Tag Archives: accountability

Now that you have elected new board members, make them be trustworthy

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Public trust is given to school board members and that trust must be repaid through the members’ informed and active governance of our schools.  Boardsmanship is an active not a passive trust.

It is spring election time, and two school board seats are on the local ballot.  There are no other school district issues to be decided.  If the past informs the future, less than 30% of the eligible voters will decide the two people who will be part of our seven-member school board.  As a generalization, this is the usual pattern of school board elections – 30% or fewer of eligible voters decide who governs our school district.  The generalization does not hold when there is a school referendum or money on the ballot.  Two years ago, almost 70% of eligible voters cast ballots on big money referendum questions and for the persons running for board election that spring.  Dollars and cents issues raise more voter interest than electing who governs our schools. 

Continuing in a predictive mode, fewer than 50 of the voters in the school board election will attend a school board meeting in the next year.  Some of the 50 may physically attend numerous meetings, but fewer than 50 names will appear in person.

That said, how does the public go about the work of trusting elected school board members?

Explicit and implicit trust.

Wisconsin statute 120.12 defines school board duties.  The first two duties set the expectations.  These are –

  • Management of the school district, and
  • General supervision.

Board members are responsible for the “… possession, care, control and management of the property and affairs of the school district…” and are authorized to “… visit and examine the schools of the district, advise the school teachers and administrative staff regarding the instruction, government and progress of the pupils and exercise general supervision over such schools…”.   Subsequent sub-sections of the statute define the scope of sub-duties.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/120

In the care, control and management of the school district, there are three top order priorities.  These are –

  • Safe and secure schools.
  • Defined curricular instruction leading to quality student outcomes.
  • Inclusive extra-curricular programs, including athletics and fine arts.

These are non-negotiably explicit.  All issues of safety and security race to the school board agenda demanding immediate attention.  Everything from violence on the campus to drop off time on school bus routes to locks on bathroom stall doors is explicitly a board member’s concern.  Failure to resolve any of these issues invites public furor and assurance that someone else will be elected when member terms expire, if not petitions for recall elections.  The public at large explicitly trusts board members to ensure safe and secure schools.

Issues of curricular instruction and extra-curricular programming, though explicit, ignite very selective groups of the public and seldom the public at-large.  Offending the football boosters will not ignite boosters of phonic-based reading or the Art Club.  Yet almost every school activity, curricular and extra-curricular, has a support group that explicitly trusts the board to be positive in its actions affecting their interest.  The connections between moms and dads, alums, and community members wearing school colors are vital to ongoing school culture and future ballot initiatives.  No board member wants to be singled out for offending a support group to the point that the group becomes active in campaigning against school programs and initiatives.  Special interest groups throughout the school community explicitly trust board members to support their interests.

What about children?  Is there an explicit trust between board members and the children of the school district?  Yes but no.  The words “child” and “children” appear hundreds of times in state statures regarding school governance.  The education of children is at the center of the school board’s work.  Yet children are seldom vocal or present when the board does its’ work.  At best, children are explicitly referenced yet the bonds of trust are all implicit.  And children do not vote.

While no board member wants to actively and publicly deny a child or group of children their wants, board members do it all the time.  And they don’t know it when they do it.  A change in school lunch vendors and the foodstuffs they supply will be applauded by some children and despised by others.  Pizza, for example, a staple of school cafeterias changes when vendor contracts change.  Few children will speak about decisions to change brands of toilet paper, yet every child is affected. 

On a larger arena, decisions about grading scales, graduation requirements, prerequisites for course selections are discussed by the board in committee and board meetings, yet few children asked how they would vote, if they could.  Children implicitly trust board members to make positive policy decisions on their behalf.

Trust is as trust is perceived.

Trust is visible.  Board members need to be seen in the schoolhouse and at school events.  Their presence in school may seem mundane, yet their lack of presence infers no personal experience, observation, or first-hand information.  I always questioned a board member who took a strong position at a board meeting about the math curriculum yet had not observed teaching and learning.  Relying on data is okay but combining data about unacceptable student performance data combined with observations of real teaching and learning in the classroom makes a winning argument.  A board member greatly increases her perception of trustworthiness when she says, “I saw how frustrated our teachers and students are with how the publisher presents pre-Algebra.  Our current text materials are not clear and direct in scaffolding required pre-Algebra skills.”  Even though an administrator may say similar things, when a board member makes these statements, they enact their trustworthiness by not being reliant only on what they are told.

