Carol Burris is the principal of an outstanding public high school on Long Island, in New York State. She often writes about education for The Answer Sheet. Burris has won awards for her leadership and her school has been recognized for its achievements.
Burris just published an article about the Relay Graduate School of Education. This is a masters’ program that was created by three charter school chains to prepare teachers for working in charter schools. It is certainly not a traditional graduate school of education. There do not seem to be courses in cognitive development, child psychology, sociology of education, history of education, or varied pedagogical models and strategies. There is only one pedagogical strategy, and apparently it is the one that is best at raising test scores.
As I read Burris’ description of Relay, I had two questions:
Why did the New York State Board of Regents permit this “school” to call its program a “graduate” program of education with the authority to award masters’ degrees? There is something incestuous about a “graduate” program created by charter schools to give masters’ degrees to their own teachers.
And second, what is it in the psyche of young men and women, most of whom graduated from prestigious secondary schools, private and public, that enables them to impose a boot-camp style of discipline on boys and girls of color that is unlike anything in their own experience?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This takes drill and kill to a whole new level for both student and teacher.
Yes, but you must watch the video titled Rigorous Classroom Discussion…http://www.relayschool.org/videos.
They are actually promoting this as good practice and instruction.
I understand the need for routines and order, but this was strange. About three kids are participating under rapid fire repetition of slogans. The other kids are either waving their fingers in support or pointing to their heads as a cue. They are engaged in ritualistic support and even a student who was deaf could participate since they are just copying each other.
Wouldn’t it have been wiser to put them in small groups and have each group have their own discussion with the same questions eliciting reponses from everybody and then sharing with the entire class? Then all are engaged and collaborating together.
I was embarrassed that they were using this example as rigorous and worthwhile.
It is more about group control.
This kind of teaching is all based on the Doug Lemov book “Teach Like a Champion.” Very popular with charter school and TFA groups. The book actually has some good ideas–spells out some behaviors and methods that practiced and skilled teachers probably intuit on their own. I found the book became redundant and overly prescriptive as I moved through the pages. Too much of a good thing. Superficial responses in some cases. Like a playbook for a sporting event. Useful to some degree, but begged the question: “Is that all there is?”
I watched! Really sick programmed stuff! I wrote an article that I think is still on goggle titled “Our Children the Drones” years ago.
The “snake-oil” peddlers are working full force in the choice/voucher/charter school movement. All those supporting such abuse on our children and our constitutional principles should be run out of town on a rail. Apparently, they have no concept of what is to be an American. Americans support and protect all citizens constitutional rights, and most especially our precious children. This is not 1860 but 2012! Some of us who have been students of history, have learned from the past and we have no intention of allowing a repeat of history. Our poor and miniroty students have suffered enough. And, enough is enough! No more! No more of these awful animal conditioning controlling programs on our teachers and students, no more of waving the laws to put in charter schools….just simply no more………..No more enterprize zone schools…We will not allow you to program and destroy the individualism in our most precious heritage, our children.
And to think they titled this video Rigorous Classroom Discussion. This is an organization that will train teachers, most likely for charter schools. It should have been called Blatant Classroom Indoctriniation.
Diane, you ask a great question. “what is it in the psyche of young men and women, most of whom graduated from prestigious secondary schools, private and public, that enables them to impose a boot-camp style of discipline on boys and girls of color that is unlike anything in their own experience?”
Let’s face it: middle and upper class white children are not subjected to the kind of treatment kids in charters like KIPP have been. I’m afraid that some charter teachers are drinking some toxic kool-aid which suggests that it’s okay to treat kids of color like semi-prisoners because there is a frightening assumption they need some kind of military academy to ” drill the ghetto out of them.” Yes, I said it — it sounds like institutional racism to me.
Kids are individuals, and might show signs of personality, and resist too much control (especially those pesky SLANT rules developed by Lemov). Poor African American kids in KIPP schools must obey, or else.
