Rush to Get in Line?

At my last department meeting, I met with my colleagues to discuss curriculum. This seems to be a never-ending discussion, as it seems we are perpetually redoing the curriculum. In any case, one colleague attended a Principals' Conference where one of the speakers mentioned the direction education may be heading in our state. Apparently, the idea was espoused to standardize the curriculum. How much? So much so that the curriculum would pretty much dictate what is taught and when. Moreover, in lieu of the state testing that takes place once a year, several quarterly assessments will be given to measure the progress of learning that has occured. The logic, I'm guessing, is that if teachers are going to be evaluated, they better be evenly evaluated on a level playing field...which seems to sound all good. Maybe. Or maybe not. I am concerned that such a move would constrict teachers and limit their creativity in finding novel teaching methods. If we are all doing the same thing, the same way, and at the same time, how, then, will there be any difference? If you want to identify your better teachers, then allow them the freedom and creativity to teach their students most effectively. The intent of such changes, I believe, is to try to make the teaching conditions equal. Sadly, I believe such changes may have the effect lowering the effectiveness of some teachers, especially your more creative ones. A look at history, more specifically our American Revolution, points out the stupidity of standing in a line wearing red coats while others are shooting at you. We won our independence by being creative and fighting in unconventional ways. Such has served us well historically, I might add. With New Jersey posting scores much higher than other states in the union, I'm left wondering, are we trying to change too much too quickly. And what the consequences be...

Arab Spring in Africa?

I received an email from a former student who is now a freshman. In the email, she mentioned how she is inspired to promote the message about "Kony 2012," a movement to capture the man who is ranked the number one criminal of the world. And how? Through the use of technology to make him "famous" and to curtail his ability to avoid being arrested. The idea is to use technology -- You Tube and other social networking mediums -- to spread the word of his criminal abuse and exploitation of children, ranging from abducting boys as young as seven or eight and forcing them to serve in his army as well as the raping of young girls. Why has he not been caught already? The best reason is that he is not newsworthy enough, though, as the creator of the movement mentions, had one child in the United States been treated in this manner, it would have become headline news. So how is the movement gaining momentum? So far, several celebrities have joined the cause, hoping to bring an equivalent notoriety to Kony, and the upshot is that a once disinterested United States congress has dispatched over one-hundred advisors to Uganda to aid in Kony's capture. Additionally, the movement plans a "Kony 2012" day on April 20th to make his notoriety known worldwide, which brings me to my former student. She asked, as I mentioned, for me to try to organize the movement in the middle school. However, I noted immediately the red flag of mixing politics and education directly. With that said, I was going to post the link to "Kony 2012" on Edmodo for my students' own interest (and did so, briefly) until I received an email from our school principal not to allow students to hang any posters about Kony. She added that the topic would be addressed in social studies. The video begins with the phrase, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come," and I believe the seed of this idea originated in the powerful and sweeping changes in the "Arab Spring" which relied upon technology to bring down long-enduring strong-armed dictators. I must say that I have mixed feelings about my principal's decision, and, in fairness to her, have not been able to talk to her about the reasons for proceeding this way. Of course, I am mindful of the ages of the students I teach and of the disturbing nature of Kony's actions. However, technology is shrinking both the time and space of our world -- the tragedies of 9-11 are evidence of that -- and, as educators, we must prepare our children for the realities of the world they are growing into, which, in this case, is a rather harsh one.

Pardon My French!

Today I read and learned about Cognitive Load, and one of the concepts behind this theory is that the working memory is capable of handling a certain number of items at one time. And that magic number, it turns out, is about seven. Hence, phone numbers are of this length to provide the maximum number of phone numbers but still be capable of retained in memory (though, truth be told, with cell phones today most everyone would be lost in the dark of important numbers if they were to lose their phone, as these no longer have to be dialed but simply summoned through a contacts list. Yikes! It occurs to me that I can recall rotory dial phones and how frustrating it was to misdial a number if it were the sixth or seventh number. I'm getting old, I guess!). Anyway, one lesson I teach my students in English underscores the importance of visualization and background knowledge. I provide students with two passages -- one in English about Australian cricket, the other in French about the geography of mountains and rivers in France (see pictures below). Naturally, one would expect to comprehend and retain the passage written in English. However, since the passage is about cricket, with which most students are totally unfamiliar, students tend to have extremely poor comprehension and recall of the text. The French text is accompanied with an illustration and, while written in French, enough of the nouns are Latinate to make them resemble the English ones and, combined with the illustration, the students' comprehension surpasses that of the passage about cricket. Seems schema and illustrations do matter with comprehension, retention, and learning. Something to think about -- Penzez vous!