In Praise of Small Schools (in 24 pages)

8/14/2019 In Praise of Small Schools (in 24 pages)

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LookForPatterns.com VisualAndActive.comGeocities.com/talkinternational1/mentorsonvideoResolveToHeal.com BuildingInternationalBridges.comPronunciationPatterns.com (for U.S. students to learn how toteach accent reduction) Critical thinking: Randi.orgSnopes.com Check out a rumor before passing on somethingthat you heard. Lets all boycott one gasoline company andthat will force the company to reduce prices. (Oh, yeah?)

In short, Littkys work is not a revolutionary method. Littkycopies what tutors have been doing for millennia --- know thestudent, shape the curriculum to match the students

strengths, find experts to train the student, push the child withrigorous material that makes sense to the student.

In Praise ofWhy not call Dennis Littkys office? 401 752-3442. Ask why astudent-centered environment must be in a small school toachieve the results that we are all seeking. Small Schools

Education is everybodys business.Dennis Littky With boardwork by students at Downtown Academy of

Technology and Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FloridaThis booklet is dedicated to the friendly and confident students and teachers

at Met Center who gave me a warm welcome when I visited on 30 November2005. They spent hours answering my questions about their school.

FindASmallSchool.com(Answers at the end of the booklet)

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Your time will spark something in the brains of the kids. A

teacher cant always make that happen. You can.An open letter to parents and other potentialmentors You are a mentor.

The New Three Rs 2. Record yourselfand send the video to Box 30555, Ft.Lauderdale, FL 33303, or write [email protected]. Let students hear youranswers to: What do you remember from school?

By Steve McCrea, Tutor and Mentor

Im a tutor for middle school students, so I often get asked:

What should my child be studying? Can you recommend a

good web site to help him get ahead? My child has difficulty

readingcan you tutor

him? Parents could present

other questions to a teacher:

What should parents be

learning? I would answer,

Did you catch that

important speech given by

Bill Gates?

What did you do to learn to read? What did you like to read?

What books or articles or magazines do you recommend others

to read? Tell us about an article that you read recently.

What did you learn in school that you really value today?

What did you learn outside school that you use in your lifetoday?

Do you remember a teachers name? Tell the camera the nameof that teacher and why that teacher sticks out in your memory.

3. Become a phone mentor. One phone call per day. Justfive or six calls each week.

4. Ask to become a mentor to a class. The best teacher is afacilitator who allows mentors (adults who are not teachers) totalk with and listen to students..

In February 2005, Bill Gates gave a landmark speechat a conference of governors praising small schools. Imissed it, and chances are that you did, too, becausethe speech was overwhelmed by the medias focus onthe Michael Jackson trial and Terri Schiavo. Heresthe essence of what Gates said:

5. Read some of these books:A Whole New Mindand Free Agent Nation by Dan PinkThe World is Flatby Thomas Friedman

Blinkby Malcolm Gladwell and anything on snopes.com

Successful schools are built on principles that can

be applied anywhere. These are the new three Rs,

the basic building blocks of better high schools:

The first R is Rigor making sure all students are

given a challenging curriculum that prepares them

for college or work. The second R is Relevance

You can be a mentor.Visit a school and ask to sit with a class.

Tell students how school is related to your

work.Proceeds from the sale of this booklet support the work of smallschools.

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5 What is Next?making sure kids have courses and projects that

clearly relate to their lives and their goals. The

third R is Relationships making sure kids have a

number of adults who know them, look out for

them, and push them to achieve.

What can each of us do to turn bigschools into small schools?What can each of us do to help smallschools become stronger? The three Rs

are almost

always easierto promote in

smaller

schools. The smaller size gives teachers andstaff the chance to create an environment where

students achieve at a higher level and rarely fall

through the cracks. Students in smaller schools

are more motivated, have higher attendance rates,

feel safer, and graduate and attend college in

higher numbers.

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Just keep asking those two questions. The answer will come.Then act on what you believe is correct.

We might each start by visiting these web sites:www.BigPicture.org

www.MetCenter.org

Become a mentor: geocities.com/talkinternational1/mentorsonvideos

www.BuildingInternationalBridges.com

The key to their success is you.Become a mentor . Small schools need adul ts tocome into the school and to listen to questions fromstudents. As a mentor, your role is easy: Make surethe students you talk wit h are given somethingunconventional. Give them a role model.

What Can We Do? Bill GatesFebruary 26, 2005National Education Summit on High Schools(Wouldnt it be nice if change happened instantly after

everyone read these quotes? Wouldnt it be an efficient world

if we could implement change just by asking every teacher,parent and student to read the facts?) Contents of This Booklet

1 The Size of the School

2 The Role of Adults1. Visit a middle school. There is one task that a teacher cantdo or pay for: getting an adult to speak SINCERELY to a classand to answer their questions.

3 What is the Secret Behind the Met Center in Rhode

Island?

5 What is Next?4 Questions
http://www.bigpicture.org/http://www.bigpicture.org/


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1 The Size of the School

Dear Parent:

Lets think of an example of a small school thatreceives public money... Hmm... That middle schoolhas 700 or 1,000 students. Most public high schoolsare over 1,000 students (the big three in my city are all

over 1,400 students).

Oh, charter schools -- those hybrid entities that have anagreement with the state (a charter) to operate as anonprofit organization with less of the constraints of apublic school (no union, so its easier to hire and fire

teachers).

There are scores of complaints about charters:- "They don't have a football team"- "They don't have enough students"- "They have to eat lunch in the classroom."- "They don't have a media center."

