Response to LA Times Report on Teachers (Commentary)
August 19, 2010 at 8:14 am | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, AERO Conference, Jerry Mintz, LA Times, Los Angeles Times, Shaker Mountain School
I just wrote this article in response to a report on the results with students when they have good and bad teachers (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-teachers-20100817,0,6793836.story?track=rss)
Jerry Mintz
I used to think that our little democratic school was unusually blessed with good teachers. But as I thought back about it I realized that many of those teachers were not particularly good when they came to us. In fact, some were not good at all. So what happened?
Well, one significant aspect of our school is that we had two long staff meetings every week to go over everything that was happening in the school, and what was happening with each child. We wound up all being on the same page and catching little problems before they became big ones. Also, students who chose to could come to staff meetings. We found them particularly helpful, as they knew about things that were going on that the staff didn’t.
But in retrospect, that was not the most important training method that helped our staff to become great teachers. I think the most important factor was that no student had to come to any teacher’s class unless they wanted to! All attendance was noncompulsory. This meant that the classes were great and teachers could really teach because everyone was there because they wanted to be there. It also meant that if a teacher was not teaching something very interesting the students gave instant feedback with their feet. They either left or didn’t come back the next time. With this kind of feedback and evaluation, new teachers quickly learned how to organize interesting classes and activities. In some cases, if they couldn’t adjust, they just left the school. Pay was certainly not enough to keep them there. But in most cases they developed very quickly, sometimes in a matter of days, and figured out what the students really wanted to learn.
How sad it is that 99% of teachers in non-democratic schools never get this kind of feedback in their entire careers. They have a captive audience. In most cases this prevents them from becoming good teachers.
We never cared about testing for student’s grades. We didn’t give grades. But we did use standardized testing to test how the school was doing by traditional measures. In spite of the fact, or because of the fact that students didn’t have to go to any class they didn’t want to, the average student improved on national standardized tests at two and a half times the national rate. In some areas, such as vocabulary, it was useless to test them after a few years because they were always five or six grade levels above their age. This was undoubtedly because they all were very motivated to understand everything that was being said in the democratic meetings.
Sometimes people would visit, talk to the students (they often thought the older students were young looking staff members) and say to us afterward “Well of course it works with these kids. They are middle class!” But we had no minimum tuition and most of our students were low income and many were on welfare. Very few were actually middle class. But they sounded like they were after a few years in the school.
I’m not sure what the traditional system could learn from our experience with helping develop great teachers, but one step might be to leave the door open, so students could come in or go out!
Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories (BOOK)
June 9, 2010 at 11:45 pm | Posted in AERO, Education Events, Education News, New Resource | Leave a CommentTags: Alternative Education, AERO, John Taylor Gatto, Carlo Ricci, Jerry Mintz, Riane Eisler, Deborah Meier, Susan Ohanian, Chris Mercogliano, Ron Miller, Yaacov Hecht, alfie kohn, Sharon Caldwell, David Gribble, Helen Hegener, Matt Hern, Mark Jacobs, Herbert Kohl, Mary Leue, Dennis Littky, Pat Montgomery, Kirsten Olson, Wendy Priesnitz, Tim Seldin, Herb Snitzer, Len Solo, Lynn Stoddard, Zoe Weil, Turning Points, Arnold Greenberg, Arnie Langberg, Educational Alternatives, Grace Llewellyn, Lynson Beaulieu, Lisa Delpit, Gustavo Esteva, Don “Four Arrows” Jacobs, Shilpa Jain, Basir Mchawi
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Isaac Graves, Outreach & Publicity
Press & Reviews: alternativeeducation@gmail.com
Sales: aerobookstore@gmail.com
Phone: (720) 475-1602 | Fax: (720) 475-1623
Website: www.educationvisionaries.com
Turning Points
35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories
Edited by Jerry Mintz & Carlo Ricci
Foreword by Alfie Kohn
ISBN: 978-0-9745252-5-9
$29.95 | 432 Pages | 6×9 | Hardcover
Publish Date: July 1st, 2010 | AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization)
Visionary Authors Include:
Lynson Beaulieu, Sharon Caldwell, Lisa Delpit, Riane Eisler, Gustavo Esteva, John Taylor Gatto, Arnold Greenberg, David Gribble, Yaacov Hecht, Helen Hegener, Matt Hern, Don “Four Arrows” Jacobs, Mark Jacobs, Shilpa Jain, Herbert Kohl, Arnie Langberg, Mary Leue, Dennis Littky, Grace Llewellyn, Basir Mchawi, Deborah Meier, Chris Mercogliano, Ron Miller, Jerry Mintz, Pat Montgomery, Susan Ohanian, Kirsten Olson, Wendy Priesnitz, Carlo Ricci, Tim Seldin, Herb Snitzer, Len Solo, Lynn Stoddard, Zoe Weil
Description:
Thirty-five visionary educators were asked:
What was your schooling like?
