Class War in the Classroom

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In a perfect world every kid would get their own teacher who could guide them through each subject in life with expertise and patience and compassion. Challenge them here, catch them up there, untangle this, focus on that.

But of course that’s not the way the things work and the groups they are taught in are based on the year they were they born and not their capabilities or lack thereof. So, as a result we have “gifted” kids, “average” kids and “Not So Smart (NSS)” kids. 

You cannot apply one of these labels across the entire spectrum of things a kid does. There are gifted kids who are hopeless at sports and gifted guitars players who don’t read well. There are brilliant mathematicians who haven’t couldn’t throw a Frisbee to save their lives and some amazing athletes who are also academically brilliant and there are captains of industry who are completely illiterate.

The definition of a gifted kid is one who shows strengths in one or more areas and is easily bored and wants more of a challenge in those areas. 

I have asked this before: Who does that formula NOT apply to? 

If kids were grouped together according to their level in each individual subject this labeling wouldn’t occur and kids would get help where they need it and challenge where they could use it.

Instead we have articles like this one that talk about how gifted kids are in a bit of a bind because sometimes being clever makes it hard to socialize, they hide their smarts to “fit in”. Can the same not be said of average and NSS kids? Of any of us? Old or young, smart or otherwise? Isn't socializing hard enough without being labelled according to academic skills? Don’t NSS kids hide their disadvantages the same way smarts kids do? Doesn’t one kid hide their inability to read the same way another might hide their ability to understand physics? Aren’t we all susceptible to ridicule based on how much we know, how much we don’t know, how tall or short thin or fat we are? But where we can’t change our height, we can learn and get smarter, in the right environment.

There’s a class war in the classroom and it is stunting our collective growth.

What if all the kids who read at a grade 2 level were grouped together regardless of age?

What if all the kids doing grade 5 math were grouped together regardless of what year they were born?

It’s the way swimming lessons work and no one dies. It’s the way university works and no one dies.

Kids would move from one subject to the next in groups that were assembled by understanding rather than age. When a level is mastered the student moves to the next group at their own rate.

If everyone can suck at things and excels at others the thrill of pointing it out dies.

Wouldn't everyone eventually feel secure enough to show/admit their weaknesses, get help and thrive? 

Wouldn’t it mean that a teacher would be talking to a group of kids who were all on the same page and no one would be acting out because they “so get it” and are bored or can’t  “get it” and act like the class clown rather than be seen as the village idiot?

And rather than an article like this that says we need to do more for our gifted kids we would be doing more for ALL our kids and they could all very well be gifted at something? 

Something they, in the current system, may never discover because of how far they get left behind or crappy they feel?

Parents Have to Parent!

A little girl at a local school is being bullied. One of the bigger boys is "tea bagging" her. Often.

I’ll let you look it up. One note; this version is done clothed. 

Kids - mostly boys - learn about it playing Halo when battle winners gyrate their crotch over a defeated opponent.

The fact that an 11 year old girl is having this done to her - repeatedly - is disturbing.

More disturbing is that another kid in the school has been paying the boy to do it to this poor girl. 
How is it that kids have managed to get to be 12 years old and not know that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable?

The girl's parents have gone to the school to demand action. But the schools don't know what kind of action to take anymore. Nasty behaviour has slowly crept into the schools over the years and it is not being dealt with. Most schools seem to have given up and it's hard to blame them, it's got to be frustrating to have the parents deny culpability just like their kids do. 

"Not me!" Has become: "Not my kid!"

Used to be a teacher would catch a kid doing something wrong, pull them up by the ear, march them to office, call the kid's parents and they would have to come and get the kid, take him/her home and the principal would give the parents what-for.

But something has happened. Somewhere along the line the schools lost the power to tell the parents: "Either your kid smartens up or he/she can’t come back here." 

As a result abhorrent behaviour is left unchecked and kids have no idea what is intrinsically wrong and few pay any consequences for misbehaving.

Parents are afraid to speak to one another directly about each other's kids to discuss things lest they be black-balled by the Mommy Group, ostracized at the soccer filed or name-called on Facebook. I don't recall my mother ever being more interested in her friendships than our well being and our behaviour. Seems today all kinds of things are ignored so that moms can remain "in" while they quietly seethe about one another's kids. Waste of time.

So as a last resort we turn to the schools to discipline the kids - but that's not their job. They are meant to teach the kids. We are their parents.

Policy at the school should be: 

The school tells the kid to knock it off and no amount of whining or crying is going to change things.

They then call the parents and demand they come pick up their kid and give them a refresher in what's right and wrong.