- "The principal of that charter school is from anothercountry and he doesn't understand kids in the USA."- "They have to take a bus to get to a playground orrecess area."- They are underfunded because they dont haveenough students, so they dont have enough money.- They dont have enough students so my child

doesnt have enough friends.

Most politicians think the answer to the problems of highschools is to exert m ore control. But t he real answer isless control. In the free agent futu re, our teens will learnby less schooling and more doing.(Dan Pink, Free Agent Nation.)

What w ould Ben Frank li n say about th eopportunit y that Lit tk y off ers each of us?On the final day, as the last delegates were signing thedocument, Franklin point ed toward the sun on the backof the Convention president's chair. Observing thatpainters had found i t dif ficult to di stinguish in their art arising sun from a setting sun, he went on to say: "I haveoft en ... in the course of t he session ... looked at t hat sunbehind t he President wit hout being able to tell whether itwas rising or setting. But now at length I have the

happiness to know it is a rising and not a setting sun."http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/GOV/frankln.htm

Answers to the board work: sand box, long underwear, reading between the

lines, man overboard! Anyone familiar with middle school students will

recognize the joyous love of humor. How can school be reformatted to keep

the humor and build relevance and relationships?
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/GOV/frankln.htmhttp://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/GOV/frankln.htm


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WARNING: I have mentioned one of the keyaspects of the Big Picture school to several teachers: Theadvisor teaches all of the subjects. I rejected this idea atfirst and I have grown to accept it. The reactions of other

teachers are consistent:

In Broward County: www.BrowardSchools.com andclick on School Info. Then select Charters.In Dade County, www.dadeschools.net, click onSchools, then School Information and select

Charters.In Palm Beach County, www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us,then click on theSchool Info buttonon the horizontal bar,then click on CharterSchools.

How can one person teach math, history, a foreign

language, chemistry, biology, physics, and English

Literature? Where is the rigor?

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How can one teacher be good at all of those subjects?

I was terrible at (math, history, whatever). I would make a

terrible advisor in that system.

Good searching.Two suggestions:a) Is it so terrible for the student to sit with an adult who has a

fear of math or a history of negative results with science? If the

student lacks a knack for algebra, who better to teach flexibility

and optimism than an adult who failed algebra in 9th

grade?

b) Let this idea sit with you for a while. It might appear

impossible to convince a teachers union to encourage members

to teach a spectrum of subjects instead of their favorite ortheir special gift. For

some students, an English

teacher who hates math

might be the perfect adult

to guide the student

toward understanding

quantitative reasoning. A

science teacher who canbarely write an essay might be the best writing coach for some

students. Students needing additional rigor can be assigned to

other teachers/advisors for specific needs. In short, The Big

Picture method has pushed me to look at alternatives to how I

was taught.

Find A Small School FindASmallSchool.com

Lets be clear:

1. There are some charter schools that are struggling.

2. Struggling schools turn around when parents get involved.

3. The Power of One means that you (the One) have the power withother parents to make a school better.

You dont have to wait for the big school (public or private) to

discover the magic ofsmall learning academies. You can move your

child to a small school. You. You dont have to wait for your current

big school to improve.

You can start the improvement today.

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4 Questions

A COMMON OBJECTION to SMALL

SCHOOLS: Our schools are focusing onreducing class size, not school size. We seek to

provide a student-centered environment.

RESPONSE: Let us emphasize the differencebetween being a student in a small school and

being a student in a small class in a largeschool.

Bill Gates hammers the point of small schools, where kids feelsafer and everyone knows your name. It doesnt matter whatsize the student-centered environment is when I walk outthat classroom door, if I can dissolve into 800 or 1000 other

bodies, then Im not in a small school. I dont get the small-school benefit that Dennis Littky writes about and that BillGates is pursuing with his foundation.

Why not take a moment, right now, and visit

BigPicture.org?

In short1) Howard Gardner says that assessing actual

understanding will cost a lot more that we currentlyspend on written tests.

2) Littky says that mentors, exhibitions and learningthrough interests are needed to supplement the typicalschool textbook and testing

3) Robert Reich does not have much complimentary to sayabout standardized tests (see page 17 of this booklet).

How can this Met Center model be applied to middleschools? Or to traditional high schools?

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3 What is the Secret

Behind the Met Center in

Rhode Island?

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The Met s learning goals fall int o f ivecategories: personal qualit ies,communication, and empirical,

quantitative, and social reasoning.

Empirical reasoning, the school explains,means to t hink like a scientist: to useempirical evidence and a logical processto make decisions and evaluate

hypotheses.

Communication goals include: tounderstand your audience; to write, read,speak, and listen well; to use technologyand art istic expression t o communicate;and to be exposed t o another language.

From the Met Centers portfolio web site

www.whatkidscando.org /portfoliosmallschools/met/metintro.pdf

The Met Centers web site lists the following items:

a student- teacher r atio of 15:1,high standards, andstrong f amily engagement.

Its hallm arks includeinternships,individual learning plans,advisory, and

a breakthrough college transition program.

Metcenter.org

Hmm. It sounds like any other school. High

Standards for most of us means We use expensivetextbooks and expect our students to do oneroushomework. At the Met, the standards are for rigorouswork in the students area of passion.

Find A Small School FindASmallSchool.comAdvisory for most schools might mean we have aguidance department and we help students find

possible careers. In the Met, the advisory is the class

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Documents

In Praise of Small Schools (in 24 pages)