Scattershot

In defense of algebra and other impossible subjects

Letters and musical notes have personalities to me. A "C" in music is definitely female. A "G" is definitely male. "M" and "S" are pretty letters for pretty things ("mucus" and "snot" notwithstanding. You can't be logical with things like this).

Numbers, however, are just numbers. Flat. Devoid of personality. Marks on a page. That's the way I think about them anyway. Maybe that's why I never liked math as much as other subjects when I was in school. In high school I was in the so-called "advanced" math classes, but I slogged through not really understanding much of anything until a "new math" geometry class that involved thinking and logic made a lot of things click for me, including algebra. More or less.

    When I complained about algebra, my mother would say something I've heard a lot of parents say since: "I don't know why you need to learn this stuff. You're never going to use it." She knew my interests lay in music, language, art, drama—not mathematics. She knew there was no chance in hell that I was going to major in math or science in college.

    She was wrong—not about my interests or my major but about how I would never use algebra. I do.

    I was remembering Mom's words as I worked on solving some knotty budgeting problems at my business yesterday. Much to my surprise, I often find myself turning to algebra. What Mom didn't realize, I think, is that if you don't know algebra you won't, of course, ever turn to it. If you do, you might. She also didn't realize that the problem-solving and logic involved in math would come in handy for me. I'm sure she never dreamed I would start my own business some day.

    Though kids often think they know everything, they don't know—can't possibly know—what life is going to have in store for them. Having skills they may never use broadens their options in life. They have more choices. 

    Despite my struggles with it, I'm glad I know and can use basic algebra. I still find numbers to be without personality. But useful? Of course.

Quantity vs. quality

I'm reading a very interesting book called Life Is a Verb, by Patti Digh. It's the kind of book you read a bit at a time, savoring it.

    A few days ago I read the chapter "Polish Your Mud Balls," and I can't get it out of my mind. Digh retells a story from the book Art and Fear about a pottery teacher who tells half his class they will be graded on only one thing: the quantity of the work they produce. He tells the other half of the class that they will also be graded on only one thing: the quality of their work.

    The first group needs only to produce 50 pounds of pottery to receive an "A". The second group needs only to produce one perfect pot to receive an "A".

    The results? The authors report that "The works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity…while they were busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

    I love this story, probably because it supports a belief I hold about the teaching of writing—that the act of writing in and of itself helps people become better writers. The more students write, the more they loosen up. Their writing becomes more fluid, less tortured. When teachers assign a paper once in a blue moon and then expect students to do everything perfectly according to the latest rubric, they are doing their students no favors, in my opinion. How much more effective it is to challenge students' creativity, giving them quirky, challenging, thoughtful, or even silly writing tasks, daily, and not grading all of them. (Yes, sometimes it's okay to give students credit for just writing a certain amount. You don't have to read everything in order for students to learn.)

    Focusing on quantity doesn't mean forgetting about quality. A teacher might focus on one writing skill at a time, or select papers to grade on a random basis, or sandwich in mini-lessons here and there. Paying less attention to each paper—but requiring more writing overall—can be so much more effective than stifling students with 17 or 18 requirements for one paper.

     Quantity is often way more important, in the long run, than quality. Windston Churchill put it perfectly when he said, "The maxim 'Nothing but perfection' may be spelled 'Paralysis.'"

Too much school?

When I was a freshman, I attended a rambling, old brick high school that covered most of a city block. We had an entire class period for lunch, and I remember those lunch periods fondly. There was no hot lunch program, so my friends and I grabbed our sack lunches and sat under the trees outside whenever the weather permitted. We moseyed over to the little store across the street for candy. We talked and laughed and relaxed, and one of the things I remember best was learning that I could tell stories that made my friends laugh. It was a wonderful discovery and one that I built on in the years to come.

