Is It Truly Better to Give Than Receive?

A commenter referred me to an interesting book, Bad Students, not Bad Schools by Robert Weissberg.  The premise, from its web site reads:

Bad Students, Not Bad Schools is an Emperor’s new clothes book—it openly speaks the unspeakable: America’s education woes are caused by intellectually mediocre, unmotivated students, not “bad schools,” rotten teachers, faculty curriculum, lack of sufficient funding and similar alleged culprits. Alter the student population and push students harder, even if this means lowering their self-esteem and America’s schools will thrive. If mischief-makers refuse to learn, let them drop out! Politicians and professional educators avoid this awkward reality and prefer instead to squander billions while lurching from one guaranteed-to-fail gimmick after the next.

I remembered this again today (4/12), listening to Bill Bennett's Morning in America program.  Bennett interviewed Nancy Larson, author of the Saxon Math program for elementary grades.  She said a lot of things I readily agreed with, like that there is no substitute for rote memorization of multiplication tables.  I recommend listening to the free podcast on Bennett's web site.  Bennett is concerned that too many Americans lack the mathematical skills and instincts to understand the current financial crisis. But this was my take-away quote:

[Learning mathematics] does take work on the part of the child. 

This tied (loosely) with Weissberg's assertion, and together they prompted more thought about the achievement gaps we seem unable to close in the public schools.  Larson went on to clarify what she expects of a student.

1. You have to do all the work assigned.  You can't take a day off.  You have to do all the assignments, every night.
2. You have to be honest about the work, approaching each problem seriously, solving it with your best effort.  It isn't enough to collaborate, asking what answer someone else got and writing that down.
3. You have to ask questions when you don't understand something.  You can't say "I missed one and it doesn't matter" because it is going to matter in math.

Larson has complementary expectations for the parents as well.

1. Check that their child did the work, every night.
2. Review that work with the child, checking answers.  (As Bennett notes, that may be easier in K-5 than high school algebra!)
3. Ask questions when you don't know, possibly by asking the child to explain it to you.

This is what many educators have been saying, that they cannot teach the unwilling or the unprepared.  But I'm not quite ready to let them off the hook, for they usually then proclaim that some new program, approach, or policy will turn things around, only they don't.  Larson suggests that teachers might spend more time motivating the student to work harder as opposed to they themselves working harder to convey the material.  Teaching is the process, but learning is the objective.  However well the teacher "gives" the material, it is what the student "receives" that matters.

So what if students don't apply themselves?  Let them drop out as Weissberg suggests?   Hold them back as I think isn't done enough?  Is the achievement gap not a real problem, merely a symptom?

 

Comments

[Hiram]

Not the spin I would put on it, but I do find this argument sort of congenial. A lot of people will tell you teacher effectiveness, is the determining factor in quality of education, something I view as oversimplified and naive.

"She said a lot of things I readily agreed with, like that there is no substitute for rote memorization of multiplication tables."

I suppose there isn't a substitute for that, but how is such memorization useful in later life? When I do any kind of complicated multiplication, I use a calculator. When I do simple multiplication in my head, I use a form of calculation based on how I know numbers work. If I ever did memorize the multiplication tables, that knowledge was lost long ago.

[Hiram]

"what many educators have been saying, that they cannot teach the unwilling or the unprepared."

Any educator caught saying that, let's just say, we be on a list of mine they wouldn't wish to be on. Some kids are easier to teach than others for a variety of reasons. That said, there can never be an excuse for not trying and not succeeding in meeting the challenges each kid presents, no matter what they might be. Our schools are not in the business of writing kids off. Specifically, we know lots of kids are unwilling to learn or insufficiently prepared for school. We must have pedagogical strategies in place to deal with those challenges.

[J. Ewing]

Start with the premise that every child can learn. That some can learn more and more quickly than others is a given, depending on the individual child's lot in life but NOT on the child's demographic. It is therefore morally repugnant that all the children in a given demographic area may be forced into a classroom where there is a "bad" teacher. We must either rid our monopolistic public school system of bad teachers or offer alternatives, at public expense, that /can/ educate better.

[anonymous]

I think it's a very sensible idea, but wildly simplistic. To create successful schools, I imagine you need capable teachers/administrators, motivated students, engaged parents, and adequate resources. The first has taken the lion's share of the abuse of late, but I fully support the idea that there's plenty of responsibility to go around.

I've mentioned I volunteer regularly, and not only do the disruptive/unwilling/unprepared kids slow down their own progress, they make the setting less conducive to learning for all their classmates. Now, to what degree can we hold a 16 or a 6 year old responsible for their own conduct? That's surely open for debate. But I don't think it should be verboten to discuss it as one part of the fix.

--Annie

[J. Ewing]

Absolutely not. One of the things I have tried to always say is that an "effective discipline policy" must be part of any education reform. Of course, a good part of the need for discipline is eliminated by a strong and challenging curriculum, motivated and effective teachers, and sensible administration. NONE of it is produced by the simple addition of more money to the school, nor by "targeted" money for a specific purpose. If you had those other things, parents would become more engaged, students would become more motivated, and, IMHO, the resulting savings would provide more resources for further improvement.

