Here's an article in The Christian-Science Monitor about using cash-incentive programs to motivate students. It talks about the programs in Baltimore and Fulton County, Ga., which I have wrriten about in the past, but also about a new program in Baltimore and D.C. that allows students to invest and manage money. Check it out.
As part of my beat here at Education Week, I cover rural school issues. I'm relatively new to this subject, and over the past month or so, I've been gathering as much information as possible about the challenges that rural schools face and ways to overcome them. This afternoon, I attended a Webinar put on by the Rural Schools and Community Trust called Engaging Students and Revitalizing Communities through Place-based Learning, which seemed particularly suited to share with you all.
Here's an article about place-based learning--what it is and some examples--from the Rural Schools and Community Trust's Web site. The Webinar was basically about how place-based learning, or expanding the classroom to include the students' community and surrounding environment, can motivate and engage students by providing them with opportunities for hands-on learning and emphasizing the relevancy of what they are learning. This is presented as an idea firmly rooted in the rural schools community, but I think it has implications for all districts. Helping students learn by studying the history, culture, and environment of their own community seems like it would not only engage students, but also build a strong relationship between schools and the outside community (which, by the way, seems to be a running theme on Motivation Matters lately).
Do you have any examples of this happening in your school or district? And if so, have those efforts been successful?
This article in the Downers Grove Sun covers the story of an elementary school in suburban Illinois that decided to celebrate its 80th anniversary by giving back to the community. Over the course of the school year, students have been encouraged to complete 80 acts of kindness that benefit the community. Each charitable act is written down on an apple and added to the school's giving tree, which hangs in the gym.
This is a great example of a school working together with the community to encourage participation from students and parents and build a meaningful relationship between the school and its community.
This story in the Tuscaloosa News hits on a lot of what we talk about here on Motivation Matters. The article tells the story of three high school students who won an international creativity and problem-solving competition while they were in elementary school and went on to found an organization that promotes those same values. Their project, THINK Organization LLC, promotes "creative thinking, deductive reasoning, public speaking, community involvement and teamwork." So far, the teens have headed a pilot program at an elementary school and hope to branch out to after-school programs and community organizations, like the YMCA.
This is a great example of encouraging creativity in the classroom, not to mention student leadership. As we've seen in the past, creativity and innovation are skills that are both hard to teach and invaluable for success later on in the workplace. Reaching kids at such a young age to cultivate a creative mindset seems like it may have far-reaching implications for those students--it obviously did for the three students who created the organization.
There's an interesting discussion forming around this entry in the Mortarboard blog, which tracks education trends in the UK. In the post, James Wignall argues against the recommendations of a report about improving student behavior and attendance. The report suggests that one way to combat bullying is to provide a separate space for shy students, such as "quiet study rooms, indoor games rooms and separate playground areas for calm and boisterous activities."
Wignall argues that separating students this way only exacerbates the differences between shy and outgoing children, providing even more fodder for bullying and ostracism. However, this commenter, drawing from personal experiences in the classroom as a teacher, takes issue with Wignall's point of view, and ultimately agrees with the findings of the report.
As a shy child myself, I empathize with the desire to have a separate space free of stressful social situations, but I don't really know why that space has to be quite as isolated as the report suggests. It seems to me that in a free-form situation, like recess for example, kids will group up with those they feel comfortable with and engage in activities they enjoy. Perhaps the key here is giving kids a variety of options and letting them choose what they want to do.
Beyond all talk of education policy--assessment and standards and curriculum and teacher training, et cetera--there's something else that is extremely important to the success or failure of the average student: the social climate of school. It's pretty hard to do well academically if you're constantly worried about being bullied or teased, or if you don't feel safe in your classroom environment. At least, that's what Ayer Public Schools in Massachusetts is learning, according to this article in the Boston Globe.
Fortunately, I personally never had to deal with bullies while I was in school, but I did, as I'm sure most of you did as well, witness some terrible cases of bullying throughout my years as a student. Add the Internet into that mix, and bullying gets taken to a whole new level. Here's an excerpt:
Because bullying has become an ever-present issue beyond the schoolyard - tweens and teens often sling barbs online or through crudely written text messages - more school districts across the state are proactively targeting bullying by ... setting up antidiscrimination committees, or holding all manner of informational sessions for parents and students.
