3 Easy Pieces (For a Successful Classroom at Anytime, Anywhere) There are only three things blocking the way to all American students receiving an adequate education at whatever school they attend, and all of these requirements could be put in place almost immediately at any school anywhere. I maintain your child should be able to go to any school and any classroom in the U.S. and receive an adequate grade-level education in that classroom; I will here show the surprisingly simple three things that have to be in place for that to happen, all of which are conceivably doable in a week. That is right--put out of your mind all of the alleged complexity you have heard about this issue, the complexity is an illusion. I have already proved in the area of classroom discipline that all of the myriad reasons given for not being able to achieve a quiet, focused classroom are illusion and I am asserting that the same is true of the other excuses for unsuccessful schools. The best schools are the best schools because they have the best teachers? This is one of worst hypothesis leading the field in a field of lousy hypotheses emitting from the logically-challenged about how to fix our schools. But I will hold my criticism and focus on the solution for now. Please for a moment clear your mind of all of the preconceptions about how complicated it all is. If the following three, count em THREE, doable, simple items are in place, your child is receiving an adequate education. The rest of the apparent complexity extolled by the confused thinking of the education community (aided and abetted by the confused thinking of judges and politicians) of the issues is all nonsense and obfuscation. It these three things are in place in a week, ANY of us could send our children to ANY school in the country and they could receive an adequate education. And if an adequate education is a right, then this is not only a suggestion but a legal requirement. The three simple requirements that need to be in place in any class anywhere for it to function are the following-- they are also given in order of importance, and the first is a requisite for the second two to have any effect at all, and the first two are a requisite for the third to function. Go back and reread this after you read the items and it will be clear. Without the first two in place, the teacher is irrelevant, so any ideas about a great teacher making the key difference are, to put it as mildly as I can, sorely mistaken. FIRST, each classroom attended must maintain a calm, sane environment which enforces a reasonably secure, quiet place to study and concentrate to the best of a student’s ability. Consistently, day in and day out, where a student can exercise their right to learn without being disrupted to any appreciable degree by disruptions or distractions, including other students. Not only must classrooms be quiet and focused in order to allow students to concentrate, there must be for the most part not even the threat of distraction; just the possible threat of noise or distraction is itself a distraction, stressful, and blocks students from achieving the high, sustained concentration necessary to do serious academic work. Therefore the classroom must be quiet and focused normally at all times. Fortunately, I have addressed this first issue with unprecedented success in my book Classroom Discipline 101, a book that showed how this atmosphere can be achieved even in schools where chaos is the norm. So the kind of atmosphere desired to protect a students right to learn, while maintaining an optimum environment for concentrating on academics, is possible anywhere--and anyone who tells you differently is simply unaware or unwilling to take the steps to achieve it. I am telling you this with the authority of someone who has achieved this in the toughest schools, with techniques that are reproducible anywhere (otherwise what good are they?) SECOND, all students entering the course of work must have the prerequisite skills required to do that course of work. Call it common sense, but common sense left the education field with the advent of social promotion and the onset of the industry that makes money off the rationalization of social promotion. We can no longer sacrifice our childrens learning and careers to the political expediency of passing failing students to the next grade and feisting them onto the students who are prepared to do the work (and teachers who literally cannot be prepared to teach several different levels though they often are made to feel incompetent for not doing so) and require interaction with other students at the same level. Students not competent to do all facets of the work required for a course must remediate in another course or take tutoring until they are ready. Students not bringing to a course the requisite skills are blocking the right of other students to get an education, by constantly trying to learn in an atmosphere that prevents their own skills from advancing when a teacher has to address constant remediation techniques and interact at various lower levels, constantly re-explaining and re-teaching students who dont get it and do not participate at a level which moves the class forward at the required pace. Socially-promoted students also suffer (I speak from years of first-hand experience) as they are perennially frustrated by efforts to do work above their heads, making them even more frustrated and likely to fall further behind and/or quit. Again, common sense. If all students are at a level to be able to do the work required, and things are in order in the class, we only require on more thing: THIRD, the class needs a competent teacher. NOT an excellent teacher, not an amazing teacher who is going to turn worlds upside down, not a teacher who came down from a planet that gives her special powers in our own world. And a pox on those making teachers feel they should have those powers. The class simply needs a COMPETENT teacher. That is all. If students are listening, and they have the ability to do the work, then even if the teacher just reads through the textbook, gives appropriate homework and tests, grades it and gives feedback, CLASS WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. Please do not let anyone obfuscate what I am saying by going back to the teacher. We all love excellent teachers. They are not a requirement for a functioning school or classroom. (Solve this Riddle: How do you turn an excellent teacher into a lousy teacher in one day? Answer at end of article) That is all it takes and any school can do it starting tomorrow. I can show teachers how to achieve the first step. The second is in the hand of politicians and educators whose philosophy has run mostly failing schools for 30 years in urban environments. The third is the easiest to accomplish once the first two are in place. Also, with the first two things in place, a teacher can be evaluated on an even scale. Otherwise there are too many variables. It is impossible to evaluate a teacher given the variables of chaotic classrooms and students dumped in at various levels. This is quite simply the solution of how to vastly improve low-achieving schools, immediately. If educators want to know where to put all of the students who are not socially-promoted, the answer is to put all your resources into figuring that out--remediation and tutoring. Whatever it takes--once students get acculturated to the idea that social-promotion is to be studied with dinosaurs, this will become less of a problem. Who remembers incentive? Common sense butts its imposing head once again. Then get your reasoning straight: You FIRST decide students will not be socially promoted to the detriment of your entire educational system. You first decide a student has a right to enter a classroom with the full expectation of receiving a grade-level education in that classroom. THEN you put your considerable resources to that end. (Solution to riddle: Put them in a chaotic classroom with socially-promoted students where they do not have the tools to keep students in order much less the materials to teach six different levels of students. Knew youd figure that out! Why cant the school systems?
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 21:49:44 +0000