No more chances, if he/she does it again it's a week's suspension and the school doesn't care if you don't have childcare set up for such a situation, that is your problem, maybe use some of your vacation days to sit with at home and teach your kid about life instead of taking another trip to Hawaii so the kid thinks they get rewards for being an ass.

Parents need to be parents so teachers can teach.

C Stands for Catastrophe

February 14, 2013

Grade 1 to 3 we learn to read, from grade 4 on we read to learn. I have written about this a few times, most recently here.

Moving kids ahead before they have a grip on this year's skills defeats the whole purpose of getting up to go to school in the first place...no?

That doesn't mean holding the kid back to repeat the whole year over again, that never made sense. But it does mean identifying the problem and fixing it in the class, with outside resources, a code, a tutor, whatever is needed but it can't be left unaddressed.

I picture it like an avalanche - a bunch of new snow falls on top of old snow that hasn't had a chance to solidify, the new snow can’t get a grip and begins to break apart, there is nothing under it to support it and the slide begins.

It’s not hard to spot the kids who are caught in the slide - they sit in class praying they are not called on. They feel judged and stupid. And it just keeps getting worse. They feel more inadequate, more confused and frustrated every day. The place they go to everyday that promised learning is making them feel dumb.

This quote comes from Philip Regier, a dean discussing university courses, but it applies to little kids too, kids that get moved ahead sometimes with much less than a 70% grip on what they have been taught: 

“It’s the Swiss cheese effect. You can’t have a big hole in your knowledge. If you get a C, you know 70 percent of the material for one course. 

But the missing 30 is likely to be important to passing the next course.”  (more here)

And for the little ones getting their footing it’s reading and math  ...  “Mathematics, for example, is “ruthlessly cumulative” and so missing a chunk of it early on can cause big problems down the line.”  Annie Murphy Paul

It’s like the Renert brothers (creators of the Bright Minds math enrichment program) say; Moving kids ahead before they master the material is like giving someone a two wheeler after they spent a morning on a tricycle and fell off it half the time. 

But, unlike school, if they never master riding a bike they can park the thing forever and get through life just fine without out. 

The Coding Kids Conundrum

February 11, 2013

I received a comment mail on a recent blog. I appreciate and welcome all comments. It’s how the conversation starts and more information becomes available. head here for the post and comments

When it comes to our kids and their experiences in school every situation is different. Different schools, different kids, different teachers, different issues. No two will be exactly alike. And, in many cases, what one parent was told will sound incorrect to another based on what they were told.

I don’t claim to be an expert on any of the issues posted here. I relay the information and it is up to readers to do with it what they want.

The topic of Codes and Consequences is a big one. I know a few moms who had wonderful experiences with having their child assessed, coded and helped. I also know some who have had unsatisfactory results with the coding process and were left to manage their irreversible decisions. 

I know a teacher who taught for 20 years without ever having a coded student in her class, she changed schools and now has six. She is trying to figure out what that means and how to make it work for the kids all 28 of them in her class.

IPP’s are a good thing when they work. They are disappointing when they don’t. One thing is for sure; parents need to know as much as they can about the benefits, disadvantages and consequences of the program. The only way to do is to speak to people about it; teachers, administrators, doctors and other parents.

If There is No Wind, Row

Originally Posted September 29, 2012

All you hear lately are reports that the economy may not rebound for some time yet. What if unemployment is still up and the economy still down in 10 or 15 years? That will mean that just as our kids are about to head out on their own we will be ready to retire so they had better be capable of living on their own because I don’t want them under this roof when I am leaving my teeth in a jar all night and watching Murder She Wrote all day.

Lots in the news about the cost of education, the amount of debt incurred getting it, the lack of jobs once done with it and whether or not schools should be more accountable for the vast amount of money kids have to spend to be educated and unemployed.

So what should we do? Teach them the value of hard work. That's what. And if they end up working hard doing something they love well then they will have hit the jackpot.

I didn’t go to university. During my gap year I fell into what ultimately became a career in radio. I  learned everything  I could about the creative end of the business,  I worked hard and have always made a decent living. I have been unemployed just once, last year, and have to say I quite enjoyed kicking back for awhile but it was good to get back to work.

Donny, on the other hand, went to prestigious schools and got an English Lit. degree that he never used but easily admits that wasn’t his intention when he picked it for his major. He was at school to acquire knowledge, learn how to organize his life, be places on time, get the work done by the deadline and get along with people with whom he would otherwise not spent any time. He knew that to be successful at whatever he landed in after graduation was going to require hard work.

Loving what you do and working hard at it - that's the formula. Seems simplistic perhaps but his and my path, however different from on another, both show the same results, we did well because we were willing to work hard.

But...it really doesn't feel like work when you love what you do. That old adage is very true.

