Call him Cason. Cason first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 2 student during the 2010-2011 academic year. At the time, his mother, Amanda, expressed deep concern at the indications of teachers that Cason’s behavior at school was erratic, and that his classroom decorum was preventing the needed improvement in math and reading skills, both of which were significantly below grade level. Amanda did not want to see her son fall behind in this early stage of school. She was acutely aware that for Cason this would mean getting caught in the cycle of poverty that typified so many people around her.
Some aspects of Cason’s story were typical of all students participating in the New Salem Educational Initiative, who are from challenged backgrounds and often functioning two grade levels or more below that of school enrollment. This frequently results in an entire academic year of intensified instruction in both math and reading before students rise to grade level in both key skill areas and embark on a college preparatory track.
In Cason’s case, though, the challenge was all the greater because of a mild case of autism that professionals had generally diagnosed as Asperger’s Syndrome. I quickly determined that Cason not only needed the small-group setting that has been so beneficial to the many students enrolled in the Initiative, but that to derive the desired benefit and make the necessary progress, Cason needed a weekly two-hour one-on-one session. For one evening every week I gave Cason all of my constant attention. Understanding that young people manifesting some level of autism are concrete thinkers for whom visual objects are powerful tools of learning, I worked to advance Cason’s reading vocabulary by associating words with physical objects and pictures suggestive of the word being studied. Cason quickly acquired a vocabulary appropriate to his Grade 2 level of school enrollment. Under similar physical stimuli, Cason also ascended to near grade level performance in math.
The conversations that Cason and I had en route to and from the weekly academic session were invaluable. I would tell Cason how proud I was of him and how smart he was. He would invariably ask me,
“Am I the smartest one?”
“Do you mean are you smarter than my other students?” I would ask in turn.
“Yeah. Am I the smartest one?”
“Well, you sure are a smart boy,” would be my reply. This would usually satisfy Cason, or he would move on as I continued to assure him how smart he was as I finessed the question of comparison.
Cason would often get excitable, sometimes mentally returning to some notable and even disturbing scenario at school. His monologue would variously combine utterances that he had made, that another student had spoken, or that a teacher had made, in the latter case often as an admonition. So for example, Cason’s words might contain the following sentences and phrases:
“I’m not going to tell you again. You better let go of my backpack. I’m not going to tell you again. I’m not going to tell you again. Give it back. I said give it back. I’m not going to tell you again. Well then you better quit saying those things. I said give it back. Well then you better quit saying those things. I said that you better quit. You better quit. I’m not going to tell you again. Sit down. I said sit down now. Well then you better quit saying those things. You better let go of my backpack.”
And so the repetition and jumbled order of the recounted incident in its verbal aspects would continue. It was very important when Cason would be reliving some incident, such as that implied above, that I not overreact or get excitable myself. My approach with Cason was always to remain calm and to coax him toward a state of calm. And if he told me that I was talking too loudly, even if I was just raising my voice a bit to give something a positive emotional emphasis (“Wow, that was a great idea you had!”), it was similarly important for me to lower my voice. And over time, knowing that while Cason could get his own decibel level up, he did not like it coming from me, I learned to say everything to him with extraordinary care, calm, and gentleness. He responded in like manner, and he thrived on the friendship that we built.
In response to the pedagogy and the human relationship that Cason found in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Cason will enter Grade 3 with a very viable chance of recording grade level performance in math and reading in the course of the 2011-2012 academic year. This young man’s Asperger’s condition presents challenges so daunting that adequate progress in school is frequently impeded. But carefully handled, Cason and his condition are much more manageable. As we anticipate the 2011-2012 academic year, I look forward to presenting Cason with additional exercises that I have designed in which the concrete becomes the gateway to the abstract, advancing both verbal and mathematic learning.
Amanda in the meantime has gained greater and greater hope for Cason’s academic future. She has a vision of the cycle of poverty ending for her family. She feels the satisfaction of a very concerned mother who has been able to get the needed help for her child. And her vision and her satisfaction are of the kind that build a better community for us all.
Sep 7, 2011
The Illusion of Local Control
Local control is an exalted value of K-12 education in the United States. But it is an illusion.
Control of K-12 education in the United States is in fact exerted by departments, schools, and colleges of education across the nation. These entities are formally distinct but they have highly similar approaches to the training of teachers. Those who teach the courses through which teachers gain certification are guided by very similar principles. Virtually all education professors believe the following:
Teachers are classroom facilitators whose function is to guide students in accessing information. The information to be accessed is that which either follows student interest or follows the teacher’s own identification of a topic to be investigated. There is an emphasis on exploring topics of interest to student and teacher, rather than the systematic accumulation of factual knowledge in areas such natural science, history, government, economics, psychology, English composition, English literature, the fine arts, and even mathematics. Professors of education maintain that in the ever-changing information age, a set body of systematically accumulated knowledge is unnecessary. A student or teacher who desires to know something can always look up whatever she or he needs to know. Memorization of factual information in such a context is a boring and wasteful exercise. Critical thinking is far more important than memorization.
Administrators, school counselors, curriculum development specialists, and any others training for positions pertinent to staffing any K-12 school in the United States imbibe a similar approach to education. Heads of teachers’ unions seek to advance the interests of teachers who hold such views, and they act in the financial interests of teachers whose advancement is determined by the “step and ladder” system, whereby a teachers’ pay advances in the same way as any other teacher who has taught for a like number of years and attained a certain academic degree. Elementary teachers generally get their degrees directly from education departments. Secondary teachers often have bachelor’s degrees in disciplines such as history, biology, or math, but virtually no teachers today have master’s degrees granted from such academic departments; rather, they are master’s degrees in teaching some subject, granted from departments, schools, or colleges of education.
There would be a much better approach to education than the one detailed and implied above. Such an approach would fill our classrooms with experts in natural science, history, government, economics, English composition, English literature, music, visual art, and mathematics. They would have master’s degrees in those disciplines. Teachers would certainly encourage student research and critical thinking, but only upon the foundation of a solid knowledge base, utilizing memorization as one important learning tool. Teachers in this professionalized sense would be paid for their knowledge and ability to advance student achievement, and their remuneration would be greater than anyone on a radically reduced central school district office staff.