When did you realize that there is a need for an alternative approach?
What have you done since to help realize that vision?
What are you doing now?
Turning Points is an anthology of their responses, a peek into the lives and journeys of these pioneering individuals who have—and are—transforming what it means to be a teacher, a student, and a life-long learner.
PRE-ORDER Turning Points today and find out more at www.EducationVisionaries.com
Advance Praise:
“The [educators] we’re looking for are those who say, “I want to work to change this system so others will be spared what was done to me.” They have the compassion and the courage to shake up the status quo and denounce cruel traditions. They’ve mastered the art of negative learning and developed a commitment to making the world, or at least whatever part of it they come to inhabit, a better place than it was before they got there.”
Alfie Kohn, Education Week (adapted from the foreword)
“Turning Points is unique and fascinating. It offers us insights into how some of our most significant educational innovators and visionaries experienced their own educations and how these experiences brought them to their callings as adults. The book is intriguing and informative both as biography and as insights into our history of educational innovation during the past 50 years.”
David Marshak
Coordinator of Explorations Academy Online, adjunct lecturer at Fairhaven College, and author ofThe Common Vision: Parenting and Educating for Wholeness
“Anybody interested in Education will find Turning Points enlightening!”
Zoë Neill Readhead
Principal, Summerill School in England
“Turning Points is a marvelous compilation of personal memoirs of progressive educators. From Alfie Kohn’s stirring introduction to the heartfelt, intimate stories of some of the most influential progressive educators of our times, this volume is a revelation. This book is for those of us who need to get started and for those who need to be rejuvenated.”
Rick Posner, Ph.D.
Author of Lives of Passion, School of Hope: How One Public School Ignites a Lifelong Love of Learning
Read more praise at www.EducationVisionaries.com
ABC’s Good Morning America’s Hatchet Job on Unschooling and Response
April 22, 2010 at 9:00 am | Posted in AERO, Education News | 1 CommentTags: ABC, ABC's Good Morning America, AERO, Good Morning America, Holt Associates, Homeschool, Homeschooling, Pat Farenga, Unschool, Unschooling
ABC’s Good Morning America recently aired a segment on unschooling titled “Extreme Homeschooling: No Tests, No Books, No Classes, No Curriculums.” After a firestorm of criticism and comments on the inaccurate portrayal of unschooling, they aired a segment answering a few viewer comments. Pat Farenga from Holt Associates also briefly explains the difference between homeschooling and unschooling. For the first segment, visit http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/unschooling-homeschooling-book-tests-classes/story?id=10410867. For their follow-up, visit http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/parents-defend-radical-unschooling-instilling-proper-values/story?id=10422823 Please let us know what you think.
Can Money Buy Education?
March 5, 2010 at 1:49 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, Higher Education, Home Education, Homeschooling, Shannon Hayes, Unschooling, Yes!, Yes! Magazine
By Shannon Hayes
Courtesy of YES! Magazine
Radical homemaker Shannon Hayes taught her daughter that their family doesn’t buy things they can make or grow at home. She then had to wonder: Does that include higher education?
