How NY is Screwing Up the Common Core
Previously, I’ve explained why I like what the Common Core does for Social Studies learning and teaching. My latest piece for the New York Times’ Schoolbook takes on the implementation of the new standards:
Teachers who focus on content and test-prep are sadly doing all that is necessary to prepare students for the exam. A recent study by Gabriel Reich of Virginia Commonwealth University found that the Global Regents Exam does not call for any historical thinking skills, but rather knowledge of history content, basic literacy and “test-wiseness.”
The history Regents exams do not ask students to do anything that meets the overwhelming majority of the new Common Core standards.
It is particularly troubling then to find that the state does not seem to have a concrete plan in place to change the history regents exams.
Please read the whole piece, and add your comments here or there.
My Students Solve the World’s Problems
For the past five years, I held a school “History Day” fair, which I always called “the best thing I do.” As I’m teaching a senior government/economics course this year, I decided to hold “Citizenship Night” yesterday. Students completed Project Citizen portfolios, and we opened up the doors of our school to the public to hear students discuss their work. Project Citizen asks students to identify a public policy problem in their community. They then researched the problem, evaluated alternative solutions, developed their own solution in the form of a public policy, and created a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy.
The work my students presented last night was impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the passion in their voices as they shared their thoughts with members of the public. It was a testament to the amazing things young women and men will do when they are given some freedom to choose a topic, instruction and practice in research skills, and an authentic public audience for their work. Yesterday was the first time in seven years of teaching in NYC that I had 100% of projects completed on time, and for most of my students, it was the best work they’ve done. In the coming weeks, I’ll post photos of the work as well as some more information about what into the event.
There was a professional photographer on hand who took incredible photos (a little tricky to find: Go to http://jaydorfmanphotography.com/, click on the little arrow button, scroll down on the list in the top-right corner, and click ISA Citizenship Night). Gotham Schools has also an absolutely tremendous write-up of the event that, I have to admit, included some information from my students I didn’t even know yet. From Jessica Campbell at Gotham:
“Don’t be nervous,” Young Writers’ history teacher Stephen Lazar told his 72 seniors last night. The seniors were buzzing around the warm cafeteria, prepping their final citizenship projects for the imminent arrival of evaluators, who would be assessing their work and knowledge. “They’re nervous to hear what you’re going to do with the world.”
Citizenship Night Tonight!
If you happen to be in the Brooklyn-area and are free from 5:00-6:30 pm tonight, please join me for the Academy of Young Writers 1st ever Citizenship Night.
There, our seniors will present their work as part of Project Citizen. Project Citizen, sponsored by the Center for Civic Education, is a curricular program for students, youth organizations, and adult groups that promotes responsible participation in local and state government. The program helps participants learn how to monitor and influence public policy. In the process, they develop support for democratic values and principles, tolerance, and feelings of political efficacy.
Groups of seniors identified a public policy problem in their community. They then researched the problem, evaluated alternative solutions, developed their own solution in the form of a public policy, and created a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy. My students developed a portfolio of their work and are eager to present their project to civic-minded community members.
Students are taking on a range of issues, including:
- Cyber bullying
- Internet Privacy/Piracy
- Gentrification
- New York City School Reform
- Domestic Violence
- Animal Cruelty
- Trafficking
- Obesity
- Gay Rights
We hope you will join us to listen to what our students have to say, ask them difficult questions, and potentially help them begin to make the changes they wish to see.
The Academy for Young Writers’ Citizenship Night will take place on Tuesday, March 20 from 5-6:30 pm in the cafeteria of our current building at 183 S. 3rd St in Williamsburg.
(For those of you not in NYC, I will share pictures and more here in the coming days)
Help Wanted: Existential Teaching Dilema
This evening, everyone in my critical friends group is sharing an “existential” dilema we’re struggling with about our practice. Here’s mine:
This is the question I’ve struggled with since I began planning my Government/Economics course last summer: How do I choose/balance between the following modes of praxis in a course where I’m not concerned with a massive amount of content for a state exam?
- Teaching through inquiry, which best develops students’ ability to think critically and to learn how to learn. In true open inquiry, learning a specific body of knowledge is limited or sacrificed.
- Teaching through extensive reading, watching, and research to gain the necessary cultural literacy to enter adult society and assume the responsibilities of citizenship. Given the tremendous amount of information students need, this limits the emphasis on skill development.
- Teaching students to do authentic intellectual work (which often, but not always, is through Project Based Assessments), which emphasizes the practical skills of communication and production, as well as have students engage with specific content.
Some notes towards an answer:
I recently re-read Horace’s Compromise, where Ted Sizer writes that schools should only really focus on four things:
- Helping students develop understanding, which is done by questioning.
- Helping students to gain knowledge, which is done by telling.
- Helping students develop skills, which is done through coaching.
- Helping students obtain decency
There seems to be a strong correlation between Sizer’s first three duties of an “essential” school and the three modes of praxis I struggle to balance. At the school level, I think there is a clear need to balance all three, along with ensuring all students are decent people (and given that most of my thinking right now is about macro-curriculum planning for the school I’m helping to open next fall, having that clarity is a huge help). My feeling is that a thoughtfully and intentionally structured school would be filled with classes that allow students and teachers to primarily focus on one of the three areas, to make sure that the course’s transfer goals are clear, and to decrease the cognitive load on students, allowing for maximum development.
In the overwhelming majority of schools though, there is little attention to how the entire curriculum works together. At best, there is some alignment vertically within subject areas, or horizontally across grades. It then falls to the thoughtful teacher to make an independent decision on how to address these three goals…
I’m very curious to hear how teachers, parents, and students would respond to this question.
What the Common Core Means for History Learning & Teaching
I’m part of a roundtable on teachinghistory.org on the question, “What do the Common Core State Standards mean for history teaching and learning?” My take:
I am pretty sure I am supposed to be against the Common Core Standards…[but they] offer us an opportunity to broaden the conception of our discipline from one that focuses on helping students acquire an established body of knowledge to one that emphasizes the historical thinking skills that are central to constructing this knowledge. What the standards do in a simple and elegant fashion is clearly articulate the disciplinary skills necessary not only for reaching the relatively low bar of “college and career readiness,” but also for the much greater calling of creating an informed and critical citizenry.
Read the rest of mine here, and the whole series of insightful posts here.
Teaching World-Changers: Lessons From the Civil Rights Movement
Seven years ago I fell in love with two wonderful woman named Bernice Robinson and Septima Clark, who founded the Citizenship Education Program, the little known backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. Without these two, I am certain we would not be celebrating Martin Luther King Day this Monday. We in education have much to learn from them:
The primary goal of the Citizenship Education Program was to teach and develop first-class citizens. And every aspect of the program was grounded in this goal—from teacher training sessions to day-to-day practices to the rhetoric of staff correspondence. Dozens of adult literacy programs had targeted African-Americans in the South—but none were as successful as the CEP, because too many narrowly focused on the skill of literacy, rather than its application in citizenship.
In my opinion, we have made a similar mistake with skill-based competency testing under No Child Left Behind. A curriculum and testing regimen that only focuses on skill development outside of meaningful and relevant application cannot prepare students and communities for 21st-century success. I hope that with the implementation of the Common Core standards, we will not make the same mistake again. As teachers, we need to develop a clear sense of our own purpose—and make every effort to ensure that how we teach each day aligns with that purpose.
Read the rest at Education Week Teacher. It’s an honor to share part of their story.
