In a recent Time magazine article, John Cloud reports on an issue that often falls to the side of educational debates: "our education system has little idea how to cultivate its most promising students."
Cloud argues that "What's needed is a new model for gifted education, an urgent sense that prodigious intellectual talents are a threatened resource" -- a bold statement from a news reporter -- one you would think might be uttered from a political candidate if he or she were paying closer attention to the issue of educating our youth.
Cloud argues that the No Child Left Behind conception of public education, where the goal is to raise all learners to a minimum standard, squanders our best young minds. He earnestly quips: "Has the drive to ensure equity over excellence gone too far? If so, is the answer to segregate the brightest kids?"
The article focuses at length on the Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada, founded by a wealthy couple who made their fortune in educational software. The Academy, (a chartered, tuition-free school) was designed to serve those children whose academic abilities supersede those of their peers by several standard deviations. The academy begins its second year in August hosting 45 of the nation's smartest children aged 11 to 16, who are taking classes "at least three years beyond their grade level."
At the Academy, there are no grade levels, only three tracks ("core," "college prep" and "college prep with research"). "The curriculums are individualized and fluid--some students take college-prep English but core-level math." Cloud reports sitting in on the Algebra II class one day: "it wasn't so much a traditional class as a study session guided by the teacher, Darren Ripley. Kids worked from different parts of the textbook. (One 11-year-old was already halfway through; most Americans who take Algebra II do so at 15 or 16.) Occasionally Ripley would show a small group how to solve a problem on the whiteboard, but there was no lecture."
Hmmm. No lectures. Individual and group work. Differentiated instruction. Sounds somewhat appealing, no? Could this same pedagogical technique work in conventional school settings for all types of students?
While I applaud the efforts of individuals and districts to aide and cultivate our geniuses, it has always struck me as odd that we do not treat all kids as if they were autodidacts. Like our muscles, intelligence cannot be built if it is not exercised.
Measuring genius, or in this case, academic giftedness, is a complex and controversial subject where intelligent quotient (IQ) testing is still used to separate the wheat from the chaff. Schools across the globe house kids whose academic abilities far exceed those of their peers, yet is such talent truly being squandered? Cloud plays a wonderful "what if" game that posits if only nourished, these powerful young minds might find a cure for cancer, stop global warming, or become the next James Joyce -- "or at least J. K. Rowling" (snip!). Of course, such thinking aloud is a wonderful rhetorical exercise that stirs readers juices as opposed to offering any real or credible solution.
NCLB has indeed made an impact on gifted education in the United States. As Cloud points out,
"It [NCLB] has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year."
So what are we to do with our best young minds in school systems designed to support and teach to minimum standards? From his position, as an observant bystander, Cloud suggests the answer may lie in allowing the super-bright to skip grade levels or dual enroll in community colleges or universities. This is an answer I would expect from some one standing on the outside looking in, after all, this is already what is currently happening all across the U.S.
What strikes me as most disappointing is, as a member of the academy where teachers and administrators are educated and trained, there is no serious discussion about changing the system that keeps kids quarantined in academic circles based on age rather than ability. Many within the academy see the problem as being far beyond their means of control and choose instead to keep the current system propped up, turning a blind eye to the troubles we face in public education.
For me, the real issue is: how do we break the mold that currently forms our current, inflexible system? I want to say the answer is not evolution--it's revolution. I want to see teachers walking out of their classrooms and saying -- "This is bullshit. We all deserve better and can do better." I know from experience that this is unlikely to happen. I also am aware of many educators around the globe who feel the same and are taking concrete steps to revolutionize teaching and learning opportunities.
As a parent and educator, I know the responsibility of educating my children is not the school's alone. Perhaps this is where the revolution starts. Parents (i.e., taxpayers/business owners/voters) are a powerful educational lobby that, if organized, could have a major impact on the future of education.
Perhaps the question is: how do we involve parents more? How do you, as an educator, involve parents in your classroom? Parents are often an overlooked and underutilized resource that teachers and schools haven't quite figured out what to do with. Perhaps, colleges of education should offer courses in how to involve parents more than as chaperones and suppliers of Kleenex.
The issue of educating all children, bright, dull, gifted, average, is a complex issue that requires complex thinking. For the most part, schools are designed to teach masses not individuals. How are colleges of education addressing this complexity, you might ask? In most cases, the same way -- en masse. Differentiated instruction courses are often offered in one semester, if they are offered at all. Young teachers are mostly taught how to survive and, if they stick with the profession, can learn over time and through experience how to individualize instruction, if we're lucky.
Fixing public education requires more than luck. So I ask you, who are we really failing in our school systems?
Thoughts?
Comments
It is important to be cautious about talk of 'the best students' or 'the smartest children'. It suggests that there is a class of children that are somehow and significantly 'naturally' smarter than others.
But there is to my mind no good evidence for this. My belief is that, although there is some natural variation between children, this variation is small, and that the much larger ariation is due to environmental factors.
There's plenty of research, for example, that shows that good nutrition results in better educational outcomes. More studies show that the strongest predictor of educational outcome is the socio-economic status of the parents.
For this reason, there is a danger that programs directed toward the 'best' students are in fact programs directed toward the children of the richest parents and not some class of 'gifted' students at all.
For me diversity has always been important. Learning communitiies ought to offer the chance to work with those who are somewhat more gifted and also those who may not be at the same level. Differentiated instruction needs to be balanced with differentiated learning opportunities with different learners.
There are elements of this school that are certainly attractive and yet as you state there are other issues still to be dealt with. I encourage innovations and attempts to reform and hope we can learn from these experiments not simply to recreate these models but to extract the principles of learning that are succesful.
Stephen, do you really believe that there is no evidence that some people are smarter than others? Have you met any people? It's pretty clear to me that some people are smarter than others. How smart they are is certainly not a function of their education, though there is often a correlation.
Are people who are tall merely people who have received better nutrition? Are the best atheletes just those who have gotten the best training (or body-enhancing drugs)?
To suggest that all minds are created equal seems patently absurd.
Hey Chris, This is an issue that interests me. (Which issue am I talking about?) Social complexity and individual difference in centralized curriculum and classroom-based education systems. What's interesting me now is the way my comment (the mental comment I constructed as I read and reread this post) has changed since reading the comments.
I was going to talk about evolution as revolution, but I like the direction Stephen Downes took this thread. He added complexity in the form of a caution. Most of the variation elementary school teachers will see is due to socio-economic factors.
I don't think Downes was suggesting all minds are equal, but the huge variation teachers see in 5 and 6 year olds has very little to do with ability.
Some parents create Montessori-like environments in their home. Some kids watch a lot of tv. Some parents are highly educated and verbal, others not-so-much. Read the Red Sea Homeschool post, the adverb to verb, adjective to noun ratios suggest that their family may have qualified for WIC during their grad school phase. They may not be stinking rich, but there's no clue to any sort of social poverty in their writing. Some parents are uneducated and underemployed. These situations create a lot of difference that can't be quickly read as difference in ability.
Schools can do a lot to accomodate that difference, they could if teachers themselves weren't all university graduates. The vast majority without any class consciousness. A child who's read to daily will be in reading readiness 5 years ahead of a child who comes from an illiterate home, those children need to be schooled differently but we can know nothing of their ability from this. But as schools are today one child will be successful and the other will not. The child who is not successful will not become a teacher.