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GT teachers' input requested

by MaryT

Mar 25, 2010

Hello, GATE board! I haven't posted here for a while, but here is where I always think of when something like this comes up. So I'm presuming on your generosity. Forgive me! But here it is:

A regular elementary ed teacher and I were talking about the theory that lack of rigor in the curriculum is why reading scores are stagnant. But she writes:

"I feel that our curriculum is rigorous, but it has to be taught so slowly for the bottom that the top either loses interest or motivation. The focus is always on reteaching, remediation, tutoring, etc. The top would be challenged with our curriculum at a normal pace. The bottom are ALWAYS challenged. The material is always over their heads. Again, No Child Left Behind, has played a large part in this. What can we do to stop this? There should be something our school could come up with that would again motivate our top."

Our school is dead-set against anything that smacks of elitism. Some pull-out is allowed, but my re...See MoreHello, GATE board! I haven't posted here for a while, but here is where I always think of when something like this comes up. So I'm presuming on your generosity. Forgive me! But here it is:

A regular elementary ed teacher and I were talking about the theory that lack of rigor in the curriculum is why reading scores are stagnant. But she writes:

"I feel that our curriculum is rigorous, but it has to be taught so slowly for the bottom that the top either loses interest or motivation. The focus is always on reteaching, remediation, tutoring, etc. The top would be challenged with our curriculum at a normal pace. The bottom are ALWAYS challenged. The material is always over their heads. Again, No Child Left Behind, has played a large part in this. What can we do to stop this? There should be something our school could come up with that would again motivate our top."

Our school is dead-set against anything that smacks of elitism. Some pull-out is allowed, but my responsibilities stretch from K-8 across two schools. We tried an all-day pull-out for identified kids. Scores declined slightly and so we went back to areas of strength pull out only and not a mixed single group as before. We shall see with this year's scores but I hold out little hope of gains simply because ours is a district extremely adverse to anything smacking of intellectualism, including reading. And since reading is a huge part of math tests, there you have it.

The real problem, as I see it, is for the "high flyers," the high kids who aren't high enough to be considered gifted and thus don't qualify for formal anything. The problem with pulling non-identified (our IDing happens at the end of 3rd) is that kids then anticipate being identified and when they aren't, it's crushing to them and to me. But some sort of criteria is needed and when we went to a more subjective approach, I couldn't say no to anyone and thus had a hugely inflated group on my hands. I learned the rationale for objective criteria from that: you must have a way to explain why someone's in and why someone's out. Scores are the only way I know of to do that.

Anyway, these "left behind" non-identified kids are getting lost, as my friend wrote. What have you done to address this sort of problem, if you can relate to this problem at all!

Many thanks in advance.

MT

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Mary T On 3/25/10, GT Teacher wrote: > On 3/25/10, MaryT wrote: You asked:

1) > First - how is that reading is seen as 'intellectualism'?

2) > If reading is seen as not useful or an 'intellectual > endeavor' rather than the life skill it is, that would > explain why reading scores are stagnant, no?

3) >Unless...See More

Apr 1, 2010

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GT Teacher The problem it would seem to me isn't really the structure of your curriculum or your 'high flyers'. It's the culture of the community - I understand what you're saying about reading now - my family's originally from Barbourville, Kentucky... > And with such attitudes toward 'book-larnin'' and reading that are common to your community, it's all ...See More

Apr 1, 2010

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KK A couple of thoughts in response to your post, Mary.

I agree that the high flyer piece is a critical issue that no one is focused on addressing. There are clearly kids who need more challenge and are ready for more advanced, in-depth work who do not qualify for gifted programs and often get nothing more than the classroom teacher is willin...See MoreA couple of thoughts in response to your post, Mary.

I agree that the high flyer piece is a critical issue that no one is focused on addressing. There are clearly kids who need more challenge and are ready for more advanced, in-depth work who do not qualify for gifted programs and often get nothing more than the classroom teacher is willing or able to provide. Supporting those classroom teachers is difficult when you're moving from building to building and maintaining your own classes and lessons.

Here are two ideas, and both come from Renzulli.

First, enrichment clusters. This actually is a great tool for all kids, but if you handle it well, it might also have the added bonus of drawing your community members in to help with sessions and get engaged in the learning community. When they see that you value their life skills (gardening, for example, or journalism via the local newspaper's expertise), they may appreciate the academic piece more.

Second, curriculum compacting. This is difficult to do well, but if you can manage it in small increments, many students can benefit. This tends to work well for well-behaved self-starters, but for kids who are bright and bouncy and less focused, they are likely to be left hanging, because the classroom teacher may not have time to support them, and you may not be available as often as you'd like to help keep them focused on a different assignment or investigation.

Good luck!

