from our kids.”

Now that’s a State of the Union speech the country needs to hear — and wouldn’t forget.

Thomas Friedman

NY Times

Doha Debates: Surprising!

Bill Clinton in the Doha Debates

In the summer of 2011, fourteen teachers, myself included, ventured to the Middle East to visit the countries of Bahrain and Qatar.  The 11 day trip was sponsored (and largely paid for) by the governments of those 2 countries in an effort to influence American educators to tear down many stereotypes that they felt we had about Arabs, Islam and the Middle East in general.   I’ll write about that trip at some point in the future. 

                One thing I definitely learned on the trip is that there is more public debate than we had thought previously, at least in parts of the Middle East.  This was particularly evident in Qatar, which is scheduled to host the 2022 World Cup, by the way.  Nowhere was this dialogue more in evidence than in the Doha Debates which we learned about firsthand.

                Google” Doha debates” and you’ll find an archive of video debates on many sensitive Middle East topics.

                The debates are held in an auditorium on the Georgetown campus in Qatar.  (Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth and Northwestern also have campuses in Doha, the capital of Qatar.)   The 350 people in the audience are largely students at these 6 universities who are from all parts of the globe, including US students studying in   After 2 speakers on either side speak to the motion to be debated, the floor is open to questions and comments from the audience, and this is where you behold dramatic diversity in the discussion of the motion, as well as in the dress of the audience members.  

Below is a list of “motions” that were debated in the recent past:

1) This House believes marriage between close family members should be discouraged

2) This House believes censorship makes a mockery of the arts

3) This House believes women will be worse off after the Arab revolutions

4) This House believes President Assad must resign

5) This House believes that Arab revolutions will just produce different dictators

6) This House believes education is worthless without freedom of speech

7) This House believes women are superior to men

8) This House believes France is right to ban the face veil

                Below is a description of the Doha debates from their home page.  You can read it below, or google “Doha debates” and read it on line, before you click on the debate you might like to watch.  I have used these debates in my URI International Politics classes, and the students have found it fascinating.

            “The Doha Debates are chaired by the award-winning former BBC correspondent and interviewer Tim Sebastian, who founded them in 2004 and secured their editorial independence.  Although the Debates are financed by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, no government, official body or broadcaster has any control over what is said at the sessions or who is invited.  Televised eight times a year by BBC World News, the Debates are based on a centuries-old format, refined by the famous Oxford Union. They focus on a single, controversial motion, with two speakers for and against. Once they have outlined their arguments, each speaker is questioned by the chairman and the discussion is then opened up to the audience for argument and a final electronic vote.

The 350-strong audiences are drawn mainly from Qatar’s student body and come from all over the Arab and Islamic worlds. In several debates they have adopted radical and unexpected positions.  Clear majorities have stated that Muslims are failing to combat extremism and that the Palestinians risk becoming their own worst enemy. A student at Texas A&M Qatar says the Doha Debates have taught her things of great importance. 'I have learned not to judge, but to think with maturity and logic, and not to accept things straight away; instead I require proof and evidence.'

Internationally, The Doha Debates have attracted wide attention and are broadcast to more than 400 million homes globally on numerous broadcasters.  The Doha Debates are a unique venture in the Arab world, providing a battleground for conflicting opinions and arguments about the major political topics of the region.  While governments around the world tighten restrictions on press freedom, the Doha Debates openly dissect the vital issues of the Middle East in front of its people and on global TV.  For the first time in their life, many young Arabs are having their say on key political questions – challenging politicians and experts face to face.  They engage in time-honoured rivalry – where the only weapons are words.  They practice the art of peaceful disagreement: understanding and respecting different views.”

Don't give up! US History standards can, and must, be developed.

by Ted Welsh:  recent retiree from Norwalk HS in Connecticut, after 32 years of Social Studies teaching

I have struggled with many of the same issues you raise in your post “No Common Core Social Studies standards.”  I am not well read in any of the professional literature (though your references to Diane Ravitch have not gone unnoticed) but I have participated for decades in discussions and activities at the department and district levels in attempting to gain some traction in establishing content standards for various courses in Social Studies.  As a former Department Chairman I organized and facilitated groups whose sole focus was to develop content standards and evaluative materials to assess progress.  I have organized informal discussion groups with department members in efforts to create common assessments based on common content standards.  Most of this activity did not lead to much success.

 In my school system and at higher state and national levels, Social Studies continues to play second fiddle to the three "major" disciplines -- Language Arts, Science and Math.  There is much evidence to support this observation.  In Connecticut for example, our sophomores take the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT).  The CAPT is a series of skills and content assessments that draw almost exclusively from the Three Majors. Social Studies has essentially been”thrown a bone” with a minor 90 minute "Interdisciplinary" assessment that measures students' analytical reading and persuasive writing skills but requires zero prior content knowledge.  The CAPT Interdisciplinary assessment is considered the "property" of the high school Social Studies Departments because the subject matter for the readings is a “social” issue.  However, any Middle School student who can read well, take a position on a controversial social issue and express that position clearly would easily score in the top goal bracket while knowing next to nothing about high school Social Studies. 

