a little brain-based research is a dangerous thing

Another comment from the TAKS article:

Riebs wrote:

The members and even the well-meaning reporters who are writing are missing the message: teachers are teaching GRAMMAR. The lessons are taught directly and then applied in the current piece of writing the student is performing. When the grading rubric is designed , students and teacher together discuss which skills have been highly focused on in that particular piece of writing ....which is the application of the grammar, punctuation, usage, agreement, skills that have been directly taught, then conference on, then expectantly applied withint the piece. They then decide on the point value of each skill to be scored highly...GRAMMAR IS IN THE DOCUMENT.

We know people who never got it, who struggled with it, and those of us who found it fun because it happened to have been where we were developmentally. Research has taught us in the last 30 years just when that frontal lobe of the brain works...the abstracting part....it used to be that we expected kids to be able to LOCK IN grammar and other abstract skills between ages 12-17...and now we know that research shows that that may even extend for many individuals into the mid twenties...so spending time stuffing skills into kids; heads for momentary understanding takes away depth in the students' connections and engagement in their day. Yes, present grammar as concretely as possible, but don't expect mastery to come early for some concepts....

It is folly for the news media and the state board to talk about not enough grammar in the school day at early ages..teachers are teaching grammar. But take any book that is well published and find no error, no stylistic features no incomplete rhetorical statements for emphasis. You can't find one.

It's not about "being more creative," because in the editing stage before any creative piece is published and posted, students must edit and again...be retaught necessary grammar skills and must negotiate with the professional who is the teacher, just what sylistic license can be taken. And yes, even the babies....first grade on, have SOME editing responsibility...in the end of a piece to be posted.....but very few simply because of developmental level. The good teacher is always nudging for new skills for even the young, like sentence combining to make a young one's developmental begin to grow.

I have sat from March through this May 15th situation, and I can tell you, the games the 9 members of the board have played is astoundingly embarrassing for each and every tax payer in Texas, and I believe Texas will be duly embarrassed as the politicians take a national look at what Texas is doing, for we have supposedly been a leader in No Child Left Behind....ha...big joke...and I have educator daughter in special needs education...so I know what it's all doing at that level, too.

Grammar is tested on TAKS at 4th grade, for sure, within the writing passage those kids are given to do in one sitting....they are expected to have a specific level of control within those pieces of grammar, agreement, correct parts of speech, and all forms of basic punctuation, capitalization...It's just scored in the final copy they present to the state....control of that is necessary for adequate scoring. Remember, they have NO TEACHER INPUT so they must have been taught the importance of editing when they are alone writing for publication, which that test requires.

There's not an adult out there, who could do a piece at the adult level on a TAKS writing test that SOME grammarian and editor out there would not question. We even see careless errors on pieces that come in from adults for publication...so don't tell me grammar is not in the teacher's minds, hearts, and daily classrooms. Their kids can't survive without it, and it is curriculm everywhere in the state text books, but WITH writing strands.

Teachers ARE direct teaching grammar. We have a SBOE that are NOT curriculum savvy, and they are driving research on learning into the dump in Texas, quite unbeknownst to them, even when they care. They may have sat and listened to nearly 7th PHD, CURRICULUM SPECIALISTs, researchers in education in all these meetings, but they have not HEARD...and certainly they have just been showing us that they can't comprehend...but how should that surprise us...they voted comprehension teaching down twice...even as Mr. Craig tried to work it in in an amendment. Two board members, shortly after the voted T document down 9 to 6....said, If we are going to cut and paste from the teacher document into the Standard Works document we just accepted, so that we GET THE TEACHER DOCUMENT, why did we just vote it down? Mr. Allen, Mrs. Knight, paraphrased.

Don't get me started....thanks if you hung in there and read all this stream of conscience writing....please don't edit...I haven't for this conversation. Riebs

Student developmental levels and the last 30 years of brain-based research in exactly HOW the brain learns through engagement is a missing element in many of these bloggers' background. I am a taxpayer, parent, teacher, writing specialist, researcher...literacy professional. I am completely offended by the decision of the board....but I will tell you..I, too, loved diagraming in school. I could see it as a puzzle...just give me a longer one....I loved it....and I never wrote or for the most part EVER considered, even in high school or college (50's/60's) how I was applying grammar skills. I must say, for many of you out there who ARE talking great: grammar: it's how I somehow the reader and correct structurer I am today...people...we are out there. But for most American students, grammar never gave them what you and I have naturally....and they never learned better from it....

BECAUSE OF ONGOING RESEARCH WHEN CAN BE CONFIRMED AS CORRECT....THROUGH THE USE OF SOPHISTICATE EQUIPMENT THAT SHOWS WHEN THE BRAIN IS ENGAGING FOR DEEP LEARNING AND WHEN IT ISN'T, children and adults, for that matter, should learn through engagement that is meaninful, not through isolated bits and pieces.

5/23/2008 12:00 PM CDT

Perhaps this Comment is not the best advertisement for the lifelong benefits of sentence diagramming.

Be that as it may, this is the part that gets to me:

Research has taught us in the last 30 years just when that frontal lobe of the brain works...the abstracting part....it used to be that we expected kids to be able to LOCK IN grammar and other abstract skills between ages 12-17...and now we know that research shows that that may even extend for many individuals into the mid twenties.

I despair.

Yes, research shows that the frontal lobes continue to mature throughout the teen years and into the twenties. Martha Denckla once told me that myelination continues into the 30s but I can't find a current reference for that, so perhaps it happens in the 20s.

This research has nothing to do with the ability to learn abstract material:

The belief that children of particular ages cannot learn certain content because they are “too young” or “not ready” has consistently been shown to be false.
Fact Sheet
National Math Panel

Not only can young people with immature frontal lobes learn abstract material, we have evidence that young people with immature frontal lobes may learn algebra better than older people with mature frontal lobes:

New fMRI evidence suggests that adolescents could be at an advantage for learning algebra compared with adults. Qin and colleagues present findings indicating that after several days of practice adolescents rely on prefrontal regions to support the retrieval of algebraic rules to solve equations, as do adults. Unlike adults, however, after practice adolescents decrease their reliance on parietal regions, which assist in the transformation of the equations, suggesting an enhanced ability for learning algebra. These findings are discussed with regard to adolescent brain maturation.
Algebra and the adolescent brain (pdf file)
Beatriz Luna
Trends in Cognitive Science
Vol. 8, No. 10 October 2004, p 437-439

What "30 years of research" actually shows us, if I may be so bold, is that expecting adolescents to "take responsibility for their own learning" is a very bad idea.

to wit:

Reuben Gur: Well I think it is a frequent experience with people who have raised teenagers, or been around them, that they are every bit as smart as they will ever be and some of them are smarter than their teachers or their parents. Their memory and their ability to absorb new information and ability to reason through complex problems - and yet sometimes they do something that leaves you wide-mouthed, wondering, 'What were they thinking?' And they could then afterwards explain to you perfectly why what they did was wrong, it’s just that it didn’t all fall together at the right moment in the right circumstances. And that’s exactly what may be the result of the fact that the connections between the reasoning part of the brain and the sensory and the action part of the brain and the emotional part of the brain - all those regions need to meet with their context in the frontal lobe and right now there is no highway there, it’s only a rural road that is sometimes disrupted.

Rebels and the cause - the adolescent brain