103 Things to Do Before/During/After Reading

By: Jim Burke

This article offers a collection of interactive activities that help kids become more involved in the stories that they read.

1. PantomimeAct out a scene you choose or the class calls out to you while up there.
2. Dramatic monologueCreate a monologue for a character in a scene. What are they thinking/feeling at that moment? Why?
3. Dramatic monologueCreate a monologue for a character while they are out of the book. Where are they? Why? What are they thinking?
4. Business card BookWrite the story in the most compelling way you can on paper the size of a business card.
5. PostcardWrite to a friend, the author, or to a character about this book. Write as if you were the character or author and write to yourself.
6. MapmakerDraw a map of the book's setting.
7. MoviemakerWrite a one page "pitch" to a producer explaining why the story would or would not make a great movie.
8. TrailerMovie previews always offer a quick sequence of the best moments that make us want to watch it – storyboard or narrate the scenes for your trailer. Focus on verbs.
9. BillboardAs in the movies, take what seems the most compelling image(s) and create an ad.
10. Adjective-itisPick five adjectives for the book or character(s), and explain how they apply.
11. CollageCreate an individual or class collage around themes or characters in the book.
12. Haiku/LimerickCreate one about a character.
13. CliffsNotesHave each student take a chapter and, using the CliffsNotes format, create their own.
14. RoundtableGive students a chance to talk about what intrigues, bothers, confuses them about the book.
15. Silent roundtableThe only rule is the teacher cannot say anything during the period allotted for class discussion of book.
16. Silent conversationA student writes about a story on paper, then passes it to another who responds to what they said. Each subsequent respondent "talks" to/about all those before.
17. FishbowlImpromptu or scheduled, two to four students sit in middle of circle and talk about a text. The class makes observations about the conversation then rotate into the circle.
18. Movie reviewStudents write a review of (or discuss) a movie based on a story.
19. Dear authorAfter reading a book the student(s) write the author via the publisher (who always forwards them).
20. Surf the NetPrior to, while, or after reading a book check out the Web and its offerings about the book, its author, or its subject.
21. InspirationsWatch a film inspired by a story (e.g., Franny and Alexander is inspired by Hamlet) and compare/contrast.
22. TimelineCreate a timeline that includes both the events in the novel and historical information of the time. Try using Post-Its on a whiteboard or butcher paper!
23. MandalaCreate a mandala with many levels to connect different aspects of a book, its historical time, and culture.
24. TransparenciesCopy portions of the text to a transparency. Kids annotate with markers and then get up to present their interpretations to the class.
25. Gender-benderRewrite a scene and change the gender of the characters to show how they might act differently (e.g., Lord of Flies). You can also have a roundtable on gender differences.
26. Picture thisBring in art related to book's time or themes. Compare, describe, and discuss.
27. Kids booksBring in children's books about related themes and read these aloud to class.
28. DowngradeAdapt myths or other stories for a younger audience. Make into children's books or dramatic adaptation on video or live.
29. Draw!Translate chapters into storyboards and cartoons; draw the most important scene in the chapter and explain its importance and action.
30. Oprah bookclubHost a talkshow: students play the host, author, and cast of characters. Allow questions from the audience.
31. Fictional friendsWho of all the characters would you want for a friend? Why? What would you do or talk about together?
32. State of the UnionThe President wants to recommend a book to the nation: tell him one important realization you had while reading this book and why he should recommend it.
33. Interview questionWhen I interview prospective teachers, my first question is always, "What are you reading and do you like it?"
34. Dear diaryKeep a diary as if you were a character in the story. Write down events that happen during the story and reflect on how they affected the character and why.
35. Rosencrantz and GildensternWrite a story or journal from the perspective of characters with no real role in the story and show us what they see and think from their perspective.
36. ImprovGet up in front of class or in a fishbowl and be whatever character the class calls out and do whatever they direct. Have fun with it.
37. What ifWrite about or discuss how the story would differ if the characters were something other than they are: a priest, another gender or race, a different age, or social class.
38. Interrupted conversationsPair up and trade-off reading through some text. Any time you have something to say about some aspect of the story, interrupt the reader and discuss, question, argue.
39. Found poetryTake sections of the story and, choosing carefully, create a found poem; then read these aloud and discuss.
40. 13 viewsInspired by Stevens's poem "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," write a poem where each stanza offers a different view of a character or chapter.
41. Personal adWhat would a particular character write in a personal ad for the newspaper? After posting on board, discuss.
