Ending Readicide

The information in this chapter doesn't surprise me. It just reinforces what I have been seeing in my own students and in the other reading we have done for this course.  Most of our kids have been is school since they were 3 years old.  They don't see and education as the great priviledge that it is; for many of them it is pure torcher.  I an not just talking about the student who has a harder time learning, but also the very bright kids who just don't "fit the mold".  The think outside the box, but we sit here shoving them in that box.  You have to bubble in these answers and don this canned experiment and be sure you get the same answer as everyone else.  We are destroying creativity with all the standards.  We don't have time to let the students ask question and find theanswer for themselves because we are "covering" so much material.  I am not ready to give up on American education, but we have got to start a revolotion and change the direction.

More Reading

More reading!  That's what the students say when anything is mentioned about reading in content areas.  Our school is focusing on the Reading content standard and we have started having the students keep reading logs.  they must read the equivalent of  2 books per month.  This is not really a lot considering the reading they do in each of their subjects, but all they think is MORE READING!  My honors chemistry students raised cane about having to read, they have spent so much time on the kind of reading discussed in this chapter that most of them don't even consider picking up a book for fun.  An then we come along trying to encourage them to read for entertainment,but are still putting a grade on it.  This is an area that I think could truly use some differentiation.  All this breaking text apart ruins it for good reader, so why not try a different approach for them while still providing the help for the students who need it.  This  sort of ties into the soap box I have been on for the last week.  We are creating or have created a culture of young people who don't know how to question which leads to not being able to think.  Science should be so easy to teach through inquiry, but all of my students are looking for the right answer to get the grade.  Very few care what the answer is for any other reason, but it is because I am telling them what questions to ask.  I think this is the same for reading the classic novels and poems.  I remember teachers telling me what the author meant,, not asking what I got from the text.  If we want students to be more engaged in what they are reading or what we are teaching in science we need to start letting them ask more questions.

Readicide? Yes and no.

I agree that the "chop-chop curriculum" takes all the fun out of reading a book, but I also believe that some people will never be life long readers reguardless of how language arts are taught in school.  I don't agree with Mr. Gallegher's premise that we must produce life long readers, who read for enjoyment.  I don't think everyone must leave school loving to read anymore that I believe every student will love science or math. We all are taught about multiple intelligences, learning styles and interest inventories, yet Gallegher wants to make everyone read for enjoyment.  I beleive everyone needs to be able to read.  Everyone needs to be able to gather information from text and follow directions, but to say that every person should get lost in a book for fun is trying to put all our students into the same mold.  I am a reader.  Reading for fun in one of my favortie things to do.  When I start a book, I can't stop until I get  finished.  I forget to "come up for air",   I forget to do the laundry, cook dinner or vaccum.  My 18 year old daughter has inherited my love of reading.  I have read to her since birth and one of her favorite thing to do is spend an afternoon at Barnes and Noble.  She keeps list of books she wants to read next.  On the other hand my husband has never read a book for fun. He reads magazines about his interest because the articles are short.  He gets aggrevatied at my daugher and I when we get all caught in a book and can't put it down.  Just because he doesn't read novels for enjoyment doesn't mean he can't read.  I think it is important to remember peoples interest and intellegences in this whole "Readicide" debate.

Endangered Minds

I am borrowing the title of chapter two because I agree so strongly with the idea that our students are not learning how to think and therefore we have endangered their minds.  I don't really know if it started with NCLB or before then, that teachers stopped expecting students to think.  Instead it seems like most of the test that are given ask the students to regurgitate information.  Students expect to be given a study guide that mirrors the test questions.  This falls in line with the fact that so many of them can not read for information.  If the wording is different they can't decern the meaning of the question.  Mr Gallagher is an English teacher and obviously writes about reading from his disciplines perspective and I am coming at it from the science classroom (specifically chemistry classroom.)  To truely say that a student has mastered any science standard they must be able to apply that standard.  But if a student is unable to decipher the meaning of the content in their text or any other reading you present to them it is hardly believable that they can master the standard.  I know the state test are generated from these standards, but it is difficult to go deep enough into any of them for the students to have time to construct any true knowledge.  I know I am talking in circles, but that is how I feel about the paradox of these standards and test.  The GPS that we teach require much more time than we have to be mastered by students.  Especially when the students arrive in chemistry unable to read the content.  They may be able to decode all of the words, but are not familiar with many of the meanings.  Or they have so many misconceptions about the subject as well as some word meanings.  As an example, I asked them to discriminate between the relative size of electrons and protons, ( this is lanquage from the GPS)  the only idea of the meaning of discriminate that my students had was related to race and being treated unfairly.  So I guess they think protons and electrons are mean to each other because of their size.  They are not good at using context to determine word meanings. 

Something that I found useful from this chapter is the idea of Articles of the Week. I think this could very easily be adapted for use in a science class serving two purposes, increasing their reading and integrating real world science issues into the classroom. Once again, this will take time away from the timeline for covering all the standards.  I want to have time to make what we do in class important to their lives.  I think I will just have to make time for these kinds of activites.

Classroom and School Structures

As I read the chapters for this week I was pleased to discover that I have been previously exposed to many of these research based best practices.  Most have been discussed as part of other courses in the MAT program.  Also, I am foutunate that my school provides professional development oppurtunities for our teachers and we have literacy coaches providing support.  I teach in a Title I school.  We are NI5 this year. The majority of my students are economically disadvantaged and we have a large number who read below grade level.  As I said, I have heard of most of these strategies, but I am still experimenting with how best to use them in a chemistry classroom.  I am beginning my third year teaching, and so far it is my best, but I want to continue to improve.  Our school is committed to improving and we are working on professional learning commumities within our building.  We stated a "Freshman Academy" this year  with teams to help our 9th grade class be more successful and insure that they reach the 10th grade.  We also have common planning for our subject area and are developing commons assessments.  I really believe that our new principal is heading in the right direction for us to become one of the 90/90/90 schools discussed in the text.