This past November, I began a home school unit with my six-year-old daughter, Saoirse, on money. We opened our investigation by reading stories on the history of money. To paraphrase, early people originally made the things they needed. Then they began trading for the things they needed or wanted that they couldn’t make. The barter system worked out fine, as long as each party in the exchange had something that the other wanted. When that was no longer the case, money entered the marketplace as a tool to facilitate exchange. Eventually, in an effort to devise something that was relatively portable and of somewhat universal value, the Sumerians came up with the first silver coins.
From Ancient Sumerians to Modern Sustainability
Saoirse and I traveled around our home and farm and explored the different things we do to earn money, and the different things we spend it on. When it came to the spending, I explained the basic process that my husband Bob and I adhere to. When we are in a store and see something we think we want or need, the first, most important question we must ask ourselves is, “Is this something we can make or grow ourselves?” To illustrate, we talked about the grocery store. “Would we buy meat in a grocery store?”
“No,” she answered.
“Why not?”
“Because we grow it ourselves.” I smiled at the aptitude of my brilliant scholar.
Confident she was understanding, I continued my lesson. “If we decide that this is something we can’t make ourselves, then we must next ask three questions. One: Is it good for the planet? Two:Is it good for my community? Three: Is it important to me?” In an effort to keep things as simple as possible, I told her that typically, if you can answer “yes” to at least two out of the three questions, then you proceed to the final question: Can I afford it?
Read the entire article at http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/can-money-buy-education
In Memorium: Mary Ann Raywid Scheele, Howard Zinn, & J.D. Salinger
February 2, 2010 at 4:13 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, Howard Zinn, J.D. Salinger, Mary Ann Raywid, Mary Ann Raywid Scheele, Zinn
Mary Ann Raywid Scheele
Education scholar, advocate, and activist: Mary Anne Raywid Scheele, passed away on January 12th at the age of 81.
I knew Mary Ann Raywid for nearly 25 years. She was on AERO’s advisory board. One of the reasons that Mary Ann was special was because she was somehow able to get the respect of professional educators and demonstrate through her research the true need for school reform or reinvention.
She clearly outlined what was necessary to change in order to have a real student-centered approach and not a sham.
What was interesting to me was that, after she established her work at the legendary center she established at Hofstra University, she told me she was retiring to Hawaii, mostly for her husband’s health. Yet in the linked story people in Hawaii have described her as the most important person in public school reform in the last 25 years, in Hawaii! I guess she never stopped fighting for the changes she knew were necessary to help children learn in a respectful, dignified and empowered way. We will sorely miss her voice, especially now, with NCLB having morphed into RTTT.
Jerry Mintz
To read more:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100125/OBITS01/1250325/Education+advocate+Raywid
J.D. Salinger
Author of Catcher in the Rye, a book often banned by American schools, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 91.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114186193
Bernie Schein wrote a wonderful book for those interested in both Catcher in the Rye and education:
If Holden Caulfield Were In My Classroom
http://www.educationrevolution.org/ifholden.html
Howard Zinn
Author of A People’s History of the United States passed away on Wednesday at the age of 87.
From Rethinking Schools:
As many of you know, Howard Zinn died of a heart attack on Wednesday [27 Jan] in California. His passing is an enormous loss for everyone who cares about justice and equality. Historian, professor, lecturer, playwright, and most recently a filmmaker, Howard Zinn was many things. But above all, he was an activist — a socialist, a pacifist, an antiracist, who never strayed from his conviction that humanity was capable of making this a much better world.
Throughout his long life, Howard Zinn had seen enough of the world’s horrors that it would have been understandable had he become a cynic. But if there is one word that should be forever associated with him, it’s hope.
When George Bush launched his endless war on terror after 9/11, Rethinking Schools looked for a quote that could sum up our belief that it was not ridiculous to still be hopeful. We turned to the final paragraphs of Howard Zinn’s autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Howard Zinn lived a politically engaged life of joy and solidarity. His life was indeed a marvelous victory.
