Dear School Board Members and Teachers Union,
It takes a village to raise a child. At Plantation High School, the teachers have
been tasked with raising over 2,000 children during the critical teenage
years. The students need our help and
the teachers need yours. Public
education is in shambles. I know that’s
nothing new. School is boring. Nothing new here either. No one is teaching because no is learning
(Holt, 1964). Maybe this comes as a
shock. In order for teaching to be
successful learning must occur. To
define teaching we must define learning.
What are students supposed to learn at school? Standards?
Why? Social skills? How?
Problem solving? When?
I support the concept
of compulsory, publicly funded education.
I also agree with accountability systems to make sure that teachers are
teaching and students are learning. And we
all know that more paperwork for teachers will not solve anything. Of which I’m sure you’re aware, there is
something missing. More testing is not
the answer. Stricter teacher evaluations
will not help either. A few years ago,
though, the union and the school board agreed upon a new high school course
schedule designed to give older students a break during the school day, lighten
teacher workload, and save the district money.
I am referring to the A/B block schedule with a built-in study hall
period for each teacher and student. It
is to this 90-minute period that I will be asking you to consider throughout
this letter.
My attention was
drawn to this class period because of the name it was given to appease teachers
and board members. Personalization
period. In this personalization period,
it is given that teachers will not have any extra work piled on to their
already full plates, administrative evaluations cannot be conducted during this
class, and students are given a no credit class in which to study, complete
assignments, and a variety of extracurricular tasks as needed. This class section is falling short of its
fullest potential.
Below, I propose to
the Teachers Union and school board members a call to revamp the purpose and
structure of the personalization period.
The goal of this redesign is to help students and teachers make secondary
public education meaningful and engaging.
Student Placement
Tracking has been
a cornerstone of tradition in the school system. I am a product of tracking and received
excellent instruction and opportunities from the moment I was placed on the
advanced track based on my 5th grade standardized test scores. I was lucky. The advanced classes I was
deemed capable of exceling in at age ten kept me separated from my peers
through grades 6 -12. Those who did not perform as well on that one
test were kept below me and the students who performed exceptionally well were
deemed above. Here I am, seven years
removed from high school and I still remember the tracks, the pride, and envy
felt by being labeled advanced.
Undoubtedly, social rankings were developed by tracking. Those who did poorly on their exams at age
ten usually filled the detention room five years later (Oakes, 1985). Students like me who did above average did
well in school because we were good test takers but could only ask the teacher
for help because our classmates only understood as much as everyone else (1985). Eight years after taking this standardized
exam, those who scored the highest marks were accepted into ivy league and name
brand universities.
Tracking has a
negative effect. It is only in school
where you will find people organized by performance on a one-time, high-stakes
assessment to determine what they will be able to achieve later. I am not familiar with the time requirement
and amendments required to remove the tracking system from our schools. But the personalization period is a prime
opportunity to bring students together who never had the chance to share ideas
or form relationships. Unfortunately,
and I am assuming unintentionally, tracking separates students along racial
lines (1985). Mixed-ability
personalization periods will allow students to work with peers significantly
different than them. This would be a
more authentic model of the real world. “Higher
level” students could assist those who are struggling in a certain class and
ethnic students can share their culture with others.
Whether or not the
personalization period should be mixed such that students of different grades
are placed together – I am not sure.
This structure has its pros and cons and is something that would need to
be investigated further - possibly decided on at the school level. But, children will learn best when not under
pressure (Holt,1964). And, unfortunately,
the figurehead of a teacher is intimidating enough to force a student to not
think clearly and avoid learning (1964).
The relaxed atmosphere of a mixed ability, personalization period
removes that pressure. The teacher,
essentially, is a monitor. Instructional
duties are not required but the teachers keeps an observing presence as he or
she ensures that students are studying together. An environment like this would have allowed
students like myself the chance to reach out to a classmate who may have taken
my calculus class before and help me understand the concepts better, or allow
me to assist an English Language Learner develop English communication skills.
Cooperative Learning
Humans are born
with an innate sense of curiosity. “Children
being great lawyers” (1964) will naturally start to question and prove the
world around them including the people with which they share spaces. This gives the personalization period teacher
an opening to teach the students how to learn cooperatively. Cooperative learning has become a buzzword
where many teachers (including myself at times) have organized student desks
into groups and called it cooperative learning.
Proximity of desks does not mean that students are sharing and
exchanging meaningful ideas.
Like everything
else, students must learn how to work cooperatively. The current school system punishes students for
asking their friends for help and expects them to perform at their best, and be
their best, on their own. Students have
gone from learning how to communicate their needs and share unique thoughts to
creating strategies to avoid failure and trick the teacher into thinking they
understand the material (1964). Instead
of learning independently, this instructional culture has taught students how
to become avoid learning.
In a low-stakes
environment such as a personalization period, the teacher in the room can offer
hope to students by exposing them to the opportunity of developing cooperative
learning skills in which students “…[create] the cooperative class, and they
then [teach the instructor] how much in such a class they could help and teach
and learn from each other” (1964). I
recently became aware of the three types of cooperative learning (Johnson, D. &
Johnson, R. n.d.). Each type is
different so that students of all learning styles and cultural backgrounds can
find a method that best suits him or her.
Minimal work would
be done by the teacher when exposing students to cooperative learning
groups. This keeps the teacher’s
workload light for this personalization period and affords the students the
chance to tryout different cooperative group styles with different classmates to
find their niche. Benefits of the
different cooperative learning styles include the ability to have a group come
to a consensus when problem solving, foster friendly competition amongst groups
in the room, and the chance for students of mixed ability to hold each other
accountable to student-determined goals (n.d.).
To get students familiar with cooperative learning and to have students
practice and master working with one another, the teacher could use relevant
and engaging topics of discussion such as different cultures, careers, and
current events to structure cooperative learning group discussions.
Accountability
Even though
teachers are professionals in their own classrooms, it is necessary that there
is an accountability system in place to make sure that students are benefitting
from the redesign of the personalization period. This is where the personalization aspect of the
personalization period rings true. Why
not let the students create their own accountability system? “Children who are learning on their own,
learning what interests them, don't get all upset every time they meet
something unusual or strange” (Holt, 1964).
Therefore, students who set their own learning goals within their own
cooperative groups get to own their progress and education. In a structure of education that determines
what students should learn and by when, giving them the chance to study how
they want, with whom they want, is incentive to achieve greatness that is
personal and promising.
In conclusion,
using this redesign of the personalization period, teachers would have to
submit students’ accountability systems and goals to school administration for
formal documentation. Evidence of
student progress towards meeting these personal goals would be required but,
again, would be determined by the students with guidance from the teacher. Ultimately, the goal of the personalization
period is to let the teacher have a reprieve from formal, pre-fabricated
instruction and allow the students to take the lead in discovering and
determining the joys of learning.
Thank you,
Marissa Hoffman
