Getting Small
March 3rd, 2008I had an interesting conversation with my pastor the other day. He’s just returned from a seminar which, among other things, discussed those large “mega-churches.” For many years, churches like this have been the goal—to have a church which is large enough to have all the services there are to offer.
This seems to make sense. However, it turns out, in their own studies, these mega-churches have realized that in every facet one would judge a church—missions, training, building new churches—they’ve failed. They do a lot of things, but in the end it’s all hustle and bustle, “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Seems like a familiar problem.
In a lot of ways, I miss the large high school. I miss popping by people’s classrooms and seeing what they’re doing; sticking my head into a chemistry class and answering a question the kids couldn’t; dropping by and adding my .02 to a history course; daring to poke my head in and say a few words of Spanish. I miss saying hello to a hundred students before lunch.
Still, it doesn’t work. In a large system, kids get lost: People fall through the holes in the system, and it’s harder to communicate among the various people who are responsible for the child. It’s hard for parents as well—here are this year’s teachers, and they all have unique personalities—and contact information.
I’ve met parents who had no idea their child was in my English class, or who knew my name, but didn’t know what subject I taught. That feels really wrong to me.
Humans learn better in smaller communities, and community is the number one difference between today and the past. We’re thrilled today when a child is in a classroom with a 1:16 ratio of teachers to students—advanced and low level classes are predicated on the idea that a small ratio will help. But throughout most of human history, there were usually 4-5 adults around for every child.
I know we can’t get there. But there’s no reason we can’t build a smaller community in the school than we do currently. There’s no reason that four primary subject teachers—math, social studies, English and science—can’t be formed into a team which will work with 80 students and follow them for the four years they’re in high school. Assign them four classrooms in the building and assign a time for them to have lunch. Give them a fun nickname (nothing Harry Potter related, please) and this will be their community for the next four years.
Elective courses can be assigned in “blocks” which would be time for the four core teachers to have common planning and to work together—if two morning blocks are always “core subjects” for a certain section, then they might have the afternoon to work together—or vice versa.
Within the common community, students could be placed where they need to be. If Susie is having trouble in English, then she’ll need more time there. Ideally, it would lead to some teach teaching, so rather than a block of time for each subject there would instead be days where they would blend together.
It’s not that hard. Something like it was tried at MRHS before—I was talking to a teacher today who had done something similar, but it died when administrative support dried up. But it’s proof that if we want to, we can.
This is not just “oh, that sounds like it would be good” speculation. We’re dealing with a population which (in most cases) went through the public school system, and probably weren’t that happy with it. In some cases, we’re looking at parents who are graduates of the school system. It’s also been thirty years since A Nation at Risk was released. The idea that there are problems in the school system is common, accepted knowledge. ¹
We can’t do the same thing we’ve always done and expect people will support us. Every building ought to be presenting a plan of something which will be radically different, something that shows change is possible. It needs to be huge, something nobody will miss: “Yeah, we’ve moved to block scheduling because it’s better,” or “yeah, you won’t be in a separate English or history class, they’re team taught” or something so huge everyone sees it and knows it’s going to be different from now on. It’s gotta be something that everyone in the district says, “Wow, have you heard what that school is trying?”
We want change in America. It’s not a bad thing to bring to the schools, either.
1 Part of the problem is we’ve also allowed test scores and politicians to define a good education. The teacher in the classroom and the principal in the building knows what is needed—and the challenge can be getting there, getting the funding, getting the support. But just because it’s a challenge doesn’t mean we can’t do it. ↺
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Monadnock Regional School District, School Change
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I agree that a small community is a better place to learn.
There can be more trust when everyone knows each other.
If someone is slacking there less chance to hide it.
If someone just doesn’t get it, they will be more likely to get help and less likely to fall through the cracks.
When I was in first and second grade we had both first graders and second graders in the same class room.
This worked very well because the first graders could hear what the second graders were learning and would sometimes blurt out an answer if the second graders were too slow at comming up with it. This also pushed the second graders to perform better because they didn’t want to be shown up by first graders.
My father and my daughter both went to schools that had that type of set up and they both agreed that it was helpful to them as well.
Verne
March 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Good morning,
There was one thing that really caught my attention and that was the part about a parent not knowing that their child had you for a teacher or not knowing what you taught. That goes back to the parent. I think that one thing that is constantly forgotten is that a lot of the issues going on at the High School (Elementary or Middle School for that matter) is lack of parental involvment. If parents took the responsibility of their child along with their child’s education there would be a different atmosphere around schools. Why aren’t parents involved more in their child’s life and/or at the school? Yes, I understand that you have to earn a living. However, have parents even inquired with their employer about “volunteer” time? Why can’t parents take some “vacation” time and come in and visit the school, meet the teacher’s, etc.? Why wouldn’t employers let parents come in late and work a little bit longer so that that parent could stop by the school? I made a copy of my child’s schedule - I know where she is and what teachers she has. I go to the website and check out the Departments (English, Math and so on). I am no means a control freak keeping track of her schedule. I have given a huge part of my child over to you as an educator so that you can teach her so much knowledge. Why wouldn’t I want to oversee this huge part of her life? I have read the horror stories where children were being taught something very different than the truth in a class - I want my child to have every opportunity to learn as much as she can. This is one place where public and private schools differ. A lot of private school require you to be involved and active. Unfortunately, we don’t have that in Public Schools. I think when you have the answer to getting more parents involved in their child’s education, you have answered a lot of issues at the school level.
Sorry - I got on one of my soap boxes.
Sue
March 6th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
“Elective courses can be assigned in “blocks” which would be time for the four core teachers to have common planning and to work together—if two morning blocks are always “core subjects” for a certain section, then they might have the afternoon to work together—or vice versa.”
So the “non-core” teachers aren’t part of the team too? C’mon Rob, you know better;)
September 28th, 2008 at 8:27 am
[...] to the standards of the community—which adults should help shape. I’ve mentioned this before but if structures and scheduling we done in a different manner, then rather be one large 1300 [...]