My daughter won third place in her class at the Science Fair today. I'm so very proud of her!
I had taken my son to karate class while my husband went to attend the award ceremony at her school science fair.
He brought her by the class to tell me that she won third place! I hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head and told her I was so proud of her!
Meanwhile, my husband made jokes like, "When they announced that she won third place, I felt this really strange sensation, almost like an emotion or feeling or some kind, I'm not sure what that was... do you know?" "Pride!" she said, smiling. "Hmmm," he said, "yeah, maybe so.... or indigestion, maybe. It was strange, anyway." Or, later, "Well, that's ok, kiddo, maybe next year you can win first place."
* * *
Then later, my daughter came to me crying and said she was sad because when she told me about winning third prize at the science fair, I didn't tell her I was proud of her.
What? How do I get blamed for being the one who didn't say "I'm proud of you," when it's my doofus husband who is the constant joke machine and can never simply say, "I'm proud," or "I'm happy," or "Wow, great job!" Does it need the jokes and humor to even be heard? Am I going about this all wrong? Or were my direct and honest words simply drowned out in the sea of sarcastic jokes?
Save that for later analysis; it just doesn't matter when your kid is crying. I hugged her and told her I'm very proud of her. I told her that I did tell her before that I was proud of her but that I could understand if she didn't hear me - maybe I had hugged her too tight and blocked her ears or something, but anyway even if she didn't hear it or even if I didn't say it loud enough, I felt it, I'll say it again and again until she has heard it enough times, and I still mean it. I am proud of her.
She worked hard on that project. She did it all herself, and it was an actual experiment, and she worked hard to calculate and graph the results properly. I am proud of the effort she put in, proud of the fact that the final project looked great and was well-written, and yes, proud of the fact that she won a prize.
I hope she knows that now. I hope it sunk in. I hope she remembers it.
Next time, I'll have to say it louder, and more often.
Or maybe just more sarcastically?
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday School Stew
No, not that kind of stew. Not the Sunday church kind of School, either. No, my Sunday School Stew is based on the following definitions:
Sunday, n., day of the week before Monday.
School, n., where my kid is supposed to learn stuff.
Stew, n., agitation resulting from active worry.
Read on, if you can take a lengthy rant about my frustration with my son's education (or lack of education). And please, if you have any ideas that might be helpful, leave them in the comments section.
My daughter flew through Kindergarten and First Grade. My son, not so much.
He is a smart kid (sometimes a little too much of a smart-alec), and he has a good memory in general, especially for social information. For example, the week he started preschool, his teacher talked about a horse she had when she was a kid. She did not mention the horse again. Three months later, he asked her whatever happened to her horse. She did not remember even mentioning the horse and asked him how he knew she had a horse. He said, "Miss L, you told us about your horse when I was new here." He can also spout a ton of information about his favorite Bakugan characters and what they can do. Clearly, he can remember information if it is important to him.
But he has a few problems my daughter did not have.
First, I think he is a little ADD or ADHD. He often has trouble sitting still for very long - although he is able to focus and build fairly complex things with his legos and Lincoln logs. My mom (a licensed Ph.D psychologist) has been doing some testing with him and says the tests definitely indicate at least mild ADD / ADHD. His ability level consistently tracks significantly above average, and tracks well above his achievement level (which is below average), and he has trouble focusing on boring tasks for extended periods of time.
I hesitate to have him officially diagnosed, as I'm not sure what good that would do. IEP's can be a good thing, but they can also be trouble with a capital T, as I've discovered with some of the cases I've been litigating on behalf of some clients lately. And I'm not sure yet about the medication issue. I know it is good for a lot of kids, and it might be right for my son, but I'd like to try other solutions before turning to labeling and medication.
Second - and I think a much bigger factor - is that I think he did not get the same fundamental drilling and instruction that my daughter had in Kindergarten, and I think he's not getting solid instruction now, either. When my daughter was in Kindergarten, they sat in a group and said aloud the letters and sounds every single day. They also did the number chart every single day, counting by ones, then fives, then tens, learning to add by ones and tens. The letter and number charts were prominently displayed in the room. I never saw a letter or number chart in my son's Kindergarten classroom (he is at a different school, supposedly a better school than the one my daughter attended). They sent home a letter chart, but he insisted his teacher said he did not have to do the letter combinations and sounds on the back (initial letter combinations and dipthongs such as ch, sh, ph, ou, ow, oi, ie, and fundamental building blocks like -ing, etc). He has trouble recognizing and reading those sounds now, in First Grade.
Third, he has an older sister who is hyper-competitive and cannot stand to think that her little brother might know something she does not, so she constantly tells him he "can't do" things and points out things that she knows that he does not. As a result, he is not motivated to try something if he does not immediately know it. I think he is afraid he'll be teased if he's wrong. I've tried everything with my daughter to get her to quit treating him this way, and she's getting better about it, but the damage will take a while to undo.
He had troubles learning to read last year. He didn't even want to try. I worked and worked at it and finally got him motivated to try. We did the letter charts, and then got out the "Dick and Jane" book. (Literally. It's cringe-worthy, but effective). Once he tried, he saw that he could do it and became more motivated. We still read every night for at least 15 minutes. He reads me a story, then I read him one. Sometimes he gets so excited, he wants to read me two stories. He still has trouble with some sounds, but his reading is much improved and he is tracking along at grade level, at least.