    The following year, the new high school opened. There was a hot lunch program, so lunch changed from one leisurely period to three rushed sections of around 25 minutes each. We spent most of our short lunch period standing in line, getting our food, hurrying to the auditorium to eat, rushing to clean up, finding time to go to the bathroom and our lockers, and then getting to class. Lunch period became a hectic time. For my sophomore through senior years, I have no more fond lunch memories. I remember no more lunchtime discoveries about myself.

    I think about that when I think about the push lately for longer school days and longer school years. I'm not a proponent, at least if it means simply adding more of the same to the school day. Kids don't need more of the same, in my opinion. But if it means bringing in an emphasis on music, art, physical education, and creative time in the classroom, then it might be different. If it means slowing down and allowing kids to eat, play, let off some steam, and nurture friendships during a longer lunch hour, I can see it. If it means truly enriching the school day rather than simply adding more test drill time, I can see it.

    But, sadly, I worry that that's not what proponents have in mind. I'm afraid their eye is on the tests, rather than on the kids and what they might really need. Sometimes a little more time to do a little less can be a good thing.

Too opinionated for my own good

I suppose I am far too opinionated about a few things, and one of the things I am most opinionated about is the teaching of writing. Three things I read today made my blood boil a bit.

    First was the newsaper report that just came out on the status of Colorado schools. Despite schools turning themselves inside out to improve test scores for a number of years now, nothing much has changed—and that includes writing scores. Now if all the teaching for "high-stakes writing tests" that has been done has resulted in no improvement, maybe, just maybe we should look at the approaches that are being used. In my opinion, many of them are simply wrong-headed. They result in kids thinking writing means (a) trying to follow a baffling array of rules and (b) being pretty much bored to death.

    Then I read an ad I got in the mail for a product to teach writing, grades 6-12. It has "metacognitive questionnaires." (Metacognitive!). It has rubrics. (Rubrics!) It uses the computer. (The computer!) It has boring classroom examples. (Boring!.....Okay, the ad didn't say that. I did.) I'm sorry, but just looking at the materials in the ad, I felt completely inadequate. Writing looked way too hard for a mortal being like me. (I suppose it didn't help that I had to look up "metacognitive.")

    Then I picked up English Journal and read a piece written in what I call "snooty style," and it made me a little crazy, too, with its clear focus on methods that, yes, can work quite well in a writing lab or with a small group of students who really want to improve their writing. But what about those teachers facing 33 eighth graders who mostly don't care about improving their writing? Using the same methods would result in disaster. I've taught small groups of passionate writers. I've taught small groups of so-called "remedial" students who wanted to improve in a college writing lab. And I've taught those 33 eighth graders. I'm sorry, but they are not all the same.

   What's needed with those 33 eighth graders? In my opinion, it's more language play. We need to engage them with creative, silly, goofy, interesting, and/or challenging writing activities that get their attention and allow them to see language in a new light. We need to let them have some fun with language and see its power. We need to let them experiment and use their brains and share. What we don't need is more rubrics and metacognitive questionnaires.

     

Dealing with difficult kids

Because Cottonwood Press is creating an updated edition of our book Survival Tips for New Teachers, I've been thinking about dealing with difficult kids lately. One of the things we probably don't want to tell new teachers is that their reward for being able to handle difficult students will be that other difficult students will be transferred to their classes. Even if you love your students and are great at your job, a classroom full of the school's problem kids is not easy for any teacher.

     I discovered an interesting approach to the problem when I was teaching. A counselor came to me begging me to take a student who had been kicked out of another English class. The student was a big behavior problem and was also failing most classes. I happened to be teaching an honors English class at the time, so I told the counselor I would take the student if she would put him in my honors class.

     She thought I was crazy, but I insisted. My theory was this: in a classroom of low-achieving students, the student's behavior would be rewarded. The kids would likely egg him on. In the honors class, the kids would not encourage him. They would help keep him in line. And, while he might not be working at the same level as the other students, he would likely learn more than he would in a class where his time was spent acting out.