[The Big Stink]

J: parents are more DIS-engaged in the education process today because too many just shoo their kids off to school and say 'go learn.' Part of the blame for this parental disengagement is because the schools have, to an increasing degree, insisted parents stay out of the education arena. We are not allowed to influence curriculum, texts, discipline, moral judgments, social norms, etc. Parents can volunteer, raise money, cheerlead for their kids - but the nuts and bolts decisions of knowledge-gathering is the province of the unions, the administration and the political geniuses who fund the tempest called K-12 education.

In other words, educrats will gladly accept our time and our money, but they don't want our opinions.

[Hiram]

Curious. My sense is that parents are a lot more involved in their kids education than they used to be. The shooing off is what I recall from my own childhood, long long ago. These days, at least with respect to the people I know, parents are very engaged with their kids education.

"We are not allowed to influence curriculum, texts, discipline, moral judgments, social norms, etc."

I doubt if it ever occurred to my parents to involve themselves in any of these matters. These days, I suspect, schools get feedback on these issues on a daily basis. And I expect teachers and others have gotten into the habit of tip toeing around them, perhaps more than they should.

[The Big Stink]

Your perception may be true for you, Hiram, but how do you explain flat or declining achievement?

As regards parental "input," it seems everyone has an opinion how education ought to be run, but there are fewer opinions being offered to educators because their policies are pre-determined by the a "system" which is very top-heavy with predetermined, "enlightened" policies.

[Give2Attain]

Since you know I fully support the concept of this post, I'll try to answer the question posed by BS. I am reading a book by John Maxwell called "The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player". Todays quality was "Disciplined".

"Discipline is doing what you really don't want to do so that you can do what you really want to do."

Now self discipline is critical to learning. I mean who wants to sit through another lecture, do homework, take a test, read a textbook, etc, etc.... Now do you think American students and citizens are becoming more or less self disciplined over the last 50 years? Especially the group that has the hardest time in school...

Also, folks have to remember that the standards are being raised and the content is becoming more complicated over time. Think of how much more biology, chemistry, technology, etc their is to learn than 30 years ago. So I am not sure how we evaluate then to now...

[Laurie]

Earlier today I listened to an interview of Wendy Kopp, Teach for America founder, on TPT and found her ideas very intriguing. She advocates for strong administrative leaders having the flexibility and accountability to build strong teams of teachers. She talks about there now being a strong enough record of success with at risk learners to learn from and replicate. She says it is time to move beyond blaming the students or, more recently, blaming the teachers for low levels of achievement. As I teacher, I especially agree with that last part.
Anyway, her book, A Chance to Make History, is now on my reading list.

Also, I agree completely on the need for kids to put the time into learning their basic facts by rote. Middle school math - fractions, percents, algebra - is so much harder for kids struggling with 4x8.

[J. Ewing]

As far as I know, the only thing there is more of is history, as my kids always remind me. It doesn't change the essential point that the kids are not being taught enough to keep up with international competition or our own expectations. It isn't a learning problem, it's a teaching problem, and BS is right that it is caused by a huge monopolistic educracy that to date has succeeded in blaming the students or the parents or a so-called lack of funding for all of their failures. I am simply appalled when people want to excuse what they are doing to our kids. When they are doing their best at what they are being paid to do, THEN we can talk about how we help students or parents do better, or what added funding might help students achieve.

Educators claim to be professionals and want the respect of professionals. Let them prove it.

[Hiram]

"how do you explain flat or declining achievement?"

I don't because it doesn't exist. Schools are improving, and NAEP test scores show it. We do a much better job teaching our kids than we did in the dark ages when I attended school.

"it seems everyone has an opinion how education ought to be run, but there are fewer opinions being offered to educators because their policies are pre-determined by the a "system" which is very top-heavy with predetermined, "enlightened" policies."

Given a choice between unenlightened and enlightened policies, I would choose the latter I suppose. People have to make choices, and not everyone will agree with all the choices that are made. Perhaps the defining quality of public education is it's universality. It tries to do a great many things, to educate the broadest possible spectrum of children. It is criticized, sometimes even fairly, for trying to do too much as it just was here. Inevitably, public school educators will make decisions we disagree with, but that's in the nature of things. It simply isn't possible to do exactly what each of us wants public schools to do all the time.

[J. Ewing]

The problem I have with that formulation, that public education has problems because of the "universe" of kids it tries to teach, is that it is EXACTLY what public schools are supposed to accomplish. Far from trying to teach every kid from his ability to means unique to his "culture," education is supposed to be the great opportunity-maker, where every kid has a shot at MIT, and the great melting pot, where every kid learns about (and presumably adapts to) our native American society, culture and government. Getting rid of this "diversity" nonsense would make schools work better, for everybody. Our nation's strength is not in our diversity, but in our unity in spite of it.