This year, he has had problems with spelling. He is at least motivated to try, but has a lot of trouble with it. His grades are ok, in part because I spend 15 minutes every morning working on his spelling with him. I talk to him about the sounds certain letter combinations make and we practice the words with those combinations, sometimes even making up other words. For example, if "ball" and "wall" are on the list, I'll ask him how to spell "mall" and "call," and he can do it. But when the teacher puts old words from a week or two prior on this week's list, it is like they are new words for him. He has to learn them all over again. What's with that?
I asked his teacher about it. I asked what method she's using in class to teach spelling so I can reinforce it more effectively at home. She said, "well, it seems to me you just have to memorize how to spell all the words." She also said she is having trouble keeping all the kids in line, having them pay attention to the spelling lessons.
Holy cow, no wonder the kid is having trouble. If she's truly not giving the kids any spelling rules, just random lists of words to spell, no wonder it's so hard for him. I mean, can you imagine memorizing the spelling of all the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language with no guidance at all about how certain sounds are generally spelled?!? And no wonder he seems to tune me out when I talk about spelling rules. It probably seems to him like random boring stuff mom has come up with, not relevant to what his teacher told him at school about just needing to memorize the words.
So, I'm working on that. We'll do flashcards with the words. We'll talk about spelling rules (even if I have to look up a bunch of stuff on the internet to make sure I'm remembering things correctly). Eventually, hopefully, he'll "get it" and have an easier time with spelling.
But now it turns out he's having issues with math, too. This week, his teacher wants him to memorize math facts such as 2+2=4, 3+3=6, 4+4=8, and so forth up to 9+9=18, plus 10+1=11 up to 10+1=19. But again, she seems not to have provided any foundation of rules or a method of understanding what it means to "add" these particular numbers. Maybe he was supposed to learn that in Kindergarten and it's not her "job" to teach it? I really don't know.
I just know that when I asked my son about it, he seemed to have no concept of what it means to "add" four plus four. I showed him 4 fingers on one hand and 4 fingers on the other hand, and he can count up to 8 and answer. But then I asked, "what's 5 plus 5" and he had no idea how to do that. And forget about 9 plus 9 - there aren't enough fingers for that one, even if he did understand the concept!
So, I made him a number chart on Friday (he said he had not seen one like it before) and we played with it all weekend. We started by simply identifying random numbers on the chart. He couldn't do it consistently at first but we practiced and now he can. Then we practiced "adding 1" to given numbers. He finally seemed to "get it." So we practiced "adding 2" to numbers. He finally could do that, too. We talked about what it means to "count by ones." Then we talked about what it means to "count by fives." We practiced counting by 5's, which he can now do. We practiced "adding 10" to given numbers, and he seems to "get" that, too. He seems to finally understand the relationships between the numbers on the chart - this one is one more than that one; this one is ten more than that one. He even counted by fives up to 200, even though the chart only goes to 100.
But he still hasn't memorized this week's math facts. He can do all the 10+x problems up to 19. After having practiced with the number chart, he "gets" it that all you have to do is replace the 0 with the number you're adding to 10. But having spent a couple of hours just learning to count properly by ones and fives and tens (things he should have learned in Kindergarten, I think!), we didn't have time to learn how to add the other numbers or to memorize the fact that 9+9=18. And those problems aren't as obvious from the chart, either.
And I'm not sure how to explain much more. I don't feel qualified to teach elementary mathematics. I was good at math in school, but I'm not trained to teach it, and first grade was too long ago - I don't remember what my teachers did to teach me. My husband is a teacher, but he teaches sixth grade, not first. Plus, he seems to think the school should teach our son and we shouldn't have to. I agree in principle, but if it's not happening, then what should I do, just sit there and watch him fall further behind?
I am a little resentful. If I wanted to home-school my son, I would have done that. But as it is, I have a job. I can't stay home all day to home-school the kids and I don't really want to. I want my kids to interact with the other kids and to be exposed to a variety of teachers and cultures and ideas.
And, done right, school (with the variety of teachers trained for different subjects such as math and music and P.E. and so forth) should be able to teach the kids more, and more effectively, than I could.
Plus, it's not fair to my son to have to go to school all day and then come home for another hour of lessons, plus 15 minutes of spelling every morning.
He has above-average intelligence. He sometimes lacks focus, but I have had very little trouble getting him to focus on math or spelling for 15 to 30 minutes at a time, and he learns the information fairly quickly when he focuses. I want the school system to teach him what he needs to know, but so far, it doesn't seem to be happening.
I'll be visiting the classroom to see exactly what the teacher does all day with the kids and to offer assistance. If the instruction seems appropriate but she truly is overwhelmed with a lot of behavior problems, maybe I can round up some parent volunteers (including me) to take turns coming in every day to help keep the kids in line so she can teach. And if the problem seems to be that my son isn't listening / paying attention, not that she's not teaching, then I'll keep supplementing and consider the ADD issue further. But if the instruction seems to be lacking, and it's not about behavior problems with the kids and/or my son, then I'll talk with her and/or with the principal about what she could do to teach spelling and math more effectively.
But meanwhile, does anyone know anything about teaching basic math to 6 year olds? Any good web sites I can look at? Any ideas for teaching addition?
