"We must enact sweeping and systemic change in order to improve education!" (This one sees everything that teachers are currently doing as wrong, and we must scrap everything we've ever known and do everything differently RIGHT NOW.)
and. . .
"We must get back to basics in order to improve education!" (This one is usually touted after we've all rallied around the first educational battlecry for a while, and need to regroup.)
It seems that the pendulum is moving again towards the latter, with Mike Schmoker's new book, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning. In it, he states that:
"On some level, schools know 'what is essential.' But we don't clarify or reinforce our priorities as often or as passionately as we should. It is very hard for us to 'ignore the rest," the endless bombardment of new programs or innovations that look so good but distract us from those few, powerful actions and structures that are the soul of good schooling." (p. 15)
To get in touch with the soul of good schooling, Schmoker advocates simplicity, clarity, and priority in a school's curriculum, designing lessons on a few sound practices, and promoting authentic literacy in all of the core areas. This isn't a true "back to basics" movement; it's more of a "back to what works and what's important" movement. Because, as educators know, what some educators consider the "basics" isn't always what works to improve student learning.
The timing of this book reflects many of my experiences as Teacher Coach over the past few years. Our school has not met AYP for 3 years, and our administration has done its best to research what works and implement those initiatives at our school in order to improve student learning. We have a lot of things on our plate, and this has, understandably, left a lot of teachers overwhelmed--I can see it in their faces when I am coaching them, their eyes and words pouring out frustration that's not directed at me, but directed at the fact that they cannot see the bigger picture of how all of those initiatives fit together for the better of their students.
Why can't they see it? Because, to them, it hasn't been simplified, clarified, or prioritized. But not out of any malicious intents on the part of our administration to create widespread teacher frustration; it's all really being done to improve student learning.
It's just that, on our wild ride on the educational pendulum towards changing everything, it has become very hard to see where exactly we were going. Also, when we're implementing new initiatives at the speed of light, it becomes hard to look back and see what good educational practices we may have missed along the way.
I believe that Schmoker's overall message is a good one, and a needed one, especially with NCLB's 2014-every-child-must-meet-even-though-the-tests-are-still-designed-around-the-bell-curve deadline fast approaching. In the mad rush to increase student achievement before that deadline, what we all probably need is a little more focus.