stupidity in arizona's new education policy

Teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach in Arizona schools? Ethnic studies are no longer allowed??

I read this post from angryasianman.com this morning about a new education policy, sent to Arizona governor Jan Brewer this week that takes stupidity to the next level.

Regarding ethnic studies, the policy says that schools will lose state funding if they offer classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

There are so many things wrong with that statement. First of all, there are some major events in history that might "promote resentment of a particular race or class of people." Are they not going to teach about the Holocaust? Slavery? Japanese internment? And as for ethnic solidarity, I don't understand how that's a bad thing!

Thankfully, this part of the education policy hasn't passed yet.

But the part about teachers with accents - the damage has already been done. The state made a huge push to hire bilingual teachers, particularly teachers whose native language is Spanish, so that they can include bilingual education programs, which research has found can be extremely effective in teaching English language learners English.

But now, the Arizona Department of Education is implementing "arbitrary fluency standards" and removing teachers who don't speak flawless English from classes with English language learners. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal to see exactly how far this is going to effect teachers in Arizona.

It's ridiculous. Don't they know what the research says? We must've talked about NEST (native English speaking teachers) and non-NEST teachers in every single class in grad school, and how there are very few disadvantages - and actually many advantages - to having a non-NEST teacher in an ESL classroom.

How can this be allowed? I just can't comprehend how stupidity like this is going to ruin so many people's lives and be a disservice to so many students.

testing, testing

The job search starts all over again (for me) as we prepare for our move to New York in the fall. Hurdle #1 has been accomplished: registering for the three (yes, three!) exams I need to take to get certified to teach ESL in New York public schools. After grad school, the main reason I was so happy was because I thought I'd never have to study again! But now, looking at these test prep guides, I'm really gonna have to hit the books again...

This is how I feel:

How have you adjusted to a life of not studying to a life of studying again?

mrs. kwanzaa

Funny kid quotes! I borrowed these from some of my old Xanga entries. These all came from my teaching days at Jackson Road. ESOL kids are the funniest!

Me: Hi, Jocelin! (first grader)
J: Hi!
Me: Do you know who I am?
J: Yeah, you're the ESOL teacher.
Me: Yep! Do you know my name?
J: Uh-huh.
Me: What's my name?
J: You're Mrs. Kwanzaa!

Cheick-Oumar: How come all teachers have the same first name?
Me: What do you mean?
C-O: Why is everyone's first name "Ms."?
Me: Well, that's just a respectful way to talk to adults.
C-O: ??
Me: When you get older, people will call you Mr. Toure.
C-O: ?? But my name is Cheick-Oumar!

Cheick-Oumar: Ms. Kwon, do teachers sleep at school?
Me: No, we go home and sleep.

Me: Needs are things that are important for people to live. What are some needs that people have?
Kid 1: Food!
Kid 2: Water!
Kid 3: Jesus!

beliefs about intelligence

I got a lot of feedback about this morning's post about the effects of the kind of praise you give a child after he succeeds. In short, when a child is told, "You must be smart at this," he's likely to choose an easy task the next time, as opposed to a more challenging task, for fear that he might not look smart. On the other hand, attributing the child's effort to success ("You must have worked really hard") yields more desirable results.

Here's some more about where this research comes from.

In addition to that interesting study in New York Magazine, Carol Dweck's theories on intelligence are really important to know. Basically, there's an entity theory of intelligence, and an incremental theory.

1. Entity theory. If someone has an entity theory of intelligence, that means that he thinks intelligence is fixed--that what you get is what you get, and that it's an unchanging internal characteristic. Now just imagine how damaging that is to a kid who isn't doing so well in school. She might never try any harder because what's the point? She's not going to get any smarter, and intelligence is what makes you successful.

2. Incremental theory. On the other hand, if a student has an incremental theory believes that his intelligence is malleable and can be increased through effort. How empowering! One of my professional development classes really drilled this in our heads. We did an entire project where we worked with one student and told them in as many ways as we could, "Effective effort leads to success." You wouldn't believe the stories we heard after this project was over! Students were attempting tasks a lot harder than they did before, they believed that they could try harder or use a different strategy the next time after they failed...it was magical.

So if you're working with kids or if you have kids, think about what messages you're sending them, even if you're not talking about this kind of stuff explicitly. This is why we don't say, "You must be smart at this."

Okay. Class over.

"you're smart" vs. "you worked hard"

A must-read for people who are involved in any child's life!

The New York Magazine wrote an article about this issue and talked about Carol Dweck, a researcher who does a lot with motivation. Must read!

"For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia...studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work--a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders--paints the picture most clearly.

Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles--puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, "You must be smart at this." Other students were praised for their effort: "You must have worked really hard."

Why just a single line of praise? "We wanted to see how sensitive children were," Dweck explained. "We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect."

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they'd learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck's team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? "When we praise children for their intelligence," Dweck wrote in her study summary, "we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." And that's what the fifth-graders had done: They'd chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed."

I hope you've made it this far. I hear so many parents and teachers telling kids, "You're so smart!" which can sound encouraging, but if emphasizing effort in this tiny little experiment makes such a marked difference, imagine what would happen if a child's life was full of these positive messages about effort! Gahh!

What do you think??