On 4/01/10, GT Teacher wrote: > The problem it would seem to me isn't really the structure of your > curriculum or your 'high flyers'. > It's the culture of the community - I understand what you're saying > about reading now - my family's originally from Barbourville, > Kentucky... >> > And with such attitudes toward 'book-larnin'' and reading that are > common to your community, it's all but impossible to have a > positive impact on reading scores. > > To do well in school, you have to believe in school and not > everybody does. To battle your pneumonia with antibiotics, you have > to believe in antibiotics - not everybody does. > > Parents who don't believe in book-larning won't read to their kids. > Why should they I suppose - they did fine without it. Changing such > attitudes takes time and a lot of it. In the meantime, some kids > get shortchanged and that's a great shame. > > With all the research that's been done, no one has found the answer > to how to turn poor schools or rural schools around. Your school > community has a cultural bias against reading - fighting that is > like trying to swim upstream. > > You can search the ERIC database for some answers but the only > answer I know is that once in a while there comes a very charimatic > and well-regarded principal to whom the school community will > listen. Such people have the natural leadership schools to effect > change but such people are few and far between. > Good luck. Maybe try reading them stories - every class should be > read to outloud every day for 10-15 minutes by a reader who has a > very good and very expressive reading voice. Try > [link removed];

Apr 1, 2010

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Mary T Oh, thank you very much for your reply! It's very much as you've said. Trying to sort out now whether to find some other way to be useful, either in the teaching profession or out of it. I do appreciate your taking time to spell things out. That really rings true what you said about kids being read to every day. I will keep on looking, though. The ...See MoreOh, thank you very much for your reply! It's very much as you've said. Trying to sort out now whether to find some other way to be useful, either in the teaching profession or out of it. I do appreciate your taking time to spell things out. That really rings true what you said about kids being read to every day. I will keep on looking, though. The Eric Digest's a good suggestion.

~MT

On 4/01/10, GT Teacher wrote: > The problem it would seem to me isn't really the structure of your > curriculum or your 'high flyers'. > It's the culture of the community - I understand what you're saying > about reading now - my family's originally from Barbourville, > Kentucky... >> > And with such attitudes toward 'book-larnin'' and reading that are > common to your community, it's all but impossible to have a > positive impact on reading scores. > > To do well in school, you have to believe in school and not > everybody does. To battle your pneumonia with antibiotics, you have > to believe in antibiotics - not everybody does. > > Parents who don't believe in book-larning won't read to their kids. > Why should they I suppose - they did fine without it. Changing such > attitudes takes time and a lot of it. In the meantime, some kids > get shortchanged and that's a great shame. > > With all the research that's been done, no one has found the answer > to how to turn poor schools or rural schools around. Your school > community has a cultural bias against reading - fighting that is > like trying to swim upstream. > > You can search the ERIC database for some answers but the only > answer I know is that once in a while there comes a very charimatic > and well-regarded principal to whom the school community will > listen. Such people have the natural leadership schools to effect > change but such people are few and far between. > Good luck. Maybe try reading them stories - every class should be > read to outloud every day for 10-15 minutes by a reader who has a > very good and very expressive reading voice. Try > [link removed];

Apr 12, 2010

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Mary T These are great ideas, KK, and you're exactly right in your prognosis of some of the challenges! Especially the piece about high-fliers needing to be self-starters for compaction to work. I will put my thinking cap back on. Thank you so much for the encouragement.

MT

On 4/01/10, KK wrote: > A couple of thoughts in response to y...See MoreThese are great ideas, KK, and you're exactly right in your prognosis of some of the challenges! Especially the piece about high-fliers needing to be self-starters for compaction to work. I will put my thinking cap back on. Thank you so much for the encouragement.

MT

On 4/01/10, KK wrote: > A couple of thoughts in response to your post, Mary. > > I agree that the high flyer piece is a critical issue that no one is > focused on addressing. There are clearly kids who need more challenge > and are ready for more advanced, in-depth work who do not qualify for > gifted programs and often get nothing more than the classroom teacher is > willing or able to provide. Supporting those classroom teachers is > difficult when you're moving from building to building and maintaining > your own classes and lessons. > > Here are two ideas, and both come from Renzulli. > > First, enrichment clusters. This actually is a great tool for all kids, > but if you handle it well, it might also have the added bonus of drawing > your community members in to help with sessions and get engaged in the > learning community. When they see that you value their life skills > (gardening, for example, or journalism via the local newspaper's > expertise), they may appreciate the academic piece more. > > Second, curriculum compacting. This is difficult to do well, but if you > can manage it in small increments, many students can benefit. This > tends to work well for well-behaved self-starters, but for kids who are > bright and bouncy and less focused, they are likely to be left hanging, > because the classroom teacher may not have time to support them, and you > may not be available as often as you'd like to help keep them focused on > a different assignment or investigation. > > Good luck! > > > On 4/01/10, GT Teacher wrote: >> The problem it would seem to me isn't really the structure of your >> curriculum or your 'high flyers'. >> It's the culture of the community - I understand what you're saying >> about reading now - my family's originally from Barbourville, >> Kentucky... >>> >> And with such attitudes toward 'book-larnin'' and reading that are >> common to your community, it's all but impossible to have a >> positive impact on reading scores. >> >> To do well in school, you have to believe in school and not >> everybody does. To battle your pneumonia with antibiotics, you have >> to believe in antibiotics - not everybody does. >> >> Parents who don't believe in book-larning won't read to their kids. >> Why should they I suppose - they did fine without it. Changing such >> attitudes takes time and a lot of it. In the meantime, some kids >> get shortchanged and that's a great shame. >> >> With all the research that's been done, no one has found the answer >> to how to turn poor schools or rural schools around. Your school >> community has a cultural bias against reading - fighting that is >> like trying to swim upstream. >> >> You can search the ERIC database for some answers but the only >> answer I know is that once in a while there comes a very charimatic >> and well-regarded principal to whom the school community will >> listen. Such people have the natural leadership schools to effect >> change but such people are few and far between. >> Good luck. Maybe try reading them stories - every class should be >> read to outloud every day for 10-15 minutes by a reader who has a >> very good and very expressive reading voice. Try >> [link removed];

Apr 12, 2010

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