The Injustice of Easy

        Sue Pimental recently wrote that we are in the middle of a curriculum renaissance, asserting that “poor quality curriculum is at the root of reading problems in many schools.” And Daniel Willingham reminds us that “teaching content is teaching reading.” All across Tennessee, districts are in wholehearted agreement, as ‘cute’ and ‘primary’ curriculum is being set aside in favor of more rigorous, content-rich curriculum. But this does not come without critics.  There is also a counter-opinion that first and second graders should not be learning about the likes of body systems or the Revolutionary War. The feeling is that our youngest students should be learning about lighter, more fun topics and saving the heavy stuff for when they are older. But this line of thinking takes the progress Tennessee has made with grade-level expectations and curriculum two steps backward. Students' ages should never affect the level of instruction they receive.

          I am a mother of three and a first grade teacher. I spend my days with young children, and I love young children. I understand the importance of exploration, of discussion, and of play. I believe that friendship and fun are essential to a developing child. I believe there is a place for ‘cute,’ and I love to partake in their laughter and creative play. But lowering the bar for the content children receive in the classroom because of their age is a disservice to our youngest learners.

          The importance of high expectations is not new knowledge. In this report, Ronald Williamson calls teachers' expectations for their students, whether high or low, "self-fulfilling prophecy." He relays the link between expectations and motivation, and also how "teachers’ beliefs about student potential are particularly powerful for students of color and students from poor families." It is important to note that high expectations alone are not enough for our children. These expectations must be supported by quality instructional materials.

          Having been in the classroom with access to instructional materials that present students with age-appropriate challenge and rich content, and also to materials on the opposite end of the spectrum, I have seen firsthand just how high our young children will rise when given the opportunity, as well as the lag in achievement when the content is watered down simply because the learners are young.

          It is amazing to hear students explain the importance of each of their body systems and astounding to hear young children discuss catalysts for the Revolutionary War. It is humbling to listen as they compare similar folktales from different cultures and encouraging to hear them discuss the injustices many early Americans faced. It is more than motivating to feel the glee of their curiosity and eagerness to learn more each day, and it is heartbreaking to consider the difference in these conversations had they been held back from content this rich due to their age. Keeping children from access to these topics and opportunity for high-level understanding because of their young ages is not only an injustice to our young learners now, but also to their future selves when they are exposed to content of substance and challenging thought.      

          We have come too far in our understanding of the importance of rigor and high expectations to look back now. How do we stay the course and continue to increase student achievement and learning? We hold all students - even our young learners - to a high standard of learning and support that standard with strong, content-rich instructional materials. Put perfectly in Tennessee's Third Grade Vision for Reading Proficiency, "We must give students hard work and believe that they can do it." Our students deserve more than easy. They deserve to be challenged and given the opportunity to learn as much as they can with materials of quality, regardless of age.  

Learning to Think Inside the Box: A Mindset Shift

Learning to Think Inside the Box: A Mindset Shift

Two educators share their personal experiences with shifting mindset around curriculum

Katie- During my college years, my early years in the classroom, and up until the last few years, the words textbook and boxed curriculum left a sour taste in my mouth. I began my teaching career during a time of high teacher autonomy. I felt the textbooks and materials available did not adequately meet the demands of the standards being taught in my classroom. The presentation of the material wasn’t “visually appealing” or “student friendly.” So what was a teacher to do? I created my own materials. I made activities, presentations, games, practice work, assessments, etc. And what I could not make, I found on teacher sharing sites. I was proud of what I felt was resourcefulness and ability to provide for my students.

But then our state standards changed. A few years later, they changed again. The rigor and expectations increased dramatically. Literacy expectations now included regular practice with complex text and its vocabulary; reading and writing grounded in evidence from literary and informational text; and building knowledge through content-rich literary and informational text. Math expectations also increased and now included literacy standards as an integral component of the k-12 standards. This was a needed change that definitely benefited our children, but suddenly things were very different in the classroom. The materials I had been using were no longer making the grade. The things I had been creating or sourcing were not adequately meeting the rigor of these new standards. In online searches, I was able to find activities or materials that touched on these standards, but none that provided my children with the depth of experience they deserved to learn in a way they deserved. The time I spent finding or creating materials increased, not to mention the time I spent planning for instruction with those materials.

And it wasn’t just me. Most teachers I knew spent hour after hour sourcing and planning for instruction, working well after dismissal, late into the night and on weekends. We taught our hearts out, striving for engaging content and delivery, doing everything in our power to teach our students. No one complained. This is our job, our calling, and our students are worth it. But...yearly assessment scores continued to show a need for more, for something different to be done to meet our students’ needs.  

