For any of my readers who are not in the MAT program with me, you MUST read "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" by Diane Ravitch. It is a fantastic book! A national bestseller! Go buy and read immediately!
The following is my blog response to MAIT 402: Content Knowledge, Session Two.
1)
In recounting her journey through many educational reforms, Diane Ravitch makes
a number of provocative statements.
Chose two, quote them, and personally respond.
Quote
1: “The new corporate reformers betray their weak comprehension of education by
drawing false analogies between education and business. They think they can fix education by applying
the principles of business, organization, management, law, and marketing and by
developing a good data-collection system that provides the information
necessary to incentivize the workforce – principals, teachers, and students –
with appropriate rewards and sanctions” (11).
The
American public education system is not a business. Let me repeat, the American public education
system is NOT a business. A business
model should not be used to run this system.
You cannot make students learn more information faster by threatening to
shut down their school and fire their teachers.
Public education is not just about teaching kids information; it is
about teaching kids how to think about that information. Punishing schools that do not get good test
scores is not a helpful practice. I mean
honestly, why does it make sense to take away money from the struggling schools
that need it most?! They need help, so
give them help. Do not punish them and
force them to resort to cheating and falsifying test documents because they
live in fear their school being closed down.
The
goal in business is making money. The
goal in education is imparting knowledge.
These are not the same goals.
Education is not going to be fixed by market forces. Removing it from government control and
putting it in the hands of money-motivated businessmen (and women) is NOT the
answer!
Quote
2: “I was also concerned that accountability, now a shibboleth that everyone
applauds, had become mechanistic and even antithetical to good education. Testing, I realized with dismay, had become a
central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure but an end in
itself. I came to believe that
accountability as written into federal law, was not raising standards but dumbing
down the schools as states and districts strived to meet unrealistic targets”
(12-13).
The
rhetoric used by politicians in presenting and advocating the accountability
and choice movements falsely informed the public of the real crisis in our
education system, namely poor curriculum.
For example, Bush’s No Child Left Behind law seemed plausible and
beneficial to a great majority of the public when it was presented to the
public in 2002. I mean, who would not
want equal educational opportunities for all American children, no matter race
or SES?! You would seem anti-American to
disagree with that! Testing seemed like
an understandable and acceptable way to hold schools accountable for the
requirement that every child should be “proficient” in reading and math by
2014. But, it was only presented on its
surface. Once this federal mandate was
actually put in effect, it completely changed the curriculum being taught in the
schools and turned the American public education system on its head. Instead of kids being taught ALL subjects in
a manner to promote conceptual understanding and critical thinking, teachers
were forced to spend almost all of their classroom time on reading and math
instruction. But not just any reading and
math instruction, reading and math instruction that was meant to raise test
scores, i.e. “teaching to the test.” Like
Ravitch so perfectly put it on page 16, “Tests should follow the
curriculum. They should be based on the
curriculum. They should not replace it
or precede it.” I think that we have a
national crisis on our hands. We are
currently raising our future generation of citizens without any problem
solving, critical thinking, or analytical skills. When these kids become adults, they will not
be able to put “fantastic standardized, multiple-choice test taking” under the “Skills”
section of their resumes.
2)
On page 16, Ravitch gives a brief definition of a well-educated person. How would you characterize a well-educated
person? What should any well-educated
person know in today’s world?
Ravitch’s
definition of an educated person: “A well-educated person has a well-furnished
mind, shaped by reading and thinking about history, science, literature, the
arts, and politics. The well-educated
person has learned how to explain ideas and listen respectfully to others”
(16).
I
would describe a well-educated person as someone who not only knows a lot of
information from various content areas, but possesses critical thinking,
analytical, and problem solving skills. In
today’s society, a well-educated person should have the ability to create a
coherent argument to support his/her beliefs; not someone who just parrots back
or regurgitates information on demand.
3)
Thinking about the class discussion on the book, what stands out for you?
We
discussed how many of us (including myself) agree with Ravitch’s argument that
good curriculum and instruction are far more important in the improvement of
our schools than changes in structure and governance, such as school choice and
accountability. It is interesting that
this tends to be the opposite of the opinion held by the public. I think that the general public does not
understand what is really meant by “curriculum” and what an effect is has on
education. The public always needs a
scapegoat, someone to blame, so for them to say, “we have bad curriculum and
should put resources into changing that” versus “we have incompetent and lazy
teachers and greedy administrators” is much easier.
4)
Examine the State Framework and CSET Overview. Are there discrepancies? If so,
where? In your teaching experience, how closely have you aligned to the
standards? Deviations?
The Mathematics State Framework I use is for K-5,
but the CSET Overview covers mathematics K-12.
Since I am, as a multiple subjects teacher, authorized to teach K-12, it
makes sense why the CSET tests multiple subject teachers up to basic high
school mathematics, but this is one discrepancy I found when comparing them to
each other. In my experience as a third
grade teacher using the district provided “California Math” curriculum by
Houghton-Mifflin, my math lessons were directly related to state
standards. Each lesson I taught covered
at least one math standard for third grade.
