Teaching by the Book, No Asides Allowed
Luminaria
Teaching by the Book, No Asides Allowed
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
New York Times
It was 11:58 a.m. on Wednesday, the official time for Donna Moffett's first
graders to open the textbooks required for their afternoon "literacy
block."
Ms. Moffett's school, Public School 92 in Brooklyn, uses a highly organized
approach to teaching, sometimes even expecting its staff to work according
to a minute-by- minute script.
Frustrated by those constraints, Ms. Moffett sometimes tries to squeeze in
lessons of her own choosing: stories about New York City, for example, or a
writing assignment about "the funniest thing your mother ever did."
But on this day, Marie Buchanan, a veteran teacher at the school and Ms.
Moffett's official mentor, had come to observe the lesson and enforce the
school's approach. Smiling stiffly, Ms. Moffett opened the textbook to
Section 1, "Pets Are Special Animals."
When she got to a line about a boy mischievously drawing on a table, and
playfully noted that the boy was "just like some students in here," Ms.
Buchanan frowned. "You don't have to say that," she admonished. When Ms.
Moffett turned to a page that suggested an art project related to the story
and started passing out construction paper, Ms. Buchanan chided her again:
"You're not going to have time to complete that."
"You have to prepare for these lessons and closely follow your teacher's
guide," Ms. Buchanan told her afterward. "We're going to do this again
tomorrow, and you're not going to wing it."
Ms. Moffett, who was among 350 people with no teaching experience recruited
last fall to work in the most troubled schools in New York City, entered
her new profession brimming with idealism and determined to put a unique
stamp on her classroom. But like others recruited to work in those schools,
she has struggled to be creative within highly specific guidelines set by
the city and state.
Ms. Moffett is at the fulcrum of two opposing movements in education policy
that have created a complex set of tensions, especially in urban schools.
On one hand, there is a national shortage of teachers, and school systems
are trying to entice bright recruits with promises of inventiveness and
serendipity in the classroom. On the other hand, the growing pressure to
improve reading and math achievement at long- struggling schools is
requiring teachers to adhere to rigid curriculums in which creativity is
discouraged.
No Experimentation: Bumping Up Against the Program
There is little tolerance for experimentation at P.S. 92, a school that the
state classified as failing for more than a decade and is just starting to
improve. The paramount goal is to increase scores on standardized reading
and math tests that start in the third grade.
Reading scores did rise sharply in 1999-2000. The results for this year's
fourth graders were murkier: although the number reading at grade level
increased slightly, those scoring in the lowest level on the reading test
also increased, by 5 percent.
Ms. Moffett acknowledges that the imposed routines have helped ease her
transition into the classroom, and that the rising test scores are partly a
result of the highly organized school day. But at the same time, she
bridles under the rigidity.
Her expectations for the job were different, as summarized in the essay she
included with her application to become a teacher through an "alternate
route" program, New York City Teaching Fellows.
"I want to manage a classroom where children experience the thrill of
wonder, the joy of creativity and the rewards of working hard," she wrote.
"My objective is to convey to children in their formative years the sheer
pleasure in learning."
Harold O. Levy, the New York City schools chancellor, encouraged such
expectations in a speech to the teaching fellows last summer. "You are the
cutting edge, the shock troops, the people who are going to make things
happen," he told them.
But Ms. Moffett's yearning for creativity has bumped up against what some
educators call the "checkoff mentality" of low-performing schools. The
teachers must spend hours preparing bulletin boards full of neat, colorful
student work, to show they are teaching the curriculum, and their daily
schedule is often dictated down to the minute.
By edict of the Board of Education, teachers at P.S. 92 and other
low-performing New York City schools use prescribed programs in reading and
math. School officials say the rigid curriculum is a blessing for novice
teachers like Ms. Moffett, who had only a month of training. Some
creativity can come later, they say, but right now, with the school just
starting to improve, they cannot afford to let new teachers feel their way.
"The beauty of these types of programs is that you don't have to think
about it," Ms. Buchanan said of the curriculum. "Everything is spelled out
for you. All you have to do is prepare for it."
To a visitor, she added: "I just can't let her take off on her own and do
things that aren't educationally sound. It's detrimental to the students
and in the long run, it's detrimental to her."