Some may say board members’ presence in the school is intrusive.  In fact, the Wisconsin Association of School Board handbook for board members downplays board member visits during the school day.  “Trust the school administration”, the WASB advises.  Board presence during the school day is not a distrust but partnership between the superintendent and the board.  A secure superintendent invites board members to visit school; an insecure administrator does not. 

Trust is vocalized.  When a person meets a board member in an aisle at the grocery store or at the gas pump, and asks a school-based question, board members are given a prime-time opportunity to display and build trust.  “I am open to listening to you.  And I am open to telling you what I think.”  The rules of confidentiality always apply, but outside of forbidden topics, talking with others when they want to talk with with a board member builds mutual trust.

Perception is reality.

Lastly, newly elected board members are expected to go through an acclimation phase.  However, from day one of their term to their last day, the public is always watching.  Board members are constantly measured by how others perceive their work.  While we expect new members to learn, the perception of how new members go about their learning, and how they become fully engaged builds the reality of how much they are trusted.

Be trustworthy to be trusted.

We are what we appear to value.  Reading Proficiency and Censorship.

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Simultaneously the Wisconsin legislature is considering a bill to improve reading instruction for all children and a bill to limit what schools can provide for children to read.  Two bills each with its own perspective on how the state should fulfill its commitment to educating children.  One bill attempts to apply the best practices of the science of reading to ensure all children can be proficient readers.  One bill tells schools to limit what they provide for children to read and see.  Each bill uses the power of the state to transform how schools impact children.  Each bill is an expression of what we value.

What do we know?

Our WI constitution says the state is responsible for establishing and supervising public education.  State statute 118.01(2) outlines the state’s educational goals.  These include instruction in 118.01(2)(a) the basic skills of reading, arithmetic, listening, writing, and speaking, analytical skills to think rationally and solve problems, a body of knowledge in literature, fine arts, and the natural sciences, skills and attitudes for lifelong intellectual activity, and knowledge in computer science including the social impact of computers.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118

What is being proposed?

Representative Joel Kitchens is spearheading Assembly Bill 321 to improve child literacy by creating an Office of Literacy, focusing teacher prep programs on science-based reading instruction, establishing and funding literacy coaching, and standardizing early literacy screening through grade 3 assessments.  Equally important to the use of phonics-based reading is the ban on schools from using three cueing strategies in teaching children to read.  Every child in 4K-grade 3 will be taught how to decode words and encode sounds – to read and write independently.  Each child will be taught the mechanics of literacy and strategies for building vocabulary.  A child’s ability will no longer be determined by her school’s reading program preferences but by best practice. 

The bill institutes change in teacher education and professional development to ensure that teachers know how to teach phonics-based reading.  Today most teachers do not teach phonics as it was not part of their baccalaureate preparation or their school district’s PD.  Most teachers learned to teach whole language or blended reading strategies dominated reading instruction.  Teachers will learn to teach and be accountable for teaching all children to read using the science of reading concepts and skills.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/proposals/ab321

State Senators Andre Jacque, Romaine Quinn, and Cory Tomczyk presented a bill that would cause schools to remove books and material that are “deemed harmful or offensive to minors from public schools and libraries” and “enact policies that ensure minors do not view harmful materials on public computers”.

Under the guise of parent rights to supervise what their children learn, the bill requires schools to publish their curricular materials so that parents may object to what they deem harmful and/or remove their child from that class instruction. 

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/proposals/sb10

One bill supports our educational goals and the other subverts those goals.

I fully agree with Joel Kitchens when he says “Students will succeed by returning to the way most of us learned to read.  I truly consider this to be the most important thing that I ever worked on in the legislature”.  AB 321 advances the educational goals of our state by improving how we teach all children to read. 

Senate Bill 10 contradicts our educational goals to provide all children with opportunities to consider, think, and become intellectual problem solvers.  It ignores or does not trust the authority of school districts to supervise the materials they provide for children to read and see and experience in school.  Instead, this bill creates a new right for a parent to make that decision not just for that parent’s child but for all children.

