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I don’t mean to take away from your point that these new standards have higher expectations for us , but I am of the camp that yes, physics teachers should find a way to foster awareness. Literature teachers should be incorporating tech into the curriculum, and we should all be teaching in multiple modalities.
Think about this way; we have a job that carries with it very important responsibilities. We have to educate all of the multiple level students we teach to the extent that they also do well on the indicators (that’s the idea anyway). It makes sense that, as that’s a tough job, the standards for that job should be tough too. Maybe its just me, but all of your examples seem to make perfect sense to me in terms of these new standards are good thing for our kids.
Just my two sense.

The standards for the subjects are a pathetic disgrace to actually try to follow. It is a complete joke. Not even my principal knows how to read the standards properly and follow them. Its unfortunate that there are people out there who come up with this bogus stuff that clearly makes no sense. I don’t follow them at all and most others don’t either. I don’t think anyone can really explain the standards for each subject anyhow. Another hysterical situation in the system.

Hey there, I’m fairly new to the site. I’m a teaching artist of 16 years experience in NYC schools, partnering with teachers in all grades, though lately I’ve been in middle and high schools.

Because I am partnering with teachers, and because the unit we lead together is of substance, and always of unique content, I often find myself in situations where we need to navigate the waters of alignment and connections between curriculum, standards, and a work of art (in my case dance).

I’ve got some ambiguous feelings about your post, that really have my wheels turning, so I hope this adds to the conversation. Mostly these center around the idea of differentiation of instruction. I think you are right on that every subject area, at every grade level, and with every distinct group of students, will have their own priorities, determined by the teacher, as to how to approach the content. Indeed, these priorities may even shift from one unit or even week to the next. (heck, why stop there? One day to the next)

But I think that to a certain degree, students need to learn how to teach themselves, to understand things. At some level, about some things anyway, its GOT to get personal. And I think that further differentiation is a doable road to it. Even getting to sit in a different arrangement introduces a kinesthetic change.

So I’m not championing the standards, I’m just wondering, because reflecting on my own teaching practice, and those of teachers who are brave enough to discuss such things, is illuminating.

Thanks for the post. and thanks for the conversation.

John, there are a few issues here.

First of all, the teaching standards say that teachers should “attend to an individual student’s personal and family experiences by incorporating multiple perspectives” and “create opportunities for students to apply disciplinary and cross-disciplinary knowledge to personal experiences and real world problems.” I don’t think this is always necessary or appropriate.

Second, I have no argument with you about ELLs–except that it’s possible to go overboard in making the material accessible with pictures, etc. Students need at some point to struggle with things they don’t understand. That means listening without pictures, reading difficult books slowly until they understand them, working on a problem until the solution comes through, etc. I don’t mean that a teacher should leave them in the lurches. But there isn’t any learning without difficulty at some point.

So there are difficult judgment calls. My concern with the standards is that they take all sorts of things that teachers do in various combinations, in different ways, and to different degrees, and require (I assume) that all teachers do all of them visibly. I don’t really know how NYSED plans to implement the standards, but I assume that teachers will be expected to show evidence that they are meeting them.

As for content standards, no, we don’t really have literature standards. The New York ELA standards don’t mention any works of literature, authors, or specific time periods. The percentage of students who read any Browning at all (Robert or Elizabeth Barrett) is probably tiny. Now, I don’t mean the standards should spell out exactly what students should read–but many assume that “content” is already addressed, when it really isn’t. You have some schools with superb literature curricula–and some that continue the elementary- and middle-school focus on strategies. Some will say that you can’t have a literature curriculum, because different students have different reading needs–but there again, at some point you have to expect students to rise to the challenge.

Lynn, absolutely, students need to learn how to teach themselves. But what about learning to handle difficult assignments? It seems unlikely that students will be in any position to direct their own learning unless they can tackle the structured challenges they are given. There are exceptions, of course. But it is strange to me that there’s so much talk about having students “construct meaning” and so forth and so little about asking them to sit with a difficult text until parts of it start to make sense, and then more parts, and then the whole.