42. Holden Meets HamletWhat would one character (or set of them) in one story say to another if given the chance to talk or correspond? Write a dialogue, skit, or letter.
43. Character analysisDescribe a character as a psychologist or recruiting officer might: what are they like? Examples? Why are they like that?
44. Epistle poemWrite a poem in the form and voice of a letter: e.g., Phoebe to Holden from Catcher in the Rye.
45. Write intoFind a "hole" in the story where the character disappears (off camera) for a time and describe what they do when we can't see them.
46. The Woody AllenIn Take the Money, Allen interviews the parents of a man who became a bank robber. Write an imaginary interview with friends and family of a character whom they try to help you understand.
47. Author interviewWrite an interview or letter in which the character in a story asks the author a series of questions and reflects on how they feel about the way they were made.
48. The KuglemassWoody Allen wrote a story in which the character can throw any book into a time machine and it takes you inside the book and the era. What would you do, say, think if you "traveled" into the story you are reading?
49. Time machineInstead of traveling into the book, write a scene or story in which the character(s) travel out of the book into today.
50. BiographyWrite a biography of one of the characters who most interests you.
51. AutobiographyHave the character that most interests you write their autobiography of the time before, during, or after the story occurs.
52. P.S.After you read the story, write an epilogue in which you explain – using whatever tense and tone the author does – what happened to the character(s) next.
53. Board gameHave groups design board games based on stories then play them. This is especially fun and works well with The Odyssey.
54. Life graphUsing the Life Graph assignment, plot the events in the character's life during the story and evaluate their importance; follow up with discussion of graphs.
55. Second chanceTalk or write about how it would change the story if a certain character had made a different decision earlier in the story (e.g., what if Huck of Huckleberry Finn had not run away?)
56. Poetry connectionBring in poems that are thematically related to the story. Integrate these into larger discussion. Use Poetry Index.
57. Reader responsePick the most important word/line/image/object/event in the chapter and explain why you chose it. Be sure to support all analysis with examples.
58. Notes and quotesDraw a line down the middle of the page. On one side write down important quotes, on the other comment on and analyze the quotes.
59. Dear classmateUsing email or some other means of corresponding, write each other about the book as you read it, having a written conversation about the book.
60. Convention introductionYou have been asked to introduce the book's author to a convention of English teachers. What would you say? Write and deliver your speech.
61. Sing me a songWrite a song/ballad about the story, a character, or an event in the book.
62. Write your ownUsing the themes in the story, write your own story, creating your own characters and situation. It does not have to relate to the story at all aside from its theme.
63. Executive summaryTake a 3x5 card and summarize what happened on one side. On the other, analyze the importance of what happened and the reasons it happened.
64. Read aloudOne student starts the reading and goes until they wish to pass. They call on whomever they wish and that person picks up and continues reading for as long as they wish.
65. Quaker readingLike a Quaker meeting, one person stands and reads then sits and whomever wishes to picks up and reads for as long as with wish… and so it goes.
66. Pageant of the MastersIn Los Angeles this remarkable event asks groups to stage different classical paintings in real life. People would try to do a still life of some scene from a book or play. The class should then discuss what is going on in this human diorama.
67. Create a dioramaCreate a diorama of a particularly important scene such as the courtroom or Ewells' house in To Kill a Mockingbird.
68. Day in courtUse the story as the basis for a court trial; students can be witnesses, expert witnesses called to testify, judge, jury, bailiff, reporter; great fun for a couple days.
69. Censorship defenseImagine that the book you are reading has been challenged by a special interest group. Students must write a letter defending the book, using specific evidence from the book to support their ideas.
70. Call for censorshipIn order to better understand all sides to an argument, imagine you are someone who feels this particular book should not be read and write a letter in which you argue it should be removed.
71. SpeculationBased on everything you know now in the story, what do you think will happen and why do you think that?
72. Questions anyone?Students make a list of a certain number of questions they have about a particular character or aspect of the book; use these as the basis for class discussion.
73. Newspaper connectionHave students read the newspapers and magazines to find articles that somehow relate to issues and ideas in the book(s) you are reading. Bring those articles in and discuss.
74. JigsawOrganize the class into groups, each one with a specific focus. After a time rotate so that new groups are formed to share what they discussed in their previous group.
75. Open mindDraw an empty head and inside of it draw any symbols or words or images that are bouncing around in the mind of the character of a story. Follow it up with writing or discussion to explain and explore responses.
