There is a quote referencing how hedgehogs are able to "see what is essential and ignore the rest." It is obvious that hedgehogs are what school leaders need to become according to Schmoker. The introduction emphasizes the importance of schools putting all of their focus on a select few essential things and ignoring all of the rest. The three essential things that Schmoker focuses on with this book are: a reasonably coherent curriculum (what we teach), sounds lessons (how we teach), and authentic literacy. He states that without these three essential things, any other initiative is destined for failure. Unfortunately, too often schools lose focus and continue to introduce new initiative after new initiative with each doomed for failure due to their complexity and lack of clarity.
Re-emphasized in chapter one is the need to be simple, be clear, and prioritize what we teach, how we teach, and authentic literacy in schools. Schmoker advocates for a reduction of the number of standards that are used to guide instruction, and he stresses the importance of all students learning the content of the lesson before moving to new material. These things are tied together with authentic literacy - purposeful reading, speaking, and writing. Beneficial results will be achieved in schools when "all teachers apply these three things consistently and reasonably well. Then, as teachers continue to work in teams to practice and refine their implementation," (Schmoker, 10) better results will follow. This work that teachers do in their teams should coincide with all of the professional development taking place, and it should focus on the select few things that are being prioritized within the building. The better results that will come with this work must not only be recognized, but celebrated in order to be used as effective motivation.
Schmoker uses Best Buy's company practice to illustrate how simplicity can lead to such a high level of effectiveness. The salespeople at Best Buy are required to be experts of the products that they sell. That is their number one priority. Best Buy continually declines to sell certain new products that could interfere with their priority of mastering the products that they do sell. Furthermore, whenever Best Buy does add a new product to sell they discard one of their existing products. Schools must adopt this philosophy. We need to focus on becoming excellent at a few essential things, as opposed to being above average at a variety of things.
Chapter two dives into the what we teach (curriculum). There is nothing additional or new that Schmoker says that we should be doing, if anything he says that we should be doing less (and he definitely de-values technology in the classroom). It is our job to make sure that ALL students are ready to pursue a college education IF that is the path that they chose to take. Time has always been a hindrance, but it is not; between kindergarten and 12th grade there is plenty of instructional time if it is used well.
In order to prepare all students for college, they must be introduced to essential subject area content, which can (and possibly should) be done with a textbook as well as other sources that will provide them with more current information. Students need to have their critical thinking skills developed, but content knowledge must be developed first; it is hard to think critically of something when you are not familiar with the topic that you are thinking of. The curriculum must connect to the students' lives; we must provide them with authentic literacy opportunities - listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Students should be writing papers and presenting those papers whenever possible. Through these efforts they will achieve verbal competence, which must be the number one goal for students.
The second chapter ends by analyzing what is wrong with the standards that are used in education, and suggesting how we can improve them. Schmoker is clear in his thinking that there are too many of them, they are unclear, and they were never field tested. He is convinced that we would be better off with less standards that allowed teachers to get more in-depth with the content that they covered.
After reading the sections and Eric's blog, it makes me feel like we are on the right path to success at JB. We have narrowed our focus to non-fiction writing, specifically summarizing. We have put the other initiatives off to the side, and done other things business as usual. We are a dedicated team of leaders in our building and are committed to staying focused on what we think is right. We have continously clarified what we expect and used our faculty meetings as a time to continue our professional development on summarizing and our work with data teams this year has been extremely beneficial. It is exciting to think about how much can be done next year starting off strong in August.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest take away point I got from these first sections is the importance of teaching students to think for themselves and give them purposeful opportunities to read and write. Our job is to prepare meaningful lessons with authentic literacy. Good teachers allow students to think, question, and ponder. Great teachers take the time to plan the questions that delve deeper and allow students to practice their 21st century skills. Our ultimate goal is to prepare students for their future!
I think that a lot of what Schmoker has said throughout the first two chapters of his book correlates nicely to what is taking place at JB Young. Probably my favorite message that he has shared so far is how schools will see beneficial results when "all teachers apply these three things consistently and reasonably well. Then, as teachers continue to work in teams to practice and refine their implementation," (Schmoker, 10) better results will follow. This work that teachers do in their teams should coincide with all of the professional development taking place, and it should focus on the select few things that are being prioritized within the building.
ReplyDeleteApplying this message to JB, teachers don't have to be great when it comes to teaching summaries or non-fiction writing - they just have to do it consistently and do it reasonably well. Furthermore, the teachers must commit themselves to that within their collaboration time (data team meetings and Wednesday staff developments), which, I think, overall they do a very good job. The biggest change for myself (and most pleasing) when coming from Sudlow to JB was seeing how much teachers collaborate with one another and how much time gets spent on actual professional development when allowed.
Finally, an emphasis of this section was in regards to reducing the amount of/clarifying the standards that we use to guide our instruction. I think that this will, most likely, tie directly into what we will be doing this coming school year with unwrapping the standards...hopefully!
