TieredAssignments < Kitchen

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   * Posted by: Main.CatherineJohnson
   * LogDate: May 17, 2006 @ 20:45 
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Ah yes, another <a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html">Harrison Bergeron</a> moment.

When I was in 7th grade, our science tests were much like this. The dumb kids got easier tests with fewer questions.

-- Main.RudbeckiaHirta - 18 May 2006


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Oh yeah, this seems like a good way to make sure the slower kids never catch up.

-- Main.KDeRosa - 18 May 2006


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No wait, I'm wrong.  All of these assignments are equally wastes of time.

-- Main.KDeRosa - 18 May 2006


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Where is the "instruction"? There is none, because Tiered Instruction is in their Independent Study section. I looked through everything they had there and all I ever found (in any section) was a reference to "mini-lessons" given by the teacher. They really have to stop using the word teacher or instructor because that is not what they are doing. Differentiated Instruction with no instruction. How about Differentiated Learning. Or, "You're on Your Own Learning".

This write-up looks more like a grading rubric. Perhaps they grade based on what they expect from a child. I've seen this before in job reviews. If you always exceed expectations, then you can't get much of a raise because you are just doing what you normally do. Are they going to give a "meeting expectations" to an "Above Grade Level" child and an "exceeding expectations" to a "Below Grade Level" child, even though the former student did more and better work? Of course, if you read the information at the site, the assessment is fuzzy and all individual. Once a Below Grade Level child; always a Below Grade Level child.

Even if one really thought that tiered (differentiated expectations) is a good thing to do, the explanation and examples on this web site are just so incredibly horrible. 

Just look at this assignment. In eighth grade - "create a flag for Nunavut" is an Above Grade Level task. "Write an essay about what you would do if you were Prime Minister." Do about what? Citizenship? What in particular? "Trace your family heritage and present it." Just in Canada? How far back? Why? I've had assignments like this - poorly thought out and whipped together by lazy teachers.

Not only is it a wrong approach to education, it is done very badly.


-- Main.SteveH - 18 May 2006


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<bitterness>
Not a single one of these activities will be graded for quality. Did the Slow kid write <i>well</i> about his most memorable trip in Canada? Did the Medium kid do a <i>good</i> job representing the life of a PM? Did the Fast kid <i>find the right amount of important details</i> about the creation of Nunavat?


This is about teachers sending their teaching work home for parents to do.
</bitterness>

As you might guess, we have had quite a few writing assignments sent home to our family this year from the public school. I have been working really hard to teach my boys to write. I have been feeling bitter about this.

Differentiated Instruction does not happen in real life. It is about as scarce as Direct Instruction.

-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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<FONT SIZE=+3><font color="#ff0000">IT'S A NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!<FONT SIZE=2>%BLACK%

-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006


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HARRISON BERGERON

<FONT SIZE=+3><font color="#ff0000">NOOOOOOO!!!!!<FONT SIZE=2>%BLACK%

-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006


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<B>Becky</B> if you have 20 or 30 extra hours....and feel like telling us what you're doing, I'd love to hear.

(And of course I have to BEG Kathy to rewrite her observations after the server crash ate them up...)

I do feel like I've got a handle on how to start, at least.

-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006


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It's a grand experiment in pre-teaching... if even one gullible parent of a 4th grader directly instructs her child how to write a summary paragraph by holding the child accountable for the quality of their paragraph, which is to say that the paragraph contains the right amount of important details... why, that's one more child who magically shows up in 6th grade already knowing how to write, and one less child that will need direct instruction in writing in 6th grade. Magical!

I've just HAD IT with writing assignments that are ASSIGNED to the student but are not GRADED constructively by the teacher as a means of instruction.

HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT





-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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Speaking of cargo cults,

teachers assign a ten-year-old to write a summary paragraph on The Lousiana Purchase. The ten-year-old is to pull the right amount of important details about that happy event from a two-page single spaced essay given out in class.

To a ten-year-old, every sentence of that essay seems as compelling and important as every other sentence BECAUSE TEN-YEAR-OLDS HAVE NO LIFE EXPERIENCE LET ALONE KNOWLEDGE OF WORLD HISTORY TO JUDGE what they can leave out of their summary and WHAT MUST NOT BE LEFT OUT.

It's this weird inversion of developmental expectations.

It's like they envision my child comfortably attired in a wool cardigan, sitting at home in a shabby leather wingback chair, thick black reading glasses perched low on his nose and hair thinning slightly on top of his head, and he puffs away thoughtfully on his pipe while he writes down <i>the right amount of important details</i> from the essay on a yellow legal pad with his leaking fountain pen.

Teachers think that if you CALL a child a writer, if adults SEE him as a writer, if we CELEBRATE and PUBLISH his writing, that good writing will follow like cargo planes landing on a South Pacific island.

