Category: curriculum

Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.  According to Malcolm Gladwell the author of “Outliners,” the emerging picture is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything. In study after study this number comes up again and again.

The experts claim there are no naturals that float effortlessly to the top. Once a person achieves a certain ability the one thing that truly distinguishes them is how hard they work.  The interesting thing about ten thousand hours is that it’s an enormous amount of time and it’s impossible to reach that number all by yourself.   You have to have encouragement and support and in most cases an extraordinary opportunity to give you a chance to put in those hours. 

KIPP schools are giving their students this extraordinary kind of support and opportunity.  In  KIPP schools students spend 50 to 60 percent more time learning than in traditional public schools.  Everyday students have ninety minutes of English and Math and one hour of science.  Every student in the school plays in the orchestra.  Nationally more than 90 percent of their middle school students go to college preparatory high schools and later to college. 

It sounds like these numbers could be exaggerated especially when you factor into this equation that almost all their students are low-income and African American or Latino.  But on closer examination you see what’s going on here.  Every student signs a contract to put learning first.  Most students begin their school day by getting up at 5:30.  In return for this effort students are rewarded with work that is meaningful.  The three qualities that make work satisfying autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward are part of the KIPP program. 

The KIPP philosophy closes the achievement gap.  It has been an accepted belief for too long by too many that disadvantaged children are not as smart as their more privileged counterparts.   And that educators are not doing a good enough job of teaching them.  When what really is responsible is having gaps in their learning. 

The real problem for students who aren’t achieving is there isn’t enough time for school.  Whatever gains are made during the school year are lost during the summer.  This cycle continues year after year.   Expanding the amount of time spend in school closes this gap.

What KIPP is doing is consistent with the number for excellence; it’s the practice and the time devoted to it that makes a difference.

Instead of talking about reducing class size, rewriting curricula, buying every student a new laptop and increasing funding  schools need to look at the amount of time students spend learning.  Summer vacation is considered a permanent  feature of school life.  The causes of Asian math superiority are obvious.  Students in those schools don’t have summer vacations. In the US the school year is on average 180 days, in South Korea it’s 220 days and in Japan 243 days.  Longer days and a shorter summer will help American students will catch up to our most successful competitors 

W.C. Fields said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”

Children are keenly aware of their pecking order in school.  The structure of school guarantees that competing and comparing are ever present.  Ask any student and they can name the “smart kids” and the “dumb kids.”  Even in play children often choose up teammates based on their abilities to help insure a win.   Being labeled a quitter is a stigma of weakness. 

Ironically psychologists say that individuals who are able to adapt their attitudes about winning and changing or altering a goal are healthier.  These persons have less stress and have stronger immune systems. 

So how can a classroom teacher create an environment that accepts quitting?

First it’s important to re-define what quitting means.  Children must understand that quitting does not mean not trying.   Quitting is also not failure; it is restructuring the final goal.  The joy is in running the race, not trying to win it.  Quitting is knowing when something is not going to happen perhaps that goal is impossible.   Everyone cannot obtain all A’s.   The classroom must also be a quality environment.  

The elements of a quality environment are:

• Relationships are based on trust and respect.  Teachers convey to students that they have the student’s best interest in mind.  Students feel safe.
• As part of all curriculum students learn valuable life skills, speaking, listening, reading, writing, and problem solving
• Students learn how to self assess.  Self-evaluation means constantly working toward improvement.  “If it ain’t broke, work to make it better.”

Self assessment also teaches children how to let go of an unrealistic goal.   Goal reengagement – seeking a meaningful alternative buffers frustration and increases optimism.   If students approach learning with optimism then difficult tasks are not so scary. 

Learning does not have to be a contest.  If students can measure their own progress against themselves and not against the group then they can begin to realize their own potential.

When you enter the Museum of Tolerance In Los Angeles California you will watch a video on the vast variety of prejudices all designed to show you that everyone has a few.   And then you will go into the main part of the museum through one of two doors.   One door is marked prejudiced the other door is marked unprejudiced.  The door marked unprejudiced is locked in case anyone misses the point.   Occasionally a few people will demand to enter through the locked unprejudiced door.   

