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When we moved to New Jersey back in 1993, one of my first decorating endeavors was to write a "watch out for" list on a post-it note, then stick it on one of my kitchen cabinet doors. Over time, it needed scotch tape.
Yes, that's my decorating style. You should see the rest of my house (sigh). I guess you could say I'm a practical gal. Function over form. But that's another story.
The post-it listed growing trends in our nation's schools. At the time I had only two kids, and they were two and one, but I've always been a bit of a forward thinker.
It was a brief list; after all, it had to fit on a post-it. But it said things like, politically correct historical facts, whole language, and a few other things I've forgotten.
There was one other item on that list. It said in bold letters constructivism.
That post-it stayed up for about six years--until I'd seen the word enough times that I couldn't possibly forget. (Yes, my brain is that small.)
Actually, for a while I thought constructivism wasn't in my school. At kindergarten enrollment, nobody announced "We have constructivism here." At Back to School Night, it was never mentioned. No memos came home about it.
I realize now that our school district (and maybe everybody's) doesn't announce philosophy or methodology or even curriculum to parents at all. It's none of our business.
Slowly, over time though, I saw constructivism's effects. No need to go into them here.
So here I was, more aware than most parents, and only because I had an education degree, and yet it still took me several years to realize that my school was saturated in constructivist thinking.
And it wasn't confirmed or admitted to me until 2006, when the principal, with whom I was conducting a frustrating dialogue about TERC Investigations, said to me, "Well, you know, Linda, we've always been a constructivist school."
Had I not put that post-it on the cupboard in 1993, I would likely still not have put two and two together (pardon the math pun.)