Something had to change, and that something was our mindset. Two years ago, our district began using a curriculum unlike anything we had used before. It looked different, the delivery was different, and the content was different. It had been a very long time since teachers had been asked to follow a boxed curriculum without deviating or supplementing. This was a mindset shift for many teachers, myself included. My pride had to be checked at the door. Were the activities and ideas I had previously been using truly meeting my students’ needs? While I have experience and professional knowledge, do I possess the knowledge and ability to sequence and build a high-quality, cohesive, aligned curriculum? Did I earn my college degrees in writing curriculum or curriculum delivery? If what we had been doing all this time wasn’t working, wasn’t it time to try something different?

            Tom-In comparison to Katie’s experience, and in an approach to meet students’ learning needs, as a grade level, my team grouped students by their ability level as a way to target the instruction for all learning levels. With three first grade classrooms, the high, middle, and low kids were separated. Because 100 percent of the students in my class were below grade level, I felt I had to move away from the grade level curriculum completely. Based on their readiness, I thought the first grade material was beyond them, and lower level work would be a better fit. After all, this was personalizing their education, right?  Now, looking back, my attempt to group, differentiate, and meet the students on their “learning level” unknowingly lowered the bar. It placed me into the mindset and led me to the false belief that growth, of any kind, was more important than ensuring my struggling learners caught up with the highest level learners in their grade level. Growth, more than grade level mastery, became my aim, and my expectations were lowered due to where the students were at the beginning of the year.

            Now looking back, and after implementing a rigorous, high-level curriculum in the classroom, as I utilized lower level instructional materials to meet my struggling students “where they were,” I not only lowered the bar, but I also approached differentiation and individualization completely wrong. By offering my students instructional materials below grade level, I thought I was meeting their needs by “plugging holes,” however, I now know that differentiation is not about assigning lower level material, and dumbing things down. Differentiated instruction, contrary to what I was taught in college, is all about bringing students up! Differentiation is all about high expectations, where the teacher’s time and support is different for different students, based on their needs. The level of work remains high and on grade level, yet the support offered by the teacher fluctuates based on where students are in their understanding. Differentiation never changes what the students do, but what the teacher does!

The results of shifting both of our mindsets around curriculum have been astounding. Our students’ learning has increased exponentially. Their confidence and engagement have skyrocketed. Our expectations of our students and of ourselves have risen. Planning time has decreased dramatically. No longer are hours upon hours required to create or source materials. The materials are in our hands. Now our time can be spent digging into the content and planning for effective instruction and delivery.

Research suggests that “choice of instructional materials can have an impact as large as, or larger than, the impact of teacher quality. The analogous supporting tools for teachers are instructional materials.” Are there materials of quality online and on teacher sharing sites? Absolutely. We have colleagues whose work is of such quality that entire districts have purchased it for use! But finding materials online doesn’t always guarantee quality. The rigor of our standards and the expectations for student learning have dramatically shifted. A mindset shift is needed to rethink the stance against boxed curriculum. Our children are worth setting aside our pride and long-held stances. Our children are worth trying something new for their benefit. They are worth looking for a better solution when current practice isn’t working. Our children are worth our best, and our best comes when we’re adequately equipped to do our best: teaching.

For more thoughts from Tom and Katie about curriculum, check out Rethinking the Resistance Against Boxed Curriculum

Rethinking the Resistance Against Boxed Curriculum

Rethinking the Resistance Against Boxed Curriculum

Tom Loud, Educator in Blount County, Tennessee                               
Katie McGhee, Educator in Sullivan County, Tennessee           

 

           
             We’ve been spinning our wheels. According to NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) data, reading proficiency of 17 year olds increased only by one point between 1971-2008. One point in 37 years! In 2009, the Common Core State Standards, one of the most promising educational reforms in history, were implemented in the majority of states, in an effort to create a robust, rigorous, and relevant set of standards. Yet in terms of academic achievement, the results have been anything but historical. When compared to 2009, the math and reading scores of twelfth graders in 2015 dropped a point nationally. The standards alone (which the large majority of teachers support) are just part of the puzzle, with an equal piece of the puzzle being found through instructional materials. And not just any instructional materials, but materials and textbooks of quality! Although the latest national and recent state standards have been a step in the right direction, the teachers who are responsible for implementing the standards have been left to search for and create a curriculum with supporting materials.

