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.
You have a wonderful vision for your classroom from your own experiences as a learner. Hold fast to what you know learning can be. It won't be easy, but it will make a difference for the students in your classroom. Unfortunately, we have somehow lost our way in the whole spin of accountability and testing. It will take new teachers with visions such as yours to put education back on track!
ReplyDeleteI think that making your experience a reality in the secondary classroom can be very powerful for the secondary student. If given somewhat structured topics on which to focus and enough time to process and internalize their own learning, secondary students would be able to reach a new level of understanding outside the classroom while receiving a shallow survey within the classroom. Not that I condone the shallow survey type education we seem to have adopted, but I don't see that it will change anytime soon, and so I feel that as educators, it is our responsibility to come up with ways to motivate the great thinkers of the next generation.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly no questioning the power of the depth of education you received at Oxford. Nor would many people question the connection between your literacy, the mentor teaching style at Oxford, and your depth of understanding that you gained from the classes. My only question is that I wonder how practically this experience can be applied in a public (or even private for that matter) high school? As I said, there is no doubting that your experience was wonderful, but when trying to move from the "mile-wide, inch-deep" approach to the "inch-wide, mile-deep" approach, how do we begin to choose which inches to cover and which to ignore? I understand that ideally our classes would instigate an interest and curiosity that would further their learning in our respective fields outside of the classroom, but it still seems like running a risk to choose a range of topics for a class that gets any narrower than what some of our standards already are. No doubt, most classes would benefit from including more teaching of the sort you experienced at Oxford, I just think that it is important to also consider the limits. There is already more than enough American History to fill a course, and teachers already struggle deciding where in history to spend the most class time. No matter how much a student gains from an in-depth understanding of WWII, if it comes at the cost of not learning about the American Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, or the Native American removals, then has the class fulfilled its purpose? I don't mean to suggest that "mile-wide, inch-deep" is the best, or even an acceptable, solution, only that jumping to the other end of the spectrum may not be for the best either.
ReplyDeleteTried to post this yesterday but I think I wandered away after hitting "Post Comment." I think I forgot to fill in the word verification. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteWhile I definitely agree that teaching a broad array of topics in a short amount of time will result in little knowledge gained, I do disagree with the mile deep, inch wide suggestion. However, I am sure you did not mean to say that all students should be taught a few topics only, just that you were pointing out that more coverage resulted in exponential understandings reached.