SB10 is Wisconsin’s effort to keep up with other conservative-dominated state legislatures with book banning.  If successful, the bill ensures that schoolbooks and materials can be censored by a single parent or small group of parents.  It also places school boards in the bullseye of the issue to ban or not ban books.

https://www.wortfm.org/following-national-trend-wisconsin-lawmakers-introduce-book-ban/

Where is our educational high ground?

As a former school superintendent and school board president, I applaud Assembly Bill 321 and shun Senate Bill 10.  The high ground of public education is to teach children how to think and to resolve issues.  It is low ground to tell children what to think and to insulate them from issues they should, with appropriate instructional support, be able to consider. 

Our state constitution explains the educational goals of a public education in Chapter 118, section 118.01.  118.01(d) says “Each school board shall provide an instructional program designed to give pupils: (8) Knowledge of effective means by which pupils may recognize, avoid, prevent and halt physically or psychologically intrusive or abusive situations which may be harmful to pupils including child abuse and child enticement.  Instruction shall be designed to help pupils develop positive psychological, emotional, and problem-solving responses to such situations and avoid relying on negative, fearful, and solely reactive methods of dealing with such situations.  Instruction shall include information on available school and community prevention and intervention assistance or services and shall be provided to pupils in elementary schools.”

The high ground for our state is to implement the goals of its statutes.  Schools must constantly improve how we teach children while we constantly are vigilant regarding the educational materials we use for that education.  The state constitution gives schools the authority and responsibility to do these, and the role of legislation is to enhance not impede schools.  The constitution commends parents to work with local school boards to understand and advocate for the education of all children.

The high ground for local school boards is to constantly supervise the materials and experiences used to educate its students.   When a challenge arises the board can engage in an appropriate conversation with the conviction that the district has and is meeting its responsibilities for the entirety of our state’s educational goals.  We teach all children to become proficient in basic skills and to consider, think, problem solve and make decisions regarding their school experiences.  We do not teach them what to think or how to value their experiences.

No Blinders on US History Curriculum

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US history or US histories, that is the question.  Is my story your story?  Is there a single story?  Can there be multiple stories woven into a broader telling of a national history?  What role do blinders play in our history?  What should we teach our children?  Who says?

What do we know about US history?

The course title reads United States History.   I taught this course and supervised its instruction.  Our classic US History textbooks told our national story beginning with European exploration and colonization, revolution and establishment of a constitutional republic, westward expansion, civil war, industrialization, world wars, civil rights, and, depending on publication date, some contemporary stories.  All supplemental materials used to teach our history to children supported this chronicle of our American pride and spirit.  US history was Eurocentric and comfortably fit the concepts of our 20th century nationalism. 

We taught and students learned what Winston Churchill meant when he said, “History is written by the victors”.  Our history curriculum in school has been the story of how English-speaking people spread across the middle of North America and established a government, economic system, and society to sustain the victor’s heritage.  The victors place the blinders.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html

My family lineage parallels traditional US history.  We immigrated from Holland, intermarried with English colonists and fought in the Revolutionary War.  As the settled frontier moved west, so did we.  In 1849 a great-grandfather joined the California Gold Rush and returned to Wisconsin with enough riches to buy land and establish a growing family on multiple farms.  By 1900 we were college-educated and mobile.  We worked in FDR’s federal agriculture department and fought in WW2.  We thrived as the Silent and Greatest Generations and Baby-Boomers.  We are middle-class America personified and we find our story told and explained in a US History text.

But our story does not mirror that of almost 50% of Americans today.  Many of the children I taught and learned from cannot find their family story in a US History text.  “I do not see myself or my family represented in US History” is a complaint that educators knew existed for decades and only recently have begun to address.  After all, we say to children, “This is the history of our country”, the first thing children do is to look for faces, names, and stories that are like their own.  As soon as we ask children to find themselves in our national history we recognize multiple stories within our history.

As examples, our history text tells that enslaved African labor created the southern plantation culture and economy.  The Civil War was fought to free the slaves and resulted in amendments to the Constitution.  Reconstruction brought Jim Crow laws and segregation in the south.  Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement and was assassinated.  Jackie Robinson was the first Black player in Major League Baseball and Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods each transformed their respective sports.  And Barack Obama was our first Black President.