According to the report, How Teachers Judge the Quality of Instructional Materials, when selecting instructional materials, grammatical errors and visual appeal (cuteness) top the list. The report continues by stating when teachers are vetting materials, they begin with no rubric or criteria, and use their own judgement. The majority of these teachers stated they have had no guidance from their districts or schools in judging quality materials, as high teacher autonomy allows today’s teachers to rely on their professional judgement. The result has been misalignment and shallow instruction, as teachers have been presented with the challenge of creating a curriculum from scratch with limited training, support, and expertise.

In the report, Choosing Blindly, Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. Whitehurst suggest that “Choice of instructional materials can have an impact as large as, or larger than, the impact of teacher quality. The analogous supporting tools for teachers are instructional materials.” High quality materials increase teacher knowledge and skill while increasing the level and complexity of the content students are asked to learn. But how can teachers be sure selected materials are aligned? Educators can lean on third party reviews such as EdReports.org, an independent nonprofit that reviews k-12 instructional materials for quality. Rubrics and program comparisons provide educators with valuable information in selecting quality materials.

Currently, teachers are spending countless hours sourcing or creating materials. According to the 2017 Tennessee Educator Survey, teachers in Tennessee report spending an average of 4.5 hours per week creating and sourcing materials for their reading blocks alone. This does not even account for teacher planning time in addition to gathering materials! McDougald & Weisskirk assert that, “Freeing up teachers’ schedules by providing high-quality curriculum allows them to allocate time toward activities with far higher value.”   

Students are also given the benefit “of a coherent, cumulative, cross-curricular experience.” Gosse and Hansel assert in their article, Taken for Granted, that when educators take the content of curriculum for granted, “they lose the opportunity to collaborate.” Students may be learning something of value in each course or grade, but are the things they are learning each year building upon previous years for a greater, cohesive education? Gosse and Hansel go on to say that “There is no more direct connection to student achievement...than what students have been taught. While it is possible to find a struggling school with a great curriculum, finding a good school with a weak curriculum is about as likely as finding a human being who can live without oxygen.”

Boxed curricula and textbooks have recently become frowned upon by many teachers. But a return to instructional materials created by experts and vetted for quality is necessary in our classrooms. Teachers know their students, they know where they are, and they know how to deliver instruction. When teachers have access to high-quality instructional materials, they are able to best do what they have been called to do: teach children. - To provide all students with access to deep content and rigorous material, regardless of the students' experiences outside the classroom. High quality materials level the playing field for all students, giving every child an opportunity for success and every teacher the opportunity to provide them with that.

The promise of the latest standards will only be seen with high quality materials that are aligned with those standards. A report from Lift Education showed that when observing ELA lessons in Tennessee, up to 79% of lessons were unaligned to state standards. The result of this is a limited return on teaching, in comparison to the great effort and heart teachers are putting into their instruction each and every day. When these observed districts were provided with guidance and support, later observations found that 86% of these classrooms had become fully aligned, as strong instructional materials became an essential tool used to drive the teaching and learning of all lessons. We agree with Cory Epler in that, “We have a responsibility to ensure that all students have equitable access to the education necessary to achieve their full potential. A key aspect of this is that all students receive strong standards-aligned instruction.”

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEXT STEPS

1. Local districts need to provide their teachers with high quality instructional materials, rather than instructing them to give their best effort to “teach to the standards.” Teachers do not need to spend hours per week searching and pulling materials that align to the standards they are teaching. Instead, teachers’ time needs to be invested in what matters most...teaching and supporting students!

 2. At the district and school level, educators need to be offered professional development on how to select quality materials as a way for them to be able to “critique their curriculum” as suggested by Cathy Whitehead, Tennessee's 2016 Teacher of the Year.

3. States need to determine what instructional materials and curricula are leading to the greatest levels of achievement among all student groups, and provide a list of these materials for districts to select from when selecting purchasing options.

ENDNOTES

 Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings,  “Choosing Blindly” Apr. 2012

Early Literacy Implementation Work Annual Report. LIFT Education, Sept. 2017, lifteducationtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/LIFT-Education-Annual-Report-2017_FINAL.pdf.

Educator Insights. Tennessee Department of Education, 2017.

Gosse, Carolyn, and Lisa Hansel. “Taken for Granted: Why Curriculum Content Is Like Oxygen.” 2014.

How Teachers Judge the Quality of Instructional Materials. WEST Ed, Mar. 2017.

McDougald, Victoria, and Lauren Weisskirk. “Want All Students to Learn? Make Sure Their Teachers Get Great Content for Their Classrooms.” Sept. 2017.

