9486 in the collection
Platooning Instruction
Ohanian Comment:
So districts are weighing pros and cons of departmentalizing elementary schools. I can argue both sides of this issue. Where I sit depends on the pedagogy of the participant. And do you notice nobody is talking about pedagogy here?
Peagogy. Pedagogy. Pedagogy.
Why a teacher does something matters. It matters a whole lot.
The thinking here is to get Fifth Grade algebra
taught by the person with the strongest math skills. Why this emphasis on algebra in the fifth grade? Because it's on the test.
Why else does anybody do anything these days?
It's on the test.
When I was traveling the country chronicling the way primary grade teachers were changing the way they taught mathematics, I visited classrooms in 26 states or so, and teachers K-4 told me that a deep understanding of mathematics was important to good teaching from kindergarten on. And so those teachers were going back to school and taking college math courses. Not 'how to teach' courses but courses offered in the math department. They were doing this, not so they could teach algebra better but so they could teach mathematics with better understanding of where an operation comes from and what it leads to. When the teacher understands the deep underpinnings of mathematics, then she can teach a kindergartner in ways that lead to an understanding of Algebra. . . and a whole lot more. And when the teacher understands the deep underpinnings of mathematics, she will probably argue against an algebra class for 5th graders--instead of departmentalizing to provide a delivery system for skills.
There's a big difference between this and teaching to increase test scores on a widely-disputed standardized test. If you're interested in all this, the book is Garbage Pizza, Patchwork Quilts, and Math Magic,available in used book venues.
When I taught 3rd grade, in a departmentalized school, I took great pleasure in being assigned the "low" group and took it as my sacred calling to protect these children from excessive skill drill and onerous homework assignments. When the custodian told me that dads were reading my students' homework assignment aloud at the neighborhood bar, I figured I was doing something right. But that's a different story.
When I taught 7th & 8th graders and fought to segregate the school's low readers into my language arts class--instead of leaving them to flounder in the heterogeneous LA class where they had to fake reading The Red Pony and Old Man and the Sea along with everybody else, their parents called to say "thank you." They told me that for the first time in their school careers their kids were in a class where they weren't "the dumb one" in the back of the room, where they had to sit faking reading. They were grateful for their kids to be in a class where they had access to material they couldread, and, what's more, wanted to read.
On the other hand, the best teaching experience of my life was then I had an open classroom K-6, where everybody was welcome. I was officially the reading teacher but the kids didn't know that. I opened up a room based on Elementary Science Study materials and approaches and invited every kid in the school to come whenever he could persuade his teacher to let him. [Teachers had a list of the official reading kids who needed to come x-times a week, scheduled "whenever"-- at their convenience.] Kids in special ed worked alongside academically gifted children.
And when the state ed department reading department officials came to investigate what caused the remedial reading scores to skyrocket, they were baffled. Baffled.
They did not have a clue to what was happening in that room. Using animal skeletons and pendulums and test tubes to increase reading scores? One officious agent asked me, "What program do you use?"
"The kids like Shel Silverstein," I answered, unwilling to help her out. "Making a Clorox bottle guitar is also high on the list of desirable projects."
Because she didn't exhibit even a tad of curiosity, I didn't explain that to get access to the lumber, screws, fishline, etc. to make the guitar a student had to complete x-number of Physics of Sound experiments. Since she didn't linger to observe, I didn't linger to explain.
In that school, we were all working hard, and we all were happy. The parents in the working class neighborhood were so happy they asked me to bring in some of the experiments their kids kept talking about to PTA so they could try them out.
So I have mixed feelings about all this departmentalization. What everybody except Marion Brady seems to miss is that what matters is the wholeness and connectiveness of the curriculum, not the configuration of the classroom. And I fear that this departmentalizing [no, I will not use the ugly word now in vogue] is being done for all the wrong reasons. It will further segment curriculum into separate pieces--instead of showing children the wholeness of learning.
And it will fail.
OK, I will mention it: platooning. Such an ugly word. Why would anyone accept military metaphors to describe the important work we do with children?
For shame.
By Lucy Hood
To platoon or not to platoon? That's the question facing Irving Hamer, Deputy Superintendent of Academic Operations, Technology and Innovation for the Memphis City Schools. . . .
Harvard Education Letter forbids me to post the article. Go to the url below and you will see that platooning is also going on in Denver and in
the School District of Palm Beach County, departmentalization became a mandate this year for all elementary schools in grades three through five. Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey Hernandez has adopted departmentalization with gusto.
Memphis, Denver, Palm Beach County. Notice a pattern here? Think Gates money.
Read the article. Be warned. Platooning is likely to come to your neighborhood too.
— Lucy Hood
Harvard Education Letter
2009-11-01
http://www.hepg.org/blog/27
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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