76. InterrogationA student must come up before the class and, pretending to be a character or the author, answer questions from the class.
77. Post-ItsIf they are using a school book in which they cannot make notes or marks, encourage them to keep a pack of Post-Its with them and make notes on these.
78. Just the facts, ma'amActing as a reporter, ask the students the basic questions to facilitate a discussion: who, what, where, why, when, how?
79. SQ3R
    When reading a textbook or article, try this strategy:
    • (S)urvey the assigned reading by first skimming through it;
    • then formulate (Q)uestions by turning all chapter headings and subheadings into questions to answer as you read;
    • next (R)ead the assigned section and try to answer those questions you formulated;
    • now (R)ecite the information by turning away from the text as soon as you've finished reading the assigned section and reiterate it in your own words;
    • finally, (R)eview what you read by going back to your questions, the chapter headings, and asking yourself what they are all referring to, what they mean.
80. Brainstorming/WebbingPut a character or other word in the middle of a web. Have students brainstorm associations while you write them down, then have them make connections between ideas and discuss or write about them.
81. Cultural literacyFind out what students already know and address what they need to know before reading a story or certain part of a story.
82. StoryboardIndividually or in groups, create a storyboard for the chapter or story.
83. Interactive storyIf you have a student who is a computer genius, have them create a multimedia, interactive version of the story.
84. CyberGuidesSearch the Net for virtual tours based on the books you might be studying.
85. TableauSimilar to the Pageant of the Masters, this option asks you to create a still life setting; then someone steps up to touch different characters who come alive and talk from their perspective about the scene.
86. Audio booksThere are many audio editions of books we teach now available – some are even read by famous stars who turn the book into its own audio performance. Recommend audio books to students with reading difficulties or play portions of them in class.
87. Sound off!Play a video version of a book you are reading – only turn off the sound while they watch it. Have them narrate or discuss or write about what is happening, what the actors are revealing about the story through their gestures. Then compare what you saw with what you read.
88. Narrate your own readingShow kids how you read a text by reading it aloud and interrupting yourself to explain how you grapple with it as you go. Model your own thinking process; kids often don't know what it "looks like" to think.
89. Magnetic poetryIf working with a poem, enlarge it on copier or computer and cut all words up into pieces; place in an envelope and have groups create poems from these words. Later on discuss using the same words for different texts. Heavier stock paper is ideal for this activity.
90. Venn diagramUse a Venn diagram to help you organize your thinking about a text as you read it. Put differences between two books or characters on opposite sides and similarities in the middle.
91. Write an essayUsing one of the different rhetorical modes, write an essay in which you make meaningful connections between the text and your own experiences or other texts you have read.
92. P.O.V.How would it change the story if you rewrote it in a different point of view (e.g., changed it from first to third person)? Try it!
93. Daily editionUsing the novel as the basis for your stories, columns and editorials, create an newspaper or magazine based on or inspired by the book you are reading.
94. Read recursivelyOn occasion circle back around to the beginning of the chapter or text to keep yourself oriented as to "the big picture." This is especially important if you have questions to answer based on reading.
95. Oral historyIf you are reading a historical text, have students interview people who have some familiarity with that time period or the subject of the book.
96. Guest speakerIf you are reading a book that deals with a subject an expert might help them better understand, invite one in. Try the Veterans of Foreign Wars, for example, if reading about war.
97. StorytellingAfter reading a story, pair up with others and tell the story as a group, recalling it in order, piecing it together, and clarifying for each other when one gets lost.
98. Reciprocal teachingA designated student or group reads a section of a text and comes prepared to present or teach it to the class. Follow up with discussion for clarification.
99. Make your own testHave students create their own test or essay questions about the text. This allows them to simultaneously think about the story and prepare for the test on it.
100. Recasting the textStudents rewrite a poem as a story, a short story as a poem or play. All rewrites should then be read and discussed so as to understand how the different genre work.
101. DebatesStudents reading controversial texts or novels with debatable subjects such as 1984 should debate the issues.
102. Literature circlesStudents gather in groups to discuss the text and then report out to the class for full-class discussion.
103. That was then, this is nowAfter reading the text, create a Before/After list to compare the ways in which characters or towns have changed over the course of the story. Follow up with discussion of reasons.

