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Proposal for Advanced Topics Implementation
Ed is reading it now: "This is an unbelievably radical document."
It's also, for my money, one of the most fatuous.
Here's Jay Mathews.
The middle school model comes to Scarsdale High.
more later
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I haven’t read the whole document, but it seemed appropriate to pull up this quote from a Scarsdale Trailblazers “implementation story”:
Teachers are continuing to shift their emphasis from teaching material to focusing on children's thinking and learning.
From:
http://www.comap.com/elementary/projects/arc/stories/scarsdale.htm
I skimmed through it as well.
It looks like they are eliminating AP courses because they don't want to be restricted to the AP syllabus. (except for their math department)
We have several reasons to believe this approach can be effective. First, some
Scarsdale students have always prepared for AP exams without taking AP classes,
Gotta love those anecdotes.
I saw some reference to students doing "research" and I wondered what qualifications the faculty had for teaching "research." Are these people who have themselves contributed to an academic field (history, etc) by publishing research in a reputable peer reviewed journal? Or is this a case of people who have no idea what it takes to conduct research claiming to teach it?
Ed's take: "This is an unbelievably radical document."
Teachers are continuing to shift their emphasis from teaching material to focusing on children's thinking and learning.
exactly
TEX -- WHAT A FIND!
I'D FORGOTTEN THAT!
Myrtle
That's exactly what Ed said.
Number one, almost no high school teachers have the qualifications to oversee research (AND WHY SHOULD THEY???)
Number two, high school kids can't do "research."
Ed says college kids can't do it, either.
At the very end of a college degree, senior year, a VERY advanced student can begin to do research.
Up 'til then the name of the game is: acquiring broad, deep, and sophisticated knowledge of the field.
Doing "research" that isn't really research is an anti-education. At the end of the day the student who has participated in these kinds of projects believes that research is really glorified book reports or a demonstration of what is already known. Seems like it would be better not to inadvertently mislead anyone over this matter by having them do "play research."
It's cute when a seven year old really thinks he's doing scientific research by playing with the baking soda, it's not cute when they are 20 and still believing this. Projects and summaries are not "experiments" and "research."
"There seem to be two main assumptions underlying instructional programs using minimal guidance. First they challenge students to solve “authentic” problems or acquire complex knowledge in information-rich settings based on the assumption that having learners construct their own solutions leads to the most effective learning experience. Second, they appear to assume that knowledge can best be acquired through experience based on the procedures of the discipline (i.e., seeing the pedagogic content of the learning experience as identical to the methods and processes or epistemology of the discipline being studied; Kirschner, 1992). Minimal guidance is offered in the form of process- or task-relevant information
that is available if learners choose to use it. Advocates of this
approach imply that instructional guidance that provides or embeds learning strategies in instruction interferes with the natural processes by which learners draw on their unique prior experience and learning styles to construct new situated knowledge that will achieve their goals."
From Kirschner, et al (2006): "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist,Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and
Inquiry-Based Teaching"
Available at http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf
Sounds like Kirschner et al have a lot of educationists' numbers.
Fatuous is right. I see these affluent, pretentious places as pure hell-holes.
Scarsdale is one of the most highly competitive communities in one of the most
highly competitive areas of the country. As a rule, if you give people here a target,
they’ll do what it takes to reach it and, in the process, to be the best. As a practical
matter, if the test is the object, they’ll teach to the test and try to get the highest
scores possible.
It always amazes me that these educationists regard tests as virtually unrelated to the content to be taught based on a curriculum and not as a reflection of that content.
I see these affluent, pretentious places as pure hell-holes.
I can't tell you how I regret having moved here ---- and not because of the people, the kids, the teachers, etc. The people, the kids, the teachers are like people, kids, and teachers everywhere. They're great.
It's the wealth.
I first started seeing the results of "too much money" back when I was paying attention to the healthcare system.
The people who received the highest number of unnecessary surgical procedures were the rich.
I don't know whether you've had surgery, but if you have you know that there is NOTHING good to be said about unnecessary surgery.
Unnecessary surgery isn't like having an extra 2 or 3 unnecessary wide-screen TVs in your house.
Ed said, yesterday, that a district like Scarsdale, with money and pretention, is free to do what it wants to do.
A middle-class community with a large financial investment in AP courses can't just scrap the whole thing and tell folks, "We're inventing a brand-new experimental program from scratch."
Joanne Cobasko faces the same problem in CA.
The state has a list of approved math textbooks.
If you don't use the textbooks, you don't get state money.
Wealthy districts can simply forego state money and buy their own lousy books.
Of course, Milwaukee did the same thing with reading texts and they're not exactly rolling in the dough.
At this point, I'm a HUGE proponent of constraints for everyone.
Ed and I saw this principle in action in Hollywood time and again. Every time a director gained enough power to make the movie he wanted to make his work declined. (Every time?? Not sure, but exceptions to the rule don't spring to mind.)
If Francis Ford Coppola needed an entire studio of executives riding herd.
The horror, of course, is that housing values in these communities are based almost entirely on the schools.
If word got out about the practices in these schools.....that could be bad.
otoh, people seek status.
AND affluent white people are afraid of sending their kids to schools with large ethnic and minority populations.
These schools will carry on attracting affluent parents.
A friend of mine says that wealthy communities work only for the wealthy.
But I'm not so sure.
I haven't seen the children of wealthy parents getting any special favors, and I have seen them not getting special favors.
It's the middle school motto: Your child. Not the little genius you thought he was.
Seems to apply to the big rich as well as the little rich.
I think I told you the great line my CA friend came up with when we first decided to move to NY.
I'd read an article in the TIMES about NYC containing the "big rich" and the "little rich."
She said, "What does that make us, the big poor?"
I should add that all of these districts, presumably, face enormous budget constraints in the form of fixed costs (building, pensions, etc.)
It's the middle school motto: Your child. Not the little genius you thought he was.
That's a keeper. I'd love a bumper sticker with that on it. Of course, then my kid would get knocked down even a few more pegs. Just for fun.
That's a keeper. I'd love a bumper sticker with that on it. Of course, then my kid would get knocked down even a few more pegs.
You know - we really should have a motto.
If you read between the lines of the Scarsdale AT proposal...
Our locally developed and funded courses will thus be designed by our own content, research, and curriculum design experts who have nothing better to do with their time and your money and who know the available resources and the interests and abilities of our students as well or better than their reactionary parents, with an emphasis on problem-solving, thinking skills, research, and information navigation to be done by the students rather than continue to hold teachers accountable for communicating a so-called body of knowledge.
In our efforts to foster a spirit of inquiry whereby each student finally takes responsibility for his or her own damn learning while the teacher catches up on important email from his or her partners at Harvard and Princeton, we will encourage students to pursue more independent research and engage in the elements of scholarship, which will lead them to a wider variety of sources that must be analyzed, synthesized, and organized for the sharing of constructed knowledge that is politically acceptable to the teacher in order for the student to get a good grade from the teacher.
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