Rich white kids in Westchester public schools get fingerpainting, the arts, accountable talk, the right to express themselves, even act the kids do, not be subjected to the dictates of some manual (again, Lemov), while the poor brown kids need to earn their right to sit in a chair, and might get labeled a “miscreant,” and are isolated from other students. I doubt that rich and middle class kids face the kinds of punishments inner-city youth do. Teachers go along with it…I guess because they have no whistleblower protections in what might be a non-unionized situation? They might also be very young adults, with less experience. Just hazarding a few guesses.
Getting bullied by your peers is traumatizing enough. But getting bullied by adults at your school? That’s a whole other level.
For more about Kipp charter abuse, see below:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/11/learning-about-kipp-lesson-3-social.html
Linda, that video was disturbingly cultish, no? Here’s an innovative pedagogical technique for class discussion; how about having an actual, natural DISCUSSION about the material? One in which students absorb the social etiquette of group conversation as well as the material? Later in life, their professors and coworkers are going to find all that spastic head poking and jazz hands distracting.
And they are using this to train teachers? Frightening..truly frightening..sad thing is I don’t think they get it.
I agree fully. Why is a natural discussion unheard of? Well, for one thing, it is closely tied to the actual discussion topic, so it can’t be approached in a formulaic manner. For another, it requires that students listen and think (when not speaking) without doing anything else concrete.
The latter is a challenge worth tackling. Many students get restless or start chattering when they don’t have anything specific, tangible, and visible to do–so a number of pedagogies emphasize keeping the students busy and “accountable.” (In this category I include models that emphasize small-group work, “turn-and-talk” activities, and so forth.) Such emphasis on talk and activity reinforces the problem. Students come to assume that if they aren’t doing something concrete, then there’s nothing to do.
Now, sometimes you have to start out with concrete activities and gradually move away from them. Of course such activities don’t have to vanish–but once students can do without them, then you have freedom to go further into the subject and to take time with difficult questions.
Students need to learn (over time, of course) to think about the subject at hand, without necessarily producing anything or showing any overt behavior. If they don’t learn to do this, they’ll be subjected to bizarre, jittery classroom procedures, will miss out on thoughtful discussion, and will be astonished to find out, later on in life, that these antics are neither normal nor necessary.
many students–and teachers–become noticeably uncomfortable when the room becomes silent, even though we know that most people require a certain amount of quiet in order to do the “heavy lifting” of critical thinking. i even notice a sense of unease in my graduate students when things get quiet in a class discussion–and i often let the silence build up to pretty uncomfortable lengths to make this point.
i’d much rather see a class of quiet thinkers than a whole bunch of wiggling fingers and jazz hands waving around. does anyone really buy this hooey about “sending energy” by wiggling your fingers is a teaching strategy? if one of my students pulled this nonsense in class we’d be having a very interesting discussion. . .the emperor needs a new wardrobe. . .
Mitchell,
The finger-wiggling stuff reminds me of “Whole Brain Teaching,” which is as jittery as they come. Take a look at this video of a Whole Brain Teaching college-level lesson on Aristotle.
This stuff seems extreme, but the RGSE “Rigorous Classroom Discussion” video isn’t that different.
sweet jesus.
that video is one of the most disturbing things i’ve ever seen. i could only make it through the first 4 or 5 minutes. just tragic that someone thinks this is “good teaching.” no wonder so many of my students are expecting class to be so directive and top-down–if this is what teaching is becoming, i’m grateful that i’m closer to the end than the beginning of my career.
Great points! You picked up on the most telling point in Diane’s post. It reminds me of reading Callahan’s “Education and the Cult of Efficiency” during my MAT course work in the early ’70’s. Callahan explains how schools treated different social classes, preparing the white, upper-class kids for professional and management positions by giving them freedom to discuss, consider, and create, while preparing the poor and working-class kids for factory labor by seating them in rows, making them move to bells, drilling them in rote memorization, and generally treating them as incapable of thoughtful or genuinely creative work. At that time, it was racism and classism writ large — and that’s what it is today.