Excerpted from Burke, J., The English Teacher's Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum, and the Profession. Boynton/Cook Publishers. 1998.

Which is More Effective...Praise or Encouragement?

http://teamhagkulls.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/less-praise-more-encouragement/

Less praise,

More encouragement

by Brad Hagkull

Two Saturdays a month I travel to a neighboring town where I meet with my M.Ed. cohort for the day. We’re more than halfway through our requirements and it’s really a pleasure to meet with my “study family”. More often that not, the discussions are rich and the learning is deep. The conversations on the ride home aren’t so bad either.

We had our pedagogical worlds rocked last week when our instructor challenged us to “encourage more and praise less.” We were all quiet after that one. “What’s the difference?” somebody asked. “They are worlds apart” came the reply. “Many good meaning teachers confuse the two and unknowingly contribute to many of the classroom behavior issues they seek to stamp out.” Collectively, the wheels were grinding in our heads. I’d known about the word praise from Sunday School classes when I was young, and I’ve received lots of praise from my parents and teachers growing up. In my Teacher Ed. program we talked about Authentic Praise and Specific Praise, (“good job!” vs. “you’re got great printing!”) and I’ve found myself intentionally noticing things about a student’s behavior that deserved a compliment from time to time. In light of the new information my brain just absorbed, was that alright? Have I been doing it all wrong?

As we discussed the two approaches and the role of a teacher with respect to them, it became apparent that there was a definite line (although quite subtle) between the two terms. My intentions didn’t need to change, but my choice of phrases and the way I expressed those thoughts did.

Praise (in the school setting) happens when a teacher expresses a favorable judgement and gives approval. It addresses the doer and can be quite patronizing (“You are such a good boy”, “I’m so proud of you”, “I like the amount of blue you used in your picture”). A feeling of worth is given only when others approve. At first, this seems okay, right? But say you were the student sitting next to the artist that got the “I like the amount of blue you used” praise, how would you feel if you looked at your own picture and saw oranges and reds, but no blue? There is a certain dependance on others for approval that is created when these types of phrases are used.

Contrast that with encouragement: to put courage in or to inspire with courage. Encouragement addresses the deed, not the doer (“Thank you for helping”, “Who can show me the proper way to sit in their desk?”). Encouragement asks questions (“What is an appropriate level of noise in the library?) while Praise gives way to should statements (“You should be quiet like my last class”). Perhaps the most important contrast is found with respect to evaluation: Encouragement gives way to self evaluation (“Tell me about your painting”) while praise gives way to evaluation from others (“I like it”).

See the difference? It’s taken me a while to figure out, so here are some questions for you and I to consider:

a) Am I being respectful to students (E) or patronizing to them? (P)

b) Am I helping students discover how to act (E) or am I trying to manipulate behavior (P)?

c) Am I seeing the child’s point of view or my own?

d) Am I inspiring self evaluation (E) or dependence on the evaluation of others (P)?

Master teachers are encouragement artists and their methods create an atmosphere where people feel worthwhile without the approval of others. A subtle shift in the way a teacher phrases these thoughts will increase confidence, and esteem in the classroom setting.

Our Introduction to Counseling Instructor, Jim Skinner, gave us a list of several Methods of Encouragement that I’ll be seeking to integrate into my own practice. He also gave us some sample sentence starters that would be effective ways to encourage others – especially English as a Second Dialect learners. I’ve included some of these below. If this is helpful to you, use them. (If not, I’ve got some blogs from previous months that you may enjoy ;o)

Here’s a brief list:
a. Place value on the person as they are, not on what they should have done or should become.

b. Give recognition for effort and improvement, focus on strengths and assets.

c. Be a non-judgemental listener. (Hard to do! Listening without “fixing” or offering advice is difficult!)

d. Look for the logic behind the mistakes.

e. Avoid bribery & other methods of rewarding to control

1. “I like the way you . . .”

2. “I can tell a lot of work went into that.”

3. “Tell me more about it.”

4. “Since you don’t seem to be happy with that, what will you do differently?”

5. “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll do a good job.”

6. “I appreciate your help.”

7. “I think I understand. Can you tell me more?”

I believe that most teachers are quite good at giving compliments and recognizing goodness in the students around them. Some may think that the Praise vs. Encouragement debate may in fact be a debate of semantics. But armed with my new knowledge I’m going to try to implement the subtle shift in my language and see what results.

When we have the opportunity to improve our ability to inspire others, I feel this is always a worthwhile shift that I’d be willing to make.

True Cost of High School Dropouts

Op-Ed Contributors

The True Cost of High School Dropouts

By HENRY M. LEVIN and CECILIA E. ROUSE
Published: January 25, 2012

ONLY 21 states require students to attend high school until they graduate or turn 18. The proposal President Obama announced on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address — to make such attendance compulsory in every state — is a step in the right direction, but it would not go far enough to reduce a dropout rate that imposes a heavy cost on the entire economy, not just on those who fail to obtain a diploma.

 In 1970, the United States had the world’s highest rate of high school and college graduation. Today, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we’ve slipped to No. 21 in high school completion and No. 15 in college completion, as other countries surpassed us in the quality of their primary and secondary education.

Only 7 of 10 ninth graders today will get high school diplomas. A decade after the No Child Left Behind law mandated efforts to reduce the racial gap, about 80 percent of white and Asian students graduate from high school, compared with only 55 percent of blacks and Hispanics.

