Testing vs. Literacy

Toward the end of Readicide, Kelly Gallagher talks about Finland and their country's focus on literacy and lack of focus on standardized, multiple choice testing. When I read this section of his last chapter, I wanted to high-five Mr. Gallagher and thank him for including this point of reference.

Why reinvent the wheel? I'm all about changing and progressing with our students, but who decided that a focus on literacy wasn't working? Why did we move to such an automaton-esque focus on bubbling in answers on a scantron?

Gallagher explains that while Finland is quite homogenous in culture and language, their differences from the United States shouldn't dismiss their successes for a comparison. The Finns nurture creativity, encourage reading and deep thought, and do not include standardized testing in their education system. After being in our region's schools, I am discouraged by our students' difficulty with analytical thinking. I find, however, that when I engage with them and ask enriching questions like "why do you think that's the way this is?" or "how does that factor affect the other factors and the environment in which that factor exists?", they light up and delight in wanting to think critically. Other students may be reluctant at first, but when students engage in the conversations of the day, they take part ownership in their own learning process instead of just responding to a test or task stimulus.

Anyone want to move to Finland? :-)

Readicide and Close Reading

I vaguely remember my 9th grade Literature teacher talking about the art of close reading and its necessity in our honors course. Since we'd be moving onto AP English eventually, she wanted to set us on a path of metacognition in reading so that we would fully develop as mature readers. Gallagher explains close reading in more detail, and I certainly gained some insights on how to facilitate and encourage this type of analytical thinking in my future classroom.

I like the way Gallagher's writing on close reading mirrored Dr. Webb's demonstration of close reading a few weeks ago in class. As teachers, we can model our own thought processes at the front of the classroom which encourages our high-achieving and struggling students and helps them feel more comfortable with their own thoughts about the material. Figure 4.2 on page 102 is a great example of well thought-out close reading and the metacognition of our students' thoughts.

Like all of Gallagher's strategies, I do think that this activity would take some getting used to by struggling students, especially those prone to classroom management disturbances and interruptions. However, once students begin to expect a routine and structure in the classroom, and the same literacy activities are repeated (but with different excerpts and books), the students will gain confidence in their abilities to work with the activities. The more confidence they have, the better they will perform academically, and when they perform better in one class, they will want to do better in their others classes.

I think any teacher implementing these strategies has to have confidence in and care of his or her students as well as a plethora of patience. However, after using his "Article of the Week" activity as one of my literacy engagements, I know that the students I worked with responded well, and I hope to use some of his other strategies in my future classroom.

Readicide, Chapter 3

Readicide Factor: The Overanalysis of Books Creates Instruction That Values the Trivial at the Expense of the Meaningful (Gallagher, 66)

Love, love, love this. Gallagher talks about the tendency for teachers to "chop up" novels, making certain that their students know every character's development, mood, tone, conflicts, and minor plot lines. However, the real value in reading many books is finding the cultural and social relevance that each book provides for the time period in which it was written as well as our current state of affairs. For instance, we should read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl as not only a Holocaust text, but also as a piece of writing for anyone who is struggling in his or her own living situation. I am reminded of the movie Freedom Writers in which the teacher has her students read this book and write in journals every day. Some of her students connected Frank's struggle with the SS and the Nazis with their own insecure and unsafe neighborhoods; both the student and Anne Frank lived in fear for their lives and were forced to deal with difficult, real-life survival issues at a young age. This is where real learning happens.

I started thinking about novels to read in a Government or History classroom in which I could find current issue connections. If I used Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, I could have lively discussions about theocracies and the tug-and-pull in Muslim and Christian nations towards and away from this threat. Animal Farm, of course, is a great way to teach socialism and communism while wrapping students up in a story about farm animals taking over their grassy farmland. Reading something like Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit might be a good way to discuss racial or other types of discriminatory violence.

