A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Learning from the Best

Lincoln Lewis, Student, Co-Chair, Executive Board, National Association of Student Councils

• They hold high expectations for all students.

• They model the learning and attitudes they want to see in students.

• They seek ways to find and encourage the potential of each student.

• They seek depth--and fight against shallow breadth--in what students learn.

• They encourage students "to take charge" of their learning and, thus, become more responsible and accountable for their own achievement.

• They recognize the need to make connections that will support each student--with parents, with community agencies, and with other community resources.

Expectations

They do not see themselves as the traditional "school marm," dispensing as much discipline as knowledge. They respect students' abilities and prefer the role of "coach," encouraging students to explore subjects with them, but they also demand that quality work be done. "Excellence comes from reaching beyond what we in education have defined as passing," noted a journalism teacher from New Mexico. "If students understand that it's okay to do something differently, they will have more incentive to learn, they will even move beyond what I expect of them."

One teacher fights the paradigm that students cannot handle difficult writing assignments. Working with students not expected to be able to handle research and complex writing, he entices them into thinking about research strategies by asking them to analyze favorite cartoons. A history teacher from Massachusetts distributed the report of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to her students so they would understand why they needed to tackle more difficult schoolwork.

Good teachers, however, know the difference between being a coach and being a buddy. "I distinguish between rigor and friendship," said a science and math teacher from the Bronx. A math teacher from West Virginia described her philosophy of teaching: "Contagion, if possible; coercion, if necessary." One veteran teacher present, with 33 years of teaching experience, believes in using classroom rules and structure to help students deal with the world beyond the classroom. "Kids complain that `My boss doesn't understand me,' because their boss makes them come in on time," she explained.

High expectations means getting rid of labels. The Forum teachers consistently talked of expecting the same of all students, of creating heterogeneous grouping (even though many of the teachers work with programs for the gifted or honors classes), of recognizing problems facing students but being determined to find ways of engaging all students in high content. "We need to teach everybody with the same high standards," said a language arts teacher from Oregon, most emphatically. "Give me a handful of kids and don't tell me this kid's a dummy and this kid's gifted. I don't care. I don't want them to be limited."

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Teacher Power: Setting National Standards

"As a teacher, I am glad we have come to a point where we listen to each other," said Mary Bicouvaris, a high school history teacher who served on a national advisory board largely responsible for the current push toward nationally set curriculum standards. A teacher for 29 years, she taught, from day one, without a compass, always wondering "Am I teaching right? Am I saying the right thing?" She would pretend a group of scholars was sitting at the back of the room, listening to her teach. Now, she is actually working with scholars to develop standards for the history curriculum, and never again will new teachers lack a yardstick for achievement, she predicted.

Like the process in federally funded activities in all major subject disciplines, those developing history standards will rely on classroom teachers to flesh out the performances expected--how good is good enough. The content standards are outcomes, explained Gloria Sesso, a high school history teacher from New York. It will be up to teachers to set the expectations about mastery and select the strategies for how to help all students achieve the mastery levels. Get involved, she advised, especially on demanding that assessments be as rich as the standards.

Teachers also are setting the expectations in the New Standards Project, a foundation-funded effort that includes states or districts representing almost half of the K-12 students in the country. Starting with performance standards in literacy and math, the New Standards Project has involved hundreds of teachers in developing scoring rubrics. Experts watched teachers during the scoring process, according to a sixth-grade teacher from Vermont, "and concluded that teachers are very reliable scorers. They have the same standards."

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Teachers as Models

But what does being a role model mean? Setting high personal standards is one characteristic. A teacher who does that, said a chemistry teacher from Oklahoma, "can ask more from students." Teachers must model hard work, and demand it of students. One teacher even asks students to critique her own writing. Good teachers let their role modeling hang out--before and after school, on lunch hours. A Massachusetts middle-grades teacher gives students his personal card with his telephone number. "Use it if you have questions," he tells them.