Like President Obama, many reformers focus their dropout prevention efforts on high schoolers; replacing large high schools with smaller learning communities where poor students can get individualized instruction from dedicated teachers has been shown to be effective. Rigorous evidence gathered over decades suggests that some of the most promising approaches need to start even earlier: preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, who are fed and taught in small groups, followed up with home visits by teachers and with group meetings of parents; reducing class size in the early grades; and increasing teacher salaries from kindergarten through 12th grade.

These programs sound expensive — some Americans probably think that preventing 1.3 million students from dropping out of high school each year can’t be done — but in fact the costs of inaction are far greater.

High school completion is, of course, the most significant requirement for entering college. While our economic competitors are rapidly increasing graduation rates at both levels, we continue to fall behind. Educated workers are the basis of economic growth — they are especially critical as sources of innovation and productivity given the pace and nature of technological progress.

If we could reduce the current number of dropouts by just half, we would yield almost 700,000 new graduates a year, and it would more than pay for itself. Studies show that the typical high school graduate will obtain higher employment and earnings — an astonishing 50 percent to 100 percent increase in lifetime income — and will be less likely to draw on public money for health care and welfare and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. Further, because of the increased income, the typical graduate will contribute more in tax revenues over his lifetime than if he’d dropped out.

When the costs of investment to produce a new graduate are taken into account, there is a return of $1.45 to $3.55 for every dollar of investment, depending upon the educational intervention strategy. Under this estimate, each new graduate confers a net benefit to taxpayers of about $127,000 over the graduate’s lifetime. This is a benefit to the public of nearly $90 billion for each year of success in reducing the number of high school dropouts by 700,000 — or something close to $1 trillion after 11 years. That’s real money — and a reason both liberals and conservatives should rally behind dropout prevention as an element of economic recovery, leaving aside the ethical dimensions of educating our young people.

Some might argue that these estimates are too large, that the relationships among the time-tested interventions, high school graduation rates and adult outcomes have not been proved yet on a large scale. Those are important considerations, but the evidence cannot be denied: increased education does, indeed, improve skill levels and help individuals to lead healthier and more productive lives. And despite the high unemployment rate today, we have every reason to believe that many of these new graduates would find work — our history is filled with sustained periods of economic growth when increasing numbers of young people obtained more schooling and received large economic benefits as a result.

Of course, there are other strategies for improving educational attainment — researchers learn more every day about which are effective and which are not. But even with what we know, a failure to substantially reduce the numbers of high school dropouts is demonstrably penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Proven educational strategies to increase high school completion, like high-quality preschool, provide returns to the taxpayer that are as much as three and a half times their cost. Investing our public dollars wisely to reduce the number of high school dropouts must be a central part of any strategy to raise long-run economic growth, reduce inequality and return fiscal health to our federal, state and local governments.

Henry M. Levin is a professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Cecilia E. Rouse, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, was a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2011.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 26, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: The True Cost Of High School Dropouts.

The Motor Story Blog: A Great Calming and Organizing Activity!

http://www.themotorstory.com/The_Motor_Story/Blog/Entries/2012/1/23_Blanket_Roll-Ups.html

Blanket Roll Ups!

By Jill Mills, O.T

 

I work with children of all shapes, sizes and areas of difficulty. “Blanket Roll-Ups” is an activity all children love! It is simple and requires nothing more than a favorite blanket, a carpeted floor (or mat) and a caregiver’s strong arms.

This activity taps into all sensory areas so it is a hugely integrating activity.

Here’s why:

1.  The chosen blanket should provide comfortable tactile (or touch) input. It is important that the child helps choose the blanket for just this reason!

2.  As the child rolls up, the muscles and joints have to work, especially if the child is able to roll up independently. This stimulates proprioceptor and kinesthetic nerves, which in turn activate organizing parts of the brain.

3.  Unrolling the child, especially if done quickly, stimulates the vestibular system; another organizing system for the brain.

4.  Adding “Get Ready, Get Set, Go!” activates the auditory (hearing) and language centers.

5.  With the head peeking through, the eyes see a whirl of input flashing by as the child rolls out of the blanket.

This is how you do it:

 

1.Have the child choose a favorite blanket-this is important because you want the touch input to be soothing and comfortable for the child.

2.Spread the blanket out over a rug or mat. Be sure any potential obstacles are out of the way.

3.Ask the child to lie down parallel to the end of the blanket-perpendicular to the length.

4.If the child can roll independently, help the child roll up while holding onto the blanket so it wraps around the child’s body. Make sure the head is peeking through at the end of the blanket.

5.Once the child is rolled up like a hot dog, say “Get ready, Get set, Go!” At “Go” pull on the end of the blanket so the child rolls out.