The story talks about a district that has begun an extensive antibullying campaign to heighten awareness of the problem and decrease the amount of bullying that happens at school. So far, one school has reported a 31 percent drop in incidences of verbal bullying and a 27 percent drop in physical bullying. That's a pretty significant change, in my book.
Have you seen an increase in bullying or cyberbullying in your school or district? And if so, what has been done to curb that behavior? And what effect do you think bullying has on student motivation?
Apparently this is treat-kids-like-adults week on Motivation Matters because today, I'm going to point your attention to this editorial, "High schools shouldn't treat students like babies," on the Detroit News. The author of this opinion piece, Michael Williamson, specifically talks about issues that relate to Detroit students, but some of the changes he suggests are systemic in nature, rather than regional, so I thought it was worth noting. One particular point he made is something I've heard a lot of educators talk about recently. He says:
Don't create a "sit down and listen" model that replicates the classroom of today. Do foster a model of academic endeavor that encourages sociability, social integration, team work, personal responsibility and independence. Take high school to the streets and the marketplace. Integrate young people back into the community. Treat them as apprentice adults.
Doing away with the "sit down and listen" model requires a shift in the definition of a teacher from the "holder and disseminator of knowledge" to the "facilitator of learning," which is something that I've heard over and over again from educators, especially those who have embraced new forms of technology and integrated them into the classroom. With the rise of the Web, it's easy for students to find information on their own. They don't need teachers to supply them with facts and figures since that information is already available at the tip of students' fingertips. The role of the teacher, then, becomes more focused on keeping students engaged, helping them focus their ideas, and giving them the guidance, knowledge, and resources they need to follow through with those ideas.
Williamson's point also coincides nicely with the idea of engaging students by giving them hands-on, relevant curriculum--the hope being that if students are interested in what they are learning about, they will be more motivated to study and understand it.
What do you think? Do you see the role of the teacher changing in your school, or has it generally stayed the same? What obstacles might arise from this potential shift? What benefits?
In continuing with yesterday's theme of overprotecting kids, this story in The Washington Post talks about an elementary school in Northern Virginia that has banned tag from the playground. This isn't the first time I've read about something like this--it seems to happen every spring, with administrators banning the game because of student injuries (both physical and emotional) and parents crying foul while nostalgically looking back on their recess experiences.
What I do think is interesting about this particular case is this paragraph of the story:
Since the prohibition began early this month, physical education teachers have begun a "chasing, fleeing and dodging" unit in 1st through 5th grades. Students essentially play variations of tag, and the teachers remind them about safety rules and point out the athletic skills they can transfer to other sports, said Sue Straits, a PE teacher.
Maybe banning tag altogether is a bit extreme, but this seems like a nice compromise. Administrators are in a tough spot here--they have to make sure that students are as safe as possible and prevent as many accidents as they can while also balancing the "let the kids be kids" mentality of some parents. In this case, allowing students to play various forms of tag in a controlled environment may be a good middle ground for school officials, parents, and students.
There's been quite a bit of buzz around this column in the New York Sun by a mother, Lenore Skenazy, who gave her 9-year-old son a Metrocard, 20 bucks, and a fistful of quarters and left him in the middle of a New York City Bloomingdale's to find his way home on his own. Here's an excerpt:
No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn't do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, "Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I'll abduct this adorable child instead."
After she was invited onto national television with the title "America's Worst Mom?" underneath her face, she wrote this response. Another excerpt:
Yes, that’s all it took for me to learn just what a hot-button issue this is--whether good parents ever let their kids out of their sight. But even as the stations (and Web sites and Web logs) were having a field day with the story, people kept pulling me aside to say that they had been allowed to get around by themselves as kids, and boy were they glad.
They relished those memories--and thanked their parents!--and then in the next breath they admitted: They would never let their kids do the same.
The whole thing reminds me a lot of this blog post about a talk by Gever Tulley about giving kids the freedom to tinker with "dangerous things." Personally, I tend to side with Skenazy on this debate. I think giving kids the chance to step up and do responsible, adult-like things that may require some quick thinking and good judgment is a great way to empower kids and prepare them for even harder decisions in the future. Then again, I am not a parent.
