Schools throughout our country have entered a most special time of the academic year. An air of solemnity, severity, stricture, sobriety, and “something of profoundly great import going on” is palpable and permeating. Why is this time different from all other times in the school year? For the vast majority of K-12 public schools throughout the land, we have begun the most important “high holy days of testing”. High stakes testing has begun in earnest and those stakes are much higher than ever before (as is evident from recent noteworthy events). The next few weeks will see well-heeled routines discarded, any sense of new content or learning put on hold, and rigor replace vigor in every facet of the school day.
This week’s deluge of testing, as has been the case for most years since NCLB and Race to the Top made sure that standardized testing occupied a primary spot in school accountability, comes after a lengthy preparation period. Almost a Lenten-like vigil accompanies the weeks (and even months) that lead up to actual tests. And the tradition of “giving up” things certainly occurs as well. Schools sacrifice many different “niceties” to ready themselves for testing. Some of the things that need to be curtailed or denied might be recess, creative expression, “fun”, higher order thinking activities, social emotional growth, service-learning, the arts, civic educational opportunities and a promotion of student voice.
This vigil for the “high holy days of testing” will also include the requisite (and highly ritualized!) preparations. All bulletin boards must be shrouded. All books or classroom resources that might give an unfair advantage must be removed. Any computers or other electronic devices need to be disabled. Every potentially distracting form of stimulation (including children’s displayed artwork) has to be expunged. And we will begin hearing the almost mantric expressions in the days leading up to tests: “Get a good night’s sleep”. “Eat a healthy breakfast”. “Don’t stress”. “You can do it”.
I do not mean to be flippant, overly hyperbolic or disrespectful with the above reflections. However, as a member of The National School Climate Center, the distressing and rapid proliferation of a highly-charged test culture is altogether too real and its deleterious effects altogether too present. After collaborating on school climate improvement methods with school communities since the beginning of an academic year, I have literally been asked NOT to come in to the building for at least a month before testing begins. And substantive, important student led work around promoting Upstander behavior needs to be curtailed or cut out completely so that increased time can be given to test prep The underpinnings of that decision seems to be: “that school climate stuff is nice; but we need to get our grades up, or else!” The fear of heightened accountability seemingly trumps all other school community concerns. And, there’s a strong message we deliver to students that we have set our priorities, not on their social/emotional development, intellectual curiosity, civic engagement or participants as co-learners in their education, but on their ability to “perform” for us.
It seems that in the very polarizing arena of school reform, there are very clearly demarcated “lines in the sand”. Unfortunately, the battle cry (and always with the caveat that it’s “all for the good of the kids”) becomes: “either you are with us or you are against us”. Grossly overemphasized high stakes testing apparently tried to address accountability without looking at anything else. This “one trick pony” made a lot of test prep companies a huge amount of money, demoralized many teachers (by putting their names in national newspapers next to their students’ grades) and, perhaps most unfortunately, limited the voice of students in just how we can best accommodate their learning needs.
It’s not a time to abandon our quest for accountability. Indeed, there are school leaders promoting rational and good accountability methods by emphasizing a more balanced view of what testing is (and is not!). I was fortunate to attend a powerful youth-directed, youth-planned, and youth-led event this past weekend. One of the invited guests who was there to listen and learn as well as to share comments was Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. She has addressed, over and over again, just how detrimental a narrow view of testing can be. So it was so refreshing to hear her (so very early on a beautiful Saturday morning!) make a plea for guaranteeing a “seat at the table” for students in determining just how we can best shape what a quality education needs to be. And she was extremely clear that “attending to the whole child, including socially and emotionally, is REAL accountability”.
How do we ensure that “the way we do school” in the future (hopefully, in the near future!) does not merely use standardized test scores to determine our efforts? How do we start to re-define what true accountability needs to be? And how do we begin the very, very necessary process of deflating the gross importance assigned to “the high holy days of testing”? Let’s begin this week by realizing that standardized test results only help us measure a very, very narrow and limited segment of what goes on in a school. And, let’s remember that we need to integrate crucial social and emotional learning with academic instruction.
Technology is changing rapidly. You have barely enough time to break in your latest Apple product before a new, improved one is being offered with capabilities you would not have even imagined a few years ago. Children growing up these days are extremely comfortable with this ever-changing technology, because it is accessible to all demographics and ages. Apps are even targeted to toddlers.
Due to technology’s new capabilities and ease of use, students are interacting with each other in new ways. They post to and view statuses, pictures, and even short videos as readily to people they don’t know personally, as they do to those in their inner circle. On one hand, this means you have a thousand videos of your baby niece that you can’t wait to show her when she’s 13 and easily embarrassed. On the other hand, this means you are likely rightly worried about the digital imprint youth are creating for themselves – one that can buoy or haunt them long after the original post or tweet.
You may be leaning towards the latter and bemoaning this change, concerned for children’s safety and their social skills. Before addressing these concerns, let us think positively and consider how this technology can be capitalized on to benefit youth and the larger society.