But, NO IT DOESN'T.


-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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And these same teachers think that trying to teach mathematical algorithms too early will result in conceptual damage because children aren't developmentally ready.



-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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And if I complain that they are assigning summary paragraphs before they have taught my ten-year-old how to draw the right amount of important details from a larger piece of writing, they reassure me that all children are different, and my child may not be developmentally ready, and that I really shouldn't be doing his work for him.

I'm NOT DOING HIS WORK FOR HIM. I'm not letting it go, either. I'm trying to teach him how to write a summary paragraph so that he won't get used to school assignments as NOT SERIOUS.

Teachers have the <i>earnest</i> thing down pat, but teachers are <i>not serious</i>.

Whew. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Now I'll go have some breakfast.

Thanks, Catherine & all.

-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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Back from breakfast. No this isn't going to be 20 hours worth :) but maybe it will give other parents food for thought.

If my child shows up in 6th grade magically knowing how to write a good summary paragraph, it will be because I taught him. I took the time to hold him accountable for the skill of finding the right amount of important details and relaying them to the reader. The teachers here in 4th grade do not do this. They are not serious when they assign summary paragraphs.

There should be a disclaimer at the top of every assignment...

DISCLAIMER: this assignment will not be graded constructively by the teacher in any way, shape, or form. If you choose to hold your child accountable for writing a good-quality paragraph, any misery you or your child experience will be entirely of your own making. 

-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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Can I share my mental "buffet model" of progressivist teaching?

Teachers in a modern public elementary school do not force a child to learn anything, just like you shouldn't force a child to eat anything. Instead, the teacher lays out a fabulous buffet, and invites the children to join her. A child can eat whatever he likes. He does not need to eat a balanced meal, and in fact the teacher may not even offer certain foods. And in fact, there is no food, because this is a special buffet! And it's different in every classroom! Children must construct their own food according to the recipes printed on small cards where a parent might have expected trays of food to be. And in fact, there are no recipes, just the names of many different fabulous dishes your child might like to try.

Oops, I'm still feeling really bitter.

-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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A modest proposal for teacher education:

<ul><li>Suggest whole-word reading instruction?  Buffet to the head.</li>
<li>Practice constructivist math?  Buffet to the stomach.</li>
<li>Inflict "kid writing"?  A really hard buffet to the throat.</li></ul>

That's <i>my</i> "buffet model" of teaching.  I'm afraid it's not very progressivist, though.

-- Main.DougSundseth - 18 May 2006


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<font size=+2>I've just HAD IT with writing assignments that are ASSIGNED to the student but are not GRADED constructively by the teacher as a means of instruction.

HAD IT HAD IT HAD IT<font size=2>

(still feeling emphatic)

-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006


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<B>Doug</B>

you just made me LOL

-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006


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(And of course I have to BEG Kathy (Karen) to rewrite her observations after the server crash ate them up...) 

I will--I promise!!


-- Main.KarenA - 18 May 2006


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_I've just HAD IT with writing assignments that are ASSIGNED to the student but are not GRADED constructively by the teacher as a means of instruction._

Our teachers will focus somewhat on whether the kids are writing according to "the program," but will skip a lot of basic stuff like spelling, syntax, etc.

Neatness is completely ignored. I finally realized one day that he didn't know which side of the paper was the front. He was starting all of his little essays and reports on the wrong side. No one has mentioned it to him. 

Then, he will crookedly float the title above the first line and just start the body paragraph any ole' place.  Those little red lines for margins might as well not be there. In fact, the  blue lines might as well not be there either since they rarely use lined paper for anything. 



-- Main.SusanS - 18 May 2006


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I just read the Harrison Bergeron bit this afternoon...

the handicap signals I encounter in the public schools sound like this:

"INQUIRY!"

"SENSE-MAKING!"

"CONCEPTUAL!"

Every time an educator uses one of these, it stops all forward-moving thought. It's rhetorical, and it's hard to think past it.

-- Main.BeckyC - 18 May 2006


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"Teachers have the earnest thing down pat, but teachers are not serious."

I don't know if I would use serious. I call it low expectations. As you said:

"Teachers in a modern public elementary school do not force a child to learn anything, just like you shouldn't force a child to eat anything."

I think this is very true. They might talk of developmentally appropriate, but that's just a fancy way of saying low expectations. They seem to view education as some sort of intrinsic or natural thing. By setting high expectations you have to "push" a little bit and they think that is wrong. Someone once told me that a good parent is one who keeps pushing like a moving wall; slowly, continually, unwavering.

As a side comment about expectations, my son just went to another piano rating festival (in place of a family-type recital that some teachers use) where kids have to prepare and memorize one or more pieces of music and they get graded by a panel of judges. I realized that my son was one of very few kids who came from a Western European background. Most were of Asian, Indian, and Eastern European backgrounds. Talking with a few of these parents, I could see that they set very high expectations for their kids - not so much on grades, but on working hard. 