So why have content standards for the other three disciplines been agreed upon and Social Studies not?  My view is that agreement in our discipline is more difficult – far more difficult. We can get there, but not without more work.  Our task is simply harder and there are key factors that have combined to create this difficulty.

The following is a series of my own observations on the content problem in high school Social Studies following 32 years in the profession.  I don’t consider these in any priority order…rather, I think these factors feed one another, creating the unique complexity in determining content standards for the Social Studies.

#1  Every problem we have today was once a solution to a previous problem:

One important way that high school Social Studies has radically changed over the last 50 years is that we now offer many more courses than in the past.  While on the one hand we have immensely enriched the breadth and range of intriguing subjects that cater to the individual interests of our students, on the other hand we have watered down the identity of the discipline.  For example, in my high school back in the ‘60’s, we all took World Geography in grade 9, World History grade 10, Regents U.S. History grade 11, then one of two electives in grade 12.  We all took the same exams and presumably, our teachers all followed the same curriculum.

The weaknesses of this simpler system are, I believe, more obvious than the strengths.  The curriculum was way too vanilla to hold the interest of many students.  The teaching methods (lecture, lecture & more lecture) and materials (mimeographed “worksheets” requiring students to copy phrases out of textbooks) were flat-out deadly.  Much of the required content (the old “names and dates”) began to lose relevance for students who were busier weighing out their options for military service in the Vietnam era or others caught up in the general anti-establishment mentality of the late 1960’s - early 1970’s.  Social Studies was in trouble.

In order to maintain relevance (and jobs), high school Social Studies departments all over the country began to diversify their programs through elective courses that in many ways have fundamentally altered the landscape and identity of the discipline.  Today, we still teach history, but our students perceive our departments as more a smorgasbord of interesting possibilities.  Many of our teachers are specialists in the fields of their elective courses, but they’re still required to teach a couple of US History sections to round out their required five classes.  To stay with US History as our example, in the last 50 years, the experience of the US History class for both students and teachers has fallen from its arguable position as the central focus of the Social Studies Department to (in many cases) a sluggish and dull requirement.  Language Arts, Science and Math have experienced a similar dynamic, but nowhere near to the same degree. 

In the context of creating content standards, this difference matters.  In the Social Studies, the question “what’s worth learning?” has become far more complex than it once was.  In the next century, will it be more valuable for our students to understand the workings of markets and money or the motives and decisions of past leaders?  Family dynamics or party politics?  An understanding of different ideologies and world views or modern theories of personality development? 

Our discipline has taken on all of this and much more.  We offer courses in Economics, Psychology, Area Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, African-American Studies, Film Studies, multiple AP programs, etc., etc.  We’ve become something of a “catch-all” department – altering our offerings to students based on our understanding of THEIR interests rather than dueling with the more difficult question “WHAT’S WORTH LEARNING?” and developing standards from the answers to this question.

But there IS content knowledge that IS more important.  For example, I believe that it is very important for students to understand how widespread overuse of credit leads to economic downturn and depression.  I also think it valuable for students to understand Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  Both important…but I would argue that the understanding of credit is more important.  I don’t know for certain that I’m right, but I believe I could make a pretty strong case for it and I’d probably win it.  I could lose though, and if I lose I still win because we’ve all now made a decision and we can move forward to the next item.

Conceptually, this approach has already been successfully implemented by the “Big 3.”  Their success in identifying and developing content standards (and our failure to this point) is due in no small measure to the fact that we have to push the boulder up a higher mountain.  And hard as it is to swallow, this is a mountain of our own making.

We need to narrow the focus in order to achieve the same success.  In my view, US History is the best candidate.  Some form of US History is taught in virtually every American high school and even if teachers or administrators or parents or other stakeholders have never taught US History, they have all studied it at some point.  Everyone arrives at a discussion involving US History with some experience and ideas.

You Tube videos regarding the political, geographical and historical illiteracy of the American electorate

In this 10 minute video Rick Shenkman, author of JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AMERICAN VOTER (Basic Books, 2008), discusses the political ignorance of the US electorate (from the left)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhcnEQnWYDA

John Stossel  5 minute interview:  Most Americans are politically ignorant (from the right)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdK7bQLg4ZM

Jay Leno quizzes HS students on Geography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_pw8duzGUg

Interviews and video footage of political ignorance of certain American citizens and politicians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55uWbNdv89g

Chuck Todd and Alex Trebek discuss American geographic illiteracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEl-G3X5w6Q

Choices Units from Brown's Watson Institute

If you’re a veteran teacher, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Choices units from Brown’s Watson Institute, and you probably use them.  If you’re unaware of this resource, I recommend you access the Choices web site (www.Choices.edu)  and check it out. Below you’ll find the topics of Units offered by Choices.  The program is called Choices because all of the units end with 3 or 4 possible choices for US policy toward that the issues covered in the unit.  It’s great stuff for getting kids involved in debates on these matters.

