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Catherine, congrats on being brave! That's unfortunately IS the middle school mentality - to do many projects (and it IS mandated from above). I was lucky - I taught MS, but I taught Regents class, so I did not follow "workshop model" and didn't do projects.A couple of things.
Now in HS I do not assign any projects and even in labs (if I can and have enough supplies)I try to get everyone to work individually.
But even in HS I see other teachers assign projects (even in math - oh, horror!). That tells me - either the grades need to be boosted, or the teacher is done teaching (like now, by the end of the year)
First, in my student's district, it's possible projects are being used to lower grades, not raise them. That is certainly what has been happening to my student.
Second, no bravery involved! From a personal point of view, the meeting was amazing for the complete and total lack of negative emotion I felt. I felt calm, I felt friendly, I felt unfazed. Unfazed is an excellent state of mind to be in, let me tell you.
I wish I could bottle the mood because it seems to be pretty effective. A person who is calm, friendly, and unfazed --- and who believes, in a calm, friendly, and unfazed kind of way, that projects have no educational value for the student on whose behalf she is advocating --- where can school personnel go with that?
Nowhere, really.
I must say ... it is shockingly empowering to be teaching freshman English at the college level. I can simply observe that I do not assign projects in my classes, and there's an end to it. I don't have to argue the merits. I'm the person these students are seeing next, after they leave K-12.
And, since I'm married to a professor, I can further observe that my husband does not assign projects, either. New York state's new focus is "college and career readiness" (I don't know how 'career readiness' is defined); at some level everyone in the room knows they're supposed to be getting kids ready for college, not "problem solving" or the 21st century or problem solving in the 21st century. And, of course, college readiness is what they want for their own kids if they are parents.
When I told my friend R. about the meeting, she said, "You are battle hardened."
Third: Thank God for Regents exams. The school personnel in the meeting were clear that when teachers have to prepare students to pass Regents, the time available for projects is limited.
Projects do not help students pass exams, it seems.
14 comments:
It's anti-intellectualism put into practice. Let's grade students on how well they can act as little secretaries and project managers! 21st century skills bah blah blah...
(The kicker is, many [young, naive] teachers actually think that students learn more this way.)
True, "The kicker is, many [young, naive] teachers actually think that students learn more this way". Unfortunately, some older, disenchanted teachers in high need schools especially think that way, too - the idea is to bring the grade "up", of course.
In fact, I've being teaching for 6 years now. Of course, I have not being teaching in really Upscale schools - but I have not met a teacher yet who actually would want to lower the grade of a student; in fact, most of us are looking to bring the grades up... Many are afraid that students failing will result in the very least with a talk with the supervisor (and that's a no-no for a untenured teacher) or other unpleasant consequences - for the teacher, not for the student.
So, there come in poster projects in HS, HW crossword puzzles, in class time spent on making PPt presentations etc... The grades must go up - to cover for HWs never done, tests failed, quizzes missed..
Exo
"I must say ... it is shockingly empowering to be teaching freshman English at the college level. I can simply observe that I do not assign projects in my classes, and there's an end to it. I don't have to argue the merits. I'm the person these students are seeing next, after they leave K-12.
"And, since I'm married to a professor, I can further observe that my husband does not assign projects, either."
That's brilliant.
That's brilliant.
Thank you!
I'm going to accept that compliment!
The VERY hardest things to come up with are the one-liners & the short-and-sweets.
Half the time --- maybe more than half the time --- you lose simply by engaging in the argument. (I wonder whether that's especially true with arguments over wrongheaded idea --- ?)
You win ('win' in quotes) by stating in 1 sentence why the issue is so obviously wrong or off-topic it isn't even worth discussing....
I have not met a teacher yet who actually would want to lower the grade of a student
You have to pay extra to live in a district where (some) teachers WANT to deflate their students' grades....
Many are afraid that students failing will result in the very least with a talk with the supervisor
Right.
We're exactly the opposite.
The scores are always high no matter what the school does (high relative to scores from urban/rural areas), and the parents are PITAs and the school needs a way to keep students out of Honors/AP ....
Princeton, btw, has a formal policy of grade deflation.
At the end of the semester, professors have to limit the number of As they assign as final grades, even if students have been getting As all semester.
That's Princeton. Super-expensive, super-achieving students.
Grade deflation.
Catherine; All too true! There's a push to cap the top grades and an easy way to do that is to demand the impossible of and/or downgrade the work of the top students, because "they could do better than this." Of course, by doing group projects (teacher chooses groups, of course), lower-achieving kids can be given top grades for work done wholly by the top kids, who don't want to risk a lower grade by letting others do the work. And the gap vanishes! There are lots of similar games...
Catherine, FYI, Wellesley now has a formal grade deflation policy as well (at least in 100- and 200-level classes; upper level seminars don't have a cap). I know that a lot of professors felt like they were backed into a corner because of it -- in the past, they would have been generous to an A-/B+ student whose grades rose throughout the semester, but after the policy was implemented (after I graduated), they had no choice but to grade down because they didn't want the administration on their case.
I had to come up with a term paper/case studies type of work in my COLLEGE Biology class that I am teaching in my HS, and students are paying for to get the credits from Syracuse University. If I would just use their test scores (as the University guide states I should), most of the class would not get the credits (College Bio 121 for non-majors).
But at least term paper/ case studies had to be done independently... And the hope is that at least they will know now how to write a term paper... Which we weighted the same as final... Oh...
Exo
I don't think it's just the nonarguing part. I think it's that the people in the room are used to being bullies. bullies expect to get their way. they use Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG) to manipulate you into not knowing how to respond.
what stops a bully is the unexpected. your short sentence was unexpected. they had no retort, and the FOGging hadn't worked on you. just saying a polite "no, that's not the way it is" is something bullies can't handle.
Allison - very interesting.
There is a HUGE amount of bullying in schools; I'm just now, at the end of my run, beginning to understand how profound it is.
Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG)
boy, there is a lot of that ....
btw, I'm reading a Legal Writing doc Karen H sent; it has a section on 'short and clear' being the most persuasive prose you can write -- which I think is confirmed by Kahneman's Fast Thinking, Slow Thinking.
Must get those things posted.
Bottom line: I've tried to get shorter and shorter in all of my attempts at persuasive communication over the years.
At this point, if I can write just a couple of lines, that's what I go for.
"4 is not 2" is my best ever ... but I like this post very much, too: why the AP pass rate matters
That post is so short, and SO to the point, that people are going to have a very hard time arguing with it.
Speaking of school district intimidation of parents, I suspect my district is having attorneys peruse 'Charts & Graphs.'
The fact that our district has a cyber bullying blog that exists to support school spending and Math Trailblazers and "school parent" candidates who support school spending and Math Trailblazers does not seem to be a problem requiring use of the district's attorney.
You're probably more effective because you're not advocating for YOUR child. That removes weapons from their arsenal, namely your fear that objections to your advocacy will be taken out on your child.
I've noticed a tactic used by certain public school bureaucrats. Have you noticed that parents who object to certain proposals, such as constructive curricula, etc, are cast as irrational and governed by emotion, "afraid of change". "Of course, some parents are afraid."
Calmy, confidently using short sentences and not getting worked up should undercut the attempt.
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