Russell W Peterson wrote: > 1,000 children sleep homeless every night. Children hook on > the streets to escape abusive families. Drug dealers > continue to operate selling to children in our > neighborhoods. Latch key children spend countless hours > roaming the streets after school or late at night. Parents > work more and more and spend less and less time with their > children. Gangs of kids roam vandalizing our city and > threatening people. We pay teachers and early childcare > givers poorly failing to attract the best people into the > profession. Parents who never learned parenting skills > scream in disrespect to their children in public or > worse....... > > These and other profound issues are the core of our > education problem. We can talk about 5 less kids in class, > block scheduling of classes, what time we start school or > whether training is in our out of the classroom until we are > blue in the face, but until we get our arms around these > bigger issues we are wasting money and time, beating each > other up for absolutely no reason, and watching thousands of > children slip through our fingers.
Mr. Peterson's explicit assumption is that you cannot improve the schools without addressing poverty. Although this is a great social agenda, it fails in its analysis of cultural dynamics and places too much emphasis on families. There are a number of factors just as influential as family and poverty on educational outcomes. One illustration of this is that children raised in poverty can often succeed in spite of poor schools. This was true for Jewish children in the 1920s and Vietnamese children in the late 70s. So individual initiative and a cultural emphasis on the value of knowledge and education can help children achieve success even with minimal support from the schools. Head Start has also shown that the effects of poverty can be ameliorated by good instructional methods. Children's peer groups can also have a major impact on student achievement. As many parents know, you can raise children in the best of homes, only to have them fall prey to popular vices. Peer groups, for good or bad, are a major factor in the school achievement equation. Instructional methods, family involvement, cultural influences, and peer groups are all factors that can be influenced by the schools. You just have to give up some of the axioms and false assumptions that you currently make about them. Susan Herridge wrote: > So, from my experience in my children's schools, and my own efforts at > classroom management, I do not see how on earth we can expect, from one > person in a room with 20 (or at higher grade levels), 25 kids - a customized > program that fully addresses the needs of each child. I really cannot > suggest any practical way around a broad "teach to the middle" with some > additional effort made to support the kids who real outliers. So, in that > context, ability grouping makes a whole lot of sense to me. However, like I > said, I was not at Hamline long enough to experience all of their curriculum > - perhaps there are teachers on the list ( perhaps Mr. Mann is a teacher > also?) that can enlighten us as to how this can be accomplished. > Speaking of false assumptions...The idea that tracking and ability grouping are evil stems from previous decades in which such approaches were used to discriminate against minority children. Just because these methods have been used inappropriately belies their usefulness. I've come to believe that you cannot design curriculum that fits everyone. Some children will just move at faster or slower paces in different subjects. If the pacing is too fast for some children then they will experience failure; if it is too slow others will become bored and lose interest. I don't think that we can force everyone into the middle. We should match children with challenges that they can succeed at. Diane Wiley wrote: > Michael Atherton wrote: I've argued for sometime that lowering class size has >little effect (for the cost) on student achievement. > > I think that the research class size is very complicated. But anyone who has a kid >in school and has spent time in the schools > knows that the more kids they have, the harder it is to teach them. And if you have >any kids with "issues" -- who need more > interaction -- the more kids, the less help they get. Go volunteer at any inner >city school Michael, and then tell me that class size > doesn't matter. > Rather than just brush off the research as too complicated, it might be better to read the article. That is, unless you are not interested in knowing the facts. I am not suggesting that we increase class sizes without changing the way we teach. I think that we need to use better instructional methods. Also, as I've previously stated, kids with "issues," need to be in classes with people who know how to work with them; they should not be disrupting the instruction of other children. Although I haven't volunteered at an intercity school, I have taught kindergarten before. Which is one reason why I believe that if you structure the classroom environment correctly, larger class sizes will work. Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