Current Issues

Afghanistan, Cuba, China, Global Environmental Problems, Foreign Aid, Genocide, Human Rights, Immigration, the Middle East in Transition, N. Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, the UN, Terrorism, International Trade, and more

US History

Slave Trade, American Independence, War of 1812, Westward Expansion, Imperialism, Cold War, Hiroshima, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, Civil Rights, and more

World History

French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, India/Pakistan, Iraq, Russian Revolution, South Africa, Weimar Republic, Mexico, and more

Purpose, origin and hopes for this Blog

The purpose of this Blog is to create dialogue regarding the status of HS Social Studies in RI. It is not designed to discuss elementary or Middle School issues. It is not designed to discuss HS Math issues, and it's not designed to discuss Social Studies issues in Oregon. Although readers are welcome to post on the aforementioned topics, the focus will nonetheless be on HS Social Studies in RI. I have sat through all too many generic Professional Development days, and read far too many pages in K-12 Education texts where they talk about Mrs. Brown's second grade class. Both formats expect me to apply this generic information about teaching to my HS US History class. Frequently, it was and is a stretch! Additionally, it seems to me that we have far too many people with Elementary School backgrounds making educational policy decisions that might be appropriate at the pre-HS level, but not at the HS level.

The idea for this Blog came about after my conversations with numerous HS Social Studies teachers in my capacity of observing Salve Regina student teachers at 7 different RI high schools. Additionally, I have many Social Studies colleagues in a variety of high schools outside RI as a result of my attending Model United Nations conferences. I noticed that there were many common concerns that these teachers had in common. My sense is that these Social Studies teachers expressed their concerns and shared best practices with others in their department, but didn't necessarily have a non-NEA forum to discuss common issues with HS Social Studies teachers from other schools.

Lastly, I feel like I'm in a unique position to assist the pendulum in swinging, which I observe many HS teachers are looking forward to. I have 32 years of HS teaching under my belt; I have 5 years of experience teaching at URI, so I have some ability to evaluate how the product of RI HS Social Studies courses fares at the next level. I also have lots of experience in the Salve Regina Education Department where I have gotten a greater sense for educational reforms, some of which I support, and some of which I have serious concerns about. Additionally, through Salve, I have had the opportunity to speak to many Social Studies teachers, and hear their concerns. Finally, I feel I'm in a unique position, because I feel like I'm a lot more free to express my opinions regarding these matters than many other teachers are in the state.

In closing, I'd like to admit the following:
1) I like to write, and I like the Blog format. I used it frequently with my URI classes, and I also, for a period of time, managed a Blog that dealt with appropriate youth soccer coaching ideas.
2) I don't like to complain without doing something about the issues. Hence, at 4 different times in my 3 decades of SKHS teaching, I wrote lengthy pieces defending SKHS, which were published in the SK newspapers. My hope is that this Blog may be a forum to express concern, but may also, eventually, lead to action to improve education for our students.
3) I'm semi-retired and have some time on my hands.

The blind men and the elephant

by Jim Buxton
There were 3 men in Hindustan who had never seen an elephant.  To be true, they had never seen anything, because all of them were blind.  The three men set out on foot to find an elephant, because once and for all they wanted to know what that creature looked like.  They did indeed find an elephant.

And the first of the three blind men walked up to the elephant and felt its tusk.  Pleased, he exclaimed: “Well, what have we here?  Something round and smooth and sharp.  There can be no doubt.  An elephant is like a spear.”  The second man approached the animal and got a hold of its trunk.  It twisted and twined the way trunks usually do.  “It is quite simple”, said the man, “the elephant is like a snake.”  Eagerly, the third man stretched out his hand and touched the elephant’s knee.  Then he laughed.  “It is easy to determine what an elephant most resembles,”  he said, “a tree!”  And then the three blind men began arguing what the elephant looked like. “A spear!” “A snake!” “A tree!”  And, in a way, or course, they were all right!

In analyzing education, our perceptions are limited by what part of schooling we have experience with.  Our fragmentary knowledge of education influences our policy suggestions.   I must acknowledge that I taught in a very successful suburban school for my 32 years of high school teaching.  I taught a lot of Honors classes in those days, and that certainly colors my view.   I have, however, for the past 5 years, taught students in the URI Talent Development  program, which is a program for incoming students coming from lower socioeconomic strata in RI.  Additionally, before I started teaching at SKHS, I did teach in a special needs school for severely emotionally disturbed teenagers.  To give you an idea of the school, the second school year I was there we started in September with 25 students, 8 teachers and a Principal.  By years end, I was the only one who had not quit.  When I wasn't working, and I would be on a super market line with teens behind me, I'd unconsciously turn toward the teens so as to be able to protect myself.  In those days, the elephant was dangerous,  unpredictable and psychologically damaged, and I felt that education should focus on skills and self-esteem, and that content coverage was irrelevant. 

