Why preschool shouldn't be like school

Alison Gopnik, co-author of the must-read book The Scientist in The Crib, has a recent article on Slate.com reporting on two studies coming out soon that show direct instruction can limit children's learning, because children come to depend on the teacher to show them what is worth knowing or exploring about a given topic. As Gopnik write, "These assumptions [that what a teacher explains is only what is worth learning] lead children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options." This makes inherent sense to me, and has important implications about the transference of cultural values and biases between generations, but because I also believe that there is a role for direct instruction in a classroom, I look forward to looking at the actual research itself to understand the design of the experiments.

On a related note, here's an article on play from the NY Times that I was just forwarded.

2nd grade math observation

Last week I watched a 2nd grade math class that effectively provided entry points to the content through multiple modalities, and that combined teacher creativity with the TERC: Investigations curriculum that forms the core of our K-5 math program. The students began by standing in a circle. In response to teacher instruction, they then used body rhythm - drumming on their own bodies - to make up patterns, starting with a clap of the hands and then a pat of each hand against their shoulder blades. After repeating this several times, they moved on to a second rhythm - a clap of the hands, a pat of each hand against their shoulder blades, and slap of each hand against their waist. They continued in this vein, developing more and more complicated patterns. The students then all sat, and came up with semantic descriptions of the patterns they had made - "clap pat pat," "clap pat pat slap slap", "clap pat pat slap slap snap snap," and so on. The third step was to translate these word patterns into alphabetic patterns - ABB, ABBCC, ABBCCDD, etc. Finally, still working in the group, they turned these alphabetic patterns into snap-cube patterns, by building chains of different colored cubes in repeating patterns.

In the second half of the class the students moved to the tables for individual work, coloring in unique patterns on handouts. Some students used the alphabetic strategy to create the patterns which they then colored, others built snap-cube chains which they then copied, and others jumped straight to mentally creating patterns and coloring the squares on the page. Pattern making and skip-counting are key ideas that underlie the development of number sense about the operations of multiplication, and each child used a strategy that was effective for him-or-herself, that fit into the child's developmental schema, and that s/he knew would allow him/her to be successful - the very design of the TERC: Investigations curriculum. It was really fun to watch, and to see the students then using those patterns to answer predictive questions ("what will be the color of the 30th block of this pattern?").

Book Swap FAQ

Next week is our annual Read-a-thon, and in preparation we're holding a Book Swap for students. Here's a "FAQ" on the event:

Q: Can we bring books anytime?

A: Books can be dropped off at the TBS curb on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday March 29-31 during morning arrival, from 8:15-8:30. Books can also be dropped off with Associate Head of School Zaq Roberts at any other time during the day.

Q: Is there a limit on how many books you can swap?

A: Yes. Since this is our first book swap, we're going to ask that 2nd-8^th grade students plan to “bring one and take one.”

Q: What about for K-1 students? Do they need to bring a book?

A: Since it’s hard for young children to give up their treasures, we are having K-1 students participate in the “swap” by simply selecting a lightly used book during the Book Swap. To support this we are asking the whole TBS community to bring in books for that grade level, to support our young readers.

Q: Is the ECC participating?

A: Yes, the ECC is participating in the book swap by working to build its campus library. Any books appropriate for the ECC can be left at the University Campus, or in Andrea's office at the ECC.

Q: Do I have to bring a book to take a book?

A: No child will be turned away from taking home a book during the book swap; we will make sure to have more than enough books on hand.

Q: What if a family wants to bring a bunch of books?

A: If a family donates more than one book, that is wonderful and we thank them. All books dropped off will be part of the swap, and those left over will be shelved in the various school libraries.

Q: Does the condition of the book matter?

A: Only books that are in good condition or better should be brought in. Books that are not in good shape will be pulled aside.

Q: How do I know if a book is good to swap?

A: As long as a book is in good condition, it’s fine to bring it in. They can be any level from picture books to middle school level, fiction or non-fiction.

Q: Is this book swap for grown ups too?