Or am I crazy for thinking First Graders should learn math theory? Should I just use the flash cards and have him "just memorize" the basic math facts, as his teacher seems to want? If that is the recommended method, the thing that all schools do and that all kids need to do, then that's what we'll do.... it just seems to me like you'd explain the concepts first and teach how to add, and what it means to add, not just have kids memorize random facts. But maybe I'm just nuts.
Does anyone have any other ideas for what I can do to help my son learn - not just math, but spelling, too?
Sunday, n., day of the week before Monday.
School, n., where my kid is supposed to learn stuff.
Stew, n., agitation resulting from active worry.
Read on, if you can take a lengthy rant about my frustration with my son's education (or lack of education). And please, if you have any ideas that might be helpful, leave them in the comments section.
My daughter flew through Kindergarten and First Grade. My son, not so much.
He is a smart kid (sometimes a little too much of a smart-alec), and he has a good memory in general, especially for social information. For example, the week he started preschool, his teacher talked about a horse she had when she was a kid. She did not mention the horse again. Three months later, he asked her whatever happened to her horse. She did not remember even mentioning the horse and asked him how he knew she had a horse. He said, "Miss L, you told us about your horse when I was new here." He can also spout a ton of information about his favorite Bakugan characters and what they can do. Clearly, he can remember information if it is important to him.
But he has a few problems my daughter did not have.
First, I think he is a little ADD or ADHD. He often has trouble sitting still for very long - although he is able to focus and build fairly complex things with his legos and Lincoln logs. My mom (a licensed Ph.D psychologist) has been doing some testing with him and says the tests definitely indicate at least mild ADD / ADHD. His ability level consistently tracks significantly above average, and tracks well above his achievement level (which is below average), and he has trouble focusing on boring tasks for extended periods of time.
I hesitate to have him officially diagnosed, as I'm not sure what good that would do. IEP's can be a good thing, but they can also be trouble with a capital T, as I've discovered with some of the cases I've been litigating on behalf of some clients lately. And I'm not sure yet about the medication issue. I know it is good for a lot of kids, and it might be right for my son, but I'd like to try other solutions before turning to labeling and medication.
Second - and I think a much bigger factor - is that I think he did not get the same fundamental drilling and instruction that my daughter had in Kindergarten, and I think he's not getting solid instruction now, either. When my daughter was in Kindergarten, they sat in a group and said aloud the letters and sounds every single day. They also did the number chart every single day, counting by ones, then fives, then tens, learning to add by ones and tens. The letter and number charts were prominently displayed in the room. I never saw a letter or number chart in my son's Kindergarten classroom (he is at a different school, supposedly a better school than the one my daughter attended). They sent home a letter chart, but he insisted his teacher said he did not have to do the letter combinations and sounds on the back (initial letter combinations and dipthongs such as ch, sh, ph, ou, ow, oi, ie, and fundamental building blocks like -ing, etc). He has trouble recognizing and reading those sounds now, in First Grade.
Third, he has an older sister who is hyper-competitive and cannot stand to think that her little brother might know something she does not, so she constantly tells him he "can't do" things and points out things that she knows that he does not. As a result, he is not motivated to try something if he does not immediately know it. I think he is afraid he'll be teased if he's wrong. I've tried everything with my daughter to get her to quit treating him this way, and she's getting better about it, but the damage will take a while to undo.
He had troubles learning to read last year. He didn't even want to try. I worked and worked at it and finally got him motivated to try. We did the letter charts, and then got out the "Dick and Jane" book. (Literally. It's cringe-worthy, but effective). Once he tried, he saw that he could do it and became more motivated. We still read every night for at least 15 minutes. He reads me a story, then I read him one. Sometimes he gets so excited, he wants to read me two stories. He still has trouble with some sounds, but his reading is much improved and he is tracking along at grade level, at least.
This year, he has had problems with spelling. He is at least motivated to try, but has a lot of trouble with it. His grades are ok, in part because I spend 15 minutes every morning working on his spelling with him. I talk to him about the sounds certain letter combinations make and we practice the words with those combinations, sometimes even making up other words. For example, if "ball" and "wall" are on the list, I'll ask him how to spell "mall" and "call," and he can do it. But when the teacher puts old words from a week or two prior on this week's list, it is like they are new words for him. He has to learn them all over again. What's with that?
I asked his teacher about it. I asked what method she's using in class to teach spelling so I can reinforce it more effectively at home. She said, "well, it seems to me you just have to memorize how to spell all the words." She also said she is having trouble keeping all the kids in line, having them pay attention to the spelling lessons.
Holy cow, no wonder the kid is having trouble. If she's truly not giving the kids any spelling rules, just random lists of words to spell, no wonder it's so hard for him. I mean, can you imagine memorizing the spelling of all the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language with no guidance at all about how certain sounds are generally spelled?!? And no wonder he seems to tune me out when I talk about spelling rules. It probably seems to him like random boring stuff mom has come up with, not relevant to what his teacher told him at school about just needing to memorize the words.
So, I'm working on that. We'll do flashcards with the words. We'll talk about spelling rules (even if I have to look up a bunch of stuff on the internet to make sure I'm remembering things correctly). Eventually, hopefully, he'll "get it" and have an easier time with spelling.
But now it turns out he's having issues with math, too. This week, his teacher wants him to memorize math facts such as 2+2=4, 3+3=6, 4+4=8, and so forth up to 9+9=18, plus 10+1=11 up to 10+1=19. But again, she seems not to have provided any foundation of rules or a method of understanding what it means to "add" these particular numbers. Maybe he was supposed to learn that in Kindergarten and it's not her "job" to teach it? I really don't know.