Special Considerations and Extensions to the Activity:

1.If the child is unable to roll yet, provide help, gently rolling the child up. This is a good time to add a little extra tactile input such as deep rubbing as you roll.

2.Explain how the child should position himself on the blanket then watch how the child approaches this. There is a motor planning and spatial demand to positioning the body correctly. If the child cannot do this independently (and many children can not), then give additional verbal cues as to where the head and feet should be. The last resort is to actually place the child’s body correctly if s/he cannot figure this out independently.

3.If the child is tentative about movement, then initially unroll the child slowly and gently. As the child becomes accustom to the movement you can speed it up.

4.As a language exercise, have the child say “Go!” or the whole “Get ready...”

 

“Blanket Roll-Ups” is great to do anytime. The rolling up is a “heavy work activity,” which helps to calm and organize the child. The unrolling can “wake up” the body, especially if it is done quickly. Along with providing great sensory input, the action requires work from the core muscles, so it’s great for physical fitness as well.

With the winter weather (finally) upon us, whether it’s rain or snow, this activity works well when the kids need a little exercise. It’s a great activity to incorporate into the bedtime routine as well, right before the bath and story time. Don’t do it immediately before “lights out” as the child might still be a little too energized by the activity.

You can transfer this to summer time outside fun as the weather improves. Beach blankets on the sand and picnic blankets on soft grass work well. There’s hope! Summer is only 5 months away!

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success by Anu Partanen

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

By Anu Partanen

Dec 29 2011, 3:00 PM ET1380

The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.

Sergey Ivanov/Flickr

Everyone agrees the United States needs to improve its education system dramatically, but how? One of the hottest trends in education reform lately is looking at the stunning success of the West's reigning education superpower, Finland. Trouble is, when it comes to the lessons that Finnish schools have to offer, most of the discussion seems to be missing the point.
The small Nordic country of Finland used to be known -- if it was known for anything at all -- as the home of Nokia, the mobile phone giant. But lately Finland has been attracting attention on global surveys of quality of life -- Newsweek ranked it number one last year -- and Finland's national education system has been receiving particular praise, because in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world.

Finland's schools owe their newfound fame primarily to one study: the PISA survey, conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore. In the most recent survey in 2009 Finland slipped slightly, with students in Shanghai, China, taking the best scores, but the Finns are still near the very top.

Throughout the same period, the PISA performance of the United States has been middling, at best.
Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model -- long hours of exhaustive cramming and rote memorization -- Finland's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play. All this has led to a continuous stream of foreign delegations making the pilgrimage to Finland to visit schools and talk with the nation's education experts, and constant coverage in the worldwide media marveling at the Finnish miracle.
So there was considerable interest in a recent visit to the U.S. by one of the leading Finnish authorities on education reform, Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Earlier this month, Sahlberg stopped by the Dwight School in New York City to speak with educators and students, and his visit received national media attention and generated much discussion.

And yet it wasn't clear that Sahlberg's message was actually getting through. As Sahlberg put it to me later, there are certain things nobody in America really wants to talk about.

* * *

During the afternoon that Sahlberg spent at the Dwight School, a photographer from the New York Times jockeyed for position with Dan Rather's TV crew as Sahlberg participated in a roundtable chat with students. The subsequent article in the Times about the event would focus on Finland as an "intriguing school-reform model."

Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."

This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.
The irony of Sahlberg's making this comment during a talk at the Dwight School seemed obvious. Like many of America's best schools, Dwight is a private institution that costs high-school students upward of $35,000 a year to attend -- not to mention that Dwight, in particular, is run for profit, an increasing trend in the U.S. Yet no one in the room commented on Sahlberg's statement. I found this surprising. Sahlberg himself did not.

Sahlberg knows what Americans like to talk about when it comes to education, because he's become their go-to guy in Finland. The son of two teachers, he grew up in a Finnish school. He taught mathematics and physics in a junior high school in Helsinki, worked his way through a variety of positions in the Finnish Ministry of Education, and spent years as an education expert at the OECD, the World Bank, and other international organizations.

Now, in addition to his other duties, Sahlberg hosts about a hundred visits a year by foreign educators, including many Americans, who want to know the secret of Finland's success. Sahlberg's new book is partly an attempt to help answer the questions he always gets asked.

From his point of view, Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students' performance if you don't test them constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice?

The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do.

For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.

Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Puronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.

Finally, in Finland, school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all. Which brings us back to the silence after Sahlberg's comment at the Dwight School that schools like Dwight don't exist in Finland.

"Here in America," Sahlberg said at the Teachers College, "parents can choose to take their kids to private schools. It's the same idea of a marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are a shop and parents can buy what ever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same."

Herein lay the real shocker. As Sahlberg continued, his core message emerged, whether or not anyone in his American audience heard it.