But no one acting at the local level is likely to confront the various members of the education establishment with a program for the needed overhaul in K-12 education. Doing this takes more courage than is possessed by most people, who would have to confront those in the education establishment who are often fellow community members with whom one interacts in other realms of life.
And so we hold to our illusion of local control, stuck with a K-12 system of education that in fact is subtly nationalized via institutions of educator training and lamentably uniform in its inability to properly educate our young people for their individual futures as citizens who will also determine the fate of the United States.
Control of K-12 education in the United States is in fact exerted by departments, schools, and colleges of education across the nation. These entities are formally distinct but they have highly similar approaches to the training of teachers. Those who teach the courses through which teachers gain certification are guided by very similar principles. Virtually all education professors believe the following:
Teachers are classroom facilitators whose function is to guide students in accessing information. The information to be accessed is that which either follows student interest or follows the teacher’s own identification of a topic to be investigated. There is an emphasis on exploring topics of interest to student and teacher, rather than the systematic accumulation of factual knowledge in areas such natural science, history, government, economics, psychology, English composition, English literature, the fine arts, and even mathematics. Professors of education maintain that in the ever-changing information age, a set body of systematically accumulated knowledge is unnecessary. A student or teacher who desires to know something can always look up whatever she or he needs to know. Memorization of factual information in such a context is a boring and wasteful exercise. Critical thinking is far more important than memorization.
Administrators, school counselors, curriculum development specialists, and any others training for positions pertinent to staffing any K-12 school in the United States imbibe a similar approach to education. Heads of teachers’ unions seek to advance the interests of teachers who hold such views, and they act in the financial interests of teachers whose advancement is determined by the “step and ladder” system, whereby a teachers’ pay advances in the same way as any other teacher who has taught for a like number of years and attained a certain academic degree. Elementary teachers generally get their degrees directly from education departments. Secondary teachers often have bachelor’s degrees in disciplines such as history, biology, or math, but virtually no teachers today have master’s degrees granted from such academic departments; rather, they are master’s degrees in teaching some subject, granted from departments, schools, or colleges of education.
There would be a much better approach to education than the one detailed and implied above. Such an approach would fill our classrooms with experts in natural science, history, government, economics, English composition, English literature, music, visual art, and mathematics. They would have master’s degrees in those disciplines. Teachers would certainly encourage student research and critical thinking, but only upon the foundation of a solid knowledge base, utilizing memorization as one important learning tool. Teachers in this professionalized sense would be paid for their knowledge and ability to advance student achievement, and their remuneration would be greater than anyone on a radically reduced central school district office staff.
But no one acting at the local level is likely to confront the various members of the education establishment with a program for the needed overhaul in K-12 education. Doing this takes more courage than is possessed by most people, who would have to confront those in the education establishment who are often fellow community members with whom one interacts in other realms of life.
And so we hold to our illusion of local control, stuck with a K-12 system of education that in fact is subtly nationalized via institutions of educator training and lamentably uniform in its inability to properly educate our young people for their individual futures as citizens who will also determine the fate of the United States.
Aug 30, 2011
A Tale of Two Buddies: Careful Matching of Personalities in Academic Sessions of the New Salem Educational Initiative
This is a tale of two buddies, their successes as individuals in the New Salem Educational Initiative, and the way in which their friendship has accelerated their joint academic progress.
First, there is Manuel. Manuel first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 3 student during the 2009-2010 academic year. At the time, he was functioning only at the Grade 2 level in math and just the Grade 1 level in reading. His mother (Helena) and sister (Francesca) were very worried that Manuel had gotten off to the wrong start at school and that in the future academic failure would prevent him from breaking the pattern of familial poverty that described their own lives as struggling immigrants from Mexico.
I began to lay out a carefully sequenced program of skill acquisition for Manuel. Week followed week in that first academic year of enrollment as Manuel made a remarkable ascent to grade level in math and near grade level in reading. He began to take pride in his performance in school, bringing his papers and report cards so that I could see the steady progress that he was making in that context. This mirrored the progress that Manuel was making in his weekly two-hour sessions in conversations that the two of us had going to and from each session.
In these conversations, Manuel showed an enhanced interest in vocabulary, asking the meaning of words that he read on street and interstate (I-94 and I-35) signs. As we drove along, read the signs, and defined words, I would take the opportunity to introduce words that rhymed with the ones that we were seeing, or logically fit into sentences with these words. Thus was the learning that had taken place in the classroom joined with that which occurred in transport to improve the verbal skills of a young boy who at the beginning of the school year had borne the label of an English Language Learner (ELL).
By the end of academic year 2009-2010, Manuel had recovered one full grade level in math and nearly two full grade levels in reading. Manuel continued his upward trajectory during his second academic year (2010-2011) of enrollment in the New Salem Educational Initiative. During this academic year, Manuel rose to the top of his Grade 4 class at school.
And then there is Marco. Marco also first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 3 student during that same academic year of 2009-2010, and upon enrollment he, too, was functioning below grade level in both reading and math. And, like Manuel, Marco was classified as an ELL student because of the immigrant status of his family, the members and close friends of which speak only Spanish in Marco’s home.
Marco’s mother, Juanita, speaks limited English. She works on the janitorial staff of a corporate entity in downtown Minneapolis. She has a strong desire to see Marco gain the education that she was never able to secure for herself, either in her native Mexico or in the United States. Juanita was immediately grateful for the opportunity that Marco had to participate in the New Salem Educational Initiative, and she has throughout Marco’s now two-year participation in the Initiative been a strong source of parental support who listens carefully to the report that I give to her after every weekly session.
And Marco himself from the very beginning has been one of the very most enthusiastic students in the New Salem Educational Initiative. When I come out of my late afternoon session every Friday, I inevitably have a message on my cell phone from Marco seeking assurance that the usual Friday session will be held--- as it always is.
Marco has responded to the logically sequenced program of math and reading skill acquisition with a studiousness to match his enthusiasm. Before the end of that first academic year (2009-2010) of participation, Marco quickly rose to full grade level performance in both math and reading. By December of his Grade 4 year (academic year 2010-2011), his second year of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Marco mastered the full array of math and reading skills pertinent to Grade 4. He then proceeded to acquire skills typical for students in Grade 5, passing practice Grade 5 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in both math and reading, indicating that he will be operating one full grade level above that of actual school enrollment as he enters Grade 5 for the 2011-2012 academic year.