I just know that when I asked my son about it, he seemed to have no concept of what it means to "add" four plus four. I showed him 4 fingers on one hand and 4 fingers on the other hand, and he can count up to 8 and answer. But then I asked, "what's 5 plus 5" and he had no idea how to do that. And forget about 9 plus 9 - there aren't enough fingers for that one, even if he did understand the concept!
So, I made him a number chart on Friday (he said he had not seen one like it before) and we played with it all weekend. We started by simply identifying random numbers on the chart. He couldn't do it consistently at first but we practiced and now he can. Then we practiced "adding 1" to given numbers. He finally seemed to "get it." So we practiced "adding 2" to numbers. He finally could do that, too. We talked about what it means to "count by ones." Then we talked about what it means to "count by fives." We practiced counting by 5's, which he can now do. We practiced "adding 10" to given numbers, and he seems to "get" that, too. He seems to finally understand the relationships between the numbers on the chart - this one is one more than that one; this one is ten more than that one. He even counted by fives up to 200, even though the chart only goes to 100.
But he still hasn't memorized this week's math facts. He can do all the 10+x problems up to 19. After having practiced with the number chart, he "gets" it that all you have to do is replace the 0 with the number you're adding to 10. But having spent a couple of hours just learning to count properly by ones and fives and tens (things he should have learned in Kindergarten, I think!), we didn't have time to learn how to add the other numbers or to memorize the fact that 9+9=18. And those problems aren't as obvious from the chart, either.
And I'm not sure how to explain much more. I don't feel qualified to teach elementary mathematics. I was good at math in school, but I'm not trained to teach it, and first grade was too long ago - I don't remember what my teachers did to teach me. My husband is a teacher, but he teaches sixth grade, not first. Plus, he seems to think the school should teach our son and we shouldn't have to. I agree in principle, but if it's not happening, then what should I do, just sit there and watch him fall further behind?
I am a little resentful. If I wanted to home-school my son, I would have done that. But as it is, I have a job. I can't stay home all day to home-school the kids and I don't really want to. I want my kids to interact with the other kids and to be exposed to a variety of teachers and cultures and ideas.
And, done right, school (with the variety of teachers trained for different subjects such as math and music and P.E. and so forth) should be able to teach the kids more, and more effectively, than I could.
Plus, it's not fair to my son to have to go to school all day and then come home for another hour of lessons, plus 15 minutes of spelling every morning.
He has above-average intelligence. He sometimes lacks focus, but I have had very little trouble getting him to focus on math or spelling for 15 to 30 minutes at a time, and he learns the information fairly quickly when he focuses. I want the school system to teach him what he needs to know, but so far, it doesn't seem to be happening.
I'll be visiting the classroom to see exactly what the teacher does all day with the kids and to offer assistance. If the instruction seems appropriate but she truly is overwhelmed with a lot of behavior problems, maybe I can round up some parent volunteers (including me) to take turns coming in every day to help keep the kids in line so she can teach. And if the problem seems to be that my son isn't listening / paying attention, not that she's not teaching, then I'll keep supplementing and consider the ADD issue further. But if the instruction seems to be lacking, and it's not about behavior problems with the kids and/or my son, then I'll talk with her and/or with the principal about what she could do to teach spelling and math more effectively.
But meanwhile, does anyone know anything about teaching basic math to 6 year olds? Any good web sites I can look at? Any ideas for teaching addition?
Or am I crazy for thinking First Graders should learn math theory? Should I just use the flash cards and have him "just memorize" the basic math facts, as his teacher seems to want? If that is the recommended method, the thing that all schools do and that all kids need to do, then that's what we'll do.... it just seems to me like you'd explain the concepts first and teach how to add, and what it means to add, not just have kids memorize random facts. But maybe I'm just nuts.
Does anyone have any other ideas for what I can do to help my son learn - not just math, but spelling, too?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Interesting Fact Of The Day
According to my alumni magazine, Dr. Pepper (yes, that Dr. Pepper) was named after Dr. Charles T. Pepper, who earned his medical degree in 1855 from the medical school at the University of Virginia, which is LegalMist's alma mater.
Dr. Pepper gained lots of fame, but no fortune, from having the soft drink named after him.
I find it ironic that the most famous graduates of other medical schools go on to do things like cure various kinds of cancers or invent open heart surgery, while the most famous graduate of my alma mater's medical school had a soft drink named after him.
I guess it's all about the marketing...
Dr. Pepper gained lots of fame, but no fortune, from having the soft drink named after him.
I find it ironic that the most famous graduates of other medical schools go on to do things like cure various kinds of cancers or invent open heart surgery, while the most famous graduate of my alma mater's medical school had a soft drink named after him.
I guess it's all about the marketing...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Last Day of Class
After 13 weeks, today was the last day of the legal writing class I've been teaching. The students still have to turn in a final assignment and take a final exam, and I still have to grade it all, but they are done with classes.
I'm not teaching next semester, so I likely won't see these students again.
I sort of miss them already.
I'm not teaching next semester, so I likely won't see these students again.
I sort of miss them already.
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Unteachables
As I've mentioned before, I am teaching a legal writing class this semester. I also occasionally teach a class about how to pass the Law School Admissions Test.
In both settings, I've found a small minority of students who are "unteachable."