A: Not this year. We're going to do it just for students, and we'll consider expanding it to include adults next year.

Q: When do kids get to pick their new books?

A: Students will get to pick their books by class on the afternoon of the Thursday, March 31st. Each class will get about 30 minutes to select books.

Q: I want to volunteer to help, and/or I have another question. To whom should I speak?

Please contact parent Jean Littlejohn (jeanzo2 (at) hotmail.com), or Associate Head of School Zaq Roberts (zroberts (at) theberkeleyschool.org)

March 23rd faculty meeting on Learning Outcomes

As I wrote about in a blog post on Tuesday, this week's faculty meeting began with a presentation of data gathered from an activity faculty did at a meeting in February, in which we asked them to respond to five questions - the trends and forces affecting the world, the challenges children will face, the qualities they will need to face those challenges, and the elements in place and still needed at TBS to support the our educational mission. Following a discussion of that data (in both word cloud and traditional text forms), we presented a first draft of the broad ideas that we have identified as potential learning outcomes for TBS students, and invited faculty to comment on which of these "buckets" they thought were important, if there were any that should be removed or added or combined or reworded, and what other feedback they had about these concepts.

In keeping with our belief that the use of Thinking Routines is an important way in creating a community of thinking, we asked for written feedback in the form of the Compass Points Routine, which is designed specifically for examining propositions. The routine has four questions:

1. E = Excited; What excites you about this idea or proposition? What's the upside?

2. W = Worried; What do you find worrisome about this idea or proposition? What's the downside?

3. N = Need to Know; What else do you need to know about this idea or proposition? What additional information would help you evaluate it?

4. S = Stance or Suggestions for Moving Forward; What is your current stance on the idea or proposition? How might you move forward in your evaluation of this idea or proposition?

We'll be using the faculty responses as important data in our process of refining the buckets for a second draft, which we'll be taking back to faculty in April. We'll then finalize the outcomes, and share them with the community in May, just in time to kick off the establishment of a thorough curriculum review process, so stay tuned!

Actually, one more point, touching on that last idea: yesterday I was asked about the relationship of learning outcomes to the school's curriculum, since the word outcomes seems to suggest a focus on assessment and final product. This is absolutely true, AND it is the reason that outcomes also form a critical component of the foundation upon which next year's curriculum review process will be based. By identifying the specific desired outcomes of a TBS education, we can then review our curriculum with those outcomes as a clarifying lens, asking ourselves questions such as "How does this aspect of the curriculum contribute to the development of our learning outcomes?" or "How are these learning outcomes being specifically taught and developed in our curriculum?" In this sense, we will be using these outcomes very similarly to the way that learning goals and assessment are used in both the Teaching for Understanding framework that we employ at TBS, and the wide-spread Understanding By Design framework, a "form of curriculum planning that begins with a decision about what students need to learn as the end result. The teacher then engages in backward design, choosing activities that will bring students to the preselected goal."

Funding for education (and the public purpose of private schools)

As budget battles are waged across the state and the country, one of the dimensions in which I am always interested is education funding - both what and how people are talking about it.

Last week CNN ran an op-ed on why cutting funding for Head Start is a bad idea, written by Kathleen McCartney, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Around the same time, the Oakland Tribune published a story about the impact of last-in, first-out layoff policies. Both of these articles bring up subtle aspects of how the fight over educational funding threatens to undermine the very mechanisms that show the greatest promise for public education.

Did you know that $18 billion has been cut from public education in California in the last three years, and Gov. Brown's budget proposes to cut another $2.6 billion? If you did, it should not be a surprise to find out the Associate Press reports the last three years of California budget cuts have impacted poorer schools more than affluent ones, according to research done at UCLA.

This op-ed piece on the Huffington Post sums it up; on a state and national level, we simply aren't putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to providing the funding to give our children all that they deserve. Slavery may be over, but the control of funding creates inescapable equity traps for millions of powerless children. And yet, I'm surprised that the politicians don't discuss this issue in an equity frame. If we're going to make tough choices, the conversation should NOT be "what do we cut to make this budget work," but "how do we find the funding necessary"?