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

* * *

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.

In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.

In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.

That this point is almost always ignored or brushed aside in the U.S. seems especially poignant at the moment, after the financial crisis and Occupy Wall Street movement have brought the problems of inequality in America into such sharp focus. The chasm between those who can afford $35,000 in tuition per child per year -- or even just the price of a house in a good public school district -- and the other "99 percent" is painfully plain to see.

* * *

Pasi Sahlberg goes out of his way to emphasize that his book Finnish Lessons is not meant as a how-to guide for fixing the education systems of other countries. All countries are different, and as many Americans point out, Finland is a small nation with a much more homogeneous population than the United States.

Yet Sahlberg doesn't think that questions of size or homogeneity should give Americans reason to dismiss the Finnish example. Finland is a relatively homogeneous country -- as of 2010, just 4.6 percent of Finnish residents had been born in another country, compared with 12.7 percent in the United States. But the number of foreign-born residents in Finland doubled during the decade leading up to 2010, and the country didn't lose its edge in education. Immigrants tended to concentrate in certain areas, causing some schools to become much more mixed than others, yet there has not been much change in the remarkable lack of variation between Finnish schools in the PISA surveys across the same period.

Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Teachers College, has addressed the effects of size and homogeneity on a nation's education performance by comparing Finland with another Nordic country: Norway. Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup.

Indeed, Finland's population of 5.4 million can be compared to many an American state -- after all, most American education is managed at the state level. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a research organization in Washington, there were 18 states in the U.S. in 2010 with an identical or significantly smaller percentage of foreign-born residents than Finland.

What's more, despite their many differences, Finland and the U.S. have an educational goal in common. When Finnish policymakers decided to reform the country's education system in the 1970s, they did so because they realized that to be competitive, Finland couldn't rely on manufacturing or its scant natural resources and instead had to invest in a knowledge-based economy.

With America's manufacturing industries now in decline, the goal of educational policy in the U.S. -- as articulated by most everyone from President Obama on down -- is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy. To possess some of the best schools in the world might still not be good enough if there are children being left behind.

Is that an impossible goal? Sahlberg says that while his book isn't meant to be a how-to manual, it is meant to be a "pamphlet of hope."

"When President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done," Sahlberg said during his visit to New York. "But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done."

Clearly, many were wrong. It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important -- as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform -- Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.

The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.

From, John Merrow's Learning Matters Blog: Do We Need Better Parents?

http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=5437

From Learning Matters:

Do we need better parents?

by John Merrow

on 23. Nov, 2011in Current Events, Education Philosophies, Occupy, parenting, parents, teaching

If you live in or around NYC, John will be appearing in conversation with Randi Weingarten — the topic is “Unions and the Future Of Our Schools” — on Wednesday, December 14. Click here for tickets and info.

If we want our children to perform better academically, we need “better parents.” That’s what Tom Friedman wrote, perhaps ironically, on November 19 in the New York Times. The column provoked hundreds of readers to comment, and those comments provide insights into just how far apart we are as a nation, at least when it comes to public education.

Friedman cites an OECD study that reveals that “Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all.” (My use of the verb ‘reveals’ is my effort at irony, in case you are wondering.)

Friedman cites another study, “Back to School,” from the American School Board Journal, which says that, when parents are involved in children’s learning, the kids do better. “Monitoring homework; making sure children get to school; rewarding their efforts and talking up the idea of going to college. These parent actions are linked to better attendance, grades, test scores, and preparation for college,” the study reports. It adds that these things matters more than attending PTA meetings, volunteering in classrooms, or helping raise money for the school.

There is a certain “Duh” factor — yes, involved parents make a difference in their children’s education — but what struck me was the heat and intensity of the responses, some of which I am excerpting below.

A few readers responded to Mr. Friedman’s comments about ‘better parents’ by changing the subject and preaching about the need for ‘better teachers.’

Janet of Salt Lake City was an early responder who wrote, in part: We need to place the responsibility for teaching squarely where it lies — on the teachers. A great teacher can teach anything to any child. Rather than wishing to turn every parent into the perfect parent, a goal that can’t be achieved, we need to provide the training and salaries that will attract the best and the brightest of our college graduates into a career in public education.

Moreover, suggested another respondent from Salt Lake City, SThomas: It’s the fault of the schools that parents aren’t involved. He wrote, in part: Unfortunately, most of these uninvolved parents were educated in the same school systems that are now failing our children, so naturally they lack the kinds of skill sets needed to instill in their children a thirst for learning. And it’s a vicious cycle: these same parents will then go on to elect next year’s school board members who will determine next year’s under-performing curriculum when compared to the rest of the world, thus setting up their children for failure in an ever-changing world.