I sometimes wonder how they got through college and how they think they will get through law school with their bad attitudes about learning.
I'm not complaining about students who are slow learners, or who need things explained more than once or more than one way. I've been told I'm very good at explaining things clearly, and I'm careful always to explain each concept more than once to make sure it sinks in, and I'm capable of explaining things several different ways if necessary, so that most anyone who tries will understand the concepts by the time class is over.
I do not get impatient with the students who genuinely want to learn but who have trouble understanding. If all the students came in understanding and knowing everything already, I wouldn't have a job, right? And it's fun to watch as a student tries and tries and then finally "gets" a new concept. So, as long as they are still trying, I too will keep trying, until they get it. I figure if I'm doing my job right, and they are sticking with it, eventually they will understand. And most of my students learn pretty quickly, either because they're quick learners or because I'm a good teacher.
No, I'm not complaining about the average student, the slow learners, or even the really slow learners.
No, the students I'm complaining about are the ones who come into the class with pre-conceived ideas about how to do things, how things should be, and how to learn, and who are unwilling to consider a new way to approach a topic, a new way of thinking about things, or a new way to learn.
This makes no sense to me. Why would you sign up for a class if you are unwilling to hear and apply what the teacher has to say? I'm not saying that students should accept everything I say without questioning it. But I am saying that they should at least consider whether it might be true, or a good idea, before rejecting it out of hand.
As an example, in my LSAT class, occasionally a student will literally argue with me in class about how my method of approaching a certain type of question doesn't make sense to them because "it's too complicated." Then they'll tell me that their method of understanding it is simpler and makes more sense. They will then explain their method and try to convince me that it is better than my method.
Meanwhile, however, their method is logically flawed and although it might work on a few questions purely by chance, it will lead to the wrong results in most cases.
So I'll explain the flaw in their reasoning and explain my method again, possibly in a new way, hoping to show them the correct logic that will lead to success on the LSAT.
They don't want to hear it. "But that doesn't make sense," they'll say, "My way makes sense to me!"
After several attempts to show them the flaw in their reasoning and explain the correct analysis, the unteachables will respond, "Well, I kind of see what you're saying [i.e., they do understand and are capable of learning the material!], but I still think my way makes more sense so I think I'll just do it my way [i.e., they are choosing not to learn it]."
Sometimes the only thing I can do is to ask them, point blank, "And what did you score on your practice test?"
They will generally give a vague answer like, "not all that well," or they will admit to a poor to middling score. (Why else would they sign up for the LSAT prep class, right?)
Then I'll say, "So you'll admit, then, that your way isn't working for you so well, right? Because if your way were working, you would have scored higher and you wouldn't be here, right?"
"Uh ... I guess so."
And then I ask, "Why don't you just try this new way of looking at the problem? Just try it my way, ok? If you really try and it doesn't work, then you can go back to doing it your way."
Usually that at least shuts them up so I can teach the rest of the class how to excel on the LSAT.
The unteachables. Aaarrgh.
In both settings, I've found a small minority of students who are "unteachable."
I sometimes wonder how they got through college and how they think they will get through law school with their bad attitudes about learning.
I'm not complaining about students who are slow learners, or who need things explained more than once or more than one way. I've been told I'm very good at explaining things clearly, and I'm careful always to explain each concept more than once to make sure it sinks in, and I'm capable of explaining things several different ways if necessary, so that most anyone who tries will understand the concepts by the time class is over.
I do not get impatient with the students who genuinely want to learn but who have trouble understanding. If all the students came in understanding and knowing everything already, I wouldn't have a job, right? And it's fun to watch as a student tries and tries and then finally "gets" a new concept. So, as long as they are still trying, I too will keep trying, until they get it. I figure if I'm doing my job right, and they are sticking with it, eventually they will understand. And most of my students learn pretty quickly, either because they're quick learners or because I'm a good teacher.
No, I'm not complaining about the average student, the slow learners, or even the really slow learners.
No, the students I'm complaining about are the ones who come into the class with pre-conceived ideas about how to do things, how things should be, and how to learn, and who are unwilling to consider a new way to approach a topic, a new way of thinking about things, or a new way to learn.
This makes no sense to me. Why would you sign up for a class if you are unwilling to hear and apply what the teacher has to say? I'm not saying that students should accept everything I say without questioning it. But I am saying that they should at least consider whether it might be true, or a good idea, before rejecting it out of hand.
As an example, in my LSAT class, occasionally a student will literally argue with me in class about how my method of approaching a certain type of question doesn't make sense to them because "it's too complicated." Then they'll tell me that their method of understanding it is simpler and makes more sense. They will then explain their method and try to convince me that it is better than my method.
Meanwhile, however, their method is logically flawed and although it might work on a few questions purely by chance, it will lead to the wrong results in most cases.
So I'll explain the flaw in their reasoning and explain my method again, possibly in a new way, hoping to show them the correct logic that will lead to success on the LSAT.
They don't want to hear it. "But that doesn't make sense," they'll say, "My way makes sense to me!"
After several attempts to show them the flaw in their reasoning and explain the correct analysis, the unteachables will respond, "Well, I kind of see what you're saying [i.e., they do understand and are capable of learning the material!], but I still think my way makes more sense so I think I'll just do it my way [i.e., they are choosing not to learn it]."
Sometimes the only thing I can do is to ask them, point blank, "And what did you score on your practice test?"
