Michael Hynes is the superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford School District on Long Island in New York. He has a progressive vision of what schools should be, and he is implementing it in the schools of his district, with the support of the elected board.
Take a few minutes and watch his TED talk, where he explains how to transform our schools and make them schools of thoughtfulness, learning, and joy.
Happy Easter!
Here’s a smile for your holidays.
I think you should spend today reading something other than this blog.
If you are Christian, go to church or do whatever you usually do.
If you are Jewish or Muslim or atheist or anything else, read and enjoy the day.
I would say I’m going fishing, but where I live, it’s not the season. Also, I don’t like fishing.
Actually, we are cooking up a big Easter meal for Mary’s family.
So, scour the blog for things you missed. I will be doing clean-up all day.
Get outside and breathe the spring. Winter is over. Be happy.
Enjoy friends and family.
I will be back tomorrow with some fabulous posts!
One million people watched the birth of a baby to April the giraffe as her mate Oliver watched.
It was thrilling to see!
Scroll all the way to the bottom of the story for the full video.
Superintendent David Gamberg leads the schools of two adjoining school districts on Long Island, Greenport and Southold on Long Island. Gamberg has a holistic view of education. He believes in the full development of young children as happy, healthy, well-rounded people. He thinks that the arts are far more important than test scores. He wants the children to explore their talents. His schools have a garden, where the children raise vegetables and share them. Southold schools have an amazing array of musical activities, including an orchestra, a choir, and a jazz band. It also has an award-winning robotics team. And its rate of opting out from state tests is one of the highest in the state.
Superintendent Gamberg invited Mary and me to attend the major school production of the school year: “Les Miserables.”
We had seen it many years ago in both London and New York. It is a big, ambitious production, with a huge cast and demanding musical numbers. I couldn’t imagine how students could pull off this sprawling and complicated musical.
The event was held in the high school auditorium, which holds about 700 people. Lucky we had reserved seats because the house was packed, as were all the other performances. Parents, grandparents, siblings, and local community members from every walk of life.
The music was supplied by the school’s 16-piece orchestra, and it was fabulous. The show was spectacular.
We were blown away by the acting, the singing, and the staging. The student talent was amazing. Some of the kids had acted in school productions for four, five, or six years. There must have been fifty students in the cast, maybe more, and many more working behind the scenes. The story of Jean Val Jean and Inspector Javert was presented with zest, passion, and the energy of youth.
It was really, really funny to see these beautiful children standing on the barricades and singing about the revolution and waving a big red flag in a community that voted by a small margin for Trump.
We loved the show and so did the rest of the audience. The cast and orchestra received a standing ovation and cheers that rocked the room.
We looked at each other and said, “Now we know why we pay taxes, and it is money well spent.”
An event like this performance is what makes a public school a community school. You can bet that the next bond issue will easily pass. Not just because of this production, but because of the vision that produces an education that unifies the community and gives all children a chance to shine.
America has many thousands of communities like this one. The public schools are the cement of the community.
Betsy DeVos doesn’t understand that. She never will. Sad.
Steven Singer notes that standardized testing season is upon us.
While he is at school administering useless standardized tests, his daughter will be home, inventing, playing, using her imagination.
“In school I have to proctor the federally mandated standardized tests. But I’ve opted my own daughter out. She doesn’t take them.
“So at home, I get to see all the imaginative projects she’s created in her class while the other kids had to trudge away at the exam.
“Daddy, daddy, look!” she squeals.
“And I’m bombarded by an entire Picasso blue period.
“Or “Daddy, will you staple these?”
“And I’m besieged by a series of her creative writing.
“My daughter is only in second grade and she loves standardized test time.
“It’s when she gets to engage in whatever self-directed study strikes her fancy.
“Back in kindergarten I missed the boat.
“Even as an educator, myself, I had no idea the district would be subjecting her to standardized tests at an age when she should be doing nothing more strenuous than learning how to share and stack blocks.
“But when I found out she had taken the GRADE Test, a Pearson assessment not mandated by the state but required by my home district in order the receive state grant funding, I hit the roof.
“I know the GRADE test. I’m forced to give a version of it to my own 8th grade students at a nearby district where I work. It stinks.
“Ask any classroom teacher and they’ll tell you how useless it is. Giving it is at best a waste of class time. At worst it demoralizes children and teaches them that the right answer is arbitrary – like trying to guess what the teacher is thinking….
“I have studied standardized testing. It was part of my training to become a teacher. And the evidence is in. The academic world knows all this stuff is bunk, but the huge corporations that profit off of these tests and the associated test-prep material have silenced them.
“I have a masters in my field. I’m a nationally board certified teacher. I have more than a decade of successful experience in the classroom. But I am not trusted enough to decide whether my students should take these tests.
“It’s not like we’re even asking the parents. We start from the assumption that children will take the tests, but if the parents complain about it, we’ll give in to their wishes.
“It’s insanity.
“We should start from the assumption the kids won’t take the test. If parents want their kids to be cogs in the corporate machine, they should have to opt IN.”
Do you feel that you are living in an episode of “The Twilight Zone”?
In a time of despair, we need to laugh. We need to be inspired. Art, love, laughter, joy will save our sanity.
Here is some sunshine. Enjoy!
Here is the back story. It was truly a surprise for the students and teachers. The school leaders were in on the secret.
This is a very beautiful, adorable rendition of “You Raise Me Up” by two children in Hong Kong. I am not sure why I am posting it, other than to share the good vibes with you.
