This is the first time I have addressed an educational issue in my blog. While I am not afraid to state my opinion publicly, as many of my co-workers no doubt know, it is difficult to do without alienating others that I work with or angering some I work for. My intention in this blog is not to deride any individual but to seek clarity on an issue. Finally, while my comments may seem to be those of a critic and a "know it all", I claim to be neither. I am well aware that as an educator I have faults but I do seek self-improvement and that is why I write. The process congeals my sometimes disparate thoughts into a cohesive thesis.
The suggestions herein are intended as a guide not a blueprint. Some applications will not make sense in certain settings and I do not consider my suggestions complete.
How Do We Fix Failure ...........................................Michael Raucci
Recently in a group setting, a colleague posed the following question; How do we, as teachers, help kids who are failng? Or prevent kids from failing? Admittedly, my first impression of this vague, open-ended question was that an answer was untenable and bound up in hopeless debate. I thought, "Perhaps tomorrow we will address the issue of how to attain world peace". On second look however, it is a laudable question for an educator to ask and a productive question for 'in the trenches' educators to debate.
The debate began with the question, "What percentage of students failing is acceptable?" Of course, this is a loaded question, for which the only idealistically acceptable answer is 0%. But while idealists often ask excellent questions, they rarely provide productive answers. The correct answers is, "It depends." In an honors class, the answer actually is 0% but after that, the make-up of the class will to a certain degree establish the acceptable failure rate. In addition, the class itself might dictate a certain failure rate. Harvard students taking 'Basket Weaving 101' should have a 0% failure rate while middle school students taking 'Quantum Mechanics' should expect a very high failure rate.
In my opinion, the question being posed is too ill-defined to allow for constructive analysis. A better approach is to break the question down into some component parts. What factors play into a student failing or succeeding? What commonalities do most failing students or most successful students possess? What juxtaposing factors do failing and successful students have? Are there trends? An effective way to determine this is to look at the top 10% of achievers and make a list of the reasons why they succeed. Similarly, look at the lowest 10% of achievers and make a list of the reasons why they do not succeed. In addition, look at the teachers who are the most effective at getting students to learn. Make a list of the attributes which contribute to their success. Also, look at the teachers who are the least successful and make a list of the attributes which contribute to their lack of success. There are other groupings for which this algorithm can be carried out; parents of students who succeed vs. parents of children who do not succeed or schools whose students are generally more successful vs. schools whose students are not successful. This process can be further extended to school districts, or states, or countries (the U.S. is frequently portrayed in the media countered with Japan and high scorinig European nations), etc.
Before proceeding it would seem prudent to define failure. Failure is not when an individual falls short of their full potential, for no one ever truly reaches their full potential. Its equivalent to counting to infinity. There's always something more. As vague as it may sound, failure is not achieving one's goals. In education, goals are an amalgamation of the desires of the state, the community, the district, the school, the teacher, the parents, and of course the student. The consequences of failure are primarily suffered by the student though longer term effects can carry up through the hierarchy when failure rates increase. Within this formula, the three biggest contributors to goal setting and success or failure at attaining those goals are the parents, the teachers, and the students, assuming a progressive modern society where equal opportunity for all is an ideal (A government that does not allow for equal access to education for all citizens stymies the potential of the excluded). The order I have listed the big three is important. While it can change depending on the personalities of the individuals, parents play the largest role in student goal setting and attainment, followed by teachers, and then students. Each has a significant enough role that they can unilaterally sabotage success. Some educators will undoubtedly think that students play a more significant role than teachers when it comes to success or failure but physiologically children are neurologically immature humans, who require adult supervision and guidance. Evolutionarily, the tradeoff for our giant brains is that most of our cerebral development takes place after we are born, making children helpless and dependent upon their parents. Left to their own devices, children will often make poor long term decisions because the frontal cortex which governs long term planning and the ability to forecast the future consequences of current actions does not fully develop until the mid to late twenties. For these reasons, children are afforded the special status of novices when it comes to responsibility. Don't get me wrong, students can and sometimes do wield the power to single-handedly destroy the road to success but that is rare and usually involves either the parent or teacher or both giving up on that troubled child.