They will generally give a vague answer like, "not all that well," or they will admit to a poor to middling score. (Why else would they sign up for the LSAT prep class, right?)
Then I'll say, "So you'll admit, then, that your way isn't working for you so well, right? Because if your way were working, you would have scored higher and you wouldn't be here, right?"
"Uh ... I guess so."
And then I ask, "Why don't you just try this new way of looking at the problem? Just try it my way, ok? If you really try and it doesn't work, then you can go back to doing it your way."
Usually that at least shuts them up so I can teach the rest of the class how to excel on the LSAT.
The unteachables. Aaarrgh.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Gifted Children Are "Left Behind" Under NCLB
It is not a popular position, but here it is anyway: We need to invest more resources into educating our gifted kids.
It is an unpopular position for two reasons. Most people think the terminology "gifted" is somehow "elitist" and most people believe that "smart" kids don't need any "extra" help at school.
Regarding the "elitist" charge, I often hear the phrases "but every child is a gift" and "all children are like little learning sponges" used to justify some warped egalitarian idea that we should not recognize extraordinary ability when we see it. While it is true that every child "is a gift" in the sense of deserving our love, support, and best efforts to educate him or her, it is not true that every child is equally gifted and equally able in every area. We recognize this already when we invest extra funding into assisting those children who have learning disabilities, or who need special physical accommodations in order to learn.
I am willing to apply whatever term people find acceptable to describe the kids with IQ's and abilities that are far above "average." You don't like the connotation that "gifted" kids are somehow ... more endowed than the rest of the kids? Fine, come up with some other term to describe their amazing intellectual capacity. But I am not willing to accept the pablum that these extremely bright kids do not need or deserve any special educational accommodations because they are "bright" and so they will "do fine" even without extra resources and accommodations. It simply is not true.
First, it is unfair to the "gifted" children to be stuck in a classroom where they are not challenged and do not learn anything new for days, weeks, months, even years. Often they will end up bored, frustrated, and disillusioned with school. They end up being labeled with "behavior problems" because they have nothing better to do than to act out, pass notes in class, throw things, make smarty-pants comments, and make fun of other kids. After all, they finished their work in the first five minutes, doodled on their paper for half an hour, and the rest of the class still hasn't finished the assignment! How long can we expect them to sit and stare at the walls and "behave"?
When the lack of challenge occurs at the early grade levels, as is often the case, the gifted kids never learn how to learn. Everything is easy until some point down the road, perhaps in middle school, perhaps in high school, when suddenly they are faced with concepts that aren't "easy." But because they have never been challenged before, they don't know how to study and learn. They think that if they don't immediately understand it, they never will understand it, and they may give up in despair.
This is a true waste of talent. If they had been challenged with difficult (for them) work early on, they would have learned how to approach difficult tasks, how to persevere, how to study, how to learn... and not only would they be far ahead academically of the middle school or high school curriculum, but also they would know how to learn. So instead of appearing as a roadblock, the new, difficult material would simply be another challenge, another exciting thing to master.
Under our current "system" (or lack of one), instead of having exceedingly bright kids learning difficult material at a young age, we end up with bored teens who do not know how to study and persevere, who get disillusioned with school, and who fail and/or do not even try to learn despite their "high IQ."
This makes no sense, given the repeated cries heard in the media that America is "slipping behind" in math and science and technology. We claim that we want America to excel in science and technology, but so far, our politicians' answer to the problem of America "slipping behind" in these areas has been to enact legislation such as the "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB), which focuses on making sure that the kids with average and below average "intelligence" and learning ability achieve minimum standards of education. Sadly, NCLB provides nothing for gifted kids.
I have no problem with the concept behind the NCLB, in general (its implementation and focus on testing is another issue, for another day). I firmly believe that every child should be provided with the supports needed (physical or otherwise) to ensure that he or she can achieve minimal standards.
It was just a couple of decades ago when kids with a physical disability were assumed to be incapable of mental functions as well, and were not properly educated. They were labeled as "deficient" and our schools often didn't even try to teach them to read and write, regardless of their actual capabilities. I think we all agree that approach was wrong-headed and short-sighted and unfair to the kids who were mentally capable of so much more than they were allowed to achieve.
And even moving away from issues of physical disability, many, probably most, kids who are substantially mentally challenged, who are on the borderline between "normal IQ" and "mentally disabled" can certainly learn to read, write, count, and think well enough to get along in society, and our schools owe it to them to provide that education, even if they must devote extra resources to do so. It is important for these kids to be appropriately educationally challenged, and the schools are and should be obligated to provide an appropriate education.
And while there may be a few kids on the very fringes who truly are incapable of achieving even minimum standards, it would be (and was, until recently) a great tragedy to simply label large groups of kids as "unable to learn" and ship them off to an institution to spend their days staring at the walls and letting their minds wither and rot, rather than teaching them new things so that they can participate in and contribute to society to the best of their abilities.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act was based in part on the concept that we should not label kids as "deficient" somehow and then fail to educate them. But so far, we have ignored the kids at the other end of the spectrum, the kids with the far above average and "genius" level IQ's -- the kids who have the best shot at being the "next Einstein," if we would simply educate them properly.
Aren't these gifted kids essentially being "left behind" if they could be pursuing college level calculus but they are instead stuck in a classroom being subjected to rote learning of their times tables, which they learned three years ago?