The need for social emotional learning and character development in schools has been gaining increasing national and international attention. Many educational leaders agree that these soft skills are critically important but feel they do not have the time to weave these practices into their curriculums. There is just too much to cover, and common core academics must be the priority. Technology may be one answer to these educators’ dilemma. Brad Kuntz, 2011 winner of ASCD’s Outstanding Young Educator, writes about engaging students and teaching academics in the classroom by embracing technology. There is significant research on effective ways to integrate technology into the classroom to teach core academic skills. Edutopia has created a wonderful resource that provides readers with evidence based ways to use technology effectively in the instruction of math, reading, science, history, government, and economics. However, there is little research on or examples of the ways technology can be used in the instruction of social and emotional skills.
The smartphones and devices that never leave children’s hands are positioned uniquely to teach social, emotional, and character development skills to this age group. Apps can deliver content in an attractive, interactive format that is far more “fun” to youth than a video or class presentation. You can quickly and accurately poll teens on topics and show them how their peers responded, for example, discrediting myths that abound at many schools concerning rampant drinking and smoking. Quiz & Poll is a phone app that allows teachers to quickly assess students’ understanding of any topic through, you guessed it, quizzes and polls, which the teachers create themselves. The ease of collecting data from users is a clear advantage of technology-based educational programs over traditional methods. Another way to capitalize on youth’s desire to interact with their peers is through the ability of smartphones to connect youth across the country and world. Whether they are stuck at home babysitting or waiting at the bus stop for their ride, they can hear and be heard by their peers. Youth can use social media to make their voices heard by adults as well. Student Voice, an international network of students who believe in the importance of students being co-leaders on decisions regarding education policy, was started through twitter conversations with thousands of students across the globe. These combined voices were heard by the likes of Dell and Microsoft, who helped convene a #StuVoice conference in April, during which leaders in the education field discussed education policy with students. In addition, apps can be accessed anytime and are often designed to be used during short time frames. This makes them ideal for teachers to use during those 5 minutes when the class has finished its work early and the students are getting rowdy. Here are endless options for something quick, engaging, and productive to do. Lastly, the perceived anonymity of internet use may make youth more open to being honest about their beliefs and behavior and consequently more open to changing these said beliefs and behaviors than they might be at school based informational sessions.
Columbia University School of Social Work understands the power of technology in capturing the attention of youth and influencing them. They are currently piloting several research studies to develop and test web based and smartphone based drug prevention programs with adolescents.
The possibilities offered by technology are exciting, and can be used to deepen learning and engagement. However, concerns about safety are legitimate, especially in the domain of prevention work. The last thing anyone wants is to endanger youth by bringing up extreme emotions through the discussion of sensitive topics without providing youth with the support and resources they need to deal with these emotions. All apps should be considered carefully by the appropriate Institutional Review Board to ensure that children’s safety is the app’s top priority. As for concerns about social skills, yes, we can show videos of good communication skills, and we can train students to identify the correct response in a given situation, but nothing, no online training, compares to real life practice steadying those knocking knees, looking into another’s eye, and asserting one’s own opinion.
Therefore, technology can and should be utilized to engage youth interactively in social and emotional skill development, but life cannot be lived online. Children need to have time away from the screens. They need time to play, time to put their freshly learned skills into practice, and time to interact face to face, old school style as well. Finding the balance between the two is what this generation of students, parents, and educators will help define.
When I was in elementary school, I remember enjoying immensely our daily music appreciation class (Imagine that! Even in the 1960’s at the height of the “Space Race”, it was understood that there was an integral place for the arts in education!). In 3rd Grade, our music teacher, Mrs. Courtney, introduced us to the amazing legacy of Negro Spirituals. What a tremendous experience for us to embrace this wonderful musical tradition, apply it to our history studies, get to actively speak about the current events of civil rights happening in our midst, and best of all singing while we learned. Hindsight lets me realize how the seed of blended learning, cooperative learning, infusion approaches to lesson planning, team teaching, backwards design, and curricular cohesiveness all had their roots in the work of these dedicated teachers! So it’s no wonder how clearly I remember our Science teacher showing up at Ms. Courtney’s music class the day she was prepared to teach us how to sing “Dem Dry Bones”. What great fun we had learning that “the foot bone’s connected to the heel bone. The heel bone’s connected to the ankle bone…”. Then, the Science teacher explained how we would just crumple to the ground if all we had were “dem dry bones”. That was her lead-in to teach us about muscles, cartilage, ligaments and all things dealing with connective tissue. We touched each bone as we sang about it and jumped around excitedly. A true blend of visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and musical learning that I still remember to this day when so much other “stuff” I learned has disappeared from my brain.