Our own backyard provides countless other instances of how the discussion of the budget obscures the underlying equity issues. For example, the California National Organization for Women provides this breakdown of how Gov. Brown's proposed budget would impact educational funding in the state. Did anyone else choke when you read that one way the state would save money is by a "Reduction of penalities to schools for exceeding K-3 Class Size Reduction Program limits"? This is mind-boggling; first we mandate certain class sizes based on the understanding that class size and student:teacher ratio have a direct impact on the classroom environment and the quality of children's learning experiences, and then we don't enforce those mandates, and then we claim that by not enforcing these mandates we are saving money? No we aren't; we're simply choosing to not spend money that would address one of many systematic inequities that are pervasive in our underfunded system of public education.

This year's NAIS annual conference was titled "Advancing Our Public Purpose", and one important thread of conversation throughout the conference was about the role of independent schools in public life. There are many dimensions to this work, which range from providing alternative educational models for society to consider (the "lab school" concept), to engaging in community service and direct action in the surrounding community, to preparing students who are able to participate in society as reasoned citizens. Most recently, this movement has evolved to include actively identifying and working to solve equity issues in public schools, communities, and institutions. I would classify understanding the ongoing fight over funding public education as one of these topics, and strongly believe it is our responsibility to advocate about, and not just to bemoan, the state of spending on public education. In an ideal future, public funding for education is an unquestioned priority, and the best research-based practices are incorporated into public education, making independent education unnecessary. But without an active, vocal movement to support that funding, we'll have keep laughing sadly at bumper stickers like the one at the top of this post, when we should be outraged.

You can hear Pat Bassett, Head of NAIS, talk more about the public purpose of private schools at this edutalk broadcast. It gets good at about the 15 minute mark, and then again at the 25 minute mark.

Learning Outcomes word clouds

Last week I wrote about the process we're using with faculty to create learning outcomes. In advance of tomorrow's faculty meeting, I've created word clouds based on their responses to the survey we had them fill out last month. First I coded faculty responses to each of the questions, and then used Wordle to create these clouds, setting the size of each word to reflect the relative number of times the concept was mentioned. We'll be discussing these, and also a first rough draft of learning outcomes based on all the work we've done so far this year. Click on each cloud for a close-up!

What are the dominant trends and forces in the world?

What are the challenges that children will face as they grow?

What are the qualities children will need to face these challenges?

What elements are already in place at TBS to support the development of these qualities?

What elements are still needed at TBS to support the development of these qualities?

Let Kids Rule the School

Let Kids Rule the School, by Susan Engel

"Autonomy" and "emergent curriculum" are often used by progressive educators to describe aspirations more than actual practice. When a student-identified interest does protrude into the usual course of a curriculum, often the teacher maintains control of the so-called emergent curriculum, which looks like a short unit or lesson on a topic that a student selects and the teacher then designs and delivers. Today's NYTimes op-ed piece by Susan Engel describes a different approach to these concepts, in which genuine autonomy led students to generate authentic emergent curriculum that they then took responsibility for learning.

Learning Outcomes update

Next week's faculty meeting will once again cycle back to the topic of Learning Outcomes. A critical component of a unified educational program, Learning Outcomes (also called Expected School-wide Learning Results, and/or Core Competencies) will help direct our process of curriculum review and revision in the 2011-12 school year, and were identified by Mitch as one of the strategic priorities for our ongoing program improvement process for this year. Faculty have already met to discuss the development of these outcomes four time this year, and we have solicited their input and feedback in a variety of ways:

- In early October, we asked them to complete "Y-charts" (a technique drawn from our work with Positive Discipline) on eight core competencies drawn from The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, a direction that was spearheaded by late Head of School Janet Stork in the spring of 2008-09, including a) critical thinking and problem solving, b) collaboration and leadership, c) agility and adaptability, d) initiative and entreprenuerialism, e) oral and written communication, f) accessing and analyzing information, g) curiosity and imagination, and h) self-knowledge and self-awareness (we blogged about this on Oct. 7; you can watch a video of Tony explaining these ideas here);