Nonetheless, my major teaching experience was my 3 decades at South Kingstown High School, where I witnessed amazing academic success.  My initial experiences at SKHS rapidly changed my perceptions of students vis- a- vis my experience at the Special Needs school.  Currently, when I write about education in this Blog, I must admit I see most clearly only  part of the elephant, and much of what I might say may more aptly apply to a suburban school like SKHS, and not so much to inner city schools.

In the same way, I wonder how much Deborah Gist is influenced by her experience as a primary school teacher, and question whether her policy suggestions don't address the whole elephant, but rather are more appropriate to primary school children.

In the same way, if an administrator's educational experience is mostly with special education students, then this part of the elephant may be influencing the policies that the administrator is proposing for the entire student body.

Hence, bottom line, I wonder what percent of superintendents, principals and people at the RI Department of Education have significant high school Social Studies experience.  My guess is that there are not many, which explains why the interests of Social Studies teachers are not even close to the front burner.

Here is another version of the elephant story: "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887).

And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

The poem begins:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind^[13]

They conclude that the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan or rope, depending upon where they touch. They have a heated debate that does not come to physical violence. But in Saxe's version, the conflict is never resolved.
Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen

No Common Core US History or World History content standards?

by Jim Buxton

              There are Common Core Math and ELA content standards, and I understand they’re coming in Science.   The last of the Big 4, Social Studies, does not have Common Core content standards. 

                There are Common Core standards for Literacy/Social Studies, but these are not content standards.  So, the Literacy/Social Studies standards might expect 11-12 grade students to be able to “analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.”  Certainly, that is an important skill, and one we can promote in Social Studies classes, but I don’t get any guidance as to what individuals, ideas or events I should have the students analyze.  The standards don’t suggest that students analyze Woodrow Wilson’s initial opposition to entering World War 1, and then trace how he eventually encouraged US involvement as a way “to end all wars” and to “save democracy.”  Wouldn’t it be helpful to all Social Studies teachers, but especially for new teachers, to have a specific set of content standards so that we can know what we should teach – like Math teachers have?  Fat chance!  

             So why is Social Studies the orphan?  It’s a long story, and one which I will try to concisely summarize.  Please feel free to post important parts which I left out, or misspoke about.  In doing so, I will be drawing extensively from an article by Diane Ravitch.  (“Hijacked!  How the Standards Movement turned into the testing movement”; March 2013)  By the way, I would highly recommend Diane Ravitch’s Blog.  In using Diane Ravitch’s work, I’ll be using her coverage of standard’s history, but I won’t be dealing with her remarks around testing.

         Ravitch feels we have to look back to the educational system of the 1960s – 1970s, and the reaction to it, in order to assess the standards movement.  The 1983 publication, “A Nation at Risk”, called for major changes in the way we educated our students at the time of the hey-day of the hippie.  Ravitch states, “A Nation at Risk was a response to the radical school reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s.”  She continues, “the reforms of the 60s-70s were proferred with the best of intentions; some stemmed from a desire to advance racial equity in the classroom and to broaden the curriculum to respect the cultural diversity of the population.  Others were intended to liberate students from burdensome requirements.  Still others supported schools where any sort of adult authority was strictly forbidden.  Tear down the walls between the classrooms, said some reformers.  Free the children, free the schools, abolish all rules and requirements.  Let the English teacher teach Math, and the Math teacher teach English.  Let students design their own courses and learn whatever they feel like learning whenever they feel like learning it.  Get rid of graduation requirements, grades, tests and textbooks……. On it went, with reformers, radicals, and revolutionaries competing to outdo each other.”

                I have to admit that in my college days (1971-1974), I took three courses where the students graded themselves. (Most of us did very little work, and gave ourselves  A minuses.)  In one of the courses, I had an independent study with a professor in the Religious Studies Dept.  I was supposed to be taking Auto Mechanics at the local high school.  The professor and I titled the course, “Man and his machine.”  Being that I am technologically challenged, after one class, I was way behind, so I stopped going.  At the end of the semester, I went to see the professor to determine my grade.  He asked me what I usually got for grades, and I said B plus, so that’s what I got!!!   Suckers!!!!  I suppose that amongst all the “losers” in this story, the biggest one was my Father who paid the tuition which included that course! 

                It doesn’t take too many stories like the aforementioned for one to conclude: “Boy, did they need some educational standards in those days!“   Therefore, I’ll spare you some of the other absurd examples from those days!  You can imagine that this pendulum swing was inevitably going to swing the other way.   Diane Ravitch was among those calling for change decrying what she called "permissive, child centered pedagogical strategies." (American Education: a History by Wayne Urban and Jennings Wagoner; 2014; pg 320)

              One of the factors which caused a 180 was a 1975 New York Times story about SAT scores dipping dramatically.  Although some contend that much of the dip "could be attributed to the fact that during the 1970s the school-age population that took the tests had broadened to include a much larger portion of the high school-aged student cohort than had taken the tests in previous years." (American Education; pg 320)   Nonetheless this story, and others like it, led many, including Diane Ravitch, to express serious concern.  Eventually, the Reagan administration tasked a Commission with exploring this educational conundrum, and in 1983 they produced a document called “A Nation at Risk.”  The most memorable statement made by the authors of the publication, was the following:   “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."