Post That Schedule Objective: Discuss and Create Rainbows
School rules require that the daily schedule for all classes in P.S. 92 be
posted on both Ms. Moffett's chalkboard and the classroom door, so that
state and city education officials who visit the school see that she is
following the program. At the start of every lesson, she has to write the
"learning objective" on the chalkboard to remind herself, her students and
any visitors which state standard the lesson meets.
(The rule applies even for nonacademic subjects. When an art teacher had
Ms. Moffett's students draw rainbows one day, she first wrote on the board,
"L.O.: Students will discuss and create rainbows.").
For all 1,000 students at P.S. 92, reading comes first every morning for 90
minutes, in the form of a drill-like program called Success for All.
Students are grouped by ability instead of age, which means that most of
Ms. Moffett's 6-year-olds go to other classrooms for Success for All while
she works with students from other classes and grades. The thick teacher's
manual includes an actual script, and specifies exactly how much time to
spend on each activity, from 30 seconds to 40 minutes.
Success for All was invented by Robert Slavin, a researcher in education at
Johns Hopkins University. Schools in Baltimore began using it in 1987, but
it "grew out of a program of research and development going back to the
mid-1970's," according to the Success for All Web site. It is now used in
hundreds of schools nationwide, including at least several dozen in New
York City. All of the low-performing schools in the Chancellor's District"
are required to use Success for All.
"Read to Page 4," the instructions for one Success For All lesson in Ms.
Moffett's manual say. "Ask the Predictive Question and have students
respond. Encourage students to support their predictions. Then finish
reading the story. Read slowly, with expression."
Ms. Moffett had only three days of training in Success for All, but for
much of the school year, a more experienced teacher came to her classroom
to help with the program. Success for All appears to be living up to its
name. Nearly all of Ms. Moffett's students have improved in reading and
writing, and several are now reading at almost a third- grade level.
Ms. Moffett said that despite the script, Success for All is complicated
and labor- intensive. For each three-day lesson, she has to familiarize
herself with two stories, writing exercises and games that accompany them,
and the teacher's script. She also has to prepare flashcards with letters,
words and pictures, and even rehearse the lines of a puppet (Alphie, as in
alphabet) that is brought out at the end of each lesson.
Ms. Moffett keeps trying to squeeze her own personality and ideas into the
school day. Toward the end of a recent Success for All lesson, when she
noticed that the students' attention was wandering, she started speaking in
a French accent and translating some of the vocabulary words into French.
For a social studies lesson, she took the class on a walk to the local
library and signed them up for library cards. And in a tribute to her past
life as a legal secretary, she taught a lesson about that career on
Secretaries' Day (L.O.: Students will describe what secretaries do at
work.).
In April, Ms. Moffett wanted her students to study the weather and brought
in some whimsical stories about clouds that a professor at Brooklyn College
had given her. But Ms. Buchanan warned against using the books, pressing
her to stick to the literacy textbook. Ms. Moffett's temper flared.
"I don't think the call for help was to have people come into these schools
and say, `Open your book to page blah-dee-blah,' " she said one day after
school. "There's a call for innovation while working within the programs we
have. Hopefully as I get better at being an efficient teacher I can strike
a better balance, a smoother blend."
Pressure for Progress: 'Promotion Folders' for the Strugglers
With five weeks left in the school year, the pressure for every student at
P.S. 92 to demonstrate progress is more palpable than ever. Ms. Moffett has
been asked to keep "promotion folders" for struggling students, collecting
work that will help determine whether they are ready for second grade. Each
piece of work in the folder - there must be 20 each for math and literacy -
must be labeled with the state standard it meets and the level of
proficiency it falls into.
The students still vary widely in their academic abilities, as is typical
of first graders. Though they sometimes take one step forward and two steps
back, some have improved remarkably.
Rochelle Bish, who could recognize only a few words at the beginning of the
year, read a long storybook out loud the other day. Shantel Brooks writes
Ms. Moffett detailed letters almost every day ("I love you Ms. Moffett, I
love our class I want to go home") and says she wants to be an author.
Devon Farrell, who did not know the alphabet in September, is still not
spelling well, but he is at least attempting to sound out words.
"I'm told by more experienced teachers that first grade is rather magical,"
Ms. Moffett said. "They come in like babies and leave reading and writing,
and I must say that has been one of the greatest rewards."
But first graders are also restive and temperamental, making it hard even
for experienced teachers to "stay on task," as school officials say. One
recent day when it was time for the literacy block, the children returned
from lunch in a dither. Several were complaining of stomach aches, a few
were crying and attention spans seemed nonexistent.
Ms. Moffett had written in her lesson plans that the class would read from
the literacy textbook and discuss characters, plot and setting. But after
gauging the mood, she began walking around the room and asking each child
how he or she felt.
"L.O.: Students will discuss and write about how to stay well," Ms. Moffett
wrote on the chalkboard. She passed out a worksheet and instructed the
students, several still teary, to draw and write about healthy foods.
Kadisha Green drew bananas, milk and cabbage and spelled each word almost
perfectly. Marcia Millon drew a dog and wrote, "I like health food."
Malcolm Fuller did not write anything, but drew a picture of his family
sitting around a dinner table heaped with food.
Ms. Moffett said later that the ad-libbed lesson was "standards-based"
because it included a class discussion, followed by a writing exercise. It
also tied into first-grade science standards, which require lessons about
nutrition, she said.
Experts like Judith Rizzo, the deputy chancellor for instruction at the New
York City Board of Education, say that veering from the planned lesson is
understandable with young children. But Dr. Rizzo warned that it takes time
for new teachers to acquire "a little black bag filled with repertory" to
fall back on. She said the prescribed curriculum at P.S. 92, which is
nearly identical to those at 40 other low-performing city schools, was
crucial to turning the school around.
"Instead of everyone trying to figure out their own way in the classroom,
which is the way these schools used to work, new teachers in particular
need a very clearly defined program that isn't going to change with every
new year," she said. "It's like learning to cook. You learn the basics
first, and then you can get fancy."
Mastering Teaching: A Mentor Tempers Criticism With Praise
Unlike most new teachers, Ms. Moffett is getting the bulk of that
foundation in the trenches. The Board of Education is paying for the
teaching fellows to earn master's degrees in education at the City
University of New York, but the going is slow.
Ms. Moffett dropped out of her fall class, on teaching mathematics, because
she was overwhelmed by the demands of her new job and never left the school
in time for the 6 p.m. class. She is taking a weekly science class this
spring, but most of what she is learning is far removed from her daily
reality.
Despite her frequent criticism of Ms. Moffett, Ms. Buchanan, her mentor,
says she has learned a lot since September. Asked for examples, she said
that Ms. Moffett had improved her classroom bulletin boards by putting up
only the best work instead of work by every student; learned to sprinkle
phrases from Success for All into lessons throughout the school day; and
become a better disciplinarian by not frolicking with the students as much
as in the fall.
"Ms. Moffett is going to be a master teacher one day," Ms. Buchanan
announced after observing a recent lesson.
But even Ms. Buchanan and others who have urged Ms. Moffett to leave her
creativity at home during this first year of teaching say that her efforts
to do special things for her students help their emotional development and
may leave a permanent imprint.
On a windy March day, for example, when her students were complaining about
going outside after lunch, Ms. Moffett accompanied them to the asphalt
schoolyard and led them in jumping jacks and stretches. And Ms. Moffett's
frequent lunches with groups of her students in their classroom, during
which they chat about life outside school, are "something these children
will never forget," Ms. Buchanan said.
As June approaches, Ms. Moffett, 46, says that the acute frustration and
exhilaration of teaching has made her feel "more alive than I've ever
felt."
Despite financial hardship resulting from her $37,000 salary (she made
$60,000 in her former job), perpetual exhaustion and more ups and downs
than a bungee jumper, she is planning to return to P.S. 92 in September and
hopes to remain a first-grade teacher.
"I feel like I am beaten down and I have to keep getting up over and over
again," she said. "But the bottom line is that I made a commitment to the
city and to this program. I adore these children, and I love this enough
that I am in it for the long haul."
toto
<la...@javanetDOT.com> wrote:
>May 23, 2001
>Teaching by the Book, No Asides Allowed
>By ABBY GOODNOUGH
>New York Times
>
>It was 11:58 a.m. on Wednesday, the official time for Donna Moffett's first
>graders to open the textbooks required for their afternoon "literacy
>block."
>
SFA reminds me of the Harry Chapin song: Flowers are Red
Flowers are Red by Harry Chapin
The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one
And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen
But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one
Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....
And she said...
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen
But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one
The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen
Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin'
She said...Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one
But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.
Dorothy
There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..
source unknown