Introduction to Education

In August it was reported that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT possessed the necessary skills to pass entry level courses at college.

Not surprising perhaps... But calls for high school courses to be made more demanding, more rigorous, will make things worse. How about making them more interesting?

In the subject I taught - English - you can do that by relying on a curriculum that uses narrative storytelling to deliver concepts and a greater focus on the Socratic method. I believe this can be applied to all subjects to varying degrees except Math. Students judge teachers on the quality of their ideas, their teaching methods and their affection for their students. They will learn more if they feel involved and they are particularly suspicious of burnt out and inflexible teachers.

Some Nebraska schools have the right idea with these guidelines:

• Set learning targets and make grades dependent on achieving those targets.
• Give grades based solely on achievement (attendance, effort and participation should be reported separately).
• Grade only individual achievement, not group work.
• Give scores only to certain assignments and choose carefully which scores should be included in the final grade.
• Make sure students understand how their grades are being determined.

In other words, changing teachers' heads may be more valuable that changing the kids' heads. Douglas Reeves, founder of the Leadership and Learning Center in Colorado, says that giving kids no credit for not turning in work or flunking them in some other way defeats the purpose. A better result would be to force them to do the work, before school, during recess or after school.

Source for the Nebraska info: LA Times 10/4/09