The progress that Manuel and Marco have made as students in the New Salem Educational Initiative has gained acceleration in the fortunate melding of their personalities. Manuel began his sessions with me in a rare single-student session (students generally attend in groups of three to five; although a great deal of instruction is rendered in one-on-one fashion, with students seated individually at their tables, demand is so great that sessions with a total of just one or two students are rare). About two weeks after Manuel started his sessions, Marco enrolled. I immediately noted that Marco was in the same grade as Manuel and that he had the same immigrant roots to Mexico. This made him a candidate for the still unusually lightly attended Friday night session at which time I was providing instruction for Manuel. When I noticed that he had a similarly beaming smile and an apparent enthusiasm for the prospect of attending my sessions, I decided that this was a particularly promising match.
And, indeed, Manuel and Marco immediately became best buddies. On the way to our weekly session, they would trade Pokemon cards and jabber away about what they had learned at school, what was happening in their neighborhoods, and what they had heard from their villages back in Mexico. They spoke mostly in English, but especially when they found out that I understood a great deal of their forays into Spanish, they would switch to that language when topics arose for which the vernacular of their country of origin seemed most appropriate. In our two-hour weekly academic sessions, they loved working together, so in this case I adjusted my typical one-on-one style, and we did a great deal of our math and reading together. I also kept this as the rare two-person group. They had a lot of fun with my approach to learning the multiplication tables, and they especially loved reading together. In this, there was a kind of friendly competition to be the first to answer questions that I posed to assess comprehension.
And the same sort of competition abided to tell the best story that popped into their lively brains as relevant to the subject matter that we were reading:
“Ooo, ooo, yea, I once saw a snake that was six feet long, too. It was in my back yard at the house in Pueblo--- my village in Mexico.,” Marco exclaimed, for example, during our reading of a story about a boy who just gotten away before a cobra struck.
“Ooo, me, too,” Manuel replied, “There was a snake in my back yard last week.”
“What kind of snake?” Marco asked.
“Uhhh… a garden snake,” Manuel admitted a little sheepishly.
But everyone laughed, and we had a great time, and the natural animation that these boys brought to our sessions in their sheer delight of being together amplified not only the fun but, more vital to our purposes, the learning. During such sessions, the enhanced focus Manuel and Marco gave to the material as they engaged in such lively responses, enhanced their reading comprehension and accelerated their vocabulary acquisition.
This is why I am always trying to place students in the same session who are well-matched as to personality and other, sometimes rather intangible, factors that I assess in making my decisions. When group camaraderie does not exist so naturally, I put great energy into creating it, whether in my silly malapropisms with younger students, or the age-appropriate banter that I endeavor to establish with my middle school and high school students. I act always on the conviction that all things consistent with learning that make the environment more hospitable to the student contribute to maximal educational progress for that student.
The tale of the two buddies continued over the summer, as I met with them from time to time on a more flexible schedule, finding them always excited when I would call an impromptu session. In the meantime, back in late May, at the New Salem Educational Initiative Annual Banquet, I honored the two buddies with an award that they so richly deserved: Most Enthusiastic.
First, there is Manuel. Manuel first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 3 student during the 2009-2010 academic year. At the time, he was functioning only at the Grade 2 level in math and just the Grade 1 level in reading. His mother (Helena) and sister (Francesca) were very worried that Manuel had gotten off to the wrong start at school and that in the future academic failure would prevent him from breaking the pattern of familial poverty that described their own lives as struggling immigrants from Mexico.
I began to lay out a carefully sequenced program of skill acquisition for Manuel. Week followed week in that first academic year of enrollment as Manuel made a remarkable ascent to grade level in math and near grade level in reading. He began to take pride in his performance in school, bringing his papers and report cards so that I could see the steady progress that he was making in that context. This mirrored the progress that Manuel was making in his weekly two-hour sessions in conversations that the two of us had going to and from each session.
In these conversations, Manuel showed an enhanced interest in vocabulary, asking the meaning of words that he read on street and interstate (I-94 and I-35) signs. As we drove along, read the signs, and defined words, I would take the opportunity to introduce words that rhymed with the ones that we were seeing, or logically fit into sentences with these words. Thus was the learning that had taken place in the classroom joined with that which occurred in transport to improve the verbal skills of a young boy who at the beginning of the school year had borne the label of an English Language Learner (ELL).
By the end of academic year 2009-2010, Manuel had recovered one full grade level in math and nearly two full grade levels in reading. Manuel continued his upward trajectory during his second academic year (2010-2011) of enrollment in the New Salem Educational Initiative. During this academic year, Manuel rose to the top of his Grade 4 class at school.
And then there is Marco. Marco also first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 3 student during that same academic year of 2009-2010, and upon enrollment he, too, was functioning below grade level in both reading and math. And, like Manuel, Marco was classified as an ELL student because of the immigrant status of his family, the members and close friends of which speak only Spanish in Marco’s home.
Marco’s mother, Juanita, speaks limited English. She works on the janitorial staff of a corporate entity in downtown Minneapolis. She has a strong desire to see Marco gain the education that she was never able to secure for herself, either in her native Mexico or in the United States. Juanita was immediately grateful for the opportunity that Marco had to participate in the New Salem Educational Initiative, and she has throughout Marco’s now two-year participation in the Initiative been a strong source of parental support who listens carefully to the report that I give to her after every weekly session.
And Marco himself from the very beginning has been one of the very most enthusiastic students in the New Salem Educational Initiative. When I come out of my late afternoon session every Friday, I inevitably have a message on my cell phone from Marco seeking assurance that the usual Friday session will be held--- as it always is.
Marco has responded to the logically sequenced program of math and reading skill acquisition with a studiousness to match his enthusiasm. Before the end of that first academic year (2009-2010) of participation, Marco quickly rose to full grade level performance in both math and reading. By December of his Grade 4 year (academic year 2010-2011), his second year of participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Marco mastered the full array of math and reading skills pertinent to Grade 4. He then proceeded to acquire skills typical for students in Grade 5, passing practice Grade 5 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in both math and reading, indicating that he will be operating one full grade level above that of actual school enrollment as he enters Grade 5 for the 2011-2012 academic year.