-Bill Bigelow for the Rethinking Schools staff and editors
Zinn gave his final interview with Bill on January 19th. You can hear it here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/topshelf/2010/01/19/howard-zinn-on-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-sta
Howard Zinn: One of the Great Democratic Educators
by Melia Dicker
A People’s History of the United States
Advanced Placement Op-Ed Video: Advanced Pressure
January 26, 2010 at 1:07 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: Advanced Placement, AERO, New York Times, NY Times, Vicki Abeles
In Memorium
January 25, 2010 at 6:20 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, In Memorium, Jerry Mintz, Mary Anne Raywid, May Anne Raywid Scheele
Education scholar, advocate, and activist: Mary Anne Raywid Scheele, 81
I knew Mary Ann Raywid for nearly 25 years. She was on AERO’s advisory
board. One of the reasons that Mary Ann was special was because she was
somehow able to get the respect of professional educators and
demonstrate through her research the true need for school reform or
reinvention.
She clearly outlined what was necessary to change in order to have a
real student-centered approach and not a sham.
What was interesting to me was that, after she established her work at
the legendary center she established at Hofstra University, she told me
she was retiring to Hawaii, mostly for her husband’s health. Yet in the
linked story people in Hawaii have described her as the most important
person in public school reform in the last 25 years, in Hawaii! I guess
she never stopped fighting for the changes she knew were necessary to
help children learn in a respectful, dignified and empowered way. We
will sorely miss her voice, especially now, with NCLB having morphed
into RTTT.
Jerry Mintz
Director, AERO
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100125/OBITS01/1250325/Education+advocate+Raywid
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2010/01/inside_school_research_has_som.html
Congress Sponsoring Disastrous Literacy Bill (Susan Ohanian, f/Huffington Post)
January 24, 2010 at 6:52 pm | Posted in AERO, AERO Conference, AERO Online Video Series, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, AERO Conference, Huffington Post, Susan Ohanian
Stephen Krashen, noted educator and Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California, has conducted an intensive investigation of new legislation pending in both chambers of Congress (Senate Bill 2740, House Bill 4037). Introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the LEARN (sic) Act picks up where the widely denounced Reading First legislation of the Bush Administration left off, putting an emphasis on the “direct instruction” of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text structure.
Not only is this approach to children’s literacy development not supported by scientific research, it runs contrary to good practice. There are also several other points of contention here:
1) Why do members of Congress feel so comfortable telling teachers how they must teach?
2) When cash-strapped local politicos scramble to get the money attached to whatever outrage Congress legislates, who’s responsible for the devastating results?
3) Who’s in charge of our schools? Members of Congress or local school boards?
4) Who’s in charge of the classroom? The teacher, consulting with colleagues and parents, or members of Congress?
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-ohanian/congress-sponsoring-disas_b_426987.html
Susan Ohanian is a longtime teacher, much of that teaching done here in upstate New York. A prolific writer, she is the author of twenty-five books, the latest three being When Childhood Collides with NCLB, Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools, and The Great Word Catalogue: FUNdamental Activities for Building Vocabulary. These titles reflect her interest both in political forces impacting education and in the need for a lively curriculum that interests students.
With a husband and three cats, Susan moved to Vermont to be near Lake Champlain, which she considers one of the most beautiful lakes in the world , and for the past seven years she has maintained a website in opposition to NCLB and high stakes testing. Education policies of the new administration give her no reason to take down the website. In fact, with the U. S. Secretary of Education barnstorming the country in favor of the Business Roundtable plan for National Standards, Susan would remind people that she wrote a little book ten years ago that covers this subject, One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards.
Susan recently contributed to AERO’s new book, Turning Points and was a featured presenter at the 2009 AERO conference. Her talk, “Teacher Professionalism At-Risk,” can be found below. You can find out about the 2010 AERO conference by visiting www.educationrevolution.org/conference.html
THE STATE OF U.S. KIDS: 2010
January 23, 2010 at 7:40 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: AERO, KidsHealth, The state of U.S. kids, Time for Kids
Education News
November 21, 2009 at 8:15 pm | Posted in AERO, Education News | Leave a CommentTags: Achievement Gap, AERO, Education News, Sats, Sex Education
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