     It worked. No, he wasn't transformed overnight into a model student, but he behaved. He listened. He tried, at least some of the time, which was a great improvement over the past.

     I repeated that technique over the years, and I found it always to be successful. A difficult student in an honors or gifted class always proved much more manageable than a difficult student in a "regular" class or a class of low achievers.

A testing problem from the business world

At a party this week-end, I ran into a woman I've known for many, many years. It turns out she reads Scattershot and could really relate to my blogs on testing. "I am a terrible test taker," she said. "I second guess everything."

     I was surprised. She is a very bright business woman. But then she told me one of her worst test-taking experiences. She was about to be named manager of a large franchise, but there was one more detail to work out. The Colorado representative she had been working with assured her it was just a formality, but she had to take a test designed to measure her trustworthiness. He was very casual about it, low-key, inviting her over to his house to take the test. She took it at his kitchen table while he did other things, and they sent it off.

     She failed. The whole deal was off, and she was a mess. Now I have to tell you that this is a person whose "trustworthiness" should never be in question. If she were working for me, I'd let her have access to intimate company financial matters in a heartbeat.

     It turns out she over-analyzed everything. If the test asked if she had ever taken a paper clip off someone's desk, and she actually had not, she would think, "I'll bet they ask this to see if you'll say 'no' because everyone has taken a paper clip off someone's desk. So I probably should say 'yes'...or maybe not." She struggled with each question and applied her own logic. Apparently her own logic was not to be trusted.

     To her credit, she finally came up with a proposal. She asked to sit down with a company representatives and tell them why she had answered each question as she had. Someone had the sense to agree, and her answers satisfied them. She got the job.

    Wouldn't it be nice if kids got to explain some of their wrong answers?

Too safe for their own good?

When my husband was a kid, he remembers sliding down the icy roof of a barn in a dishpan, aiming to land in a deep pile of snow. He missed the pile of snow and landed, hard, on the ground.

    Now maybe this wasn't the brightest idea in the world, but he was having fun. He was also doing what the American Association of Pediatrics describes as important in child development—taking a risk. A fascinating recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses how Amercans' obsession with safety is contributing to one in six children in America being obese. The Center for Disease Control says that the problem "would basically cure itself if children engaged in the informal outdoor activities that used to be normal." By making sure everything they do is safe, we deprive children of learning their limits, taking personal responsibility, and getting a lot of exercise.

     According to the article, risk is an attraction for kids, and it should be. If a rubber safety mat designed to reduce playground injuries gets hot in the sun, perhaps the answer is not to put up canopies or to get rid of the playgrounds. Perhaps kids need to learn that wearing shoes is a smart idea on a playground. Instead of banning tag or running, as some schools have done, maybe schools should let kids get a few scrapes and bruises.

     Read the article. I think Phillip K. Howard makes an excellent point.  Article

Nourishing minds

A friend of mine moved to another state last year. She was appalled at the schools and is now homeschooling her three kids.

     In her recent letter, this line stood out: "The school the boys attended is supposed to be the best, but only at test taking, we found."

     She told of science, art, and p.e. classes being cut, and no counselors on staff. She said, "There is so much pressure on the teachers to get their children to perform well on standardized tests that memorization has taken the place of real learning. And what they are being tested on seems of little consequence to me. Why are we not nourishing their minds? I am sick over it."

     Yes, that's what the emphasis on test-taking does; it makes schools lose sight of the real reason for education: nourishing minds.

    

Test the tests

This weekend someone sent me a link to a test called "Are you smarter than an 8th grader?" According to the site, "Great Schools is teaming up with Strong American Schools to ignite change in our schools." The site has both a science and a math quiz you can take and then compare your results to students in 46 countries.