The progress that Manuel and Marco have made as students in the New Salem Educational Initiative has gained acceleration in the fortunate melding of their personalities. Manuel began his sessions with me in a rare single-student session (students generally attend in groups of three to five; although a great deal of instruction is rendered in one-on-one fashion, with students seated individually at their tables, demand is so great that sessions with a total of just one or two students are rare). About two weeks after Manuel started his sessions, Marco enrolled. I immediately noted that Marco was in the same grade as Manuel and that he had the same immigrant roots to Mexico. This made him a candidate for the still unusually lightly attended Friday night session at which time I was providing instruction for Manuel. When I noticed that he had a similarly beaming smile and an apparent enthusiasm for the prospect of attending my sessions, I decided that this was a particularly promising match.
And, indeed, Manuel and Marco immediately became best buddies. On the way to our weekly session, they would trade Pokemon cards and jabber away about what they had learned at school, what was happening in their neighborhoods, and what they had heard from their villages back in Mexico. They spoke mostly in English, but especially when they found out that I understood a great deal of their forays into Spanish, they would switch to that language when topics arose for which the vernacular of their country of origin seemed most appropriate. In our two-hour weekly academic sessions, they loved working together, so in this case I adjusted my typical one-on-one style, and we did a great deal of our math and reading together. I also kept this as the rare two-person group. They had a lot of fun with my approach to learning the multiplication tables, and they especially loved reading together. In this, there was a kind of friendly competition to be the first to answer questions that I posed to assess comprehension.
And the same sort of competition abided to tell the best story that popped into their lively brains as relevant to the subject matter that we were reading:
“Ooo, ooo, yea, I once saw a snake that was six feet long, too. It was in my back yard at the house in Pueblo--- my village in Mexico.,” Marco exclaimed, for example, during our reading of a story about a boy who just gotten away before a cobra struck.
“Ooo, me, too,” Manuel replied, “There was a snake in my back yard last week.”
“What kind of snake?” Marco asked.
“Uhhh… a garden snake,” Manuel admitted a little sheepishly.
But everyone laughed, and we had a great time, and the natural animation that these boys brought to our sessions in their sheer delight of being together amplified not only the fun but, more vital to our purposes, the learning. During such sessions, the enhanced focus Manuel and Marco gave to the material as they engaged in such lively responses, enhanced their reading comprehension and accelerated their vocabulary acquisition.
This is why I am always trying to place students in the same session who are well-matched as to personality and other, sometimes rather intangible, factors that I assess in making my decisions. When group camaraderie does not exist so naturally, I put great energy into creating it, whether in my silly malapropisms with younger students, or the age-appropriate banter that I endeavor to establish with my middle school and high school students. I act always on the conviction that all things consistent with learning that make the environment more hospitable to the student contribute to maximal educational progress for that student.
The tale of the two buddies continued over the summer, as I met with them from time to time on a more flexible schedule, finding them always excited when I would call an impromptu session. In the meantime, back in late May, at the New Salem Educational Initiative Annual Banquet, I honored the two buddies with an award that they so richly deserved: Most Enthusiastic.
Nathan’s Story: A Child of Poverty Gains a Wealth of Education
Nathan first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 1 student during the 2009-2010 academic year. He enrolled late in that academic year, in March, by which time his teachers were expressing concerns that he was having problems reading material appropriate to his grade level, thinking that a speech impediment was exacerbating his reading difficulties. Nathan’s teachers also indicated that his math skills had not reached full grade level development by that point in the school year.
Nathan’s mother (Lillian) and male friend (Preston) had just moved to Minneapolis close to the beginning of that academic year, in August 2010. They lived in one of the cheapest rental units in the city, on Newton Avenue North, just south of Glenwood. Lillian and Preston were seeking to make a fresh start in Minneapolis, and they both fervently wanted Nathan to get the kind of education that would allow him to break the cycle of poverty that the two of them had witnessed in their own families.
A variety of factors influence poor school performance, most essentially those rooted in environment and familial circumstances, and those rooted in the natural aptitude of the child. I have always braced for those frequently occurring challenges whereby moving a student to grade level performance requires particularly stringent effort over a period of months and, in a few cases, a year or two.
But possessed of a keen natural intelligence, Nathan did not as it turned out present problems so grave that they could not be quickly addressed with an aggressive program of skill remediation. With strong support from Lillian and Preston, garnered from the firm relationship that I built with the family, Nathan responded with alacrity to the academic program with which I presented him during our two-hour weekly sessions. I was delighted at the speed with which Nathan latched onto me as a mentor, as well as teacher. By the end of academic year 2010-2011 (in just three months time), he rose quickly to grade level in both reading and math. During academic year 2010-2011, Nathan attained Grade 3 performance levels (one grade level above that of school enrollment) in both math and reading.
Nathan got a chance to demonstrate some of his precocity at the late May 2011 New Salem Educational Initiative Annual Banquet. Students in the Initiative gave performances of different kinds throughout the banquet. Some gave their interpretations of various speeches by important figures from African American history. Others showed their ability to read above grade level. Others demonstrated their mastery of college preparatory vocabulary. As for Nathan, who could have shown his ability to do many of these same things, his personal demonstration focused on his mastery, in just his Grade 2 year of school enrollment, of multiplication tables for the numbers 0 through 9; such mastery is generally regarded as a noteworthy accomplishment for students in Grade 3. The crowd was in particular impressed with Nathan’s quickness in giving answers involving the nines (5 X 9 = 45; 7 X 9 = 63; etc.). Having several weeks prior to the banquet mastered the nine trick (e. g., the number before 7 is 6, and 9 minus 6 is 3, so the product of 7 and 9 is 63), Nathan zoomed through his nines with great speed.
Nathan beamed. Lillian and Preston looked as if they would burst with pride amidst the rousing applause. In this way, hope builds on the strong foundation of a promising start in the early grades of the K-12 sequence. Moving to Minneapolis begins to look like a very good move, indeed. A vision of life beyond shabby tenements and dead-end jobs gains clarity. A young life moves in promising directions. This impoverished child, connected to families that have been stuck in cyclical destitution for decades, gains academic momentum along a path that would typically be more descriptive of the route taken by a child of the upper middle class attending a well-regarded suburban or private school.