                The “Nation at Risk” report found that “students  were taking fewer basic academic courses and more fluffy electives (“Man and his machine”!!); there was less assignment of homework, more absenteeism and less thoughtful and critical reading.  Careful writing had apparently gone out of style.  Math, Science and Foreign Language enrollment was falling.  The Commission stated:  “In effect, we have a cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be taken for the main courses.”          The Commission proposed a wide variety of remedies for the US K-12 educational system.  Amongst the recommendations were longer school days and years, more homework, higher expectations, and a greater focus on Math, Science, Foreign Language and Computers.   There were many other concerns delineated by the Commission, including the creation of high standards for each subject.

                In regard to developing US History standards, we move up to the early 1990s.  At that time, the Department of Education awarded grants to groups of teachers and scholars to develop voluntary national standards in history, as well as in the other major disciplines.  By 1994, the history group, led by UCLA historians, had developed a set of US and World History standards.  These standards did not go over well!  Lynne Cheney, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, lambasted the standards for their left wing bias.  Cheney objected to the amount of times Joe McCarthy and the Ku Klux Klan were mentioned, whereas Paul Revere, Ulysses S Grant, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers were not mentioned at all.  Part of her concerns, therefore, seemed to be that the Standards focused on American failures, and not on American successes. 

                Cheney was not alone.  Rush Limbaugh felt the standards should be flushed down the toilet, and that’s essentially what the US Senate did in a 99-1 vote condemning the standards.  The lone dissenter wanted stronger language than condemnation.  The Clinton administration disowned the History standards, and in the mid 1990s, the movement to create national history standards was dead in the water.  However, legislation supported by the Clinton administration said that every state should develop its own history standards and develop its own tests, and other measures of accountability.

                In reality, it may be the case that there was, and is, no way for each of the 50 states to agree on national history content standards.  Would the Social Studies educators in Oklahoma want to cover Roger Williams to the extent Rhode Islanders would, and would RI teachers spend as much time teaching about the Cherokees?  Do Rhode Islanders want to learn as much about the Mormons as those from Utah?  Can you ever get Massachusetts and Texas to agree on the content of the wars with Mexico in the 1840s?                 

                So, bit by bit, states developed their own standards.  So, now RI has voluntary standards developed in the following disciplines:  Civics/Government (2008); RI History (2012); Geography (2012) and Economics (2012).  Dates of approval by RIDE are in parentheses.  As you can see, there are no US History standards.  In fact, that is also understandable.   Indeed, it may be impossible to get teachers in Massachusetts and Oklahoma to agree with each other, but it may also be impossible to get teachers in South Kingstown and Newport to agree with each other.   Can you get each of the RI Social Studies Departments to agree on what should be taught about Vietnam?  President Reagan’s “trickle down economics?”  Immigration from Guatemala, Colombia or the Dominican Republic?   One could argue that deciding what to cover in a US History course is a political decision, and there’s no way we have the same politics.  (This is interesting, but I’ll leave that for another post)

                The difficulty with having Geography, or Economics standards are that not every high school teaches those subjects.  What if we had a Regents test, a la New York, on Geography?  If your Social Studies department doesn’t offer a Geography course, then your kids wouldn’t have a chance.  Hence, the standards in these areas must be voluntary, and broad.  For example, one of the Civics and Government standards for high schoolers is:

“Students demonstrate an understanding of origins, forms, and purposes of government by comparing and contrasting different forms of government and their purposes.”   Pretty broad, eh!?  You can cover that standard in a World History course, a USH course, a Comparative Politics course and so on. 

                Diane Ravitch has significant concerns about this type of standard.  She states:   “A typical high school history standard says that ‘students will demonstrate an understanding of the chronology and concepts of history and identify and explain historical relationships’. ……………  Since these statements do not refer to any actual historical event, they do not require students to know any history.  They contain no historical content that students might analyze, debate, or reflect on.  Unfortunately, they are typical of most state standards in history.  The much- maligned, voluntary national history standards of 1994 (which Ravitch favored amending), by contrast, are intellectually challenging, because they expected students to discuss the causes of the American Revolution, the Great Depression, world wars, and other major events in US History.  Without specificity and clarity, standards are nothing more than vacuous verbiage.” 