And of course, every child is different, and Skenazy obviously felt that her son was ready for this challenge. It would be completely different if this adventure was a parent-devised test imposed upon a resistant child. Most likely, there are lessons to be learned on both sides of this situation. Nine years old is a little young to be traversing one of the biggest cities in the entire world alone, but parents probably do keep a closer eye on their kids now than in the past--whether or not they need to be.
What do you think? Did Skenazy needlessly endanger her child? Or is she right to loosen her parental grip a little in the name of an educational experience?
This AP story about a high school senior who found multiple examples of biases in his U.S. government textbook and proceeded to make those biases public, is a great example of one student who is actively engaged in his education. No matter what your political stance, you've got to give the kid credit for both knowing enough about politics and government to be able to dispute controversial sections of his textbook and for being passionate enough about his discoveries to bring them to the attention of the public.
From the last few paragraphs of the article, it sounds like this may be just the beginning of a long line of academic and truth alarm ringing this high schooler might be doing throughout his lifetime.
In following suit with yesterday's post about overcoming obstacles and doing your best with the skills that you have, here's another inspiring story about a Carnegie Mellon University professor, Randy Pausch, who gave his "last lecture" about what really matters in life after finding out he has terminal cancer.
His talk focuses on achieving childhood dreams and helping others achieve their own, and was intended to provide advice and counsel for his three children--all under the age of 7--as they grow up. The lecture, which you can watch on YouTube below, has now been expanded and turned into a book. The video is about 75 minutes long, so you'll need to set aside a pretty good chunk of time if you want to watch it, but it's very inspiring and has lots of great advice about how to stay motivated and follow through on your dreams.
This story in the Baltimore Sun is about a high school boy who excels academically despite his physical limitations resulting from spinal muscular atrophy, which makes him extremely weak and requires him to rely on the assistance of caregivers for almost everything.
But the really inspiring thing about this high schooler, Ofek Cohen, is that even though his capabilities are limited, he purposely seeks out ways to make the best of the skills that he does have. For example, Cohen's disability makes it impossible for him to play sports, but he still wanted to be involved with something competitive, so he learned how to play chess. After teaching himself how to play, he has since gone on to win his county's chess tournament for two years in a row. Similarly, Cohen says he is "really proud of [his] ability to think," which has helped him maintain a 3.8 grade-point-average and earn induction into the National Honor Society.
Reading this article, I was struck by how positive this 16-year-old was and how he truly embodied the idea of doing the best with what you have. The story itself is local, but the message behind it is clearly universal.
Education Week's Bess Keller has written a really interesting story about parental involvement. As we've talked about many, many times before, having parents involved in their childrens' schools can greatly boost motivation levels and keep them on track. However, in some cases, overly demanding parents can become more of a nuisance than a help. Bess' story explains why this is becoming more and more common.
"Parents are approaching schools with much more of a contract mentality," said [Bill Simmer, a parent-relations consultant for Independent School Management]. "Expecting results [from schools, for instance] has come well within the realm of parenting."
The shift may be more pronounced in parents who are paying tuition, but is present in the public sector, too, he said, especially when parents go to such lengths as moving to get their child in a certain school or district.
Mr. Simmer said the trick for educators is to make sure the "contract" that the parents envision has two sides: not only what the parents can expect of the school, but also what the school can expect of the parents.
Still, educators and administrators agree--having too much parental involvement is way better than having none at all. And it's hard to fault parents who want to be included in their child's education, especially if their child needs special attention that they may not be receiving from the school system, as one commenter notes. Like most things, I'm sure a healthy balance would be most effective for parents, teachers, and students.
Is this a problem you've encountered in your school? As a teacher, have you ever encountered an overly demanding parent? Or as a parent, have you discovered a breakdown of communication between the teacher and yourself?
This sad, but inspiring story in the Los Angeles Times talks about one Iraqi ballet and music school's struggle to stay open despite five years of war and over a decade of threats from Muslim extremists who "consider music sacrilegious and kill for much less than dancing in public in a form-revealing tutu."
In that same vein, Education Week's Mary Ann Zehr has recently returned from a trip to the Middle East, and has a number of stories up about the effects of five years of war on Iraqi schoolchildren. For many of those students, finding the motivation to succeed in school after months or even years of being prevented from going to class, is extremely difficult.
These issues are definitely worth your attention, so check them out if you get the chance.
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