Whenever we bear witness to such a phenomenon, we should all feel ourselves moving a little closer to true democracy.
Nathan’s mother (Lillian) and male friend (Preston) had just moved to Minneapolis close to the beginning of that academic year, in August 2010. They lived in one of the cheapest rental units in the city, on Newton Avenue North, just south of Glenwood. Lillian and Preston were seeking to make a fresh start in Minneapolis, and they both fervently wanted Nathan to get the kind of education that would allow him to break the cycle of poverty that the two of them had witnessed in their own families.
A variety of factors influence poor school performance, most essentially those rooted in environment and familial circumstances, and those rooted in the natural aptitude of the child. I have always braced for those frequently occurring challenges whereby moving a student to grade level performance requires particularly stringent effort over a period of months and, in a few cases, a year or two.
But possessed of a keen natural intelligence, Nathan did not as it turned out present problems so grave that they could not be quickly addressed with an aggressive program of skill remediation. With strong support from Lillian and Preston, garnered from the firm relationship that I built with the family, Nathan responded with alacrity to the academic program with which I presented him during our two-hour weekly sessions. I was delighted at the speed with which Nathan latched onto me as a mentor, as well as teacher. By the end of academic year 2010-2011 (in just three months time), he rose quickly to grade level in both reading and math. During academic year 2010-2011, Nathan attained Grade 3 performance levels (one grade level above that of school enrollment) in both math and reading.
Nathan got a chance to demonstrate some of his precocity at the late May 2011 New Salem Educational Initiative Annual Banquet. Students in the Initiative gave performances of different kinds throughout the banquet. Some gave their interpretations of various speeches by important figures from African American history. Others showed their ability to read above grade level. Others demonstrated their mastery of college preparatory vocabulary. As for Nathan, who could have shown his ability to do many of these same things, his personal demonstration focused on his mastery, in just his Grade 2 year of school enrollment, of multiplication tables for the numbers 0 through 9; such mastery is generally regarded as a noteworthy accomplishment for students in Grade 3. The crowd was in particular impressed with Nathan’s quickness in giving answers involving the nines (5 X 9 = 45; 7 X 9 = 63; etc.). Having several weeks prior to the banquet mastered the nine trick (e. g., the number before 7 is 6, and 9 minus 6 is 3, so the product of 7 and 9 is 63), Nathan zoomed through his nines with great speed.
Nathan beamed. Lillian and Preston looked as if they would burst with pride amidst the rousing applause. In this way, hope builds on the strong foundation of a promising start in the early grades of the K-12 sequence. Moving to Minneapolis begins to look like a very good move, indeed. A vision of life beyond shabby tenements and dead-end jobs gains clarity. A young life moves in promising directions. This impoverished child, connected to families that have been stuck in cyclical destitution for decades, gains academic momentum along a path that would typically be more descriptive of the route taken by a child of the upper middle class attending a well-regarded suburban or private school.
Whenever we bear witness to such a phenomenon, we should all feel ourselves moving a little closer to true democracy.
The Importance of Shakespeare to Inner City Students
A few months ago, an English professor took a group of unlikely actors under her wing and directed them in an emotionally affecting version of Shakespeare’s classic dramatic tragedy, >Hamlet: Prince of Denmark<. The actors were inmates of Missouri Eastern Correctional Center (MECC), an institution at which I myself taught for a year in the very early 1980s. Among the many affecting deliveries of lines that I heard via a National Public Radio account of that performance were the following, rendered by he who acted the part of Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and murderer of
Hamlet’s father, the former king of Denmark:
…..Pray can I not;/ Though my inclination be as sharp as will:/ My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent…/ O wretched state! O bosom black as death!/ O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,/ Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!/ Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings/ of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!/ All may be well… [Retires and kneels]/ [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Perfect sense it makes that such lines as these from one of the most psychologically rich plays ever written should resonate with those who have struggled with guilt, to be sure, but also with the vast array of emotions that unite us in our humanity: love strongly felt but impeded in fulfillment; betrayal by friends and family; duty strongly felt as necessary but falling short in execution; the paradox of noble humanity caught in existential loneliness; treachery successful as planned by the perpetrator but redounding to the demolition of that very perpetrator.
In listening to the inmates and how affected they were by the play, I was struck by how lamentable it is that Shakespeare is not better taught in our public schools. In my observation, too few teachers of English have the passion for Shakespeare that they themselves should have. Without that passion, they are hard-pressed to engage students with the sheer joy of literature at its best. Then, there tends to prevail among teachers a defeatist attitude whereby they do not think that students will like Shakespeare, even if the teacher herself or himself does understand the greatness and the pleasure in reading such a work as >Hamlet<. And so a great opportunity is wasted to present students with some of the most magnificent explorations of the human psyche ever to appear in print. The issues raised and the emotions explored are done to such striking effect that, properly taught, all students will respond to such a work as Hamlet.
So as I listened to the actors discuss their performances and the resonance of the lines for them personally, I had these thoughts about the wasted opportunity represented by the noted problems of classroom presentation of the material in our public schools. But I also had the thought that if these very inmates had received proper K-12 instruction in the literary beauty and psychological power of Hamlet, the experience might have served as an outlet for their own life frustrations, might have given them insight into their own daily struggles, might have provided them an alternative activity, whether in acting for the school drama club or in continuing to read great literature, that could have deterred them from the life of the street and the path to criminal behavior.
This jibes with my abiding conviction concerning the power of education to transform lives in multiple ways. In a highly practical sense, the more formal education one receives, the greater one’s earning power in the world of work. But just as importantly, education, as the transmission of subject area knowledge across a broad and deep liberal arts curriculum, gives a person a sense of one’s own power in the world. Possessed of broad knowledge, a person can act comfortably and effectively in a great variety of situations; understand a breadth of contemporary issues in considerable detail; make reasoned judgments about events currently unfolding across the great, wide world; and responsibly exercise the great privilege of citizenship in a democracy.
