More fucking around with education

[CountDeMoney]

Common core sparks war over words
By Lyndsey Layton, Sunday, December 2, 8:29 PM
washingtonpost.com

As states across the country implement broad changes in curriculum from kindergarten through high school, English teachers worry that they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts.

The Common Core State Standards in English, which have been adopted in 46 states and the District, call for public schools to ramp up nonfiction so that by 12th grade students will be reading mostly "informational text" instead of fictional literature. But as teachers excise poetry and classic works of fiction from their classrooms, those who designed the guidelines say it appears that educators have misunderstood them.

Proponents of the new standards, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, say U.S. students have suffered from a diet of easy reading and lack the ability to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports and primary documents. That has left too many students unprepared for the rigors of college and demands of the workplace, experts say.

The new standards, which are slowly rolling out now and will be in place by 2014, require that nonfiction texts represent 50 percent of reading assignments in elementary schools, and the requirement grows to 70 percent by grade 12.

Among the suggested non­fiction pieces for high school juniors and seniors are Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," "FedViews," by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2009) and "Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management," published by the General Services Administration.

English teachers across the country are trying to figure out which poetry, short stories and novels might have to be sacrificed to make room for nonfiction.

Off the reading list

Jamie Highfill is mourning the six weeks' worth of poetry she removed from her eighth-grade English class at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville, Ark. She also dropped some short stories and a favorite unit on the legends of King Arthur to make room for essays by Malcolm Gladwell and a chapter from "The Tipping Point," Gladwell's book about social behavior.

"I'm struggling with this, and my students are struggling," said Highfill, who was named 2011 middle school teacher of the year in her state. "With informational text, there isn't that human connection that you get with literature. And the kids are shutting down. They're getting bored. I'm seeing more behavior problems in my classroom than I've ever seen."

But the chief architect of the Common Core Standards said educators are overreacting as the standards move from concept to classroom.

"There's a disproportionate amount of anxiety," said David Coleman, who led the effort to write the standards with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Coleman said educators are misinterpreting the directives.

Yes, the standards do require increasing amounts of nonfiction from kindergarten through grade 12, Coleman said. But that refers to reading across all subjects, not just in English class, he said. Teachers in social studies, science and math should require more reading, which would allow English teachers to continue to assign literature, he said.

Social studies teachers, for example, could have students read the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," while math students could read Euclid's "Elements" from 300 B.C.

The standards explicitly say that Shakespeare and classic American literature should be taught, said Coleman, who became president of the College Board in November. "It does really concern me that these facts are not as clear as they should be," he said.

The specifics are spelled out in a footnote on page 5 of the 66-page standards.

In practice, the burden of teaching the nonfiction texts is falling to English teachers, said Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University: "You have chemistry teachers, history teachers saying, 'We're not going to teach reading and writing, we have to teach our subject matter. That's what you English teachers do.' "

Sheridan Blau, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, said teachers across the country have told him their principals are insisting that English teachers make 70 percent of their readings nonfiction. "The effect of the new standards is to drive literature out of the English classroom," he said.

Timothy Shanahan, who chairs the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said school administrators apparently have flunked reading comprehension when it comes to the standards.

"Schools are doing some goofy things — principals or superintendents are not reading," Shanahan, who was among the experts who advised Coleman on the standards, said.

Sandra Stotsky, who wrote the outgoing Massachusetts' pre-K-to-12 standards, which are regarded as among the best in the nation, said the Common Core's emphasis on nonfiction is misguided.

Tackling rich literature is the best way to prepare students for careers and college, said Stotsky, who blames mediocre national reading scores on weak young adult literature popular since the 1960s.

"There is no research base for the claim that informational reading will lead to college preparedness better than complex literary study," said Stotsky, a professor at the University of Arkansas.

At a convention of English teachers in November, Stotsky got an earful. "They hate the Common Core, they hate the idea they have to teach nonfiction," she said.

Stotsky and others have accused Coleman, who studied English literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, of trying to ele­vate fact-based reading and writing at the expense of literature and creative writing.

In a speech last year at the New York State Education Building, Coleman derided the personal essays that characterize most writing in primary and secondary schools.

"Forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with . . . [that] writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people really don't give a [expletive] about what you feel or what you think," Coleman said, according to a recording. "What they instead care about is, can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you're saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me? It is rare in a working environment that someone says, 'Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.' "

'We've hit a wall'

In an interview, Coleman said U.S. students must learn to read complicated text of all sorts.

"One of the striking things in American education is that reading scores at the fourth-grade level have been frozen for 40 years," he said. "We've hit a wall in reader literacy that these standards respond to."