     So I took both tests. I generally do well on tests, mostly because I'm good at second-guessing what "they" want. I did well on these tests, too, but I had a strong sense of what a kid must feel when I took the math test. It wasn't that it was particularly hard. It was that one question threw me because I thought the test was trying to trick me. The question asked me to compare the triangles "above" and choose the two that were similar.

     I knew which two were similar. But the triangles were not "above" the question. They were below it. My immediate thought was, "Oh, it's a trick!" I scrolled upward, but there were no triangles. I stared at the screen for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. If it had been a question in something I was reading casually, I would have assumed someone had just goofed. But this was a TEST. I immediately assumed that the test was trying to fool me. Finally, I simply chose the correct answer from the selections below, rather than above, the question. My answer was correct.

     Now it just so happens that this error was on a test posted for everyone to see. But how many goofs like this are on the tests kids take, the ones we're not allowed to see? How may questions do actually try to trick kids? How many questions are hard to answer because they are poorly written? We'll never know. We're not allowed to look.

     I found it interesting that my first reaction was to figure out the "trick." That, I think, is sad. It isn't because I'm perverted. It's because I'm a good test taker. I know that many questions are constructed in a sneaky way. How many kids stare at questions, as I did, trying to figure out what the heck the trick is or, worse, what the heck "they" want  them to do? Is this a real measure of what kids know, or a measure of how savvy they are at guessing what "they" want?

     Take a look at the test at http://www.greatschools.net/content/actionForEducationQuiz.page. From what I can tell, the questions come up randomly, so the test you take may not be the same one I took. Maybe you'll find errors, too. 

The First Lady and NCLB

Laura Bush defended No Child Left Behind legislation in a recent USA Today article. (See Laura Bush.) I think she lives on a different planet than I do.

     In answer to the charge that NCLB focuses too much on testing, she says, "We would never go to a doctor and say, I'm sick, you can't try to diagnose me … you can't use any kind of test."

     Well, okay. But nobody is saying you shouldn't sometimes use tests. The complaints are that  (a) kids are being tested to death, and (b) far too much importance is being given to the tests, and (c) the tests measure what is easily testable, not necessarily what really matters.

     What if we go to the doctor, perfectly healthy, for a physical and he gives us a test for toenail fungus? Again and again? And again and again? Or what if we have chest pains and he gives us a test for toenail fungus? Again and again? And again and again?

     Or what if he is pressured to believe that the toenail fungus test is the only test that matters, and his whole practice depends on it? What if he works hard to get us to pass that fungus test, at the expense of the rest of our body?

     Or what if ALL his patients have to pass the toenail fungus test, even the ones with no feet at all?

    I could go on and on....What if the toenail fungus test itself is flawed? What if "healthiness" involves a lot more than the state of toenails? What if....well, you get the idea.

     At another point in the article, Laura Bush is asked what she says to teachers who complain about No Child Left Behind. She is quoted as saying, "I don't hear that from very many teachers."

     That's pretty amazing. In my line of work, I talk to a lot of teachers from all over the country, and I hear a lot of complaints. In fact, in all the years NCLB legislation has been in effect, I have never once talked to a teacher anywhere who thinks the focus on testing is a good idea. Every teacher I've ever talked to about NCLB has disliked it. Every single one.

      Now that is not to say there aren't teachers who favor NCLB. I'm sure there are. I just haven't ever encountered any of them.

     Finally, the article says, "Mrs. Bush also flatly rejected complaints that the education law, which is up for reauthorization, has narrowed public schools' focus, forcing them to jettison rich subject matter such as the arts, history and sciences, in favor of explicit reading and math instruction."

     Like I said, we must live on different planets. I hear about narrowed focus all the time. Interestingly, so do a lot of USA Today readers. The bazillions of online comments about the article include many from teachers who tell how programs have been cut in their district, in order to focus on better math and reading scores.

     I'd better stop now. My heart rate is increasing as I get more and more annoyed. If I don't watch out, I'll have to make a trip to the doctor. Maybe for a toenail fungus test.