The World Economic Forum is based in Davos, Switzerland. Ten years ago, I had the pleasure of attending. The forum was filled with heads of state and potentates, politicians, business magnates, even Brad and Angelina and Bono. WEF ranks states according to progress on whatever measures it chooses. It just decided that the schools of Finland are the best in the world.
This just-released World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017 names Finland’s primary schools, health and national institutions as #1 globally (p. 46):
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1/
What’s their education secret? According to Fulbright Scholar and part-time Finland resident, university lecturer and public school dad William Doyle, it’s not just Finland’s culture, or its size and demographics, which are similar to some two thirds of American states. Says Doyle, “Finland has the most professionalized, the most evidence-based, and the most child-centered primary school system in the world.” Those three foundations, says Doyle, can inspire and be adapted by any school system in the world. He adds, “Until the United States decides to respect and train its teachers like Finland does (a highly selective masters degree program specializing in research and classroom practice, with two years of in-class training and maximum autonomy once they graduate), we have little hope of improving our schools.”
Please note that Finland has no charters, no vouchers, no Teach for Finland, and very low levels of child poverty. Grades K-9 are free of standardized testing. Children have recess after every class. Academic studies do not begin until age 7. Before then, play is the curriculum.
Finnish scholar Pasi Sahlberg often says that Finland got its best ideas by borrowing from the United States.
Pasi Sahlberg will speak at Wellesley College on October 13 at 7 pm in Alumnae Hall. His topic: “The Inconvenient Truth about American Education.” Pasi taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a guest scholar for the past two years. He is the author of the award-winning “Finnish Lessons.” The lecture is second in a series I endowed called the Diane Silvers Ravitch 1960 Lecture. Pasi will be introduced by Howard Gardner. Come one, come all.
If you are not in the area, the event will be videotaped and later made available.
The Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has published a major paper that describes a new vision for American education.
Instead of focusing on goals like raising test scores, which narrows the curriculum and produces perverse results (like cheating, excessive test prep, and gaming the system), educators should be encouraged to emphasize the development of the whole child. This is not a new idea; its roots go back to the early twentieth century. But it is a research-based idea that promises to change the direction of education and to align teaching and learning with what is in the best interests of students and society.
The report was written by Elaine Weiss and Emma Garcia of EPI.
Here is the introduction.
Traits and skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, persistence, and self-control—which are often collectively called noncognitive skills, or social and emotional skills—are vitally important to children’s full development. They are linked to academic achievement, productivity and collegiality at work, positive health indicators, and civic participation, and are nurtured through life and school experiences. Developing these skills should thus be an explicit goal of public education. This can be achieved through research and policy initiatives involving better defining and measuring these skills; designing broader curricula to promote these skills; ensuring that teachers’ preparation and professional support are geared toward developing these skills in their students; revisiting school disciplinary policies, which are often at odds with the nurturing of these skills; and broadening assessment and accountability practices to make the development of the whole child central to education policy.
Introduction and key points
The importance of so-called noncognitive skills—which include abilities and traits such as critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, social skills, persistence, creativity, and self-control—manifests itself in multiple ways throughout our lives. For example, having greater focus as a student improves the acquisition of skills, and creativity is widely associated with artistic abilities. Persistence and communication skills are critical to success at work, and respect and tolerance contribute to strong social and civic relationships.
But support for noncognitive skills—also commonly referred to as social and emotional skills—extends far beyond this casual recognition of their impact. Empirical research finds clear connections between various noncognitive skills and positive life outcomes. Indeed, researchers have focused on assessing which skills matter and why, how they are measured, and how and when these skills are developed, including the mutually reinforcing development of noncognitive and cognitive abilities during students’ years in school.1
At the same time, there are clear challenges inherent in this work, including those associated with data availability (in terms of measurement, validity, and reliability), the difficulty of establishing causality, and the need to bridge gaps across various areas of research. This points to the need to exercise caution when designing education policies and practices that aim to nurture noncognitive skills. Nonetheless, given the crucial role that noncognitive skills play in supporting the development of cognitive skills—as well as the importance of noncognitive skills in their own right—this is an issue of great importance for policymakers.
Moreover, there is increased recognition, both domestically and internationally, that noncognitive skills are integral to a wider conceptualization of what it means to be an educated person. Indeed, UNESCO’s Incheon Declaration for Education 2030, which sets forth an international consensus on the new vision for education for the next 15 years, states, “Relevant learning outcomes must be well defined in cognitive and non-cognitive domains, and continually assessed as an integral part of the teaching and learning process. Quality education includes the development of those skills, values, attitudes and knowledge that enable citizens to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions and respond to local and global challenges.”2
This policy brief, which focuses on a set of skills that can and should be taught in schools, is based on a body of scholarly literature that tends to use the term “noncognitive skills” over others. James Heckman, a prominent, Nobel Prize–winning economist, has dubbed these skills “dark matter” in recognition of their varied nature and the challenge of accurately labeling them. Various fields and experts call them social and emotional skills, behavioral skills, inter- and intra-personal skills, and life skills, among other terms, but this brief does not aim to settle this issue. We therefore use noncognitive throughout in many places, as well as social and emotional skills and other terms.
This brief explains why it is so important that we incorporate these skills into the goals and components of public education, and lays out the steps necessary to make that happen.
This is a report that will gladden the hearts of most educators. It calls for a paradigm shift at a time when policymakers are realizing that the past fifteen years of testing, carrots and sticks, and other efforts to raise test scores, has produced negative consequences. It is time to take another look at our goals and our vision. This is indeed a worthy project.
Diane Ravitch's blog 