It is a great tragedy to simply label them as "bright" kids who need no extra help in class, and then ship them off to an institution (school) where they spend their days staring at the walls (because they finished all their work for the day in five minutes) and letting their minds wither and rot, rather than teaching them something new so that they can participate in and contribute to society to the best of their abilities.
In my view, it is as much a sin to fail to properly educate a "gifted" child, as it is to fail to properly educate a "mentally disabled" child.
The federal government, the states, and the school districts, however, have so far refused to provide adequate funding to properly educate and challenge the high-IQ kids. Funding for "gifted education" -- to provide special programs, extra resources, better teacher training, specialized curriculum and aides to assist in implementing it, and specialized learning equipment for the kids at the "top" of the bell curve -- is invariably far below the funding appropriated for "remedial education" -- for the special programs, extra resources, specialized curriculum, aides, and specialized learning equipment for the kids at the "bottom" of the bell curve. Funding for gifted programs is also often the first funding that gets cut when times get tough.
This is not only unfair to our gifted kids, but it also makes no sense in the context of trying to achieve greatness in America.
When we want to win a championship in sports, we spend money to train the most talented athletes and the most likely prospects; we do not recruit the average or below-average athletes, hoping to make them into champion basketball players, soccer players or gymnasts.
Similarly, if we want America to produce the finest mathematicians, physicists, engineers, chemists, researchers, and so forth, we need to invest the resources required to identify and train the "best and brightest" kids to the best of their abilities, rather than making our only focus the achievement of "minimum standards" by the kids with average or below average IQ's.
Are we hoping that, if we just spend enough time and money focusing on making sure that every kid in the country can pass a test measuring "minimum standards," the kids with the 82 IQ will somehow become the next Nobel Prize winning scientist? I suppose it could happen -- after all, Muggsy Bogues did make it in the NBA (doing a bang-up job for the Charlotte Hornets from 1988-1997!), even though he was only approximately 5 feet 4 inches tall. In his case, his natural ability and years of training were enough to overcome his major height disadvantage. But it is far more likely that the next NBA star will be a player who not only has some natural ability and years of training, but also is over 6 feet tall. In other words, you need certain physical characteristics plus talent plus training to become an NBA star. Similarly, it is far more likely that a kid with a 142 or higher IQ, with a natural talent for science, and who receives lots of specialized education focused on developing his or her special talents, will be the next Nobel Prize winner in science.
Let me be clear: I am not advocating that we stop educating "special needs" kids. I am not advocating that we cut funding for "special education." (On the contrary, perhaps we should consider a "gifted" child to have "special needs" and then provide a specialized curriculum!)
I value all of our children and I believe that each child should be challenged and assisted to achieve his or her best educational outcome. And certainly it would benefit America to have every member of our society educated to his or her greatest potential.
As it stands now, however, our gifted kids are being denied the opportunity to be educated to their greatest potential.
It is unfair to the gifted kids.
It is also a poor strategy if America wants to excel in science and technology in the coming years.
I hope President Obama will address this glaring deficiency. President Bush certainly did not.
.
It is an unpopular position for two reasons. Most people think the terminology "gifted" is somehow "elitist" and most people believe that "smart" kids don't need any "extra" help at school.
Regarding the "elitist" charge, I often hear the phrases "but every child is a gift" and "all children are like little learning sponges" used to justify some warped egalitarian idea that we should not recognize extraordinary ability when we see it. While it is true that every child "is a gift" in the sense of deserving our love, support, and best efforts to educate him or her, it is not true that every child is equally gifted and equally able in every area. We recognize this already when we invest extra funding into assisting those children who have learning disabilities, or who need special physical accommodations in order to learn.
I am willing to apply whatever term people find acceptable to describe the kids with IQ's and abilities that are far above "average." You don't like the connotation that "gifted" kids are somehow ... more endowed than the rest of the kids? Fine, come up with some other term to describe their amazing intellectual capacity. But I am not willing to accept the pablum that these extremely bright kids do not need or deserve any special educational accommodations because they are "bright" and so they will "do fine" even without extra resources and accommodations. It simply is not true.
First, it is unfair to the "gifted" children to be stuck in a classroom where they are not challenged and do not learn anything new for days, weeks, months, even years. Often they will end up bored, frustrated, and disillusioned with school. They end up being labeled with "behavior problems" because they have nothing better to do than to act out, pass notes in class, throw things, make smarty-pants comments, and make fun of other kids. After all, they finished their work in the first five minutes, doodled on their paper for half an hour, and the rest of the class still hasn't finished the assignment! How long can we expect them to sit and stare at the walls and "behave"?
When the lack of challenge occurs at the early grade levels, as is often the case, the gifted kids never learn how to learn. Everything is easy until some point down the road, perhaps in middle school, perhaps in high school, when suddenly they are faced with concepts that aren't "easy." But because they have never been challenged before, they don't know how to study and learn. They think that if they don't immediately understand it, they never will understand it, and they may give up in despair.
This is a true waste of talent. If they had been challenged with difficult (for them) work early on, they would have learned how to approach difficult tasks, how to persevere, how to study, how to learn... and not only would they be far ahead academically of the middle school or high school curriculum, but also they would know how to learn. So instead of appearing as a roadblock, the new, difficult material would simply be another challenge, another exciting thing to master.
