One reads a great deal concerning education reform nowadays. It
might almost seem as if this were some new trend in education. Indeed,
it is not. I have been an educator for over thirty years. My field of
expertise is reading. After teaching in a regular elementary classroom
for a couple of years, I completed a master's degree in reading and
learning disabilities. Except for a five year break to attend seminary
and serve as a full time minister, I have been a teacher of elementary
reading. In 1995, I completed a doctorate in reading/educational
psychology. At that point, I began teaching reading methods in a
college setting.
Over
my thirty years of involvement in education, I have seen many, many
reforms. Some have come from the right, others from the left. In the
field of reading, when I began my teaching, basal reading programs were
in, and we attempted to teach every skill known to humanity. Next,
whole language gained quite a following. Next, an oldie, but a popular
one, reappeared: phonics. Now we are emphasizing a balanced
approached-I think that is likely a step in the right direction.
We
can easily extend this discussion beyond the boundaries of reading.
When I started attending elementary school in 1960, math was a "drill
and kill" activity. The expectation was learning of the basic math
facts and procedures whether you understood them or not. It is rather
easy to see if you learned under this method. Just attempt to explain
"conceptually" why 1/2 divided by 4 is 1/8, and why to arrive at that
one must "invert and multiply." I am surprised at how many cannot
explain the multiplication and division of fractions at the conceptual
level.
When I was about half way through my elementary school
education, the so-called "new math" hit the educational world. I
remember well spending most of my fourth-grade year (when it started in
Kansas City) marking that 5 + 2 > 1 + 3. I liked this math. I was
not too good at the old stuff, and I found this a breeze.
People
become very opinionated about educational reform. I have seen many a
battle over the issue of whole language vs. phonics. It seems like
everyone gets involves. Classroom teachers form strong opinions.
Politicians form strong opinions and include reform as part their
political platform. They know education is a hot button issue with
voters. One group that I watch with great diligence is the religious
right. It seems as if they have turned such aspects of educational
reform as phonics-based reading instruction and support for the No Child
Left Behind Act into something resembling religious dogma. It seems to
make little sense, turning reading methods into a religious or
quasi-religions crusade, but that is what the leaders of the religious
right seem committed to support (James Dobson, for example).
I
reiterate: educational reform is not new. With that notion disposed of,
I would like to suggest three principles of any lasting and useful
educational reform. These are characteristics of reform supported over
the long haul by much research and dictated by commonsense. I have
arrived at these through observation of reform cycles that I have seen
throughout my years of work as an educator.
First, education
reform cannot be test-driven. Currently, the watchword is
accountability. From this perspective, teachers are cagey, lazy actors
who need to have their feet held to the fire to make them perform. I
have observed thousands of teachers over the years, worked with
thousands of pre-service teachers, and supervised well over a hundred
student teachers. I must admit, one does rarely encounter a lazy,
careless teacher, but it is unusual. The attempt to control teachers
and student achievement by means of standardized tests is a misguided
approach.
A recent study by the Educational Testing Service,
makers of the SAT and nationally used teacher certification exams,
revealed that there is much in student performance that cannot be
controlled by schools. In fact, ETS discovered four variables:
absenteeism, the percent of children living in single parent families,
the amount of television kids watch, and how much preschoolers are read
to daily by caregivers (especially parents) were very accurate
predictors of reading test results used for No Child Left Behind
reporting in eighth-grade. It seems that learning involves many
variables (the four factors accounted for over two-thirds of the
differences in aggregated state testing results). Home factors are
things that schools and teachers cannot control.
Instead of
testing and testing yet more, a better use of funding would be the
improvement of conditions for parents and families. Funding Head Start
results in a measurable increase in IQ scores for disadvantaged
children. Why not continue to fund enriched environments for Head Start
children when they leave the program and help retain ground already
gained? Why not fund more "parents as first teachers" programs to go
into the homes and teach parents how to help get their preschoolers
ready for school? Why not spend more money eradicating
poverty-especially since that seems to be the real issue?
Second,
an effective reform program would insist on scope and sequence. By
scope, I refer to the content taught, by sequence, I refer to when
content is to be mastered. This was one of the downfalls of the whole
language movement. It taught reading without any real coordination of
materials, curriculum, or expectations for mastery in terms of when
expected benchmarks should be met. Much more coordination of teaching
needs to take place and curriculum guides and agreed upon content are
essential.
At the same time, I am not implying that methodology
needs to be completely standardized. There needs to be some general
guidelines on how to go about doing things. Still, teaching is as much
art as science. To address methodology too much turns teaching into a
mechanical act, and we know that the relationship, or blending, of
teacher and learner are all important concepts. What we need are
standards and benchmarks without denying teachers the authority to make
hundreds and thousands of critical decisions each day. What we need are
flexible standards and flexible benchmarks.
Lastly, we need a new
way of doing things. After all of the years of reform, after all the
years of researching what works, an amazing trend is notable.
Educational critic and researcher, John Goodlad, notes that the most
common activity one observes in today's elementary schools is seatwork
(i.e. worksheets, quiet work from textbooks, etc). The most common
activity noted in high schools is lectures. Both of these approaches
are notoriously ineffective. Just consider lectures, for example, how
often do you "zone out" during sermons? And, if you do attend, what
keeps you "plugged in?"
We have lost the wisdom shared with us by
John Dewey so many years ago and supported by study after study.
Children learn best by doing. Kids need to make a classroom democracy,
not just study government in their civics textbook. They need to come
up with ways they can recycle and begin a neighborhood recycling
program, not just read about pollution. Education needs to become real.
The real is better than the contrived. As psychologist Jerome Bruner
has pointed out, doing is better than seeing, and seeing is better than
just reading or hearing about something. Probably the best approach
combines all three methods.
Reforms come and go. However, on
these three principles, we can arrive at a reform that will stand the
test of time. All of us want our schools to improve. Isn't it time to
skip the political rhetoric of the right (including the religious right)
and the left and do what is best for kids? Isn't it about time?