Each one of us has biases whether we admit it or not.  Our brain is designed with blind spots making it difficult to question our own thinking.  It’s hard to see when we are wrong even when the wrong thinking is made clear like the locked unprejudiced door at the Tolerance Museum.  

Prejudice is a paradox because it’s the greatest thing that divides us and also the greatest thing that connects us because it’s something we all share. National Public Radio did a segment recently in which they examined their coverage of both presidential candidates.   They had received an enormous amount of mail from viewers from both parties criticizing the amount and type of coverage given to the opposition.   So they examined the number of hours given to both parties and type of coverage.  The results were surprising; both candidates had received almost the same amount of airtime. Despite what some viewers thought their coverage seemed to be balanced.  

Teaching tolerance to children might be any teacher’s greatest challenge because before this universal inclusion can begin the teacher must first acknowledge and accept his or her own biases. Teachers must look at their own thinking to begin to expose these blind spots.   One good way to start is next time you are tempted to use a stereotype to explain someone remember to someone else you are a stereotype too. 

This same introspective thinking can be practiced with students.   Create informal games in which students can label and then unlabel the stereotypes they believe about each other.   Allow them to recognize how limited stereotypes are.  Learning tolerance is essentially knowing the importance of appreciating the differences of others and how to treat every individual with the same level of compassion, kindness and respect. 

The Internet is a great resource for teachers wanting to incorporate tolerance lessons into the curriculum

• Education World at www.educationworld.com - has a lesson planning articles on teaching tolerance with five lesson plans
• Scholastic Magazine on Diversity scholastic.com/professional/teachdive/ offers lesson plans and professional resources to help teachers develop a diversity curriculum
• Teaching Tolerance Magazine www.tolerance.org/teach/indes.jsp distributes information to support the efforts of K-12 teachers and other educators to promote respect for differences and appreciation of diversity.

This year’s presidential election was an historical event.  For many Americans this was the first time they felt empowered by the election process.   Unfortunately after the limelight fades many will allow the work of government to continue without interest or input.   The attitude and approach to civic education is an often-neglected one, yet it plays a critical role in determining how children develop, how they will view themselves as citizens and later apply their learning to community involvement. 

How can we teach our children to respect the rule of law if they do not understand the reasons for the rule?  Children must learn the importance of participatory democracy and they can only do that by understanding the history behind the struggle for a representative government and the right to vote.

Civics education does not have a benchmark standard in many of our schools.  Yet teachers can incorporate civic lessons into many parts of the curriculum.  In the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus, Richard Dreyfuss played a band teacher.   He captured the importance of civics in this speech.

He said, “We need to remind our kids and ourselves of the importance of where we come from.  We have to paint a picture of republican democracy that is as romantic and irresistible as it really is.  We have to teach our children our history, our mythology, our culture, with passion, with wit, with rigor; and by doing that, we will create the possibility of that civic virtue that ties thinking individuals to their communities.”

Some simple lessons for teachers are:

1. The Day I Was Born – students practice online research by using their birth date to determine historical and literary figures that share their birthdays.  Student can compare their figure to current day American and imagine how their person would act in today’s current political climate.
2. Why do civilizations fall?  Students can do online research on ancient civilizations and construct timelines for their demise, make compassions to current day problems, and hypothesis solutions.
3. The right to vote.  Students can chronicle the struggles of women gaining the right to vote in American and other countries, and the civil rights movement.
4. Peace Corps project.  Visit Worldwise schools at www.peacecorps.gov/wws/ for lesson plans and information to connect with Peace Corps volunteers.  Students can gain understanding on this global scale community involvement.
5. Arrest.  The purpose of the activity “arrest: is to give students first hand knowledge about an arrest of a classmate and their subsequent trial.  Students become active participants in the legal process as they become witnesses, jurors and defendants in a trial simulation.

Encouraging active citizenship among the young requires more than just election year reminders to study the issues or watch the candidates.   It means teaching students the founding principles and understanding how they should apply today.    Allow students to practice freedom by giving them a real voice in shaping the school culture.  Creating a free student press and encouraging freedom of expression.   Schools are the best place to teach students how to engage in vigorous robust debate while keeping a tone of civility and respect.   And last students must practice tolerance by learning about other world religions and cultures.   Ignorance and hatred are the greatest threats to our democracy. 