I find this expectation thing very interesting. Many parents don't actively set low expectations, but they feel very uneasy about pushing. In fact, I see this anti-push, low expectation by default theme from many parents. The other parents at the rating festival didn't seem to have any such worries. One could raise concerns about either extreme of the push scale, but my opinion is that progressive public education falls squarely on the lower end of the push or expectation scale. But, as you say, they are quite earnest about it.


-- Main.SteveH - 19 May 2006


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<b>Doug</b>, thanks for the pun. I needed a laugh.

<b>Susan</b>, been there, seen that with my son starting on the back of the paper. It's good to know that my kid is not the only one!!!

<b>Steve</b>, If a teacher was serious about teaching kids how to write a summary paragraph, I envision an entirely different process than handing out wool cardigans and leaking fountain pens to the children, and scheduling celebrations for whatever they write. Or maybe teachers ARE serious, but they are only serious about CELEBRATIONS. Anyhow,

I envision serious summary writing instruction for a ten-year-old would go something like this:

1. Have the whole class read a one page essay on a topic that is carefully constructed to be within a child's knowledge domain, and to contain details that are arguably of greater and lesser importance.
2. Tell the children they are going to help you write a summary in five sentences, after one opening sentence.
3. Going through the essay sentence by sentence from top to bottom, have the children exercise their judgment as to which sentences contain important details that must not be left out, and which details can be left out. They can only "buy" five sentences worth of details from the essay "store". There should be some give and take -- some details that were thought important at the start, will turn out to seem less important at the end and can be left out, or "put back on the shelf". But, the ability to "bargain", that is, to include two or more important details in one sentence, should be demonstrated explicitly by the teacher. And, the burning desire to take a mental shortcut by repeating one important detail in two sentences, should be explicitly condemned.
4. Write out the agreed-upon summary.
5. Then have the children read a flawed summary paragraph that was created from the essay. Have them tell you what important details are missing. Have them tell you what important detail was repeated. Make a list. Make sure the children understand WHY one detail could not be left out, and WHY another detail should not be repeated.
6. THEN, assign another essay for the children to summarize on their own during the school day. GRADE it for the quality of its representation of arguably important details.
7. THEN, if you are really serious, you will have children consolidate their summarizing skills by repeating this exercise again and again with fresh essays, throughout the year, BEFORE you assign summary paragraphs in other content areas that are NEW to the child.

I mean, we can put a man on the moon but we can't write a series of bulletproof essays for ten-year-olds to cut their summarizing teeth on???



-- Main.BeckyC - 19 May 2006


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This has been a very frustrating time for me. I've been in reactive teaching mode since February, trying to help my children DO THEIR OWN WORK assigned by the school, which is to simultaneously learn content and learn summarizing. Teachers seem nonplussed that I would, um, CARE. But I do, and perhaps it's a crippling defect of my maternal character that I don't know when to "let go". 

None of these teachers will be at my children's high school graduation. Not one.

Besides, if any of their "discovery" based teaching methods worked, why do they have to teach the same writing lessons every year from elementary school through middle and high school? Gosh, why does the syllabus look the same for 6th grade children and college freshman? Might there be a skill they should teach one year and so be able to build on it in the next year, like in math?

-- Main.BeckyC - 19 May 2006


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Becky:

I really like your process, and have copied it and printed it for later use.  (My son is in kindergarten now.)

He and I read at night before he goes to bed.  Recently, I've been reading Harry Potter to him.  Of course, we couldn't possibly finish the book in one session, so each night I've been asking him where we left off the last time we read.  I started this to help get him back into what is (for a 6-year-old) a very complex plot before we start again, but I wonder if this doesn't build the same skills.

-- Main.DougSundseth - 19 May 2006


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That is just a suggested process, breaking it down into smaller explicit bits. I am looking forward to sitting down with my older boys this summer and walking them through an easy, friendly essay, to talk about the choices we make in summarizing, without them having to learn content from the essay at the same time. You will need to add more steps as necessary!

My younger one is finishing kindergarten, too.

He has been able to listen to the Harry Potter books on tape. They are really nicely done. Good acting. Unabridged. And it amazes me what he can remember from the plot.

I should definitely ask him to re-tell stories more than I do. I ask him questions ABOUT the story, but I don't ask him to RECREATE the story.

-- Main.BeckyC - 21 May 2006


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Oh, and you'll want to learn my <i>Redenominatus</i> charm for when you teach your son fractions.

-- Main.BeckyC - 21 May 2006


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It's like <i>dimensional analyis</i>, but more fun.

-- Main.BeckyC - 21 May 2006


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<font size=-2>differentiatedinstruction<font size=2>


-- Main.CatherineJohnson - 08 Sep 2006


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