For a century the only mention of American Indians in our texts was Pocahontas, Squanto, Sacajawea, and Sitting Bull.  Pocahontas saved John Smith and married and introduced tobacco to London.  Squanto taught the Pilgrims to use fish as fertilizer and sat at the first Thanksgiving.  Sacajawea guided Lewis and Clarke’s expedition over the Rocky Mountains.  Sitting Bull led the Sioux in the Battle of Little Big Horn and the death of Custer. 

The story of Hispanic people in the text is one of losses.  The Alamo and Mexican War of 1846-48 led to the annexation of Texas and all the territory between the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific.  (A student needed to visualize the states formed by the Purchase to understand this.)  Simon Bolivar was the George Washington of South America.

Asians get equal short shrift.  Chinese workers built the Central Pacific railroad from California to Promontory Point, Utah, to join with the Union Pacific and form our first transcontinental railroad.  And Japanese Americans were interred during WW2. 

A traditional US History text fit the political-cultural realities of our pre-civil rights eras.  That text conformed to the victors theory.  Times changed.  This is a woke story but a reality story.  The Declaration of Independence acknowledged certain unalienable rights held by all (men according to the Founding Fathers).  Stories of how Americans came to share their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be blindered in their telling.

Historical versions

If you don’t like what is showing on your media screen, change providers.  If it is television, change channels.  If it is a history text, change texts.  Even among the victors there are different tellings of the same stories.  Depending on your state, the adopted US History text is selected according to the telling that appeals to state legislators who make the ultimate decisions regarding school text adoptions.  In the textbook market, California and Texas spend the most money on state adoptions.  US History in these two states reflects how they want US History to be taught to their school children.  These are state-approved blinders, and they contradict the rights of all Americans to understand their stories.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html

How does the story of our history fit our nation today?

We are no longer white/European.  Our population mass is shifting from white/non-Hispanic to a reflection of the melting pot our nation was destined to become.  So says the plaque at the foot of the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus, daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.

“As of 2019, the current distribution of the U.S. population by race and ethnicity is:

  • White/non-Hispanic: 60.1%
  • Hispanic: 18.5%
  • Black: 12.2%
  • Asian: 5.6%
  • Multiple Races: 2.8%
  • American Indian/Alaska Native: .7%
  • Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander: .2%”
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-u-s-population-by-race/

Within the next decade White/non-Hispanic people will no longer be the majority race/ethnicity.  The aggregated majority will be people of color.

More importantly, all in our census are citizens of the United States.  In the collective, we are Americans.  This is true of the census of our people but not of the US History of our people.  Our history curriculum does not tell the stories of our American people.

Cognitive Dissonance

What do we do when we know disparate things to be true?  Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance.  We experience discomfort and angst when confronted with dissonance.  In this case, our textual history does not accurately reflect our real histories or our histories does not tell the story we want to be told.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012

Dissonance can cause us to

  • learn more about conflicting ideas in order to resolve a best understanding.
  • affirm our version of a story and attack anyone who holds a conflicting version.
  • create new versions that further strengthen our ideas and attack any other version.

And this is where we are today.  These three actions are taking place in and around our classrooms as adherents deal with their own and our societal dissonance. 

Some use the attack strategy claiming that any story other than the mainstreamed story written by the victors is unAmerican.  They make the issue partisan and divisive.  Texts and materials that do not support the victor story are suppressed and removed from school.  Blinders abound.

Some use the revision and new version strategies.  They cite the Founding Fathers wanting decisions today to be based on the ideas and constraints of the 1700s.  The Fathers truly were a narrow slice of the census of their time – wealthy, landed, Christian, white, and male.  Or they rewrite history to give the victors a moralistic superiority over the vanquished.  Our history is a natural selection and progression process.  More blinders.

And some understood one of the concepts they were taught in their school’s US History class.  The United States is a melting pot of peoples.  There is no dominant story to support one group of citizens over the interests of others.  To be understood and celebrated, the good, bad, and the ugly, history cannot have blinders.

The Big Duh!

The motto of the United States has been and is today e pluribus unum.  It is Latin meaning “out of many, one”.  US History taught to children today needs to be the truthful telling of the many stories that represent all the people who make up our one nation.  The melting pot is only getting larger and more complex.  Any child who does not hear and learn from the many stories is condemned to a severe dissonance problem.  A nation that does not learn from its history is condemned to repeat it.  We are smarter than that.