                So, we are left with voluntary, broad content standards in a few subjects, which may or may not be taught at a given high school.  Now, however, we have Common Core standards, but not in History content.  Rather, they are in “Literacy in History/Social Studies.”    Therefore, Social Studies teachers must deal with standards like the following, for grade 11-12 students:

                1) Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

                2) Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g. satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement)

                3) Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

                I’m not objecting to any of these standards.  I’m just concerned that focus on these matters will crowd out significant portions of the actual historical content we have time to teach.  I suppose that’s where the “less is more” crowd says that the breadth of content is not as important as learning things like 1-3 above.  I have to admit that I have a cynical view of the “less is more crowd” whereby I wonder if all they know is a little bit of history, biology, algebra, etc. so that they don’t know what would be missing if the content was diluted by 50%.

(That’s a topic for a future post.  I have to work on saying those ideas delicately.)

                Here’s two final concerns that I’ll leave you with.  Even without content standards, some would argue that many of us do, indeed, conform to standards on a national level.  "In practice, there is a set of national standards in place because almost the entire nation is following the same curriculum using the same basic US and World History textbooks from a few large publishers." (Social Studies for the 21st Century, by Jack Zevin; 3rd Ed; 2011; pg 367)  More on that issue in another post.

                Secondly, since there is no upcoming History content test, and since there is now a much bigger focus on accountability, how are Social Studies teachers going to be evaluated.  If it’s on meeting the Common Core standards, then kiss the breadth of content away!  In order to keep your job, you will have to decimate the breadth of content you cover, and focus on the Common Core standards which do not promote breadth of content at all.





 

 

               

Teacher evaluation: redoing work: Open Forum # 3

        In the current teacher evaluation rubric, in Component 2b: "Establishing a culture of learning," there are possible examples listed in the right hand column.  At the 4 Level, one of the examples is as follows:  "A student asks the teacher for permission to redo a piece of work since she now sees how it could be strengthened."  I assume, judging the context, that the redo would lead to a higher grade, and the Level 4 teacher would say, "Yes, of course!"   How do you feel about "re-dos?"
Is allowing re-dos a mark of a top teacher?  Should we all be doing that?  On which pieces of work?
Post your opinion on revising work here.  What are the benefits?  What are the costs? When is it appropriate?

URI Honors Colloqium on Education: Fall 2013

Below you will find the list of presentations on educational topics that were part of the annual URI Honors Colloquium.  Most of the presentations are archived, and you can watch them on line.  I particularly liked the ones by Ravitch (Oct 15) and Sahlberg (Dec 10). September 10, Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right. Keynote by Richard Rothstein, research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

September 17, The State of Education in Rhode Island. A panel discussion moderated by Elisabeth Harrison, Morning Edition host and education reporter for Rhode Island National Public Radio, with Rhode Island public education leaders Deborah Gist, and Eva-Marie Mancuso; David M. Dooley, President, University of Rhode Island; Nancy Carriuolo, President, Rhode Island College; and NPR's Scott McKay.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

September 24, The Search for Knowledge. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks discusses Caleb's Crossing, the URI Common Reading selection for Fall 2013.
	(Please note: Although this event will be livecasted online, an online recording will not be available after the event. DVD copies of the event will be available for check out from the URI Media Resource Center.)

October 1, Creating the Opportunity to Learn. Diversity Week keynote address by Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

October 8, Creating a New Culture for Teaching and Learning. International leader in education technology Alan November, cofounder of the Stanford Institute for Educational Leadership and one of Technology and Learning magazine's 15 most influential thinkers of the decade.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

October 15 (6:30 p.m.), The Reign of Error. An interactive conversation with Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University and a historian of education, with special guests from the Providence Student Union.
	(Please note: Although this event will be livecasted online, an online recording will not be available after the event. DVD copies of the event will be available for check out from the URI Media Resource Center.)

October 22, The Future of Public Higher Education. David Bergeron, vice president for postsecondary education, Center for American Progress, and former acting assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Education.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

October 29, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women. Discussion with Sheryl WuDunn, author, business executive, entrepreneur, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Annual Gender and Women's Studies Carlson Lecture.
	Please note: This event will not be archived online. However, please click here to view notes from the presentation.

November 5, What are the Common Core State Standards Expectations? Questions and answers with CCSS writers Susan Pimentel (English language arts) and Doug Sovde (mathematics).
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

November 12, The State of Our Rhode Island Students. Panel discussion moderated by Maureen Moakley, URI professor of political science and political commentator for Rhode Island PBS and Rhode Island NPR, with leaders from the Economic Progress Institute, Rhode Island Kids Count, Council for Exceptional Children, and the URI Veterans Affairs Program.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

November 20 (Wednesday), Elevating All Students. Address by Freeman Hrabowski, president, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

Additional Event November 26, 2:00 p.m. Henry Giroux will speak via Skype with Honors Colloquium students about his book, Education and the Crisis in Public Values: Challenging the Assault on Teachers, Students, & Public Education.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

November 26, Pathway to Freedom: The University of Rhode Island Talent Development Experience. Panel moderated by Edward Givens, assistant director of Talent Development and Earl N. Smith III, adjunct professor of Africana Studies and assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

CANCELED - December 3, The Beauty Salon: Aesthetics and Education. Radio show with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras.

