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Great, committed teacher/adviser/mentors, high standards, a focused curriculum, a culture of achievement, and plenty of hard work by students well aware that real consequences attach to their performance--what more does a successful school need? Yes, I'm talking about the Knowledge Is Power Program and Amistad, the Academy of the Pacific Rim and Stuyvesant, and others of today's super-schools. But I'm also talking about the Catholic schools of the 1960s and my own time at Phillips Exeter Academy, where by senior year I was awakening at 3 a.m. to study. It paid off, for me and lots of others. (I was able to skip my freshman year at Harvard.) But it was sink or swim--and those who treaded water were sometimes invited not to return for the next semester.
Lessons Learned
Are the Catholic schools of the 60s definitely gone?
Do we know?
3 comments:
Sorry for the change of topic--
You once asked me if I thought it was possible to make up for missing math skills.
I will tell you now that it is. I have a young woman in my night pre-calculus class who was in my high school math class. She was a cutter and failed the regents and the course. Not only is she taking pre-calculus now, but she is number one in the class. She plans on attending medical school and my money is on her to succeed.
Thank you!!!!
Will get this up front!
If you're still around, would you mind telling us how much she was missing?
In other words, did her missing math skills go all the way back to arithmetic?
One more question: would you call her a "natural"?
If so, what do you think about the question of people who aren't particularly good at math making up for lost time.....
Of course in that case you have the deadly issue of zero motivation.
Even so, a lot of these kids will have to pass math prerequisites in college so whether they have any intrinsic motivation to learn math they're going to have to do it.
I recently visited a K-8 Catholic school to find out more about their program and five years ago my eldest child attended a Catholic kindergarten. I attended Catholic school from grades 2-7. These experiences are my frame of reference.
Things are clearly quite different than when I attended Catholic school. For starters, when I was in school, almost every teacher was a nun. You just don't see that anymore.
The principal of the school I just visited seemed pleased that the diocese had recently (in the past couple of years) required the school to amend their curriculum to conform with our state standards. Prior to that, Catholic schools were more concerned with meeting national expectations of learning for all Catholic schools. I don't see this change as a positive, however. Our state standards are woefully low (comparing results of the CMT to the NAEP makes clear just how low they are). Projecting forward and over the long haul, this is really not a good thing for Catholic schools.
The other red flag was the pride in their Lucy Calkins style "writer's workshop" approach to teaching writing. They do teach grammar in every grade K-8 and offer Honors English for students who are capable.
The math, on the other hand, was still much more traditional than anything in our public school district. It's neither Singapore nor Saxon, but it's not Everyday Math or Investigations either. They have honors algebra available in eighth grade. They have a significant percentage of the graduating eighth graders place out of algebra at the high school level. That's definitely something.
The other silver lining: I did observe the order, respect for others, respect for self, discipline and self-assured, smiling faces I remember from my own Catholic school days. I contrast this with the disorder, disrespect, and stress I recently observed at a visit to a magnet school in our county. I believe that children thrive in a structured environment because it feels safe and predictable. I still believe this learning environment/school culture element is an important aspect of most Catholic schools today.
I also think that that this type of school culture is what makes schools like KIPP, Green Dot, Stuyvesant, and others so successful.
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