Comments

Hey...the entire Province of Ontario will be doing differentiated instruction next year.

Oh goody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- SmartestTractor - 22 Apr 2006

How much you want to bet that the instruction given to the teachers in the differentiated instruction professional development workshopts will not be differentiated....

Were I forced to atend such a thing, I'd be disruptive and pretend to be really slow just to see how the experts deal with an extremely heterogeneous group.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 22 Apr 2006

I would expect any competent teacher would be incredibly insulted by this cartoonish explanation, let alone the content.

Does the converse hold for a teacher who doesn't practice DI?

- Does not develop his/her professional skills

- Delivers low expectations with only one opportunity to reach them

- Does not connect students with ideas

- Does not encourage students to develop ideas on their own

- Uses negative motivating energy

- Makes no connection between content and the real world.

- Does not explain to students what they are going to learn and why

I guess Differentiated Instruction is good because it is better than bad teaching.

-- SteveH - 22 Apr 2006

can you imagine just how furious these teachers must be?

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

I suppose some teachers - especially the younger ones, just out of ed school - are up for it, or are trying to do it already.

But just how happy are the older ones going to be to have this forced down their throats by a brand-new superintendent who's been here for 2 years.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

Remember the ktm guest comment?

Here's the passage I'm now starting to understand:

Steadily, a handful of central and building level adminstrators shuffle through your life. All they care about is their next job. Irvington is simply a stepping stone to the next level in their rat race lives. You get your tenure after three principals and two superintendants.

Since you began teaching, you have faced more programs than Catherine could even imagine in her most cynical moment as a helicopter parent. You very quickly learn not to believe in any program that is prescribed.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

That comment talked about my being ignorant of 'a larger problem.'

I'm starting to see the larger problem.

The president of the school board sent Ed an email saying we're doing differentaited instruction essentially because everyone's doing. This is the new consensus.

I'm beginning to think that ambitious administrators - our proconsul principal is very ambitious - advance through their careers by being putative change agents, bringing with them the newest programs from ed school.

They are given a 5-year contract, during which time they implement the program.

Then they move on to their next position on the strength of having implemented whatever they implemented in their previous position.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

Smartest Tractor hey! congrats!

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

Rudbeckia

How much you want to bet that the instruction given to the teachers in the differentiated instruction professional development workshopts will not be differentiated....

yeah, well, especially given the top-down nature of the current administration

actually, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised to learn that they'll have their facilitators force the teachers to work in cooperative groups

I'm with Ed

I keep thinking about the genius Latin teacher at the high school

Are they going to force her to work in cooperative groups?

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

Were I forced to atend such a thing, I'd be disruptive and pretend to be really slow just to see how the experts deal with an extremely heterogeneous group.

Well I think we've got plenty of that going on right now, amongst the students at the middle school.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

We're pretty much training an entire generation in the methods and effectiveness of passive aggression.

This is why I've chosen to model aggressive-aggression here on the web.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

The president of the school board sent Ed an email saying we're doing differentaited instruction essentially because everyone's doing. This is the new consensus.

At one time the consensus was that the earth was flat and the center of the universe.

-- KDeRosa - 22 Apr 2006

"I'm beginning to think that ambitious administrators - our proconsul principal is very ambitious - advance through their careers by being putative change agents, bringing with them the newest programs from ed school."

For some reason the change only goes in one direction: from bad to worse.

-- CharlesH - 22 Apr 2006

Catherine: I have attended workshops on cooperative learning and collaborative learning where the information was presented as a lecture! Ooof!

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 22 Apr 2006

I have attended workshops on cooperative learning and collaborative learning where the information was presented as a lecture! Ooof!

well.......

speechless

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

I guess you could count yourself lucky....

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

At one time the consensus was that the earth was flat and the center of the universe.

It really is astounding.

We are told, routinely, that we are doing what we're doing because other people are doing it, too.

Often this means that Scarsdale is doing it. Scarsdale uses TRAILBLAZERS, so we use TRAILBLAZERS.

Given Scarsdale's reputation for good public schools, that at least makes some sense.

But lately we're hearing simply that everyone else is doing it.

The latest issue of IRVINGTON INSIGHTS has a long article on character education in Irvington that opens with a line saying, 'Character education is a buzzword everywhere, but in Irvington it's a reality.'

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

For some reason the change only goes in one direction: from bad to worse.

well....I wish I knew more about recent history in Dobbs Ferry. The Dobbs Ferry middle school is closer to my house than the Irvington Middle School, and Dobbs has an IB program.

Apparently Dobbs, in the 1990s (I think) decided to build a new middle school, and to design it with open classrooms. (I've probably got dates & details wrong, but the jist is correct.)

That was a debacle, and people started pulling their kids out of the school & sending them to private school - AND HOUSING PRICES FELL.

Dobbs' prices are, I'm told, significantly lower than Irvington's.

Sometime after that people voted down the school budget....

And at some point a new principal came in and brought in an IB program.

(Again, this is a fractured history; I just heard the account from a guy who lives in Ardsley, but it's widely believed that the Dobbs middle school was awful, and then became much better.)

Needless to say, we, too, have a weak middle school, but no one's talking International Baccalaureate.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Apr 2006

differentiatedinstruction

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Sep 2006