I have seen the study of Shakespeare animate my own students, awakening them to the serious consideration of vital human themes, and giving them the confidence that if they can read and understand the Bard, they can comprehend any reading matter put before them. I know that in many, many cases, this sort of attitude toward the world of knowledge has deterred my inner city students from unseemly activities and given them a better way of viewing themselves in the world. For not a few, this means that they have avoided the fate of those who ended up in Missouri Eastern Correctional Center.
And while I am happy for my students, I also fervently wish that the K-12 experiences of those inmates had given them a greater sense of Shakespeare in particular, a better education in general, and a better fate along the pathways of their one earthly journey.
Hamlet’s father, the former king of Denmark:
…..Pray can I not;/ Though my inclination be as sharp as will:/ My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent…/ O wretched state! O bosom black as death!/ O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,/ Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!/ Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings/ of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!/ All may be well… [Retires and kneels]/ [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Perfect sense it makes that such lines as these from one of the most psychologically rich plays ever written should resonate with those who have struggled with guilt, to be sure, but also with the vast array of emotions that unite us in our humanity: love strongly felt but impeded in fulfillment; betrayal by friends and family; duty strongly felt as necessary but falling short in execution; the paradox of noble humanity caught in existential loneliness; treachery successful as planned by the perpetrator but redounding to the demolition of that very perpetrator.
In listening to the inmates and how affected they were by the play, I was struck by how lamentable it is that Shakespeare is not better taught in our public schools. In my observation, too few teachers of English have the passion for Shakespeare that they themselves should have. Without that passion, they are hard-pressed to engage students with the sheer joy of literature at its best. Then, there tends to prevail among teachers a defeatist attitude whereby they do not think that students will like Shakespeare, even if the teacher herself or himself does understand the greatness and the pleasure in reading such a work as >Hamlet<. And so a great opportunity is wasted to present students with some of the most magnificent explorations of the human psyche ever to appear in print. The issues raised and the emotions explored are done to such striking effect that, properly taught, all students will respond to such a work as Hamlet.
So as I listened to the actors discuss their performances and the resonance of the lines for them personally, I had these thoughts about the wasted opportunity represented by the noted problems of classroom presentation of the material in our public schools. But I also had the thought that if these very inmates had received proper K-12 instruction in the literary beauty and psychological power of Hamlet, the experience might have served as an outlet for their own life frustrations, might have given them insight into their own daily struggles, might have provided them an alternative activity, whether in acting for the school drama club or in continuing to read great literature, that could have deterred them from the life of the street and the path to criminal behavior.
This jibes with my abiding conviction concerning the power of education to transform lives in multiple ways. In a highly practical sense, the more formal education one receives, the greater one’s earning power in the world of work. But just as importantly, education, as the transmission of subject area knowledge across a broad and deep liberal arts curriculum, gives a person a sense of one’s own power in the world. Possessed of broad knowledge, a person can act comfortably and effectively in a great variety of situations; understand a breadth of contemporary issues in considerable detail; make reasoned judgments about events currently unfolding across the great, wide world; and responsibly exercise the great privilege of citizenship in a democracy.
I have seen the study of Shakespeare animate my own students, awakening them to the serious consideration of vital human themes, and giving them the confidence that if they can read and understand the Bard, they can comprehend any reading matter put before them. I know that in many, many cases, this sort of attitude toward the world of knowledge has deterred my inner city students from unseemly activities and given them a better way of viewing themselves in the world. For not a few, this means that they have avoided the fate of those who ended up in Missouri Eastern Correctional Center.
And while I am happy for my students, I also fervently wish that the K-12 experiences of those inmates had given them a greater sense of Shakespeare in particular, a better education in general, and a better fate along the pathways of their one earthly journey.
The Power of Transportation in the New Salem Educational Initiative
Among the features of the New Salem Educational Initiative that contribute to the success of students enrolled in the program is the provision of transportation. The fact that I pick each student up at her or his home before each session, and then deliver the student back home after the session, has several favorable effects.
Taking things chronologically, there is first of all the interaction that occurs as I show up at each door and generally am invited in to talk for a bit. Often from the very beginning of a student’s enrollment, I am able to strike an emotional cord with the presiding adult of the homestead. The family structures of most of my students typically have a mother as the key head of household, but often there are also grandmothers and aunties who have roles in the students’ lives that move across the continuum from supportive but secondary to dominant and primary. And then roughly 20% of the families that I serve do have a dependable male presence, including in a few cases a father matching the middle class ideal, a man who either shares or individually exercises primary authority. I always try right away to understand family dynamics and family roles, which are always key to understanding the lives of the child or adolescent. In time, I typically become something of an adjunct household and even family member, offering counsel, providing links to needed services, and just listening and conversing empathetically the way that good family members do.
Secondly, this sort of conversation continues in the car during transport, as students over time (and usually not all that long from the beginning of enrollment) begin to open up, share concerns, talk about ongoing struggles, and to relate successes in academics, athletics, and other arenas of life. Whether shared by a family member or by the student herself or himself, the information related is something that I treat with great care. If it is something such as an academic triumph (an “A” finally earned on a report card in math, successfully identifying acidity level in a chemical compound from a lab experiment), this is something that I in all likelihood can praise and reinforce as a notable accomplishment to the family. But if the matter involves, for example, a strained family relationship and talking to me is serving as a stress reliever or sounding board, then unless connoting a dangerous situation, I will keep this to myself until I am asked to become more directly involved. All such information, though, gets stored in my memory bank for understanding the student and the family’s life.
Thirdly in the typical chronological sequence, but most germane to the fundamental goals of the New Salem Educational Initiative, there is the tremendous amount that is learned academically while in transport. This runs the gamut from fundamental skill review and even first-time acquisition, to very substantive conversations in which subject area knowledge from across the liberal arts is transmitted. I have found the time in transport to be very valuable for review and acquisition of multiplication tables. On many days, this saves a significant amount of time that would have been devoted to the skill during the formal two hours of the academic session once in the classroom. Similarly, it is a great time to review and acquire vocabulary items, to create sentences using the words, to talk about homophones, homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms that relate to particular vocabulary items.