In one school where teachers plan and teach as teams, students observe the teachers arguing about important issues and working out their ideas. That's good for them to see, said one of the team members. It is important to say: "I don't know, let's find out."

Often it is the physical environment which teachers create that sets the context for students. "I model my own love of reading," reported an English teacher from Montana. "I fill my room with books and provide lots of opportunities in class to read."

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Teacher Power: Modeling for Each Other

Dina Portney looked at her teaching career and the climate of her Philadelphia high school and decided she was in a wasteland. That year--1986--was a critical juncture for her, a time when she had to decide if she could continue to put up with huge classes, top-down directives, no time to meet with other teachers, and a curriculum so standardized she could only use basal readers, not literature. Searching widely for help, she stumbled into a summer writing institute which was really about re-envisioning her classroom. "This was probably the only place where teachers across grade levels were talking with each other about teaching and learning," she recalled. The summer institutes, part of the National Writing Project, help teachers train each other. In Philadelphia, they have grown into support groups where, Portney said, "we are able to discuss strategies for altering school culture and district policies." Teachers have become empowered, she added, and with "their collective strength, their ability to impact on policy has increased."

In Gorham, Maine, similar empowerment has come about because teachers are free to do research. Through outside funding, every school has a Teacher-Scholar who helps teachers redefine their roles, reflect on their work, find resources they need. Says Sally Lockland, a current Teacher-Scholar, "Everyone is expected to have strengths and to contribute as we build a collective vision."

Perhaps one of the most intensive examples of teachers modeling for each other is the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), whose 63-member board is composed primarily of teachers. Its rigorous standards will allow experienced teachers to be certified as excellent and to become leaders on reform. The process of developing the certification criteria and pilot tests already reveals the potential of the assessment for helping teachers become models--for students and each other. It promotes teachers collaborating with each other, according to teachers involved with NBPTS.

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Seeing Students as Individuals

The Forum teachers also stressed the importance of using materials and resources that reflect the diversity of American society, if we hope to engage all students. "It is important to teach students different perspectives on an issue," emphasized an elementary/middle school teacher from Minnesota. "A child's culture needs to be enhanced through materials and resources used in the classroom. I tell my students, 'When you know your history, you know your greatness'."

Teachers talked about studying the learning styles of students and designing strategies that would reach them--videotaping to supplement writing, cooperative grouping, including a painting in a final project, assigning students to teach a unit to younger students, finding forums for students to exhibit their work outside of school, or teaching students self-assessment by using portfolios. A social studies teacher distributes a learning styles inventory to students at the beginning of a class, and both teacher and students analyze their own styles. "This helps them believe in themselves and learn where they could move ahead," he said. A private school teacher from Maryland is "interested in the genius in all of my students. I want them to discover the way they learn best."

These are not textbook-tied teachers. In fact, many talked about how hard they try to avoid using textbooks as the center of instruction. By avoiding the textbook as the primary source, a language arts teacher noted that she now can "design a whole lesson around the objectives I want, not what the textbook wants." Using a variety of resources and experiential learning, the Forum teachers tie classroom learning to the lives of students and give a specific message to their students--you will need these skills in the future. While media and peer pressure values challenge the values of the classroom, "it is still the teacher's responsibility to make the material in class relevant to life and hold students' interests," an Oklahoma teacher stressed.

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Teacher Power: Designing a Student-Centered School

Imagine a school with no separate subject disciplines, no grades, no credits, no Carnegie units. This is University Heights High School on the campus of Bronx Community College, an alternative school for 400 students.

Students at University Heights work in integrated, project- based learning teams. In order to graduate, they are required to participate in seven different Roundtables, each one made up of parents, teachers, college professors, and students. The objective of the Roundtables is to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their mastery and skills in all disciplines.

According to one of the teachers, Augusto Andres, students reflect on their portfolio work, asking: "What did I do and how did I do it?" "What did I learn and why is it valuable to me?" "What can I do better in the future?" Students used to be concerned about graduating on time, he added. Now, "they talk about whether they are ready to graduate."

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The Circle Around

Learning from the Best (Continued)