I listened to Dustin Hoffman speaking with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC a few weeks ago and Dustin said he had always been very passionate about his work. That he loved to act, love every aspect of it and throughly enjoys being with other people who truly love what they do.

This morning Jian had John Taylor on from Duran Duran, a band I never really liked much but having listened to John this morning, it is now a band I admire. 

He talked about  dropping out of school and dropping into music. He immersed himself in it. Not just playing but analyzing the bands he liked that had become successful. He soon saw there was a clear path to success and he set about making sure that Duran Duran's trajectory to fame was precisely planned. There were irrefutable steps that had to be taken to get the band to Madison Square Garden and they did it. He never doubted that they would make it because they worked hard and loved what they did.

My mother, Pat, now 92, loves maps. Drop her blindfolded in the middle of the desert and she can tell you which direction she is facing and, more than likely, where on the planet she is standing. When she was in school she had no idea that you could make a living loving maps. I recall her telling me, “Had I known there was such a thing as a cartographer I would have been happy being one my entire life.” I can assure you that had she known such a job existed we’d all be looking up things in a big map book called the Patlas and online in something called Pat Maps. 

So load up their RESP’s, encourage them, advocate for them, let them take the computer apart, sit in on an App building class at a college, have a chat with an Egyptologist, use the video camera or make a meal from scratch. Open up the world to your kids and sure, tell them they can be anything in the world want, regardless of the economy - but they have to really WANT it and they have to be willing to WORK for it.  

Like Jimmy Dugan said in "A League of Their Own": 
“If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.”

Average Develops Grit

Originally Posted October 14, 2012

The word “average” is well, just that. It certainly isn’t an adjective we like being used to describe us, let alone our children. 

Except for a short window of time in their lives during which it’s the only word we want to hear.  

When our babies first arrive until about the time the books say they are supposed to be hitting milestones, average is all we pray for. Average height, average weight, average amount of sleep, average number of bowel movements a day - all music to our ears. It’s safe and it means we are doing an excellent job keeping our kids in the middle of the pack. Nothing too extreme. 

More than average body hair: not what we want to hear. Less than average brain size ... you get the idea.

It’s not until we start measuring their brain power that we want to hear about them being anything but average. What parent doesn't want to hear that their kid is doing better than the norm at something?

But perhaps that deserves a second look.

Oftentimes when speaking with mothers and fathers of teenage kids - sons or daughters - you hear something like this: 

“Our youngest struggled but always did well. Because he had to work so hard it meant that he knew exactly what he had to do to keep his grades up. We used to really feel for him back then. While his sister barely had to open a book to get top grades and had all kinds of time for soccer and drama etc, he was at the kitchen table getting help from his sister or a tutor for just about all of his classes.”

You used to feel for him? Not anymore?

It turns out the daughter who had it easy had a rude awakening in the higher grades and was ill-prepared for real work. She had not developed any study skills, had absolutely no relationship with failure nor an understanding, not to mention - tolerance - for having to put in the time necessary to truly learn something. 

The tables turned as the years went by and eventually it was the son who helped his sister. It was having to earn his marks that garnered more than just grades. Just like the money speeches we give them. ;-)

Better-Than-Average sure sounds great when it comes to schoolwork but it should also serve as a warning for parents. For the kids that have it easy find some time for some enrichment classes that challenge them so they get a better sense of what it means to not know the answer right away, of failing and persevering, pondering a problem for more than a minute, researching ideas, doing homework, developing study skills...cracking a bit of a mental sweat. Developing some grit.

The kid who has always had it easy will likely face their first academic challenges right as life is throwing them into the turmoil of hormones, first loves, social pressure, acne and worse. That’s the time when knowing they can handle the books and the tests will provide them with some real footing on an otherwise slippery slope.

Canadian author Paul Tough says high IQ's in childhood are not an indicator for future success. He says GRIT gets is more important. Do you have it?
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The Future of Educating the Future

Originally Posted September 20, 2012

"The typical Canadian K-12 curriculum is based on an ideal designed a hundred years ago."
Gary Mason, The Globe and Mail

The current school system is based on an antiquated model that has little bearing on what kids need to learn today and how they need to learn it.

I feel for the teachers and administrators who clearly understand there needs to be change but are held captive by the boards. They struggle to do what they love within the financial and policy constraints of the current system. Bigger classes, more kids with special needs, less help, less money, less time, more demands ... the teachers that stand out are working hard and even working nights and weekends to do their very best under less than ideal circumstances.

Individual learning styles, teaching to a deeper understanding, creative thinking, problem solving and risk taking...these are all key aspects of great teaching that are now the buzz words of all the “school reform” articles you'll read.