The Hard Work Is The Right Work

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Being responsible for the education of children is not easy.  The speed, complexity, and complications of 21st century life is making this responsibility more and more difficult as every day we hear of a school controversy and crisis somewhere.  A board meeting in Timbuktu easily becomes headlines on national nightly news given how a social media post can explode sensationally.  And what is done in Timbuktu becomes a burning issue at a local meeting where most people cannot spell Timbuktu.  Being responsible requires leaders to understand the essential issues of their place and time, to sort the here and now from the Timbuktu, and not be afraid to tackle the hard stuff – the right work – of educating children.

Why is this thus?

There are several givens whenever we gather to talk about our local schools.  Our Constitution ensures our right to speak freely.  Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Laws ensure that school board meetings are open to public attendance with an opportunity for the public to speak to the school board.  And because almost everyone in the community attended a school of some sort, many people speak to their school board with the expertise of their personal school experience.  In summary, we are free to express our opinions about school and the school board is obligated to listen.  These are good things.

From the moment we labeled it public education, people felt compelled to express their opinion about how children should be educated.  Any adult who has or can biologically create a child feels authorized to explain how children should be raised and educated.  Today they express themselves standing at the lectern in front of the school board and from the screens of their computers, IPads, and smartphones while sitting at home.  This guaranteed exchange of “you speak, and we listen” is now part of posted school board agendas.  This is a healthy thing.

All board agenda items are not of the same importance.  The annual and daily operations of a district school require boards to consider, discuss, and approve items of routine business investigated and proposed by administrators.  These are the usual business of the board that once approved in the committee process need only a cursory airing in public and a vote.  It is true to say that many boards of education live on a steady diet of usual business agenda and shy away from controversy.  That said, the usual business is easy stuff and the controversial is the hard.  The hard points a board to the right work it must do.

Lastly, there is nothing inherently wrong with controversy; controversy being a voicing of oppositional points of view.  Good leadership understands that important educational issues will raise differing points of view and it is the work of the board to resolve conflicting points of view for the prosperity of the schools.  Best leadership does not shy away from controversy but tackles it honestly.

What should we know about this thusness?

Controversies abound!

The pandemic gave most school boards a rude awakening to the hard stuff.  As experienced ad nauseam, no school boards were educated or trained to deal with either pandemic education or the controversies of how schools should behave during a pandemic.  Few boards, if any, escaped this public crisis and the argument of battling points of view.   In fact, seated board members resigned, did not run for re-election, and were recalled by their electorate because of pandemic controversies.  The board table was not for the faint of heart when spittle and spite flew from impassioned parents and residents who knew best about public health and public education in an emergency.

Concurrent to the pandemic, other controversies brewed and erupted in school board rooms.  Events of police violence went national.  BLK begat an introspection of systemic racism that begat renewed white nationalism that begat a legislative rewriting of US history that could not be taught in public schools.  Speakers, despite historical fact, are making CRT their argument and the board room their arena.

Quietly then loudly gender identity and the evolving status of children claiming non-conforming gender expression forced the public, like tug-of-rope teams, to dig in their heels regarding who can use which bathrooms and locker rooms in schools.  Parents care more about this issue than their children.  The parent who cries “Protect my daughter!”, claims the media headline while distorting issues of discrimination and fairness. 

There are quiet controversies afoot.  As federal pandemic relief monies expire, school districts everywhere face financial crisis.  Usual school funding is not adequate to sustain the technologies and school staffing wrought by the pandemic.  While inflation diminishes family spending, school boards are proposing increases in local school taxes.  The controversies of cuts to school programs and school closing will clog the school board agenda for years to come.

A second quiet controversy is teacher shortage.  Teacher preparation programs in colleges and universities are dying for lack of enrollment.  As baby boomer teachers retire school boards are hard put to find qualified replacement teachers.  The controversy is this – state legislation is lowering the standards for a teaching license, persons who are not fully prepared to teach children to high standards of learning are being hired to assure a teacher in every classroom, student academic achievement is diving, and someone is to blame.  Hello, school board member!

What is a board to do?

Do these three things to succeed.

  • Grab each controversy by both ears, look it in the face, and deal with it.  Ignoring a controversy builds anger in the partisans and they will damn you for your lack of action.  Pussyfooting around a controversy allows it to grow constituent bases who demand action.  If you cannot provide the action, constituents will find someone who can.  Deal with it!
  • Know that school governance is not a democracy; it is representative government and only board members vote on school decisions.  As provided in law, the public has the right to speak with the school board and the board is obligated to listen.  Do not take anything said personally, even from the most spittle mouthed.  Do not take anything said as expert opinion or fact.  At the end of the meeting everyone else goes home and only board members vote on how the district will respond to a controversy.  Discuss and decide; that is what school boards do.
  • The board speaks for the education of all children in the district not for the happiness of parents, residents, and dissidents.  Self-interest, though denied, is the primary motive of every person who addresses the board – this is fact.  A board member’s only self-interest is the best education for ALL children, with ALL in capital letters.  A parent speaks for her child and her child’s peers.  A teacher for her grade level or those in her class.  A coach for her team.  The business manager for the budget.  Board members must consider ALL children, not just some, while ensuring that each child is provided an equal and equitable education and school experience.  This is the rub.  How to advance the cause of all while protecting the rights of the one.

Being responsible for the education of children is not easy.  If it were, anyone could do it and we don’t want just anyone to be responsible for the education of ALL children.  We want board members who can look inside the issues they confront to find humane, high ground, child-centered resolutions for tough questions.  I would like to think that if one of the two women claiming the child in the Bible’s Solomon “the wise” story had not said to spare the child and thus created a true claim as mother, Solomon would not have cleaved the child in two but adopted it as his own.  Board members consider ALL children your own and be willing take the forsaken child to your home.  This is your school board standard.

When it comes to study skills, “You are on your own, kid.”

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Because teaching children how to study is not in our curriculum and teachers are not taught how to teach studying skills in their teacher preparation programs.  Inconceivable, you might think, but true.  As a result, the random ability of a child to self-develop personal study skills becomes a highly reliable predictor of academic success in high school.  And it is a random ability.

Check it out.  Ask any group of high school students to explain their study habits.

You may find a child who enjoys virtual photographic memory.  This child reads or sees something one time and on test day recalls that initial intake with astounding reliability.  This child, though an outlier and rare, obscures our concepts of studying.  We cannot generalize about their uniqueness.

Most students will report they reread pages of their textbook and review their notes of what the teacher said in class.  A second “most” will report they do a reread and review one or two nights before a scheduled test.  Usually, they cram!

A few will say they reread text material and “rewrote their notes”.

One or two will say they “reread the text and their notes, identified key words and ideas, made flash cards of these and tested themselves on their flash cards until they memorized this information”.  They add, “I start several days before the test”.  When asked, “Who told you to study like this?”, none will say “My teacher”.  This is metacognitive studying.  Sadly, we do not teach children how to do this.  You will not find it in any publishing guide or in a baccalaureate teacher prep curriculum.

Want to hazard a guess as to which children get high grades and which children do not?

What do we know?

The slope of responsibility for independent study starts as a flat line in the primary grades, approaches 45 degrees in the intermediate grades and then goes vertical in the secondary grades.  The degree of responsibility for independent study is not met with explicit instruction teaching children how to study.  We literally tell children what to study and then say “go study” thinking effective study techniques are in each child’s genetic map. 

Observations of K-4 classrooms show teachers telling children what to know, practicing what to know, and reteaching when children are not successful in initial knowing with good regularity.  This good practice has not changed much over time.  Parents will remember their teachers using the chalkboard to write out new words, ideas, and arithmetic strategies.  Children today see their teachers doing the same on smart interactive screens.  The “write it, say it, explain it” pedagogy works well in the primary grades for teaching all subjects.  The amount of information or skills being taught/learned is controlled by the teacher who uses repetition as drill and practice to drive home daily learning.  Teacher guided repetition works well until the batch of new information increases in volume or the degree of complexity increases in middle school.  There is little independent homework in the primary grades; mostly children do projects at home and bring them to class to show.

Intermediate teachers traditionally tell their students “The amount of homework you will be assigned in middle school is significantly more than we are doing.  Be ready!”.  Fair warning, but children need more than just a warning.

The following describes what middle school students are told to do to be successful in their homework and independent study.  I hear these “keys to doing homework” repeated annually in middle school classrooms.