I’ve just read the most recent Carnegie “challenge” paper: “Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success”. It’s a very thorough and insightful study that promotes a “push to redesign how schools actually work for students and teachers”. The paper synthesizes a great deal of background studies and then outlines the plans of The Opportunity by Design Initiative. According to the authors, this bold, new initiative (cue up the classroom teachers who in their role similar to that of the Chorus in a Greek tragedy cry out in unison: “Oh no, not another initiative!) will lead to:
The paper then proceeds to put forth an effective secondary school design that incorporates 10 integrated principles to meet the demands of the Common Core. The usual “ingredients” are present in the principles: rigor, efficiency, continuous improvement, data-driven, real-time feedback. I am impressed by the work of all who participated in this paper. And I am left with one fundamental question: Where’s the connective tissue?
In my role as the Director of Education at the National School Climate Center, I have become accustomed to hearing from district leaders, principals, and teachers that this emphasis on social/emotional/civic learning and school climate improvement are the “soft side” of education. Even when there is a modicum of acceptance of the now myriad studies (highly rigorous, data-driven, and with real-time feedback!) proving that by concentrating on how school climate will deepen and broaden encouragement, support and rewards for student development and achievement, there is a relegation to the dustbin of “extras” for all things school climate based. Many still view school climate as merely “window dressing”.
For a while, the value of school climate improvement was embraced by some simply in the guise of anti-bullying efforts. Quickly, these disjointed, “one off” initiatives showed that bullying was and is pretty much a “canary in the coal mine”. School communities rapidly figured out that if there were issues of bullying, it pointed to deeper issues of power, privilege, social inequity, lack of transparency, lack of student voice, teacher dissatisfaction, a lack of students feeling safe and supported, undue emphasis on standardized tests, and data that is used to punish and demean (in direct contrast to our approach at NSCC to use data as a “flashlight” rather than as a “hammer”). And yet, it is quite evident from the Carnegie challenge paper that we still might not be ready to approach school climate improvement efforts as an integral part of school reform that can only serve to promote innovative and successful secondary school designs. This is, in fact, the “connective tissue” that brings together the disparate elements of incorporating the Common Core, using human capital strategically, giving schools robust methods to integrate positive youth development, and promoting student engagement in their academic success.
It is disheartening to see that strong research and bold attempts to create new high school models for student success don’t capitalize explicitly and systemically on the principles of school climate improvement. It’s still remains personally disheartening for me to work collegially and rigorously with schools on social/emotional/civic education only to be “disinvited” from the building during the “high holy days” of standardized testing. Our Comprehensive School Climate Inventory (CSCI), a powerful tool that measures school climate across eight different dimensions and captures the voices of all students, family members, and school staff, inevitably elucidates shortcomings by not incorporating this connective tissue in a school or district. And it also provides a pretty clear road map of just how to capitalize on this most important element of our schools so as to improve academics, increase graduation and school success rates, and create school communities where all are given the chance to excel. Additionally, The National School Climate Center (NSCC) just launched a series of School Climate Practice Briefs—Practices for Implementation and Sustainability— that present the latest in research and best practice for effective school climate reform from leading experts. The 11 issues selected to be included in this set of Practice Briefs are based on NSCC’s decade-long work with the entire academic community—teachers, staff, school-based mental health professionals, students and parents—to improve a climate for learning. The Briefs and the CSCI also have a fairly apparent intrinsic message…something is amiss with education reform that ignores the context of relationships and teaching/learning. Something is quite wrong with refusing to recognize that the important competencies our students and graduates need to secure/enhance college and career readiness are the social-emotional, civic and moral skills. If we continue to launch initiatives that promote only thin portions of the entirety of school reform needs and ignore the role of school climate, we do so at our own peril. We are setting ourselves up to have our efforts crumple into a pile like “dem dry bones”.
The UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools recently published: Turning Around, Transforming, and Continuously Improving Schools, a policy report that takes a critical look at the school turnaround models and the current federal priorities illustrated by Race to the Top, the School Improvement Grants and the US DOE's Blueprint for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Findings highlight the ongoing marginalization of practices (e.g., student and learning supports) that directly address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engaging disconnected students. The analyses highlight the need for federal school improvement policy to shift from the two-component framework currently dominating school improvement thinking to a three-component framework, which includes the critical aspects of engagement and learning supports.
The report concludes that only by unifying student and learning supports will it be feasible to develop a comprehensive system to directly address many of the complex factors interfering with schools accomplishing their mission. And only by developing such a system will it be feasible to create school environments that foster successful, safe, and healthy students and staff. School climate is emphasized as an important quality of this system that ensures schools are dedicated not only to instruction and management/governance, but to essential learning supports as well. We at CSEE, strongly believe that school climate is an integral link to student success, and provide comprehensive assessments, targeted professional development supports, and free resources to support schools in this effort.
What do you think encompasses a truly successful school improvement system? How is your school or district meeting the needs of students and staff?
Another week has gone by, ushering in the month of March! We at CSEE are busy with exciting new projects, such as ongoing professional development, school climate assessment projects, and the planning of our 13th Annual Summer Institute. Here are some interesting links we've been passing around the office:
As before, I encourage you to share your knowledge and wisdom — leave a comment, start a dialogue, and ask questions. If you are so inclined, you might want to join CSEE's Facebook Pages and Twitter feeds. Until next week!