Thanks for posting Diane. I suggest that readers also follow the link in the article to Uncommon High School. Students must agree to have grades and behavioral infractions posted. Parents in my district would (and should) sue if this occurred. Read this insightful piece by Pedro Noguera. he talks about Roxbury Prep, the schools that John King, commissioner of NY co-directed.
http://www.morningsidecenter.org/noguera.html
This June every Black graduate in my school earned a Regents diploma. All but one Latino student, who had severe learning disabilities, earned a Regents diploma. We are not high poverty, but 16% of our students receive free or reduced priced lunch. You do not have to regiment young people of color and poverty for them to learn. You do not have to cut them off when they try to speak, ask fill in the blank questions or put them in star position. they will thrive in a well resourced, integrated school with high expectations and support for kids who struggle.
Segregated charters with teach to the test curriculum and methods, and over the top discipline are more appropriate for military prep than college prep. Worst of all, in New York State, this is the data driven instruction that is being imposed on districts that received RTTT money.
Great essay by Mr. Noguera…anyway to get a copy of that to every corporate reformer, DOE dept., NYC bureacrat, TFA “leader”, etc.
This should be their required reading for summer with a presentation highlighting the key points for the 2012-2013 convocation.
Thank you for posting.
NBC news produced a fluff piece about Deborah Kenny’s Harlem Village Academy last night month, yet another savior of poor African American children in the form of a quasi-militarized charter school. http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/06/12089284-born-to-rise-one-womans-mission-to-reform-education.
Something that struck me is how children are treated. It’s as if they were preparing for prison life. They must wear uniforms, must walk in single file in halls and must not speak! How does this prepare students to be productive, creative, responsible members of society? The extreme discipline only teaches children that if they step out of line they will be punished. Why do these charter schools need such extreme measures, something that Brian Williams characterized as “tough love”? I’m sure he would not want the same experience for his children. And why is it always children of color who need “tough love”? It is extremely disheartening to have the mainstream media report on these schools without actually doing any real analysis. I wonder how many people believe everything Brian Williams tells them.
I don’t have a problem with the whole uniform thing, and I am not even against some sort of order in the hallways, but the whole not speaking thing, that is bizarre, and the answer to your question about Mr. Williams, we all know the answer…once again, think about the state the president could have made if he had sent his children to public school, as opposed to private school. Now, I grant you, I do understand the hesitancy, since it was a school operated by Michelle Rhee, but still, it would have made a very big statement. Instead we have Arne Duncan and the Gates/Broad/Bloomberg corporate reform movement.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
I have always found it strange that we insist that child students remain silent in circumstances where we would rarely ask adults to be silent. Enforcing silence seems punitive. I hated the practice of “silent lunch” in the elementary schools where I taught. There is a huge emotional difference between quiet talking and silence.
Kenny and HVA – not a bed of roses. Read here (high attirtion rate for students and teachers). Why leave if it is such a great school?
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/06/12/it-takes-a-village/
Because if they are housed together and controlled in charters, then you can say that segregation works, and ‘those’ kids will never attend the schools where Mr. Williams’ children and grandchildren go.
Please help me understand something. As a parish we had to read “School of Champions” and then discuss and add the behaviors in there to our teaching practice. I also watched the videos that came with the book and thought at the time they were like basic training for kids! However, so many thought the book was wonderful with all the snapping of fingers, students tracking other students, rapid fire questioning by the teacher, no time for more then one student to answer a question at a time! I was concerned because if this is the way they want my classroom run I can’t do that. I don’t have a free for all going on however I really work hard to know my students and what works for them. Treating them all like trained animals is repugnant to me! I did not see any praise that was really individual or any response that was insightful that wasn’t ordered out of the student is such a way that they seemed to be so focused on getting it right they forgot why they were answering it in the first place.
I watched the video in “A Very Bizarre Graduate School of Education” Carol Burris recommended on Rigorous Classroom Discussion” what I am seeing is very similar to the Champions videos. Do I have to learn to teach this way? Somewhere in between? I have been teaching 10 years and other then getting in trouble for mentioning the elephants in the room, I thought ?? I was a good teacher-lots to improve which I work on constantly but my students were learning and succeeding.
I want to understand but need to ask, if Champions is so great and yet has so much in common with the Rigorous video, I would like anyone from here, if you have the patience 🙂 to help me understand why administrators and supervisors think Champions is so great, is it actually great(or maybe just parts of it?) and if so, what is the difference between it and the method of classroom teaching shown in the Rigorous video.