- Eric Ewald
Eric - I agree that this is what are trying to do with data teams. Another point I took from the book is that teachers need to be monitored for implementation. I think this helps all stay focused and making sure that we are all still working toward a common goal. I think walk throughs looking for evidence of implementation would be VERY beneficial to our staff.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone has said so far. JB had a narrow focus last year and our staff development tied in with our focus. I think we need to make sure that teachers are implementing authentic literacy in all subject areas. As Eric said, "all teachers apply these three things consistently and reasonably well. Then, as teachers continue to work in teams to practice and refine their implementation," (Schmoker, 10) better results will follow." The teachers don't have to be "experts" but they need to be able to implement the what we teach, the how we teach, and authentic literacy well. I'm interested to read how Schmoker suggests we implement authentic literacy in later chapters. I think we are on the right track with our writing assessments. I think next year teachers need some time to analyze the results. I thought the idea of having students present their papers was interesting. I wonder if we could try that sometime at JB. Maybe let the students pick what they think was their best work and then do a little presentation on it. I liked the section on selecting essential standards because I know with the Common Core/Iowa Core coming, we have a lot of new standards in math and it's overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteAs I reflect, I believe it is important for the DRT to look at the core curriculum being taught at JB(what we teach). If we are to simplify and clarify we need to reduce what we are teaching. Teachers currently do not teach less…they teach from the pacing guide and or the textbook. How do we determine what we teach is what is essential? How do we determine this for all content areas? Are we ok with starting with writing building wide? I found it interesting that Schmoker suggests we ignore the LA standards because they are poorly written…we struggled with the ones we had, too. What about looking at those he suggests on pg. 38? He even suggests adding Blooms’. This may be the place we start with unwrapping standards building wide. What are your thoughts on making textbooks more prominent…as suggested?
ReplyDeleteLooking at how we teach, I think we should consider the Fisher/Frey gradual release model building wide. It can incorporate the short instructional chunks with guided practice and formative assessment talked about in the first two chapters and the RTI model. Monitoring implementation will be critical. How does IPI fit with this? I like the quarterly meetings with all teachers to share walkthrough data, grades and assessment data…good idea and easy to do.
It was reassuring to read that “if you make only one change to make students more college ready it would be to increase quality writing”(p.39)…JB has started on that path…we need to clarify and communicate quality writing.
Our challenge as a DRT is to further narrow our focus and be persistent with the common core we determine, with sound lesson design building wide, and prioritizing authentic literacy. If we are truly going to master the fundamentals and simplify…then what fluff do we remove? What about Read a Million Words? Is that fluff? We will need to model those difficult conversations to help all teachers realize enthusiasm does not always create meaningful learning. We need to be the filter and say “No thank you to opportunities that fail the hedgehog test” so we can be “as proud of what we have not done as we are of what we have done”.
There is not a way to make teachers do what we ask just as we can not make students do what we ask. What we can do is provide the staff short instructional “chunks” with guided practice and formative assessments that provide the data to show an increase in adult learning and student achievement. We will be in charge of recognition and celebration! DRT will consistently need to simplify, clarify, prioritize and communicate…no simple task, but the right people are in the right seats. I am confident you can do it!
-Marianne
I think that we have started down the right path through the first year by narrowing our focus to writing and calling other things "business as usual." I feel that as we start to discuss classroom walk-throughs for next school year "authentic curriculum" should be very important to include. If teachers were allowed to adjust or not feel the need to stick to the pacing guide that a lot more authentic lessons would be incoportated in the classrooms!
ReplyDeleteI think that we need to have some professional development on how to teach writing. I know that some teachers just don't feel comfortable doing it so they do not make it their focus. Would it be right to have a specific writing curriculum that all teachers are to follow? I remember watching the video on the High School from out in Boston and they made reading their focus. One reading curriculum was choosen and teachers were expected to use it in all of their classes. Consistency was created with students understand what was expected. Is this a direction we need to go? I agree with what Rachel said above that we need to have a plan in place for our professional development at least for the first quarter. I think we should also follow what Schmoker says "simplify, clarify, prioritize and communicate" what we want to do as a school.
Aaron-
ugh. I had a bunch typed and I didn't something wrong and it erased. Basically....I don't want to reiterate what everyone said. I think what we are doing is great. One thing I will add to my classroom and the hallway this year is more recognition and celebration. Amanda posted graphs on the eigth graders progress with summaries. I will do that for the 6th graders this year. I think it emphasizes the importance of what we are doing and shows them how they are improving.
ReplyDeleteI think that is about everything I had...hope it works this time.
Response to what has been written:
ReplyDeleteI think unwrapping the standards will help us figure out what is "fluff". I agree with Aaron that without pacing guides, we might be able to see more authentic lessons being taught. Are the pacing guides fluff? Some of the pacing guides aren't too bad, but some run you through the curriculum.
I also agree that writing is the best place to collaborate. I think if we try to delve into each subject area too much we won't be collaborating as much and lose some of the great things we are doing. Maybe some of the other curriculums will come naturally as we figure out the standards to focus on.
Having textbooks be more prominent wouldn't be a terrible idea, I would hate to see teachers use it as "read this and answer the questions". It can be done in more fun, beneficial and creative ways.
Although I think it would be good to have staff development on writing or having a writing curriculum to follow I am worried that this would "turn off" some people to writing and they would claim they aren't "writing" teachers. I think most teachers get it now though. They understand that the writing works with their curriculum, I would just hate to require one more thing from them. If they saw it as "narrowing the focus" they might be okay with it, or maybe we could start small with just pieces of a curriculum.
I have more thoughts, but a kid is trapped in the bathroom.