Success or failure will differ from student to student just as goals will differ, therefore setting benchmark criteria upon which to judge all students is not always appropriate. This is the basis upon which special needs students are granted classroom and assessment modifications. While one student's consensus goals may be to score 85% or above for the quarter, another's may be to complete 75% of the assignments, a third's might be to attend class at least 3 out of every 5 days, while a fourth's might be to simply get through the day without getting hurt by aggressive students or adults around them. These goals are quite different from each other and clearly some of these students require interventive steps towards creating more constructive goals but the point is that each student presents with a different set of goals. Some present with the same goals everyday while others' goals change continuously.
The overwhelming scapegoat from the teacher's pespective when it comes to student failure is the parents. I believe that in fact the majority of the blame does in fact rest with the parents. When one examines the list of attributes of succeeding vs. failing students the glaring dissimilarity is parents who care, parents who actively supervise, parents who provide positive role modeling, parents who communicate, parents who create loving safe environments, parents who impose, parents who help versus parents who either don't do these things at all or don't do them well. Parents who completely dissociate themselves from the process until the report card arrives are never happy with the outcome.
Parental inadequacy does not however remove responsibility from educators to come up with ways to improve the lot of their students and in so doing improve themselves and their methodologies. Introspection is a difficult thing, especially if the expectation is to find things that are wrong or being done poorly. Even more difficult then introspection is taking steps to change those discovered faults and inadequacies. What can teachers do:1) Identify non-special education students in need of closer supervision (special education students have already been identified and are already working closely with a special education teacher. It is an enormous strain on a regular ed. teacher's time to deal with 10-20 special education student's needs, while simultaneously doing plans, conducting classes, grading papers, etc. for 135 students and working to provide additional assistance to the identified regular ed. students in need of assistance. )
2) Make a list of students who require assistance.
3) Divide those students into those that require the assistance of a guidance counselor, the school psychologist or social worker, and/or CAT referral or academic assistance. Notify the parents of these students.
4) The list should be dynamic and should be updated no less frequently than monthly.
5) Take special note of students who also disrupt others' education. Deal with them first. Do they require an alternate learning site, will counseling help, what about seating changes or schedule changes, could a medical evaluation be suggested? Find out why they are acting out and develop a strategy to limit their intrusions on other's learning opportunities. Meeting with these students to discuss the issue would be effective. Make it like a strategizing session where the student themself is an equal participant in hashing out a solution. I believe this would be more successful intially if the parents were notified of the intent to meet with their child but that the parent did not attend the initial meeting with their child. The initial meet should geared toward layin out the problem as the teachers see it, listening to the student's perception of the situation and then working with the student to hammer out a solution.
6) Assign all students on the list an advisor whose job will be to monitor that students progress and needs. Talking to his or her teachers about assignments, behavior and learning will fulfill the advisors obligations for data. Meeting with that student at least weekly will provide a solid relationship. It is far easier for one teacher to follow the progress of 3-6 students and interact with their parents than it is to have all teachers closely monitor 130-150 students and interact with their parents. It also allows frustrated parents to interact with only one teacher who is knowledgable about all of their child's academic and social affairs instead of with 6. This delegated network design would function best if the school was using teams. Part of team time could be used to meet with advisees.
How can individual teachers help parents and students:
1) Use the internet to post homework and grades. The technology exists and it allows concerned parents and students to be completely knowledgable of assignments, due dates, and grades. For overwhelmed teachers, it shifts some responsibility to the parents for monitoring their own child's responsibilities and development.
2) When there are lengthy assignments, particularly written ones, create check points where progress on the assignment can be verified and feedback/clarification can be provided (rough drafts on lengthy papers or having written questions be handed in in stages, etc.). A zero on a big project or paper can demolish a kids GPA and ruin what may have been an otherwise respectable average. Creating checkpoints allows the teacher to monitor students who may not be meeting the criteria of the assignment or who are having difficulty getting started.
3) Everyone has bad days. In my class, the lowest homework grade and the lowest lab/quiz grade are dropped. Those 2 grades do not count toward the quarter average. This provides a reasonable buffer for students and for myself.