The more I learn about teaching in our program, the more I believe in making relevant connections to every day life that is meaningful to the student. A good example of this is a current Hollywood movie called Easy A. While the film is slightly irreverent and not suitable for a school viewing, the movie connects Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to a female student's suddenly-ruined reputation. Rumors spread about her, and she makes life connections to Hester Prynne's experience with public scorn and disapproval. Making personal connections with the students as well as social and cultural connections in the current state of affairs is a great way to help students remember and retain valuable information. This method also ensures analytical thinking and writing, which helps to combat readicide.

Readicide, Chapter 2

It always amazes (and depresses) me that grown, educated adults can sit in a room and argue endlessly over whether a student's pants are too baggy or whether a student should be marked tardy if he or she is not yet seated when the bell rings. I am not making this up. One year the teachers in my school spent an entire year arguing about what color to paint our school. And every time we had one of those discussions, I thought about the classrooms a few feet away missing the one thing our students desperately need: interesting books. (Gallagher 31)

Wow. I think I read this passage at least three times in a row, then underlined, starred, and highlighted the entire paragraph. After spending my own K-12 experience in a similar environment, I couldn't help but nod my head in agreement and smile with the resonation of Gallagher's words in my own experiences. Is dress code important for student safety? Yes. Is tardiness an issue in schools? Sure. Do we spend way more time in schools talking about these "little things" than we do talking about important, lifelong issues, such as literacy and curriculum? Absolutely.

I'll never forget walking up to my high school's back entrance on my first day of senior year when I happened upon a large sign that read "ULHS Dress Code Starts Here." The principal had made a declaration in the community newspaper about his "zero tolerance" policy on dress code violations and how he was setting his agenda around this issue. Teachers were assigned to stand at all school entrances enforcing this dress code with prison-guard vigor. "Tuck that shirt in!," one teacher would shout. "Ashley, come here! Let me measure the length of that dress!," another would sneer.

Did the high school have an inordinate amount of school violence? No, not more than any other rural high school. Did we have a severe problem with provocative behavior resulting in an embarrassing incident for the school? No, not more than any other school our size. Had we met AYP that year, or the year before? Absolutely not. Is there a extensive bookstore located anywhere in the county? Nope, not that either.

Here we have a school on the Needs Improvement list, unimpressive test scores, very low SAT scores, and a lackluster Advanced Placement program, yet the top of the agenda for the school year was dress code. As a future teacher, I can infer that many of the teachers were peeved about this agenda, yet I remember specific teachers who kind of got a "high" off of barking orders about tank tops vs. sleeveless shirts and the every notorious act of "busting slack." As teachers, we have to enforce the rules of the administration, but student learning should always be our top priority. I sincerely question the teachers who love the power trip of enforcing rules upon teenagers--is their passion teaching, or social control?

Here's to more books and reading!

Readicide, Chapter 1

So far, I've only read the introduction and Chapter 1 of Readicide, and I'm already nodding my head, underlining great quotations, and audibly agreeing with the author. One of Gallagher's biggest points in Chapter 1 is that because of the overwhelming expectations of performance standards, teachers are obligated to briefly go over a wide swath of material instead of going deeply into fewer topics. Gallagher says that when we curtail adolescent curiosity, we lose them completely in the mental sense. I could not agree more.

When I studied abroad in Oxford during my junior year at Mercer, I was given so many fantastic opportunities. One of these was the ability to take only two classes per eight-week term. During one of my eight-week terms, I took "Women in Developing Nations" and "The Novels of E.M. Forster." For each class, I (alone) met with an Oxford don, and after I took a week to read immensely and think deeply, we exchanged ideas about what I had read and written. Throughout the week, the topic of the reading was on my brain constantly--because of the discovery learning aspect, a natural byproduct of literacy in the classroom, I took ownership in my learning process and felt confident and interested when having my conversation with my instructor.

I share this story because I have experienced firsthand the deep learning about which Gallagher writes. By juxtaposing that experience with the startling statistics of Readicide, I fully concur with the author's assertions that "inch deep, mile wide" learning and teaching-to-a-bad-test is not nearly as effective as "mile deep, inch wide" learning and intellectual curiosity.