I do not see great teaching, confused. First, there is not the 5-7 seconds that we know it takes students of that age group to retrieve information from long term memory and bring it to working memory. Without that you will not get quality responses. There is little learning happening for those students who are sending energy….ask them to, instead,to think about the word ambitious, jot down what they think ambitious means and then have students tell a partner and share out. That combines covert with overt active participation which is needed for learning. That would take no more than 2 minutes to do. Although the narrator said that the problem was that the student did not understand the difference between a trait and a feeling, the teacher never clarified the difference. She spent four minutes defining one word. In the end, i am not sure the student even understood the definition….That is not good instruction, in my opinion.
You may learn some management tricks from The videos. I am sure there is some good stuff there. The problem that I see is that the leaders of this school are not scholars and they scoff at traditional Ed research. The instructors are fellow charter teachers. They know and preach one way only. Take what you find works, discard the rest.
Carol,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Sometimes “everyone” thinks something is so great and you don’t, it is helpful to seek some validation from a respected source. There are so many changes and new programs being started this fall, along with all the state mess, it is hard knowing what to work on first! Getting more information and a better perspective on the sources being given to me will help a great deal. This blog and the many others I read, have helped enormously! I have already bookmarked and been reading your posts on The Answer Sheet.
The presenter said that the students were doing the heavy cognitive lifting, but the teacher was. Because the task itself (identify a character trait) is pretty easy for an experienced reader, we could blink and miss the teacher doing it all. Identifying character education class as a source of experience for the students is one example. Forming questions that only have one correct answer is also a large part of the cognitive load. But again because the teacher can effortlessly answer these questions herself, we don’t see the effort.
rpillala has hit the nail on the head. It was the teacher. The wiggling fingers and head tapping is all for show and very distracting. There was very little cognitive lifting, and none of it heavy. This was a demo of what not to do in the classroom. However, all of this would seem very engaging and on-target for the uninitiated and the folks from business who keep poking their heads in to see how edreform is going.
In Plato’s dialogues, I don’t recall Socrates’ interlocutors wiggling their fingers and tapping their heads much.
This is sure different from the teacher education experiences I had on the bachelor’s and master’s level. To me the students seemed confused about what the teacher was talking about. He seemed to be too abstract. It was a poor educational video will little value. The professor explaining it also did not help either.
Thanks for writing about Relay, Dr. Ravitch. As I mentioned in a comment to Ms. Burris’ articles, my former AP was an instructor there (she would say “professor” sometimes and I had to grit my teeth to keep from losing it). The professional development at my school last year all came straight out of Lemov’s playbook – some of the material still had “Relay” printed on it! It’s been on my radar for awhile as something truly sinister, yet nobody seemed to be addressing it in the media (save a positive writeup in the Times).
A friend of mine taught in an Uncommon school. During the summer professional development, she raved all about the “call-and-response” approach and how rapid-fire questioning keeps students engaged. She quit after about a month because of the rampant corporal punishment, including kindergartners being pulled up by the backs of their collars for not sitting up straight. When she asked a more experienced teacher if there were another way, the other teacher replied, “They’re crack babies, that’s all they understand.” She was struck by how militaristic and prison-like it was – and horrified (as a white liberal) that such methods were being touted (by other white liberals!) as the panacea for inner-city school reform. School-to-prison pipeline indeed. If she doesn’t write a book about the experience, I might.
“They’re crack babies; that’s all they understand.” – she said this about a five year old. Isn’t that charming?
And she was one of their experienced teachers?
Can you see that happening in the suburbs? The teacher would be placed on paid leave, then an investigation and then she would quietly resign. Here it becomes a common practice. Disgusting!
It is very important that your friend speak out. If she wants help doing so, have her contact me. @carolburris on twitter
I have worked in charters and large public districts. Disparging comments are made in every school all over the nation. Let’s not make it appear as if a network of schools is responsible for the comment of one teacher…so sayeth Lauren Cohen.
reminds me of the saying: “Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.”
to paraphrase: “Forgive me for noting that neo-con ed reformers seem to believe that middle-class suburban kids will learn more if we give them more (i.e., art, music, phys ed, curricular choice and freedom, etc.), and poor, urban kids will work harder if we give them less (i.e., art, music, phys ed, curricular choice and freedom, etc.).”