December 10, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Distinguished International Visiting Scholar address by Pasi Sahlberg, director general of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation, Helsinki, Finland.
	Video of the presentation (available live the day of the event and recorded thereafter)

Are HS SS teachers becoming more like English teachers? Open Forum # 2

In my 3 decades at South Kingstown HS, I always felt it was my responsibility to help my students with their writing.   I was one of those who frequently heard the September student remark: Is this English class?  However, with Common Core, this role may be emerging as our most important responsibility???  How do you feel about that?  What are the benefits?  costs?  Are you ready for this?

Content coverage now vis-a-vis ten years ago: Open Forum # 1

I think all HS Social Studies teachers would agree that they cover less material now than they did 5, 10 or 20 years ago, but how much less?   Submit a post which conveys your comparative coverage, and include your thoughts about that.

Is the HS Social Studies lecture going the way of the dodo bird?

              by Jim Buxton

                Is the HS lecture going the way of the dodo bird?  Many educational reformers hope that this will be the case.   From my observations at 8 RI high schools, the lecture is still very common, however the amount of lecture time in an hour long class seems to be diminishing, and seems to be intermixed with a lot of group work.  Certainly, this depends on the school.  I asked my Talent Development students at URI, who mainly come from urban RI high schools, how many classes they had in high school which were more lecture based than any other method, and the typical student said maybe 1 or 2.   What happens when these students get to 100 level college courses at URI, for example?  According to a recent study by the National Center for Educational Statistics, around 83% of college and university faculty rely on the lecture as their primary instructional method.  My question is whether we should be throwing the baby out with the bath water in our movement away from the lecture at the high school level?

                It should be noted that colleges are starting to wean themselves off of “start to finish lecturing.”  The faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has dedicated this academic year to finding alternatives to the lecture in many subjects. Johns Hopkins, Harvard University and even the White House have hosted events in which scholars have assailed the lecture. (“Colleges looking beyond the classroom” by Daniel de Vise; Washington Post; Feb 15, 2012)

                Is it possible to teach using lecture and significant student participation?  Harvard professor, Eric Mazur has developed an interactive teaching technique called peer instruction, in which the lecture is broken into chunks. Between topics, Mazur poses questions and students work together to answer them. (de Vise)  George Washington biologist, Hartmut Doebel, likewise has developed an interactive lecture style whereby groups of 6 students at a time analyze aspects of the lecture material in short spurts.  Doebel does feel that the lecture has its place and that it will never go away completely.

                I agree with Doebel that the lecture has its place, but that it can be combined with significant interaction. What I like to do is to use a form of advance organizer, and role play in combination with my lecturing.  Hence, let’s assume that I’m teaching about the chronology of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.  I will divide the students into groups of 4, with two of the students being Jews and two being Palestinians.   I will lecture on the 1947 UN Partition Plan of Palestine for 15 minutes, for example, and after doing so, I’ll give the students 5 – 7 minutes to discuss the UN plan in character.  Eventually, when we learn the issue in greater complexity, I might have groups of 6 with Jews and Palestinians of various persuasions, discussing other controversial aspects of the chronology. 

                What I like about this format is:

• students have to stay alert, and learn the information so that they can participate in the mini-discussions with their group mates
• students are more likely to internalize the info presented to them if they are in a scenario where they have to identify with a particular point of view, as they listen to the lecture
• students can ask questions of their group member if they are unclear about something
• students can be corrected by their group mates.  For example, if a Palestinian thinks they are Jewish, it will be corrected early on, and therefore they’ll be better able to understand the next part of the chronology

                Perhaps you’d like to share your thoughts on the benefits and costs of lecturing in high school Social Studies courses.  Where do you stand in regard to whether high school teachers are obliged to prepare their HS students for college lectures, assisting them in expanding their attention spans and their note taking?

                Note:  I found the following web site interesting in that it lists many ways of making lectures more participatory:                  http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/TFTlectures.html

Flexible deadlines for student work????

                          by Jim Buxton             

              I know of a number of schools which are adopting flexible deadlines for student work.  This seems to mean that homework due Tuesday could also be handed in on Wednesday, with “no charge”.  The logic seems to be that hard deadlines impact certain kids unjustly.  We’re asked to imagine the student who goes home from school, and then has to manage all the younger siblings while the single Mom works the night shift.  Wouldn’t it be more fair if that student could hand in homework on Wednesday if his Mom is home on Tuesday nights, and he can get work done then?   I would certainly agree in this case.  It is a reality that some students have much less support at home than others.

              Although, some students get far too much help at home!

                Another argument in support of flexible deadlines is that kids learn at different rates.  What takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another student 90 minutes.  The first student may be able to complete it by Tuesday, while the other student will need the extra day and hand it in on Wednesday.  Another related argument is that it doesn’t matter whether they got it in on Tuesday or Wednesday, the important thing is that they learned the material, right?