  • Establish a study area at home.
  • Communicate with the teacher.
  • Keep assignments organized.
  • Avoid procrastination.
  • Take notes in class.
  • Highlight key concepts in the reading materials.
  • Prepare your book-bag before going to bed.

https://www.kumon.com/resources/7-important-study-habits-for-school/

Why is this the state of study skills?

These hints are like telling children that brushing their teeth daily promotes dental health.  Once told, no one checks on their brushing practices.  Likewise, once we provide the above hints for homework success.

The real culprit lies with teacher preparation.  A review of our state’s college and university teacher preparation curricula shows not a single course unit devoted to teaching children how to study.  Our required curricula assure licensed teachers possess content knowledge, pedagogical skills, understanding of human relations, and informed dispositions about the diverse students they teach, but there is not one mention of how to teach student study skills.  In essence, teachers are prepared to teach children what to know but not how to learn it.

Helpful but not complete practices

Some schools insert a unit in study skills in the middle school curriculum.  The dominant study skill taught is note taking and the predominant technique for taking notes is the Cornell system.

The Cornell Note Taking System

However, study skills and note taking, once taught are seldom if ever checked afterward.  We treat the initial instruction of study skills like a vaccine, once given then forever safe from the fate of poor study habits.  Nothing is further from the truth.  One month after the Cornell system is taught to children, I do not observe any teacher explicitly checking each child’s note taking.  There is no follow-up and that is on us as teachers and principals.

A second practice that has merit is providing students with a study guide.  Teachers who do this hand each student a preview of what will be tested.  A study guide looks like an outline of the teacher’s teaching notes.  For some students, the study guide helps them to check the validity of their note taking.  Notes should reflect the guide.  Study guides are great, but they also revert to the issue of how to study.  A student who just reads and rereads the study guide is only a tad better off than a student who reads and rereads the text and personal notes.  They achieve familiarity with the material, not a usable understanding of it.  There is no metacognitive practice is giving a study guide without teaching how to use it.

What do we need – to teach all children a metacognitive study strategy and hold children accountable for using it.  The following is one example.

There are several strategies for moving a student from familiarity with information to a usable understanding.  Part of these strategies are organizational, and part is repetitive memorization and practice.  The following strategy can be applied to every subject, all academic content, and all skills.  It is time tested.  It is a discipline for successful metacognitive learning.

  1. Teach all children to:
    • Read the text material to identify new key vocabulary and ideas, cause and effect relationships, questions that are posed and conclusions that are stated.
    • Use a note taking system to listen to a teacher’s lesson noting key vocabulary, new ideas and skills, and how the teacher displays those skills (math strategies).
    • Reread the text material for familiarity with it – “I know what it is about”.
    • Make flash cards of the key vocabulary and ideas, cause and effect relationships, steps in a problem-solving strategy, and conclusions the text or teacher make in the lessons. Key words on one side of the note card and definition on the other.
    • Either partner with a parent or classmate using flash cards. “Show me the word and I will define it. Check me. If I am wrong, tell me the correction.” Children should repeat this until they can respond correctly to each flash card prompt.
  2. Prior to a math or science test, teach all children to:
    • Do the problems in the textbook or on teacher assignment sheets again, as if they are a new assignment. Do the entire problem. Show all the work, as if you are explaining it to the teacher.
    • Repeat the scientific process related to recent lessons. What is the hypothesis, what is the evidence, what is the conclusion? Flash card this material.
  3. DO THIS! Commit class time to personally checking each child’s study materials.
    • Check their note cards for accuracy in identifying key vocabulary and ideas, relationships, and questions/conclusions.
    • Check their reworking of math and science problems.
    • Tell each child what is right and what is wrong in their study materials.
  4. DO THIS! Commit class time for children to practice their flash cards and to rework math and science problems. Observe them studying and reinforce/correct their study strategy.
  5. DO THIS consistently for several units and them randomly during the remainder of the school year.

The Big Duh!

There should be no mysteries in the education of a child.  Our goal is for all children to be successful and to do that we must give them the tools, the strategies, and our help in perfecting those.  Success in school should not be left to the random insights of a child into how to study.  Our success as teachers should be when every child demonstrates strong study skills, and every child achieves high grades.  We are not successful otherwise.