Nonfiction reading can excite some students, said Nell Duke, who teaches language, literacy and culture at the University of Michigan. "Some students really prefer factual kinds of texts," she said, noting that some studies have suggested boys especially prefer nonfiction. "Historically, elementary schools haven't given kids much opportunity to read that kind of text. For those kids, reading storybook after storybook about talking animals could be a bit of a turnoff."

Curriculum and academic standards have traditionally been determined by states and local communities. That has resulted in uneven results, with some states using lax standards while others are more rigorous. Sporadic efforts to create consistent, national standards have come and gone.

Several years ago, the National Governors Association began pushing the idea of common standards in English and math. The Gates Foundation invested tens of millions of dollars in the effort to write them. The Obama administration kicked the notion into high gear when it required states to adopt the common standards — or an equivalent — in order to compete for Race to the Top grant funds.

By this year, 45 states and D.C. had signed onto the math and English standards. Minnesota has adopted only the English standards; Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia have not adopted either.

The standards are designed to ensure that, for the first time, third-graders in Maine will acquire the same knowledge and skills as their peers in Hawaii. States will begin testing students against the new standards in 2014, making it possible for the first time to compare test scores across communities and states.

English teacher J.D. Wilson agrees with much of what the standards aim to accomplish. But he is disturbed by the subtle shift the new standards are already causing in his classroom at Wareham High School in Wareham, Mass.

"Reading for information makes you knowledgeable — you learn stuff," Wilson said. "But reading literature makes you wise."

Wilson has wrestled with which poems to cut from his lesson plans and which nonfiction to teach instead. And then he hit upon an idea.

This fall, he has taught "Literature Is Not Data: Against Digital Humanities," "Shakespeare, a Poet Who Is Still Making Our History" and "Who Killed the Liberal Arts?" They are all essays that emphasize the value of literature.

[Admiral Yi]

Good for them. 

Read an excellent article in a previous Atlantic, the one with the special education supplement.  It talked about the death of persuasive writing in US schools and its replacement with express-yourself anything-goes creative writing.  Has led to a generation of kids who are unable to string a single compound sentence together and are oblivious to the concept of logic.  Some schools are trying to reverse the trend.

The Romans had it right.  Mastery of the language and its rules is the first building block of the thinking man.

[Camerus]

Just to choose one specific point, poetry analysis and writing is such a specialized skill, IMO it's hard to justify its inclusion in the curriculum perhaps beyond a single unit in one of the high school grades.

Analysis of non-fiction texts should be common in the science and social sciences.  The way I approach my units as an English teacher is two units devoted to literature and plays, two units devoted to other kinds of writing or media analysis, and one unit devoted to ongoing research and reading projects.

[Viking]

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/analysis/analysis_20121022-2100a.mp3

School of hard facts 22 Oct 2012
Mon, 22 Oct 12
Duration:
29 mins
Michael Gove is a fan of E.D. Hirsch, the American educational thinker. Fran Abrams explores Hirsch's radical ideas and how they could transform schooling in England.

I found this interesting and on topic for this discussion. I find the idea that there is a common cultural baggage that everybody in society needs to have to be part of it quite compelling. I see this in myself. I don't share the same children's experiences as my norwegian neighbors from kiddie tv to sports to elementary school. I can see somebody my age with my experience vis a vis norwegian society and not interested in learning for learning's sake getting into trouble. Many of my experiences which require understanding of norway have required that I go back to first principles to understand it or have simply required that I participate in something which doesn't make sense or have value to me just to fit in. Somebody less inquisitive or pliable than me would have trouble fitting in, and I know that I don't fit in too well here already.

[Ideologue]

And the kids are shutting down. They're getting bored.

Too bad.  Welcome to the world.  You aren't supposed to enjoy reading ten thousand spreadsheets, you little punks.

In a more serious vein, I'm really not bothered.  Much of the fiction foisted upon students is boring too--at least when someone says READ THIS IT'S IMPORTANT about a nonfiction work, it may actually be more than just someone's opinion.  What skill is likely to be developed--in the classroom--reading Lord of the Flies?  Well, maybe making a fire with the fat kid's glasses.

Being forced to read novels one does not like along with some that one may, rather than just reading as a hobby, which is damned well what reading fiction is, does not tend to endear people to that hobby, if that is the point, and teaches few directly marketable skills, if that is the point.  It may teach advanced literacy--I'm not up on pedagogical literature, so if it does, I withdraw the assertion.  But I doubt it does.

[Valmy]

Yeah I was like...and the kids were riveted and entertained by The Scarlett Letter and Romeo and Juliet?

[Viking]

Yeah I was like...and the kids were riveted and entertained by The Scarlett Letter and Romeo and Juliet?

Kids today know all about slut shaming and slumming it with the wrong people.

[Martinus]

Just to choose one specific point, poetry analysis and writing is such a specialized skill, IMO it's hard to justify its inclusion in the curriculum perhaps beyond a single unit in one of the high school grades.