4) Being in class counts for something. I believe that no student who attends class should receive a grade below 50% for a quarter. Giving grades of 25% or 31%, etc. disincentivizes the student for the remainder of the year. There is almost no way an average or below average student can recover from such a low grade. Once they realize that they have no hope of passing for the year, there is no reason for them to try anymore. Students who are not in class often enough to receive a 50% should receive an incomplete.
5) Accept late work. Remember, the goal is for them to learn what we teach. By all means, penalize them for handing things in late, but the "now or never" method is unfair, unrealsitic and incompassionate.
6) Entertain them. Some will disagree with me on this one but I feel strongly about it. The naysayers retort that it is not their job to entertain, it is their job to teach. My reply is that the rules have changed. Our children's culture is all about being entertained. It pervades all aspects of their lives. The average 8-25 year old spends 90% of their free time being entertained by some third party...Ipod, radio, TV, internet, movies, video games. Their brains have developed within this entertainment framework. They learn within the context of being entertained. If that is the only way they can learn or if that is the easiest way for them to learn then that is what we as educators must do. We must cloak our lesson within a vessel of entertainment if we want every student to be reached. There will be some students that don't require this but more and more will as time passes.
7) Finally, consider the use of authentic assessment methods. Sometimes, 2 students who are equally knowledgable about a learned topic will score remarkably different if given the same test. Authentic assessment offers students different ways of demonstrating their knowledge of a subject. It presumes that different students can express their mastery of a topic through the use of different and distinct intelligences (as defined by Gardner) and that experiential assessment allows the student to demonstrate their critical thinking skills within the context being assessed.
Finally, there are the students themselves. How do we encourage them to become intrinsically motivated and to value education and learning. We (parents, teachers, administrators, etc.) must model just that; by being involved in academic pursuits, by discussing the books we have read and the scientific breakthroughs we've encountered, by writing, by debating, by inventing, and so on. Somtimes allowing students to enter into the community and into the discussion as equals allows them to see our perspective more clearly. Establishing lines of communication between adults and children is crucial to their understanding of how learning can impact their lives. Without these communicative lines, the only message they will get is from the ever pervasive entertainment industry whose message is that you can have anything you want, it all comes easy and there are few consequences to one's inappropriate actions.
Failure is not defined by a number. It is an unattained educational goal. The student neither unillaterally dictates the goal or unilaterally succeeds or fails in achieving it. Different students require different goals and different methods by which to attain those goals. As educators we need to embrace this reality while at the same time working within the confines of the conventional numeric system of grading. In order to achieve their educational goals, some students are going to require guidance and cajoling and in some instances innovative approaches. In addition, we need to provide a framework upon which success can be built and encouraged. I have provided what I believe to be a starting point for such a framework. I welcome your comments, criticisms and additions. (doctorraucci@yahoo.com)
Since, by the way, this is my blog, I would like to comment on a pet peeve of mine; standardized testing. I do not believe that as answers are garnered through the process explained above that any right minded educator will conclude that the solution for any group or individual student is more standardized testing or more practice for standardized testing. Standardized tests evaluate superficial knowledge and are a poor indicator of future success. Practicing how to take standardized tests has limited advantages beyond providing some comfort to students who may not adapt well to a test which is organized or formatted in a way which is unfailiar to them. Beyond that, it superficially raises scores when in fact there is no increase in understanding. Finally, overutilization of standardized tests and micromanaged state-curricula have the overall effect of reducing the depth of knowledge which is explored in any particular subject and more importantly negatively impact a goal loftier than learning a 'bucket of facts'. Learning how to learn, learning to enjoy learning and learning how to integrate and apply knowledge are far more important in today's society, especially since technological innovations allow us to have all facts at our fingertips (literally) at all times. Instead of filling our student's heads with facts, we should be concentrating on developing their critical thinking skills, their curiosity and their creativity. We should be making learning fun. We can not move ahead by looking behind. Many of the methodologies of yesteryear will not work. This is why we need to stop allowing educational policy to be dictated by politicians whose last legitimate interaction with primary and secondary schooling took place in the 1960's and '70's. No Child Left Behind, The Race to the Top, merit pay and many other politician initiated salves do not serve the students. They serve political agendas, the primary of which is strumming the purse strings of the electorate who want tax relief and who are responsible for providing that politician with a well paying, prestigious, perk laden, comfortable job come election time.