                Although the aforementioned arguments do carry some weight, I wouldn’t recommend basing my classroom policies on these “exceptions to the rule.”  For most of my 32 years at South Kingstown HS, my policies were directed to the “flock”, and not to the “lost sheep.”  This may sound like a pretty insensitive policy coming from a pretty sensitive guy.  Let me explain my policies dealing with deadlines which I would employ in a “college prep, non-honors” class (perhaps 2/3 of the SKHS students during my tenure).

                Firstly, in regard to minor homeworks, they could not be turned in late.  However, I would drop the lowest homework each quarter.  So, if a student tells me that their dog ate their homework, I’d say (sensitively) that I was sorry they had such an insensitive dog, but lucky for them, they could drop their lowest homework.  In regard to more significant homeworks, essays and papers, they can be turned in, but they lost 2/3 of a grade per day late.  Therefore, if a student turned in a paper, valued for 100 points, one day late, the most they could get was a 93.

                Why the difference between minor homework and papers, for example?  This can be seen by looking at the problems resulting in accepting minor homeworks late:

                                1) Let’s say I’m teaching the causes of World War 1 on Monday, and on Monday night the students had homework relating to the assassination of the Archduke, and the declarations of war which were to follow.  On Tuesday, I had planned to review the course of the war, leading to a debate as to which country was most at fault for World War 1.  However, on Tuesday morning, I collect homework and only 5 out of the 20 students did it.  Only one quarter of the class understands how the war broke out.  What do I do?  Do I carry on with the Tuesday plan, or do I go over the Monday night content?  If I go over Monday night’s homework in class, doesn’t this do a disservice to the 5 kids that completed the homework?  If I carry on with the original plan, then 15 out of the 20 kids are lost.  Either way, because of the flexible homework policy, I don’t know what to expect on Tuesday.

                                My policy was that a deadline was a deadline, and if it was late, it was a zero.  As a result, I would say that I averaged 80 – 85% completed homework over my final 20 years of teaching.  (It took me a decade to get to this level)  Note:  a typical homework might be worth 30 points in a 700 point quarter.  It’s not the end of the world if you get a 0/30, but it does have an impact!  I would show the students the Mathematical impact, and most responded by getting the work done regularly.

                                2) Another problem I have is this.  My goal was to hand back the homework the next day.  I think most educators would agree that prompt feedback is crucial for student learning.  However, if I have loose deadlines, if I hand Monday night’s homework back on Tuesday, then couldn’t Johnny copy Mary’s returned homework, and hand it in on Thursday? Additionally, doesn’t that put Mary in a tough spot when Johnny demands she share her returned homework.  One could say that Johnny could also do this if Monday night’s homework was due on Tuesday, with no lateness allowed.  However, the difference is that I have both Mary and Johnny’s homework with me on Monday night, and I can check if there was any copying.  With flexible deadlines, the only way to ensure there was no copying is if I photocopied all homework handed in so I can tell if someone copied later on (that month??)

                                3) Another problem occurs when dealing with # 2 above.  Teachers will delay handing back homework until everyone has done it.  By the time the work is returned, students don’t even recognize it!!

                                4) Another problem resulting from flexible deadlines is that we cannot flip the classroom, as many suggest.  We can’t make class more interactive and dynamic because they didn’t do the work at home.  Student homework output drops, and teacher centered teaching is the result during class time.

                So, why do I have different lateness policies for papers, for example?  Firstly, papers might be weighted out of 100 in a 700 point quarter.  Getting a zero out of 100 would hurt one’s grade too drastically.  Thus, you can hand it in late, but for 7 points off per day.  I would note that major papers are not returned the next day, therefore the copying issue is not a concern.  Additionally, the paper is a culminating (summative) activity, whereas the minor homework is formative, therefore the formative assessment (homework)  can be used to track the progress of the class as a whole or of individuals within it.

                Now there are some that argue that formative assessments should not count for your grade.  I disagree with that policy as it would lead to all the problems mentioned earlier.  For more on formative assessments, see the Blog post on that topic.

                Lastly, perhaps the most important reason for hard deadlines is because that’s the way the world is!  For the most part, if your boss says get it to me by Tuesday, he/she means Tuesday, not Thursday or next Tuesday!  If the first class at your high school is supposed to start at 7:35, you’re not going to be looked on with favor if you frequently show up at 8 AM.  Additionally, if a high school senior has flexible deadlines, then what happens when he goes to URI where a deadline is a deadline?  I heard that one principal said that it’s not the high school’s job to prepare the kids for URI. 

 

                Having stated my case, I have to acknowledge that this policy may not work as well in a culture where students just do not do homework.  Therefore, I would accentuate that the policies above worked well for me with the top two tiers of SK classes (which covered about 80% of SKHS students during my tenure.)  With the lowest of the three tiers, these policies did not work as well.  I grant you that.  However, if this is so, then I think it is unwise to make policies geared for the lowest tier which would be applied for the entire student body. 

 

                Homework deadline policies should be made with the flock in mind, and separate policies should be, sensitively enacted for the "lost sheep."