Attrition is high at all these automaton charters–and it can be from expulsions, not allowing a student to re-enrolling, counseling out, or voluntary withdrawal. A research question is what is the personality type of the typical student who accepts this level of regimentation (the “silence rule” was invented–and eventually banned–in the prison system).
The problem of charters “going to scale” is whether or not most students will accept this level of control? Have these automaton charters set the bar so high that the average student wont comply–much like placing time demands on teachers that makes it impossible to recruit teachers for an entire school district.
These methods can find students and teachers at the micro level but the challenge of education is developing methods that keep students in school rather than drive them out. I am thinking of one charter that did not have “sick days.” A teacher at the school told me “You just don’t get sick.” That’s a policy impossible to bring to scale. Imagine imposing the “silent rule” at a college: how many students would return?
Boston has some very good public/private high schools – Boston Latin as an example. You can take the test and be accpeted as early as 7th grade – the best chance at getting a seat. The charter schools do not want to lose the kids, so a family will lose ALL seats for younger siblings if the oldest or any sibling leaves for another school. That is one way they keep a “good family”. Also, I have known of teens who were not great students and maybe a slight behavior problem and they are given the option of staying but repeating an entire year due to too many absences. Most will leave and go back to the public high school (which is what they want). Once they decide to leave however, the charter school gives them credit for that year and they advance to the next grade in the public high school
So they have ways to get rid of you and ways to keep you. Both favor them not necessarily what is best for the student though. Boston Latin far exceeds any charter when it comes to a well-rounded quality education not focused on test scores alone.
Good points. No one has ever studied how the sibling rule benefits charters. The Justice Department had it banned in New Orleans selective public schools because it was discriminatory against African Americans (it was an overwhelmingly white school).
I can say at a kid typical of my neighborhood and background, I avoided difficult classes and strict teachers like the plague and I would guess things have not changed much. The only teachers I liked–even if I ended up doing more work for them than I would have done in the “tough” classes–were the one’s who recognized and rewarded the abilities and talents that I didn’t even know I had. That’s a quality of a great teacher that can never be measured.
Just watched that horror show of a lesson. The waving of the hands and fingers are akin to a magician’s slight of hand. The kids get it, as long as they look like they are participating they’re safe. Looking closely at the video one can observe 4 students in the rear of the room not engaged. One is looking out the window and then under her desk. The camera, sweeps the room quickly and it’s hard to see. Those kids also happen to be sitting right next to the teacher.
I also watched another of those videos and was distressed to see how the students practically had to march single file back to their seats to create a list of compound words. The student who had the most was going to get an after school snack! How bizarre is that?
I agree with Carol, the parents in my school would be at the superintendent’s door in a heart beat if I ever pulled that stunt.Kids aren’t machines, kids shouldn’t be afraid of the giving the wrong answer and being humiliated. The only bucket being filled in both those videos was the cash bucket of the charter. The kid’s bucket’s were emptied as soon as they were put in that environment.
Sad.
If this is great teaching then I must really be a bad teacher…I make my 6th graders take cornell notes, I do vocabulary diagrams with them, we do journal writing every morning and we share it in a thinking map as a class..the journals are a direct connection question to what will be seen in the lesson or a prior day’s lesson. The class discussion involves direct questioning with ample time to think, sometimes a think/pair/share. If one student gets a question wrong, I dont have fingers wiggling to send support, I ask “Would anyone like to help Mr. so-and-so or Ms So-and-So , by sharing his/her thoughts?” or I volunteer an example or a statement, or offer some reminder of last day’s lesson, One observer who came into my class one time during a group activity, told me after walking around the groups, “Your class has a lot of good noise” and told me she was excited at the way the students were interacting and discussing the questions on the activity. I am strict with my kids, even though they are pre-teens. I tell them life is tough, I make them realize they need to be brave, be bold, be assertve, be respectful. I stay after school and have the ones that need extra pushing come in and we review the day’s lesson, the vocabulary, sometimes I even repeat the whole lab (I teach 6th Science). In my short history as a techer (starting my 5th year) I had never seen such a horrible stance in a colleage…it seemed to me she put her hands on her hips like saying “Come on, you dumb kid, you are embarassing me in front of the camera here” THAT is the impression I get from her facial expression and body language. And the lady explaining the finger wiggles and the silent applauses does NOTHING to the credibility of the vdeo. Sad, very Sad.