There is so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to begin. The purpose of literature and poetry reading and analysing in the literature class is not to give pupils a "specialised skill", it is to generate well-rounded people who know basics of the cultural foundations of our civilization. It's about creating a common network of ideas that is shared by our culture. Since most of culture created these days is for mass consumption (and thus mass appeal and mass understanding of new cultural works is a prerequisite for its success), this is more important than ever before.

If we make all education only skill-oriented, we will be creating horrible drones and our civilisation will be doomed in a few generations.

[Martinus]

Yeah I was like...and the kids were riveted and entertained by The Scarlett Letter and Romeo and Juliet?

Education, especially earlier education (pre-college) is about giving students opportunities and seeing what they may be interested in doing in future, and not as much about giving them actual skills. There is also a recognised correlation between exposure and enjoyment - that's why people from more cultured backgrounds are more likely to enjoy listening to classical music or going to an opera than their peers from less privileged backgrounds, for example.

If we only teach students hard professional skills then we will effectively shut off ourselves from creating more artists and creative people. Not to mention, early education is the only real tool we have to maintain some level of social mobility in modern societies.

This is a horrid, horrid idea. I find it surprising so many people here are so thoughtless as to support it.

[Valmy]

Just to choose one specific point, poetry analysis and writing is such a specialized skill, IMO it's hard to justify its inclusion in the curriculum perhaps beyond a single unit in one of the high school grades.

There is so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to begin. The purpose of literature and poetry reading and analysing in the literature class is not to give pupils a "specialised skill", it is to generate well-rounded people who know basics of the cultural foundations of our civilization. It's about creating a common network of ideas that is shared by our culture. Since most of culture created these days is for mass consumption (and thus mass appeal and mass understanding of new cultural works is a prerequisite for its success), this is more important than ever before.

If we make all education only skill-oriented, we will be creating horrible drones and our civilisation will be doomed in a few generations.

I completely understand where you are coming from here but we really have to develop basic skills before we can start on high culture.  I would prefer our English classes focus on producing people who are halfway literate.  I felt like my education really suffered when they just stopped teaching how to frame arguments and sentence and paragraph structure and the like and went to nothing but literature after 7th grade (age 13 or so).  I would like to see a bit more balance.

We have study after study showing the shortcomings of the American education system in producing functionally literate adults.  I am glad there is more focus on it.

[Valmy]

This is a horrid, horrid idea. I find it surprising so many people here are so thoughtless as to support it.

We are thoughtless?  Have you spent time studying the problems and challenges in American Education or something?  You have put alot of thought and reflection into this have you?

[Ideologue]

Yeah I was like...and the kids were riveted and entertained by The Scarlett Letter and Romeo and Juliet?

Part of the problem with the latter is that Shakespeare is meant to be performed.  Do kids read the motherfucking script to Casablanca?  I'm not saying there is no value in reading the plays (or engaging with the precursor material to any work that is ultimately expressed in a different medium)--far from it--but the first exposure to any work should be in the medium for which it was made.  In the case of Shakespeare, of course, this is Kenneth Branagh movies.

If we make all education only skill-oriented, we will be creating horrible drones.

Because people need formal educational settings to develop their interests and hobbies?  Did we all take strategy game classes?  Is that how we got here?

[Valmy]

Part of the problem with the latter is that Shakespeare is meant to be performed.  Do kids read the motherfucking script to Casablanca?  I'm not saying there is no value in reading the plays (or engaging with the precursor material to any work that is ultimately expressed in a different medium)--far from it--but the first exposure to any work should be in the medium for which it was made.  In the case of Shakespeare, of course, this is Kenneth Branagh movies.

It is funny you say that.  During my latest return to College that is how I rocked it during the three Shakespeare plays I had to read.  I just watched the film of the play and read along....for the very reason you say.

[Ideologue]

Part of the problem with the latter is that Shakespeare is meant to be performed.  Do kids read the motherfucking script to Casablanca?  I'm not saying there is no value in reading the plays (or engaging with the precursor material to any work that is ultimately expressed in a different medium)--far from it--but the first exposure to any work should be in the medium for which it was made.  In the case of Shakespeare, of course, this is Kenneth Branagh movies.

It is funny you say that.  During my latest return to College that is how I rocked it during the three Shakespeare plays I had to read.  I just watched the film of the play and read along....for the very reason you say.

My favorite Shakespeare plays are Dead Again and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Which were the three?  I hope one was Hamlet, if not, watch it when you've got four hours to kill, it's great.

[Valmy]

Which were the three?  I hope one was Hamlet, if not, watch it when you've got four hours to kill, it's great.

Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing.

I have already seen Hamlet, yeah that is a pretty great version.