Teaching & Learning

The Fog of Literacy

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Thinking About Literacy Part II

 

As the politics of school standardized test results continually ratchet up, the fortune of good leadership described in Thinking about Literacy Part I resonated through the lens of a conference I attended.  The topic was a proposed a switch in our state (NH) to move from one high stakes testing period per year to two, potentially creating a more vicious cycle of accountability and teaching to the test. In my view, increased standardized testing  is counterproductive to motivating reading and writing. Ultimately, the biannual testing became a choice of individual school districts.  Districts choosing to test twice though with one set of tests still had to give the annual state mandated test; meaning students in some districts were tested 3 times a year. …

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Has the Word Literacy Become a Cliché in the World of Education?

Thinking About Literacy Part I

 

 

 

We all have memories that become moments integrating into our ongoing stream of consciousness that connect to facets of our daily lives.  A recent moment returned me to 1967 as I drove my parents’ car into the now demolished Dorchester, MA Neponset Drive-In with three  passengers, two of whom were hidden in the trunk. Once we all made it comfortably into the car, we settled in to watch The Graduate, a movie that resonated for four teenage boys because of Mrs. Robinson and the graduate’s (Dustin Hoffman) love interest.  However,  it was one iconic word of advice that brought me back to the present and unfortunately was predictably accurate…”Plastics!” Today, as we address issues of climate change, plastics is one of the key challenges to reducing our carbon footprints. 

As a graduate student, I received a piece of advice that was just as iconic as ‘plastics’; at least for me. Ted Sizer, a founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools(CES) was a guest in my class, Educational Issues & The Politics of Policy. He spoke of the Coalition’s philosophy centered on its 10 Common Principles, one of which was “Less is More.” The reductionist notion wasn’t originally coined by Sizer. Poet, Robert Browning, used the phrase in his 1855 poem, and multiple architects are given credit for coming up with the phrase in connection with a minimalist building designs during the mid twentieth century. For Sizer and the CES, the educational connection to less is more meant “curricular decisions should be guided by the aim of thorough student mastery and achievement rather than by an effort to merely cover content.”

Which brings me to an overused word in the educational arena today that might carry the same insidiousness going forward that has evolved with plastics over the last 50+ years…literacy

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Has the Word Literacy Become a Cliché in the World of Education?Read More »

Has the Word Literacy Become a Cliché in the World of Education? Read More »

Paradise aka Humanity Lost

My daughter moved to San Francisco 17 years ago as part of a job opportunity; ultimately got married and started a family; was fortunate to be able to purchase affordable housing in the Pacific Heights area of the city; and seems to have settled in for the long haul. It’s not difficult to see why, given the weather and general laid back, relaxed atmosphere of the west coast. For me, having a good reason to regularly visit San Francisco(pre pandemic) is a bonus, especially with opportunities to escape the New England winters for some respites of warmth and sun…the fog always seems to burn off in some part of the city as the sun takes charge of the day.

Over the past eight to ten years though, I have noticed quite a change in the city during my visits. It’s still beautiful, walkable, and has great public venues and transportation; but people who use to be on a street corner willingly offering assistance and accommodation to a confused tourist have been replaced by fast moving, abrupt folks who rarely look up from their iPhones or sundries of other personal devices. Gentrification is overrunning the city, but ironically in addition to displacing lower income families and small businesses; middle-income residents and ethnic neighborhoods have also been largely impacted.

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