Many readers attacked Janet, often in a ‘what planet are you living on?’ vein.
Persam1197 of NY was pretty typical: Janet, you said: ‘The public school system of every community has the responsibility to teach every student, regardless of the quality of the home life.’ I agree wholeheartedly, and that’s why placing the burden and responsibility of squarely on teachers as you suggest is misguided. It takes a village to raise a child, and, until our communities accept responsibility for our children, expect more of the same.

 Do mom and dad need to improve?

Predictably, teachers — like Malcolm in Pennsylvania — responded defensively to the being criticized. I have taught in public schools for more than 20 years, in an inner city and in a rural setting. I wouldn’t mind being held highly accountable for achievement in children I see for 150 hours a year (50 minutes a day for 180 days) if the parents who are responsible for them the other 8,610 hours out of the year were also held highly accountable. “Accountable” means more than showing up for a 10-minute parent conference once a year.

A more common response, however, was supportive of Mr. Friedman’s point, often with hand-wringing. Here’s what Judy C of Phoenix wrote:

It goes without saying that when parents are actively involved in their children’s education, the children do better. Unfortunately, for many reasons, a lot of parents are uninvolved, and the raising of the child is essentially left up to the school. Sure, there’s nothing better than a good teacher; but really, a child’s primary, and most important, educator is his or her parent. Parents need to step up.

Don Myers of Connecticut agreed:
 How the parent respects learning is the key to how the child perceives and respects learning. Learning is a 24/7 deal not just limited to the school and related activities. We treat the school with disdain and with no more respect than we do the baby sitter.

Dale, a former teacher in Idaho, suggested that parents actively instill anti-school attitudes in their children:
  Many students regard school and their teachers as adversaries.

Jim G in DC agreed:
Hostility toward education does not come from the great teacher. It comes from the parent, or from the lack of a parent. We must break the cycle of poor student performance in economically disadvantaged homes, and we cannot expect the preschoolers in those homes to do the fixing. The parents must change.

Which prompted a question from Josh Hill in Connecticut:

Sure, but how do you improve the parents?

If the challenge is to improve parents, whose job would that be?

Susan of Eastern Washington noted that “Parents often do not acknowledge that they, and not any school, are ultimately responsible for their children’s educations.”

Why is this happening? Do parents not know they are responsible, are they aware but incapable, or are they willfully ignoring their responsibilities to their children in their mindless pursuit of money and status? (Those were all popular explanations, by the way.)

None of the comments I read addressed what to me is a critical issue, and that is a false distinction between ‘education’ and ‘schooling,’ a distinction that I believe has been perpetuated and reinforced by many educators. That is, too many educators act as if they are in charge, a kind of “Leave your children — and your tax dollars — at the schoolhouse door, and don’t bother us.”

(Many superintendents and principals then set up ‘parent involvement committees’ and other patronizing activities that actually reinforce the barriers between parents and schools. It’s like saying ‘yes, we will let you be involved in your children’s education, but only through channels and by serving on committees.’ No wonder so many parents are fed up with educators!)

So what’s to be done? Ken of Hobe Sound (FL) suggested that “One powerful change a parent from an at-risk family can apply to transform their child’s defeatist approach to school is to become very involved in their student’s education on a daily basis.”

Bingo! But how can that happen? Mr. Friedman quotes from his conversation with Andres Schleicher of OECD:

“Just asking your child how was their school day and showing genuine interest in the learning that they are doing can have the same impact as hours of private tutoring. It is something every parent can do, no matter what their education level or social background.”

Sure, every parent can do that if they know they’re supposed to, but I believe that schools and teachers can actually make that happen, organically and naturally, with a carefully designed curriculum in the early grades that continues up through secondary school.

I have written about this elsewhere but here’s a short summary: beginning in kindergarten, teachers should create ‘homework’ that involves the parents or guardians of their students. It can be as simple as asking Mom or Dad about their favorite movie for the first-grader’s ‘show and tell’ the next day. Early writing assignments can be on family-connected topics: What was Mom’s favorite food growing up, and why? What was the first trip Dad or Grandma took? Why is XX your favorite (athlete, actress, political leader)? And so on. And this is not a one-off but a routine, at least once every week.
This works for math as well, with shopping and cooking and anything else that involves numbers.
When ‘homework’ is organic, the families cannot help but ‘fulfil their responsibilities, but not in an ‘eat your peas’ way. Parents will want to see what their children write, and what the teacher writes on the paper. More connections emerge.

I am thankful that we live in a country where we can speak freely, but in public education the ‘them versus us’ approach isn’t working. We all can and must get better, but finger pointing won’t get us there.

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