Reblogged this on Abelardo Garcia Jr's Blog and commented:
If this is GOOD teaching, then I must be a really BAD teacher. check the video discussed in Dr Ravitch’s blog at this location: http://www.relayschool.org/videos?vidid=3
Carol Bussis appears to be a fan of Pavlov and Hunter’s program, Essential Elements of Instruction. She either does not know the method of what she is promoting or is deliberately not stating it. I will check out the “Relay Schools of Enstruction” on the web. All of restructuring our educational system is indeed very strange!
I’ve been having some interesting discussions about Relay over the past several days. I’m not sold on what they are doing, and it is odd that you can get a Masters without any significant research, but there is one thing in particular that we can learn from them — potential teachers need to be in schools earlier and more often than is standard practice at traditional teacher prep programs. Some people realize during student teaching that they really aren’t cut out for teaching, but at that point it’s too late.
Now, they should not be leading lessons as a first-year, but they should be in classrooms observing lessons and assisting during guided activities. Our school partnered with a local college to do just that, and it was a benefit to all. The future-teachers were able to see what good (and sometimes bad) lessons looked like, as well as get comfortable working with kids. We were able to get an extra person in our Math class on occasion, which allowed more individual attention for our students.
i don’t think many teacher prep programs delay field experience very long nowadays–and we certainly don’t need Relay to “learn” this lesson. my students are in classrooms from year 1, and are out in the schools on a regular basis all through their program. i’d suggest that programs that don’t provide prospective teachers with this sort of field experience reconsider their approach to teacher education, but wouldn’t suggest Relay as any sort of model.
I agree. Teacher Ed programs have become cash cows for some universities….there needs to be layers of screening. Otherwise, lots of young people spend their time and money preparing for a profession that is not right for them. But here is the irony of Relay. They do not PREPARE you for teaching, you are an uncertified teacher when you enter. See their entrance criteria
lots of ironies about Relay–its graduate school with profs who have never taught in colleges before, a board with experience only in TFA, they only admit “teachers” with no certification, etc.
i’m really OK with new ideas for providing grad education, but this stuff is getting weird.
Somewhere someone with political connections is getting rich, of that you can be sure. Education is fast becoming the wild west, or perhaps the new real estate bubble.
You guys do not understand that Charter School have top performance rates and Children actually learn and want discipline. For view such as yours these are examples of why America is behind when it comes to education. If you think a teacher that sits in a class room and learns theories all day is going to produce results your wrong. That’s why so many 1st year teacher burn out because they do not have training. Relay GSE is a training program, that allows first year teacher to get the experience they need when they are in a classroom. This program is not about controlling the child it is about controlling the educational success of children. Obviously our education model isn’t working, because children are failing so why not take a different approach.
Presley Gale, I suggest you read Bruce Baker’s work on charter schools. They get high rates if they kick out kids with low scores or choose their students with care.
I think it is ridiculous for people who aren’t educators and have no idea what it’s like working with young students, especially those from low income communities to comment. It is very important to have rules, routines and to keep students on task. We are not treating students like drones. We set high expectations and standards so that they know what is expected of them. Teachers did not go into this field for money. Most of us did it to motivate children to set goals and achieve their dreams. I agree that not all ACP programs are adequate enough to create good teachers but Relay program is. Just because the instructors don’t all have doctorates or advance degrees does not mean they don’t know what they are doing. Relay is trying to reach a more diverse group of educators and nothing is wrong with that. Please give teachers some respect because if being a teacher was easy there would be more of us.
It’s just wrong. Giving white people the power to oppresa children of color under the guise of helping them. Taking over community schools and replacing them with testing centers.