One often-ignored fact about learning is:  if you are free to fail you are free to try.   It’s not the skills you actually have that determine how you feel but the ones you think you have.   This idea at first glance might seem like a form of self-delusion but on the contrary if you believe you are capable you get into the flow of creativity and learning in any activity.    If no one is telling you you’re not good enough you are free to just explore your possibilities.

Think how empowering this thinking can be in school.   Most children begin their school careers at the age of five with a mixture of excitement and fear.  The excitement is about being big, riding the bus, having school stuff like a backpack as they join the ranks of the “older kids.”    The fear is connected to the idea of failure.   Unfortunately for some children they experience the failure first and it leads them to doubt their own abilities.  They are now not good enough.

Why does the school culture create this thinking? 

It’s not intentional but the language of school itself has more negative words than positive ones.  It begins with the rules punctuated with the word “don’t.”  Don’t create limits and judgment.    Other negative language comes in the form of assessment, children are rated and the rating in the form of grades begets competition. 

The Latin root of the word compete is competure which means to seek with.  During the Golden Age in turn of the century Paris artists lived and worked in each other’s pockets.  All new innovations, new trends were immediately known and could freely be incorporated into the work of others.   There was a lack of envy.  So instead of taking possession of ideas, they shared.  

Teachers are fortunate because they can create the type of learning culture they want in their classrooms.   To help students become more adventurous in their learning begin by:

• Finding opportunities for cooperative learning groups.  Encourage students to explore answers together, help them share and listen by modeling that in the larger group.
• Make all classroom rules begin with Do.   Look for ways to affirm and reward positive behaviors.  Invite students to contribute to the good list and make a habit of using more encouraging words.
• Devote one day a week to “fun learning.”  Fun learning is based on what if thinking.  What if can be applied to any content area.   Take a social studies lesson and ask students to rewrite the past with a what if hypothesis.   Students can be unencumbered and allowed to explore new possibilities.
• Be patient with students freewheeling thinking.  Keep in mind a lot of crap will be created but crap plays an important role in discovery.  It’s the fertilizer that allows the good stuff to grow. It’s an important ingredient in all-creative thinking and in all discovery.       

How much sunlight do you eat every day?  The caloric sun content of your food is based on where your food is on the food chain.  If you are eating mostly whole foods with no processing you are consuming sunlight, which through the process of photosynthesis allows for plants to grow and absorb nutrients from the soil.

Most Americans have a diet sadly lacking in sunlight, the average American diet consists of one half pound of meat per day, corn, soy and sugar which are consumed as ingredients in highly processed food products.  This low nutrient high calorie diet contributes to the growing health care problems in the US. 

Almost fifty years ago President John F Kennedy created a national initiative to improve the physical fitness of American children.  The president’s council on physical fitness was implemented.  He elevated the importance of physical education making it a requirement in schools.  Today American children are lacking in a high sunlight diet.  The center for disease control estimates that one in three children born in 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes.  What’s needed right now is a new initiative to improve the diets and overall health of children.  

The same commitment to fitness can be applied to a commitment to nutrition or “edible education” as Alice Water’s author of the slow food movement phrased it.    Changing the food culture must begin with our children, and it must begin in school.

Schools can make lunch part of the curriculum, based on the premise that eating well is a critically important life skill.   Every primary school student should be taught the basics of growing and cooking food, and then enjoying shared meals.  The only way to change the current food culture from the meat, corn and soy based chicken nuggets and fries to one of fresh vegetables and fruit is give children the right lessons about food.  These lessons can only be learned if children are allowed to grow, cook and taste what’s being taught. 

This thinking presents a radical change in the status quo.  In the last thirty years Americans have been seduced into eating food that’s fast and easy with little concern given to how it was produced and the health benefits it gives.  It is no coincidence that as spending on health care went from five percent to sixteen percent of national income that spending on food has fallen from eighteen percent to less than ten percent of household income.  Cheap food prices have taken the idea of quality food off the national agenda.  Unfortunately we cannot expect to reform health care without confronting the public health disaster that is the modern American diet.

Every school in American right now has an opportunity to set a new standard, to begin it’s own initiative in educating children who will be healthy consumers demanding and expecting more from the food they eat.   Once schools plant their own seeds of change they can lobby their local districts to do the same.    ”Be the change you want to see,” and begin now.