-In late October, we had them share how important each of these competencies was to their own teaching and perception of students at their grade levels, in groups of ECC through 3rd grade, and 4th through 8th grade. Importantly, using a 7-point Likert scale, only "initiative" and "accessing information" scored below a 5.5 in composite relevance to the faculty, at 5.2, while the others ranged from 5.7 to 6.4, indicating great agreement among faculty across grade levels about the appropriateness of these broad ideas;

- In November, faculty discussed the idea and language of competencies, and used the Circle of Viewpoints thinking routine (a technique drawn from our work with Harvard's Project Zero) to get inside each other's understanding of how learning outcomes might alter the way they conceive of and design curriculum (we blogged about this on Nov. 17);

-In February, faculty met to review the timeline for this process for the rest of the year; reaffirm that while expected school-wide learning results do not lead to the problems of standardization and focused testing that affect many public and traditional schools, they do designate areas in which we believe all students should become competent, and many should master, by the time they leave TBS; and complete a survey on "Trends and Forces In the World" that asked faculty to envision the future needs of students as people, citizens, and workers.

Going forward this spring, we'll be presenting a draft of TBS learning outcomes to faculty at our March 23rd meeting. We'll take their input and revise that draft into a second version, which we'll bring back to the faculty at an April meeting, and then go through the feedback and revision process one more time, before bringing them a final version of these outcomes in May. By including faculty so thoroughly in the design of the learning outcomes, we believe that we set them up for maximum success in implementing these ideas in their curriculum, and in working together to revise the curriculum next year.

We look forward to sharing a systematic and integrated set of TBS learning outcomes with all of our families later this spring, once this intensive process is complete!

Friday miscellany

21 things in schools that will be obsolete by 2020, on KQED. Some I agree with, some I doubt. #6 is already true for me.

Facebook rolls out anti-bullying tools, on CNN. A little thin on details, but I'm glad to see that Facebook is acknowledging the platform's responsibility for how users interact.

A series of letters between Diane Ravitch (featured just last week on this blog) and Deborah Meier (founder of Central Park East and a leading light in public education) on how the events in Wisconson relate to public education.

Testing for knowledge, or the ability to ask for help? Vickie Bergman's post is a little chaotic, but the central point resonates, and the short video at the end is a hilarious must-watch!

Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action:

The neurobiology of conscious intent, by John Medina (author of Brain Rules).

Finally, Jill Bote Taylor, nueroscientist, discusses experience her own stroke in this inspiring talk:

Accreditation update

In case you missed the announcement in NewsNotes, or at the Board meetings and various other events in the last month, TBS has received initial accreditation from both CAIS and WASC! You can read the CAIS letter here, and you can read the WASC letter here.

In other news, I (Zaq) attended a training for to be a participant on a WASC visiting committee on Monday, February 28th at National University in Sacramento. The training was led by Pat Lissik, a retired 17-year principal from Walnut Creek who has chaired over 30 visiting committees! Needless to say, he was very thorough and complete in the training. I am now talking with both WASC and CAIS to get placed on a visiting committee (or two) this spring.

This is a little bit of “downtime” in the accreditation cycle, but don’t worry, we’ll ramp back up again in the fall, as we prepare for the full self-study, which we’ll conduct January-June of 2012. In the meantime, folks at TBS are doing important work on topics like the Board bylaws, site master plan, student learning outcomes and more, all of which will contribute to our accreditation process.

Don't forget to check out the Accreditation portal (the link is to the right)!

News alert: weighing the chicken more doesn't make it grow faster!

Diane Ravitch on the Daily Show vaguely makes the case that poverty and the larger cultural context is the primary reason for low test scores, and that NCLB and Race to the Top are damaging public education. Important ideas, but not a ton of substance in this interview. Her interview on top-ed.com is slightly better, as is her address at NYU (though the production values aren't as high in either one).