The curriculum is set up so that if you do a new lesson each day and
follow their provided plan, you can cover every standard in the grade before
the STAR test in May. When I taught
transitional kindergarten, every math lesson loosely related to a standard, but
it was not as rigid as when I taught third grade.
Using
the State Framework and CSET Overview, you will examine three year increments
(Hint: You have already examined one of the three years) and detail your gaps
in subject knowledge. Choose one or two and SPECIFICALLY state how you plan to
bridge the gap.
This is my one gap in subject knowledge for 4th
Grade Math Standards:
Measurement and Geometry
·
3.4 Identify figures that have
bilateral and rotational symmetry.
(I did not remember what bilateral and
rotational symmetry were. I could
probably figure it out since I know what symmetry means, but off the top of my
head I didn’t remember.
This is my one gap in subject knowledge for 5th
Grade Math Standards:
Measurement and Geometry
·
2.2 Know that the sum of the angles of
any triangle is 180 degrees and the sum of the angles of any quadrilateral is
360 degrees and use this information to solve problems.
(As soon as I read this standard, I
remembered that a triangle’s angles always add up to 180 degrees and that a
quadrilateral’s angles always add up to 360 degrees, but if you would have
asked me right before I read the standard, I would not have been able to recall
that information because it has been so long since I used it.)
It was interesting to me that my gaps in both grades were
only in the measurement and geometry strand. The only gap that I need to bridge is on 4th
Grade M&G 3.4. I was able to do that
by reading the example practice problem under the content standard in the State
Framework. It reminded me of what was
meant by rotational and bilateral symmetry.
Identify 3 resources: a web site, an article, and a book
that can help you fill that gap. List
these and discuss what you learned from one of these.
1.
Powell, Bonnie, Ed.; Myers, Donald E.,
Ed. Mathematics for the Elementary
School, Unit 6, Symmetry. Minnesota
University, Minneapolis. Minnesota
School Mathematics and Science Center. Sponsored
By: National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 1965.
·
I learned from this research that bilateral
symmetry is also called “mirror reflection.”
The line of symmetry is “the line that divides a design into two parts
which are identifcal in size and shape, one part being the mirror reflection of
the other” (38).
·
This is an experiment to for a teacher
to use to teach bilateral symmetry in the classroom:
TEACHER: Put both your
hands, thumbs side by side, flat on your desk.
Look at your left hand. What
comes first going from left to right? (Little finger.)
Look at your right hand.
What comes first going from left to right? (Thumb.)
Are your thumbs and fingers in the same order from left to
right in both hands? (No, they are in opposite order.)
That's correct - just as day is the opposite of night, left
is the opposite of right.
What
do you see when you look in a mirror? (A mirror reflection.)
2.
Math
is Fun! 2011. http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/symmetry-rotational.html
3.
Basic
Math Skills: Grade 4. Evan-Moor
Corporation.
5)
Your annotations of resources are meant to be both scholarly and brief. Discuss in detail why/how and two of
these articles were useful to your topic/questions. Consider such things as listing specific
information you learned that you didn’t know before; how this new learning
leads to other questions or sources; why this writer was convincing; whether
you would seek this writer out for other articles he/she has written.
Burns,
Barbara A., Hamm, Ellen M. A Comparison
of Concrete and Virtual Manipulative Use in Third- and Fourth-Grade
Mathematics. School Science and
Mathematics. Vol. 111 (6). Pages 256-261.
This
classroom experiment used a sample of 91 third grade students learning
fractions and 54 fourth grade students learning symmetry concepts. The students were divided and half were
taught the unit using concrete (hands-on) manipulatives while the other half
was taught using virtual (computer-based) manipulatives. Based on a pretest-posttest evaluation,
student learning was unchanged by type of manipulative used. This research article was particularly
pertinent to my research because I am looking for strategies to use to lessen
math anxiety in elementary classrooms.
Since one of the strategies I have been looking into is the use of
manipulatives for students to gain conceptual understanding, it is important
for me to know that while virtual and concrete manipulatives are beneficial, neither
is more powerful than the other.
Geist,
Eugene. “The Anti-Anxiety Curriculum: Combating
Math Anxiety in the Classroom.” Journal
of Instructional Psychology 37 no 1 March 2010. Pages 24-31. VU Publishing Company. Mobile, AL.
This
paper assessed literature to find the roots of math anxiety in the
classroom. It found that math anxiety
can come from parent and teacher expectations, parents without a high level of
education (i.e. college and beyond), and timed testing. It is especially detrimental to “at risk”
children such as those that come from low socioeconomic populations and
females. This paper was beneficial to my
research because it provided me with a plethora of sources to look to for more
in depth research on math anxiety.
This
was the first paper that really made me consider how children in low SES
communities could have a big disadvantage in learning mathematics. I started to consider which instructional strategies
could be used to lesson math anxiety in the classroom, especially in relation
to students from low-income communities.
I wonder if different instructional strategies would be more beneficial
for students from low-income communities as compared to those from affluent
communities; or do instructional strategies such as manipulatives and games
lessen math anxiety for all kids in general?