Under our current "system" (or lack of one), instead of having exceedingly bright kids learning difficult material at a young age, we end up with bored teens who do not know how to study and persevere, who get disillusioned with school, and who fail and/or do not even try to learn despite their "high IQ."
This makes no sense, given the repeated cries heard in the media that America is "slipping behind" in math and science and technology. We claim that we want America to excel in science and technology, but so far, our politicians' answer to the problem of America "slipping behind" in these areas has been to enact legislation such as the "No Child Left Behind" Act (NCLB), which focuses on making sure that the kids with average and below average "intelligence" and learning ability achieve minimum standards of education. Sadly, NCLB provides nothing for gifted kids.
I have no problem with the concept behind the NCLB, in general (its implementation and focus on testing is another issue, for another day). I firmly believe that every child should be provided with the supports needed (physical or otherwise) to ensure that he or she can achieve minimal standards.
It was just a couple of decades ago when kids with a physical disability were assumed to be incapable of mental functions as well, and were not properly educated. They were labeled as "deficient" and our schools often didn't even try to teach them to read and write, regardless of their actual capabilities. I think we all agree that approach was wrong-headed and short-sighted and unfair to the kids who were mentally capable of so much more than they were allowed to achieve.
And even moving away from issues of physical disability, many, probably most, kids who are substantially mentally challenged, who are on the borderline between "normal IQ" and "mentally disabled" can certainly learn to read, write, count, and think well enough to get along in society, and our schools owe it to them to provide that education, even if they must devote extra resources to do so. It is important for these kids to be appropriately educationally challenged, and the schools are and should be obligated to provide an appropriate education.
And while there may be a few kids on the very fringes who truly are incapable of achieving even minimum standards, it would be (and was, until recently) a great tragedy to simply label large groups of kids as "unable to learn" and ship them off to an institution to spend their days staring at the walls and letting their minds wither and rot, rather than teaching them new things so that they can participate in and contribute to society to the best of their abilities.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act was based in part on the concept that we should not label kids as "deficient" somehow and then fail to educate them. But so far, we have ignored the kids at the other end of the spectrum, the kids with the far above average and "genius" level IQ's -- the kids who have the best shot at being the "next Einstein," if we would simply educate them properly.
Aren't these gifted kids essentially being "left behind" if they could be pursuing college level calculus but they are instead stuck in a classroom being subjected to rote learning of their times tables, which they learned three years ago?
It is a great tragedy to simply label them as "bright" kids who need no extra help in class, and then ship them off to an institution (school) where they spend their days staring at the walls (because they finished all their work for the day in five minutes) and letting their minds wither and rot, rather than teaching them something new so that they can participate in and contribute to society to the best of their abilities.
In my view, it is as much a sin to fail to properly educate a "gifted" child, as it is to fail to properly educate a "mentally disabled" child.
The federal government, the states, and the school districts, however, have so far refused to provide adequate funding to properly educate and challenge the high-IQ kids. Funding for "gifted education" -- to provide special programs, extra resources, better teacher training, specialized curriculum and aides to assist in implementing it, and specialized learning equipment for the kids at the "top" of the bell curve -- is invariably far below the funding appropriated for "remedial education" -- for the special programs, extra resources, specialized curriculum, aides, and specialized learning equipment for the kids at the "bottom" of the bell curve. Funding for gifted programs is also often the first funding that gets cut when times get tough.
This is not only unfair to our gifted kids, but it also makes no sense in the context of trying to achieve greatness in America.
When we want to win a championship in sports, we spend money to train the most talented athletes and the most likely prospects; we do not recruit the average or below-average athletes, hoping to make them into champion basketball players, soccer players or gymnasts.
Similarly, if we want America to produce the finest mathematicians, physicists, engineers, chemists, researchers, and so forth, we need to invest the resources required to identify and train the "best and brightest" kids to the best of their abilities, rather than making our only focus the achievement of "minimum standards" by the kids with average or below average IQ's.
Are we hoping that, if we just spend enough time and money focusing on making sure that every kid in the country can pass a test measuring "minimum standards," the kids with the 82 IQ will somehow become the next Nobel Prize winning scientist? I suppose it could happen -- after all, Muggsy Bogues did make it in the NBA (doing a bang-up job for the Charlotte Hornets from 1988-1997!), even though he was only approximately 5 feet 4 inches tall. In his case, his natural ability and years of training were enough to overcome his major height disadvantage. But it is far more likely that the next NBA star will be a player who not only has some natural ability and years of training, but also is over 6 feet tall. In other words, you need certain physical characteristics plus talent plus training to become an NBA star. Similarly, it is far more likely that a kid with a 142 or higher IQ, with a natural talent for science, and who receives lots of specialized education focused on developing his or her special talents, will be the next Nobel Prize winner in science.
Let me be clear: I am not advocating that we stop educating "special needs" kids. I am not advocating that we cut funding for "special education." (On the contrary, perhaps we should consider a "gifted" child to have "special needs" and then provide a specialized curriculum!)
I value all of our children and I believe that each child should be challenged and assisted to achieve his or her best educational outcome. And certainly it would benefit America to have every member of our society educated to his or her greatest potential.
As it stands now, however, our gifted kids are being denied the opportunity to be educated to their greatest potential.
It is unfair to the gifted kids.
It is also a poor strategy if America wants to excel in science and technology in the coming years.
I hope President Obama will address this glaring deficiency. President Bush certainly did not.
.
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