My career mirrors the path of Theodore Sizer’s fictional teacher Horace in its frustrations and successes. Horace is beaten down in Sizer’s first volume (“Horace’s Compromise”), but emerges re-energized in the next two books (“Horace’s School” and “Horace’s Hope”), where Sizer sets out his principles for effective schools with the goal of creating “thoughtful and decent young adults.”
What Kids Are Reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre and data from booksellers. Information on the books below came from The New York Times Book Review, Nov. 8, 2009.
Top 10 Best-selling Children’s Picture Books
1. Lego Star Wars by Simon Beecroft (Ages 7 and up)
2. Julie Andrews’s Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies by Emma Walton Hamilton and Julie Andrews (Ages 4-8)
3. Skippyjon Jones, Lost in Spice by Judy Schachner (Ages 4-8)
4. Where the Wild Things Are by Barb Bersche and Michelle Quint (Ages 9-12, adapted from the screenplay)
5. Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth (Ages 4-8)
6. Waddle! by Rufus Butler Seder (Ages 4-8)
7. Otis by Loren Long (Ages 4-8)
8. Gallop! by Rufus Butler Seder (Ages 4-8)
9. Strega Nona’s Harvest by Tommy dePaola (Ages 4-8)
10. The Runaway Mummy by Michael Rex (Ages 3-5, a “Runaway Bunny” parody)
My last column enumerated Sizer’s reforms — all of them sensible, but only a few now part of our schools. One improvement since the 1980s is that class periods have doubled in length to allow more time for thinking, discussing and writing. Teachers also work together more often now. Professional Learning Communities are in most schools — but the initiative is often top down, and they are regarded by teachers as one more thing to do. “One more thing to do” is the phrase I heard over and over in my years of teaching public school. Teachers find ways to comply, but we do not do those chores with gusto.
The elephant in the room is that the average high school teacher has too many students (120-150) to properly contribute to learning communities, no matter how valuable. I led the “vertical team” at Oakton High School — an admirable effort, supported by the College Board, encouraging teachers from all disciplines and grade levels to coordinate goals, skills and activities.
Teachers from history, English and science departments discovered we had similar goals: to produce the thoughtful and decent adults Sizer speaks of. We wanted students to be able to reason independently and be able to navigate the world of college and the workplace with initiative and creativity. We were all on the same page!
But as more meetings unfolded and teachers were assigned specific tasks, they had dentist appointments or urgent family business when we were supposed to meet. Reform conducted at the expense of precious free time will not thrive.
Another of my initiatives was the interdisciplinary English/government course I co-developed in the 1990s. We planned it over the summer, when we had that free time. Advanced Placement Senior Seminar values discussion over lecture, treats students as partners in the learning process, emphasizes depth over coverage, and asks students to reflect on links between textbooks and the real world. That course, closely resembling Sizer’s thoughtful classroom, was my version of “Horace’s Hope.”
Yet it was met with skepticism from other teachers, and periodically we had to fight to keep it in the schedule. Interdisciplinary courses are inconvenient because they limit students’ flexibility to take other courses offered at only one time. The computer hates Senior Seminar, even while students and parents love it.
Ultimately, that’s the problem with reforms that value thoughtfulness and decency: They butt up against bureaucracy, computers and teacher fatigue until they die for lack of support. Without intelligent backing from the top and reduced student loads on the bottom, needed reforms will only exist in private or independently funded schools.
Wise reforms will remain mere theory as long as teachers are stretched to capacity and administrators look for expedient solutions like standardized tests. Education’s “inconvenient truth” is that our schools need more intelligent administration and smaller classes. Unfortunately, “Horace’s Hope” still resides in the distant future.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