Does this mean, then, that organizations like departments of education should also use research-based initiatives? Or should they continue to close schools, build charters, attack unions, and vilify teachers in the press? Should they allow private entities to use schools as playgrounds and assume that the size of a person’s pocketbook is analogous to the validity of that persons ideas?

Or does the idea of using research-based notions apply only to classroom teachers? And if it does, does that mean we are free to reject the various written and unwritten mandates to use whatever trendy methodology has come down the pike that week?

Great piece, and don’t mean to criticize it. But I’m just asking anyway.

Diana,
I don’t want to dull you with a point by point here, but I would like to say 1) it is a really great piece (you know, this is actually the first time I’m talking about pedagogy on GS?) and thanks for it. And 2) I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about some things. I hope that what you noted as a concern doesn’t amount to one, because it would be impossible to visibly do all of these things at the same time (this expectation would amount to an evil administrator’s wildest dream in the middle of what some (like me) feel is a war on teachers). 

One last thing about the physics teacher example from the piece; Einstein split the atom because he was interested in making the world a better place, and I think that a physics teacher should be overtly underscoring the point that science has a real potential effect on our culture and society whenever he or she can. Just my opinion.
Thanks again for the piece!

Diana,
Thanks for your replies to everyone’s comments.

I’m always curious about the different ways folks break down these common problems that anyone in a classroom (student or teacher) faces.

For instance, I view the capacity to “to sit with a difficult text until parts of it start to make sense, and then more parts, and then the whole.” (well said BTW) to be essentially a self educational activity. In my own practice in classrooms, I need to make students comfortable with complex artistic expressions (Dances). Getting kids who may never have seen a live dance feel comfortable with proposing interpretations, and to try to solve some of the knotty problems in the dance for themselves, is not an easy proposition. But asking them to “stay with it” doesn’t do much in my experience.

I need to reveal to them that they have the means, and then provide a few tools, and then set up simple investigations that lead to deeper investigations, that lead to asking “what does this mean?”, and then give them the time and the support for them to figure it out. This should sound familiar, because I’ve spent years working with passionate, deep teachers, like yourself. So yeah, I’m very aware I am building capacity to “construct meaning”. And in the meantime, they are “sit(ting) with a difficult text until parts of it start to make sense, and then more parts, and then the whole.” So I’m curious to hear about the differences you perceive in this in order to challenge my own thinking.

Finally, I agree folks can throw around words (differentiation comes to mind) As a dancer, I’ve never understood why folks assume that language is so clear while movement is not. I find language as situationally (mis)understood as the most “abstract” movement.

But isn’t differentiation the application of different (sometime subtly so) strategies with different groups of students in order to address styles of learning, and support deeper understandings that have been identified as important learning goals by a teacher or team of teachers? I mean, those are my words for it right now. Is there not agreement on that?
Thanks so much.

Diana,
Thank you for the link. Have only read through it twice, and will need time to gather the nuances and implications more fully. In summation, I am not surprised, nor do I disagree, that it is the content of a subject area that will determine the mode in which it should be approached. I do not think that “dancing” an algorithm will lead to any better understanding of algebra. (Though I know choreographers who use them in composing pieces). ((But thats another conversation, isn’t it?))

But, upon reflection, I do think think there is a big “lack” in many classrooms, when subject content alone becomes the meaning. To really explore and consider “Fair is foul and foul is fair” is such a wonderful example. I feel like there is so much potential meaning available for students in that line, a meaning that includes and owns its MANY layers of meaning within the play, but that then extends beyond, into the expanse of their own lives. I believe passionately in Maxine Greene’s call to “lend the work of art your life.” And to me that means the understandings we build are not only literary in this case, but metaphoric. And my experience is that the metaphoric is a crafty creature, not to be glimpsed if one’s approach stays within a few defined domains. Metaphors leap, and I think the “differentiation” I seek in my practice is to set up a greater likelihood that the cognitive will join the imaginative…and support curiosity in a supportive, not frustrating, way.

I recognize I have strayed far from the “standards” subject, but have enjoyed, and been enriched by, this conversation. Thanks.