Parents are Partners: Hosting a Family Event

          Research has shown that, "The most accurate predictors of student achievement in school are not family income or social status, but the extent to which the family creates a home environment that encourages learning, communicates high yet reasonable expectations for the child's achievement, and becomes involved in the child's education at school." Parental involvement activities not only help promote student achievement, but they also empower parents with tools and confidence to support their children's educations.

          Any time schools can bring families in, magic can happen! Parents feel a part of the education team for their children, they glean ideas and actionable strategies, families learn together, and students ultimately benefit. Our school recently hosted a family literacy night, a two-hour event where families of students of all ages from our school rotated through several carefully chosen activity stations. We learned several things along the way.

1. Establish and Maintain Your Goals
When we began the initial planning process for our event, we had two very clear goals: keep literacy at the center of each activity and provide families with actionable, real-world ways to promote their children's literacy at home. These goals seem simple and easy to follow through, but it can be surprising how easy it is to stray from your goals when planning a family event. There is a plethora of ideas at our fingertips online and elsewhere, and ideas can quickly grow too broad without specific goal-setting and conversations. We very much wanted our event to be a fun, great experience for our families, but we also had to work hard to make sure that each activity had a clear purpose with literacy at the center, beyond just family fun. Magic happens when the fun and learning come together!

2.  Plan, Plan, and Plan Some More
Building a strong planning team was one of the greatest reasons our event was successful. Teachers from various grade levels and subject areas, administrators, our librarian, and our speech-language pathologist met several times to discuss and plan our event. Every detail had to be considered, from logistical pieces such as the direction of the activity rotations through the school, to materials lists, to collecting survey data, to dividing up the groups, etc. A strong planning team is an asset because several minds considering things and bringing ideas opens up the possibilities and ensures no detail is overlooked.

3. Think Outside the Box
Events like this are great opportunities to get creative! While keeping with our two goals, we worked hard to provide activities that were engaging and, perhaps, different than what our families may have expected as "literacy" activities. We had one activity station centered solely on skill-building games families can play at home. The games ranged from phonics builders, to responding to reading, to story elements, to sight words, and more! Another activity was a reading response science connection with animal adaptations. Families of older students loved "Speed Dating" a book, where they learned how to pick a just-right book for their child. They enjoyed learning about easily accessible online resources that can be used outside the classroom. One of the family-favorite activities was a math-literacy connection where students read a recipe, sequenced the steps, and then followed the directions to create either cookie dough or pudding play dough. The conversations were amazing! One parent thought the recipe was a little dry and added extra water, causing the play dough to not form correctly. A tiny first grade voice popped up, "Mom, see why it's so important to read carefully? We didn't follow directions." Parents remarked all throughout the night how nice it was to see a connection to other subject areas, and that this may help their reluctant readers. As educators, we know the connection between literacy and other subject areas, but we have to be cautious to not simply assume our families know the same.

 

4. Utilize Your Resources
Most events require supplies, and in turn, require money. This is where we had to get creative! We asked local businesses to donate to our cause, local bookstores donated books and supplies, and restaurants contributed gift certificates for prizes. But resources are not confined to supplies and money. Some of the best resources are people. Our local librarian came for a session with families to share the resources and activities our library has to offer, and she walked them through registering for a library card.  Our speech-language pathologist shared developmental milestones with parents of our younger students, and she talked of the speech-language connection. And the fantastic ideas from the diverse people on our team were absolutely invaluable!

5. Promote, Communicate, and Build Excitement
In order for a family event to accomplish its goals, people have to attend! Parents need to know why attending an event at school on a weeknight is worth their time and attendance! We built initial excitement for the event with a flyer sent home, then sent invitations with an RSVP portion, promoted our event on social media, sent out school messenger telephone messages, and worked to build excitement among our students in our classrooms. Many adults in attendance made comments such as, "Not coming wasn't an option. Our son would have never let it go." The best comments though, were the ones such as, "I'm so glad we came. I have learned so much."

6. Reflect
A huge part of hosting a successful event is thinking ahead of ways to improve. What went well? What could be done differently? Our Family Literacy Night went very well, but we know there are ways we can make it better next time. Can specific logistics be tweaked to make things run more smoothly? Can certain activities be improved? We have parent surveys and planning team surveys for analysis, notes were made along the way, and planning team discussion. No event is ever perfect, but constant reflection during and after the event helps to make it the very best event possible for your school!


It is important to view parents as partners in our work. When we work to empower parents with the tools, strategies, and confidence to support their children's educations, most families welcome it with open arms. View parents as teammates in educating the children in our classrooms, and work together toward that goal. As stated so well by Hendeson and Berla, "The more comprehensive and well-planned the partnership between school and home, the higher student achievement."