And as the conversation turns to more purely subject area knowledge, my students find themselves learning many things that they should have long-since learned in school but have not. En route, just to pick some of many, many topics that have come under discussion, my students have learned for the first time the original identities and the ideological evolution of Republicans and Democrats in United States political history. They have learned about the actual functions of the liver, kidneys, and pancreas. They have learned about the nutritive value of vegetables, including why I call carrots, broccoli, and spinach the “power vegetables.” They come of course to know of my great love of Shakespeare, but they also come to know that the greatest playwright of recent decades, August Wilson, was an African American who died just a few years ago having penned classics such as >Fences<, >Piano Lesson<, and >Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom<. And they get some sense of where human beings stand in the scientific scheme of things as they try to grasp a universe that big banged into being about 14 billion years ago, an earth that formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and a creature known as homo sapiens who only about 100,000 years ago got on the evolutionary train that pulled out of Australopithecus station about 4.5 million years ago.
Fourthly in the chronology, with all of that personal matter discussed, skills reviewed, and knowledge transmitted, I drive my students home. I go to the door of each student, and I usually go back inside the home. I summarize what was learned and the progress that the student made. I listen to any further concerns, for the student, or pertinent to the family. And when I drive on to pick up other students, and especially when I drive back to my own home late in the evening, I am full of fresh reminders of the power of transportation in the New Salem Education Initiative.
Taking things chronologically, there is first of all the interaction that occurs as I show up at each door and generally am invited in to talk for a bit. Often from the very beginning of a student’s enrollment, I am able to strike an emotional cord with the presiding adult of the homestead. The family structures of most of my students typically have a mother as the key head of household, but often there are also grandmothers and aunties who have roles in the students’ lives that move across the continuum from supportive but secondary to dominant and primary. And then roughly 20% of the families that I serve do have a dependable male presence, including in a few cases a father matching the middle class ideal, a man who either shares or individually exercises primary authority. I always try right away to understand family dynamics and family roles, which are always key to understanding the lives of the child or adolescent. In time, I typically become something of an adjunct household and even family member, offering counsel, providing links to needed services, and just listening and conversing empathetically the way that good family members do.
Secondly, this sort of conversation continues in the car during transport, as students over time (and usually not all that long from the beginning of enrollment) begin to open up, share concerns, talk about ongoing struggles, and to relate successes in academics, athletics, and other arenas of life. Whether shared by a family member or by the student herself or himself, the information related is something that I treat with great care. If it is something such as an academic triumph (an “A” finally earned on a report card in math, successfully identifying acidity level in a chemical compound from a lab experiment), this is something that I in all likelihood can praise and reinforce as a notable accomplishment to the family. But if the matter involves, for example, a strained family relationship and talking to me is serving as a stress reliever or sounding board, then unless connoting a dangerous situation, I will keep this to myself until I am asked to become more directly involved. All such information, though, gets stored in my memory bank for understanding the student and the family’s life.
Thirdly in the typical chronological sequence, but most germane to the fundamental goals of the New Salem Educational Initiative, there is the tremendous amount that is learned academically while in transport. This runs the gamut from fundamental skill review and even first-time acquisition, to very substantive conversations in which subject area knowledge from across the liberal arts is transmitted. I have found the time in transport to be very valuable for review and acquisition of multiplication tables. On many days, this saves a significant amount of time that would have been devoted to the skill during the formal two hours of the academic session once in the classroom. Similarly, it is a great time to review and acquire vocabulary items, to create sentences using the words, to talk about homophones, homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms that relate to particular vocabulary items.
And as the conversation turns to more purely subject area knowledge, my students find themselves learning many things that they should have long-since learned in school but have not. En route, just to pick some of many, many topics that have come under discussion, my students have learned for the first time the original identities and the ideological evolution of Republicans and Democrats in United States political history. They have learned about the actual functions of the liver, kidneys, and pancreas. They have learned about the nutritive value of vegetables, including why I call carrots, broccoli, and spinach the “power vegetables.” They come of course to know of my great love of Shakespeare, but they also come to know that the greatest playwright of recent decades, August Wilson, was an African American who died just a few years ago having penned classics such as >Fences<, >Piano Lesson<, and >Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom<. And they get some sense of where human beings stand in the scientific scheme of things as they try to grasp a universe that big banged into being about 14 billion years ago, an earth that formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and a creature known as homo sapiens who only about 100,000 years ago got on the evolutionary train that pulled out of Australopithecus station about 4.5 million years ago.
Fourthly in the chronology, with all of that personal matter discussed, skills reviewed, and knowledge transmitted, I drive my students home. I go to the door of each student, and I usually go back inside the home. I summarize what was learned and the progress that the student made. I listen to any further concerns, for the student, or pertinent to the family. And when I drive on to pick up other students, and especially when I drive back to my own home late in the evening, I am full of fresh reminders of the power of transportation in the New Salem Education Initiative.
Aug 26, 2011
The Power of Ongoing Personal Relationships with Families and Students
One of the most splendid moments of my many splendid moments as a teacher came when I complimented Maria for remembering in considerable detail a number of connected items from one of our discussions on government. These items were learned as we moved in transport to and from her regular two-hour weekly session in the New Salem Educational Initiative.
Among those facts that Maria remembered was that the Articles of Confederation served as the first constitutional document of the United States, and that it was a document formulated in 1787 that conceded little power to the central government, reserving almost all powers to the states. She also recalled that the United States Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation, went into effect in 1789, and detailed a much more complete plan of balanced power between the central government and the governments of the states. Maria remembered all of this, and as I questioned her I could tell that she truly understood that this federal approach to governance differs from lose confederate systems and systems of central government dominance; and she grasped how the United States Constitution in its very balance leaves open room for interpretation in debate and raises controversies, as with the claim of states rights that so informed the history of the American South, becoming a key issue in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
That is a fairly good chunk of United States history and government when comprehended in its totality and for its interrelated parts. Maria had picked up this information entirely in one evening, going to and from the classroom where she attends the two-hour weekly session with her sister and cousin. In the formal sessions, our focus is on math, and on reading for comprehension of subject area material from across the liberal arts curriculum. It would have been possible for Maria to have acquired her knowledge from reading of the latter sort. Because she did, for example, learn about the Reconstruction era and the disappointment felt by Frederick Douglass and other African American leaders as they saw the brutal retrenchment that occurred in the wake of the Compromise of 1877. She also learned about the causes of the Trojan War, the death of Hector near the end of the Iliad, and the origin of the saying, “Achilles’ heel.” And among many other things that Maria learned from reading subject area material was that light is composed of photons, packets of pure energy with no mass, and that light travels at 186,000 miles per second; she learned that this is much faster than the speed of sound, which travels only about 1,000 feet per second as the successive collision of molecules slows the rate at which sound can travel.
But Maria asks good questions as we travel to and from each session. I listen carefully to her questions and provide as much additional subject area knowledge as our fifteen minutes each way allows. Her understanding of the information focused on constitutional history came entirely in transport. I was so impressed with her retention, saying to her,
“You sure are smart.”
To this Maria replied, “You made me think I was smart.”
That was the splendid moment.
Maria has been a student in the New Salem Educational Initiative since she was in Grade 5. She was late into her Grade 6 year when she made the comment just noted. She is now about to enter Grade 9, so the relationship has continued, as it does with all of my students. And with her continuation in the Initiative, Maria’s knowledge base has continued to grow, she’s moved as an English Language Learner (with familial roots to El Salvador) from rudimentary reading skills languishing well below level of school enrollment to gaining full comprehension of Shakespeare’s >A Midsummer Night’s Dream<.
What Maria learns in her two-hour weekly session is augmented powerfully by informal discussion in transport, by the ongoing nature of her participation in the Initiative from year to year, and by the relationship that I have built with Maria’s family. I go inside Maria’s home and speak with whoever is charge (mother, father, or older sister) at the time I arrive, and when I bring Maria back from our academic session I do the same. When I arrive, I ask about the family’s week and pay careful attention to understand if there are any problems that the family may be having, with which I can provide or find help, and that might impede Maria’s capacity to concentrate. When I arrive, I tell the family member of authority what Maria is going to learn in the immediately upcoming session. And when we return, I tell the family member how Maria progressed, and what additional topics we covered; then I will make suggestions for Maria’s continued learning at home during the interval between our sessions.
In this way, Maria learns a great deal of solid academic material in each formal session. She learns a great deal of additional information in transport. And she is inspired and encouraged to explore topics further in the week before her next session. Many weeks, I may drop by just to see how things are going in the two or three days since I’ve seen her. The family knows I care. I respect the family and gain their trust as a confidante. In this fluid process combining formal and informal experiences, Maria gains greater and greater confidence as a student, and she comes alive in a wonderfully accumulating world of knowledge.
So it is that Maria comes to formulate an image of herself as a smart person. She tells me so, and that I made her feel that way. For a teacher, there can be no more splendid moment.
Among those facts that Maria remembered was that the Articles of Confederation served as the first constitutional document of the United States, and that it was a document formulated in 1787 that conceded little power to the central government, reserving almost all powers to the states. She also recalled that the United States Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation, went into effect in 1789, and detailed a much more complete plan of balanced power between the central government and the governments of the states. Maria remembered all of this, and as I questioned her I could tell that she truly understood that this federal approach to governance differs from lose confederate systems and systems of central government dominance; and she grasped how the United States Constitution in its very balance leaves open room for interpretation in debate and raises controversies, as with the claim of states rights that so informed the history of the American South, becoming a key issue in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
That is a fairly good chunk of United States history and government when comprehended in its totality and for its interrelated parts. Maria had picked up this information entirely in one evening, going to and from the classroom where she attends the two-hour weekly session with her sister and cousin. In the formal sessions, our focus is on math, and on reading for comprehension of subject area material from across the liberal arts curriculum. It would have been possible for Maria to have acquired her knowledge from reading of the latter sort. Because she did, for example, learn about the Reconstruction era and the disappointment felt by Frederick Douglass and other African American leaders as they saw the brutal retrenchment that occurred in the wake of the Compromise of 1877. She also learned about the causes of the Trojan War, the death of Hector near the end of the Iliad, and the origin of the saying, “Achilles’ heel.” And among many other things that Maria learned from reading subject area material was that light is composed of photons, packets of pure energy with no mass, and that light travels at 186,000 miles per second; she learned that this is much faster than the speed of sound, which travels only about 1,000 feet per second as the successive collision of molecules slows the rate at which sound can travel.
But Maria asks good questions as we travel to and from each session. I listen carefully to her questions and provide as much additional subject area knowledge as our fifteen minutes each way allows. Her understanding of the information focused on constitutional history came entirely in transport. I was so impressed with her retention, saying to her,
“You sure are smart.”
To this Maria replied, “You made me think I was smart.”
That was the splendid moment.
Maria has been a student in the New Salem Educational Initiative since she was in Grade 5. She was late into her Grade 6 year when she made the comment just noted. She is now about to enter Grade 9, so the relationship has continued, as it does with all of my students. And with her continuation in the Initiative, Maria’s knowledge base has continued to grow, she’s moved as an English Language Learner (with familial roots to El Salvador) from rudimentary reading skills languishing well below level of school enrollment to gaining full comprehension of Shakespeare’s >A Midsummer Night’s Dream<.
What Maria learns in her two-hour weekly session is augmented powerfully by informal discussion in transport, by the ongoing nature of her participation in the Initiative from year to year, and by the relationship that I have built with Maria’s family. I go inside Maria’s home and speak with whoever is charge (mother, father, or older sister) at the time I arrive, and when I bring Maria back from our academic session I do the same. When I arrive, I ask about the family’s week and pay careful attention to understand if there are any problems that the family may be having, with which I can provide or find help, and that might impede Maria’s capacity to concentrate. When I arrive, I tell the family member of authority what Maria is going to learn in the immediately upcoming session. And when we return, I tell the family member how Maria progressed, and what additional topics we covered; then I will make suggestions for Maria’s continued learning at home during the interval between our sessions.
In this way, Maria learns a great deal of solid academic material in each formal session. She learns a great deal of additional information in transport. And she is inspired and encouraged to explore topics further in the week before her next session. Many weeks, I may drop by just to see how things are going in the two or three days since I’ve seen her. The family knows I care. I respect the family and gain their trust as a confidante. In this fluid process combining formal and informal experiences, Maria gains greater and greater confidence as a student, and she comes alive in a wonderfully accumulating world of knowledge.
So it is that Maria comes to formulate an image of herself as a smart person. She tells me so, and that I made her feel that way. For a teacher, there can be no more splendid moment.
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