So, I was excited today to see all of this terminology being the crux of a Globe and Mail article about plans in B.C. to revamp their education system. Here is an excerpt:

“The typical Canadian K-12 curriculum is based on an ideal designed a hundred years ago. When it was conceptualized, educators didn’t know much about the way people learned. Consequently, the system was built on rational assumptions, not science. 

The goal was to get facts into students’ heads. A teacher’s job was to transmit that information in the most effective way possible. The definition of success was based on how well students could use simple mathematical concepts and recall facts such as the country’s provincial capitals.

It became known as the standard model and initially prepared students for the industrialized era of the early 20th century.

Today’s economy is obviously much different. It’s increasingly based on the production and dissemination of knowledge and information, not just goods and services. The world is now fuelled by human creativity; in that sense, the standard model is designed for a world that’s rapidly disappearing.”

When and how B.C. plans to implement these changes remains to be seen. It will demand a radical change in thinking, support, money, manpower and teaching teachers to change they way they teach. It is not going to happen overnight but if I were young (oh, if I were young) today and planning a family I might allow myself the utopian view of a future in which my children would be taught very differently than kids are today and it would be a national plan to benefit all children from coast to coast to coast.

Full Globe and Mail article - here

Exercising Improves Academic Performance

Originally Posted May 25, 2012

At the age of 12, Canadian boys and girls are now taller than they were in 1981. However, rates of childhood obesity and overweight have risen because of increased body fat, not greater muscularity.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the percentage of overweight or obese 6 to 11 year olds has tripled since 1980, with more than 125 million children at unhealthy levels. 

Increases in physical activity lead to increases in overall academic achievement. 

Indeed, significant improvements in math, reading and spelling have been shown across a range of school grades with as little as a 90-minute increase in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week.

The morning routine trying to get a bunch of kids out the door can test the powers of Prozac. Some kids wake up spry, hungry and ready to eat a good breakfast and get at ‘er.  Others loll around in bed reluctant to get out of their sleepy cocoon, they are not hungry, not motivated and mope out the door on an empty stomach. Many kids spend the first hour of the school day trying to wake up and if they are focused at all it’s on their gurgling stomach and the oh-so-close-but-forbidden snack just feet away tucked away in their bag.

There have been of a lot articles lately about various pilot projects in which students have been given physical activity first thing in the morning to get the blood flowing. Focus improves, grades go up, kids feel the difference and it’s a good thing. This should come as no surprise. Even for those of us who abhor exercise, when we do decide to engage in some form of it first thing in the morning it improves our mood and productivity.

This link takes you to an article in today's Globe and Mail about how couch potatoes kids don’t score as well in school. No surprise there. Here is a video of kids who get phys.ed class first thing in the morning, they sit on balance balls in class and when they feel restless they can hop on a stationary bike - in class - and listen while they pedal.

Parents of active kids know that having them sit to complete a task is much easier if they let them play and expend some energy first.

It’s not a radical or expensive idea. Kids come in, put the backpack on a hook, and run outside to play soccer for 20 minutes or, as you’ll see, do some cool stuff in the halls to get pumped up. 

When something this simple and cheap results in a marked improvement in grades, health and confidence why isn’t every school doing it?

Some Kids Are Bored at School

Originally posted September 9, 2011

My friend’s daughter comes home everyday from school and begs not to go back. We have all heard that from our kids but when you hear it everyday it bears investigation. What is the impetus for this plea? Is she being bullied? Is she having trouble understanding, hearing, seeing? Does she need glasses or just a good, hard talking to about life and the things we HAVE to do? 

It’s become apparent over the weeks and months that this kid is so bored it makes her sad. Truly sad and bordering scarily on being downright depressed. She's all of nine.

School is not serving up anything that whets her appetite. Out of the classroom she is self-directed and finds things that she can immerse herself in for hours; googling and reading and watching anything and everything she can find on a subject she loves. Animal behaviour, the history of a far off country, the culture of a people she will likely never encounter - none of which are topics that will ever be brought up in elementary school let alone studied in depth to the degree that this kid digs on her own.

Forced to keep going to a place that does not engage her she will eventually lose the desire to learn altogether. 

Everyday our children show themselves as being what they truly are, what we all are when we are young - curious. We are born with inquiring minds. Just watch a two year old explore his environment. He touches, tastes and smells it all to discover, not be shown, all the amazing things around him. When these innate energies are stifled we begin to wither.

Can there be anything more heart breaking than to watch our children slowly become more and more bored with their young lives? 

If you are curious about your children and they ways in which they like to learn and what you can do to stimulate those appetites, read this great article entitled The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience