| Author |
Message |
    
mellie
Citizen
Username: Mellie
Post Number: 402
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 6:07 pm: |     |
I hope that the edubonics professors responsible for the incomprehensible crap above do not hold it out as an example of how to write effectively.
If you want to persuade people to your opinion, speak to them in a way they will understand.
If you want to show off what a smart arse you are, keep posting 14 paragraphs that say very little.
I think you are trying to say:
Studies show that that teaching students actual knowldege is efective, in contrast to ...whatever teh heck it is in contrast to.
Well, who knew huh ? |
breal
Citizen
Username: Breal
Post Number: 299
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 9:32 pm: | |
No, no, Mellie. I don't think that's what that expert was trying to say. Nan does not quote experts who advocate teachers standing up in front of a class and teaching, actually imparting information. The dread "sage on the stage" is what Nan and her experts DON'T like. According to their ideal, students are to infer almost everything. The adult in a classroom is to be the "guide on the side." Direct, explicit instruction is bad. Process learning in which the student teaches himself is good. Got it? Let's continue: Skills--bad. Concepts--good. Script--bad. Improvisation--good. Textbooks--bad. Loose, unrelated xeroxes--good. Book reports--bad. Relating text to self--good. Standardized tests--bad. Portfolios of work--good. Sounding out words--bad. Guessing words from picture or context clues--good. Cheers. |
mellie
Citizen
Username: Mellie
Post Number: 407
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 9:52 pm: | |
Ah...see, I couldn't figure out what was being said from the 14 paras.
My issue - so far - is less to do with whatver was being said than how it is being said - because how it is being said is detrimental to comprension
So what was the point of the original post again ? |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1175
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 6:14 am: | |
Could someone let me know where in this thread the 14 paragraph post that says nothing and is supposedly written by me is located? |
fringe
Citizen
Username: Fringe
Post Number: 297
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 8:00 am: | |
And I've simply asked on numerous occasions for objective proof that what this district is currently doing in Language Arts is working for all students. The Report Cards are due this week - maybe they will have it.
JTL |
C Bataille
Citizen
Username: Nakaille
Post Number: 1657
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 12:31 pm: | |
JTL, you make a large assumption in your 8 a.m. post that there is such a thing as a Language Arts curriculum that works "for all students." From what I've seen in reading what experts on all sides of the debate indicate, as well as upfront views of students in a large district in NJ there is no such thing. Don't we all wish there were and wouldn't we all nominate the creator for a Nobel prize? Sorry, but this certainly looks like a "Strawman" to me.
Cathy |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1280
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 5:31 pm: | |
JTL,
What program are you advocating that supplies objective proof that IT works for all students -- or more importantly, that it would work better for M/SO students than the one we've got?
You are holding the current M/SO program to a standard no other program has been known to meet. My reading in this area is probably less than Cathy's but everything I've seen thus far indicates she is correct: Experts have yet to locate or invent a Language Arts program that works for all students -- unless you know of one.
Also, since when are report cards objective proof of the validity of instruction. Don't the students have to supply any effort anymore? |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1281
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 5:38 pm: | |
I have another question for ACE or anybody:
The original post in this thread talks about studying the test results of "advantaged and disadvantaged groups" or "haves and have-nots" and says that because test results between these groups grew closer, we know more about how to narrow "the achievement gap." But isn't one of the key features of the achievement gap that it cuts across economic groups? It's racial, not economic. Yes? (It's not a trick question. I'd really appreciate some clarification.)
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nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1176
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 5:57 am: | |
Interesting questions, Harpo.
Breal,
Is this a sample of the type of distorted ad hominem rant we can expect from you and other ACE members during the upcoming BOE elections? |
jfburch
Citizen
Username: Jfburch
Post Number: 1314
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 7:24 am: | |
Harpo, you are correct. The racial achievement gap is pervasive--across the socioeconomic spectrum.
Economic disadvantage is clearly one factor (especially when comparing schools or educational opportunities that are not equal) but it is increasingly clear that it is not the only one.
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fringe
Citizen
Username: Fringe
Post Number: 299
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 8:55 am: | |
It is not an assumption that this district has one official Language Arts curriculum for all students. I ask again where is the evidence that this approach is successful for all students?
Contrary to some of the above assertions on the socio-economic pervasiveness of the Gap, it appears that black South Mountain 4th graders have performed better than their white counterparts on the NJ ASK test. How? Is there in-class extracurricular activity at that school or is there another explantion.
Perhaps the NJ Report Cards will reveal more.
JTL |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 438
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 9:23 am: | |
Article in Time on Iowa this week, and what a district has done in face of NCLB etc. Pretty radical, and certainly points up what some folks fear about centralized curriculum, etc.
A part of this debate, which the Time article got me thinking about, is the role of the teacher. I recall that when microcomputer software for K-8 first came out, a lot of teachers were concerned about being "disintermediated" -- to some extent, removed from the picture. I believe that it was in 70's/early 80's when the whole post-hippy period "teacher as learning facilitator" theme emerged (correct me if I'm wrong, I just remember selling the textbooks). Teacher as facilitator seemed to be popular because it played to my generation's democratic, liberal and anti-authoritarian bent. We like discovery, not dictation.
Anyway...I sometimes get the feeling that some of that is at root of all this. Not so much what works or doesn't work for kids, this curriculum or that, but the automomy of the teacher, and his/her role. Personally, I think the teacher should have autonomy to customize classroom strategies for each particular selection of kids she gets (because I know that each batch is different), but I'm not sure how far that should go. I'm not at all comfortable with K-12 teachers having as much autonomy as college professors do (and I'm not sure I like how much they have in core courses). |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1284
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 5:56 pm: | |
I just read the Time Magazine article, Cynicalgirl. I think it's really sad.
"They're not learning civics, history, geography — a lot of essential skills that they're going to need to be good democratic citizens," says fifth-grade teacher Shane Williams. The fourth grade used to spend a year on states' history, geography and capitals. They now cover the topic in six weeks. And while Williams used to ask his class to do 20 minutes of creative or expository writing a day, he now holds off until after February. "Their writing skills have certainly deteriorated," he says.
Here's the rest of the article here.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040301-593550,00.html
I know you know this, but I'd add that determining the role of the teacher in education goes back at least as far as Plato, and probably further. I imagine if you read the entire history of educational theory from Plato forward in the Western tradition, you would persistently come across a split between authoritarian models of teaching vs. democratic inquiry models. I think discussions about teacher "autonomy" and curricula are a subset of that fundamental question and that neither model leads you to a definite answer -- meaning, authoritarian models sometimes don't care about set curricula (brilliant master teacher expostulates to disciples) and democratic inquiry models sometime revolve around a fixed set of texts that are openly questioned with no presumption of authority.
Understanding how to resolve this within a local tax-supported school when the entire purpose of public schools are right now a matter of intense national political dispute is pretty daunting. It seems to me that the current ideological battle is between people who feel public school education should be "consumer-oriented" and people who view public schools as having a profound public purpose, in which more people than just user-parents, children and teachers have a stake. No Child Left Behind allows both camps to grab one leg of the cat. Hence the yowling.
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1285
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 5:58 pm: | |
JTL,
Maybe I'm missing something, but I still don't see anything in your question but an attempt to put the current curriculum in the wrong by administering a false test. (When did you stop beating your wife?) Has anyone claimed the present curriculum works for all students? Is that your demand? To have one that does? Absent an answer to those questions, I don't see any obligation on the part of anyone to supply you with evidence that the program does something I doubt anyone ever claimed it did.
Sorry to come so late to the party but: What are the NJ Report Cards?
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harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1286
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 6:02 pm: | |
Thanks jfburch. I suppose the next question is: Has anyone done a study of M/SO or any part of it that documents the type or extent, if any, of an achievement gap right here and whether it correlates to income or race or both or what?
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Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 654
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 10:52 pm: | |
This is stranger than fiction, but true.
nan, harpo and burch, in-sync, or one person with three screen names and endless energy, revealed in bare and chilling outline the future for our Thane of Fringe:
First qvetch: When shall we three meet again?
Second qvetch: When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won.
Third qvetch: That will be ere the set of sun.
[Not satisfied with such wanton words, they congratulated each other for their clever use of English, and did continue: three Acts later, and with apologies to another DWM]:
All qvetches: Double, double, toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second qvetch: Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.
Whereupon Fringe surprises the ladies, in their dark cave, and proclaims: How now, you secret, black, and midnights hags! What is't you do?
And, [the moral of this story]
The say in unison: A deed without a name.
Shakespeare wrote about nan, jfburch and harpo!!!
I asked him up here, and, to my surprise, he authorized me to disclose, with full approval, a limited license, and further protected by the fair use doctrine, that after he finished laughing, he put down his goblet, and composed this thought:
Prologue: Fair is foul and foul is fair: [the three wholelangwitches proclaim], Hover through the fog and filthy air.
All wholelangwitches: Triple, trouble, JTL, we'll coordinatedly strain to burst your bubble.
another DWM
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kathy
Citizen
Username: Kathy
Post Number: 766
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:05 am: | |
Dead One, Clever as always, and as always not addressing the point with your poison pen. The question posed to Fringe by Cathy and Harpo still remains unanswered, to wit: Has there ever been a language arts curriculum that was successful for all the students in a given place and time? If so, kindly produce it; and if not, why are you making that a requirement here, and rejecting any curriculum that has not met it?
P.S. I have actually met Harpo, Nan and JFBurch and can assure you that they are three separate people. (And not a witch in the bunch.) |
fringe
Citizen
Username: Fringe
Post Number: 302
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 7:54 am: | |
Are the posters above acknowledging that the current District Language Arts curriculum does not meet the needs of [a number to be debated]of students? If so, do they accept the damage as a natural part of a progreesive program? If not, what is their solution?
JTL |
mck
Citizen
Username: Mck
Post Number: 637
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:12 am: | |
excuse me, but: why can't we use a coupla different curricula? |
Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 655
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:46 am: | |
Thank you Kathy.
But, you can't be too careful.
And, they are wholelangwitches.
A dangerous brew.
DWM |
Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 656
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:46 am: | |
No disrespect to witches.
Some of my best friends are witches.
DWM |
jfburch
Citizen
Username: Jfburch
Post Number: 1318
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 1:01 pm: | |
Harpo, the NJ School Report cards provide data on all schools, including test scores. Starting with 2003, they will have NCLB reporting.
The 2002 report cards are at:
http://nj.evalsoft.com/
The 2002 NCLB report cards are at:
http://education.state.nj.us/rc/
2003 data has not yet been released.
The NCLB data is broken out by race, among other things and shows a racial achievement gap in NJ state test scores. There is also data on economically disadvantaged kids (of any race) and special ed kids (of any race) and several other categories. Since kids can be in more than one category, it is impossible from that data to clearly disentangle the effects of race, SES, or special needs, though it's pretty clear that there is a gap.
I don't know of any more detailed or formal study here. |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1178
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 5:39 am: | |
Dead,
If anyone is drinking out of a cauldron it has to be you. Did you catch Memoli's letter in the NR yesterday? He listed the recommendations of the 1998 LA review committee, which you were on. None of them were as you have been claiming for years on MOL. There was no recommendation for phonemic awareness training k-3, and no recommendation to adopt a core reading program.
You have been rewriting history or maybe falling in with some bad 'shrooms. Are you a member of ACE? That would explain it too, in an "all of the above" kind of way. |
fringe
Citizen
Username: Fringe
Post Number: 304
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 7:32 am: | |
So, what's happened to the "no single curriculum" folks? Trapped by their own logic? |
harpo
Citizen
Username: Harpo
Post Number: 1290
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 12:50 pm: | |
thank you jfburch
Diversity Man: Did you read Macbeth to the end? Shakespeare's witches are correct in their predictions.
kathy: Thanks for saving me from the witch-hunters! I didn't realize we know each other. I wonder who you are!
mck: Does No Child Left Behind allow more than one curriculum?
fringe: I can only speak for myself. I assume any classroom -- whether you use one curricula or 20 -- is going to have failing students. Those students need more help than the other students. What I do object to -- and I assume everybody does -- is setting the educational bar so low everybody passes.
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Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 659
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 1:22 pm: | |
nan, you wicked wicca-ite:
wholelangwitches, indeed.
and, it is Fringe who should watch out.
Are there any trees near his house?
What's his wife to do - introduce tragedy to second graders?
As to the wickedly delicious and out of context mea culpa, i.e., don't blame me for our failures, it's strictly business, well, a strained reading of the report.
The report was authored by the district's own internal curriculum facilitators, to the extent there was a curriculum.
Incredibly, no curriculum could be produced for the committee for months. There was no K - 2 curriculum to speak of, just some typed up notes and copyright infringements mass produced for the teachers.
The News Record letters page may have more to say in the near future, including the truth and nothing but the truth.
Yes, Virginia, the implementation of the teaching of systematic, explicit phonemic awareness, grammar (yes, a rumored skill), and spelling, district wide for starters, was recommended.
The report included timelines as well.
Maybe Memoli forgot.
This DWM did not.
The materials are available at the district offices. Read them and weep.
Committee member Slafkes can confirm, should you care.
Enough for now. I will not return to this topic for a while, and until you have read the report and appendices.
The truth shall make you three free.
DWM
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mellie
Citizen
Username: Mellie
Post Number: 416
Registered: 4-2002
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 1:26 pm: | |
Huh -I am paying in excess of $12000 pa in taxes and there is no curriculum ?
This cannot be true...? |
Diversity Man
Citizen
Username: Deadwhitemale
Post Number: 660
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 5:33 pm: | |
K - 2, coming soon to your local theater.
Ask for a copy at you local elementary school.
And read the 1997 - 1998 committee report, and appendices.
DWM |
nan
Citizen
Username: Nan
Post Number: 1181
Registered: 2-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 7:04 pm: | |
"What's his wife to do - introduce tragedy to second graders? "
Well, I can't even begin to guess what insights Fringe's wife might might have into tradgedy, but if she wants to borrow my copy of Machbeth For Kids she can privateline me and I'll be glad to send it along.
It's a fun book and it's for second graders. They've simplified some of the language and included kid's drawings and writing. I picked it up at Goldfinch Books in town. they have the whole "Shakespeare Can Be Fun!" series.
I've heard the kids over at Seth Boyden do Shakespeare. |
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