Two examples of Authentic Education
Debates over superior pedagogy in the conceptual realm are all well and good, but it's edifying to occassionally bring it to a very concrete level. I want to talk about two schools today, an elementary school and a middle/high school, both of which demonstrate amazing results on the back of programs in the neighborhood of my ideal Authentic Education. First we're going to visit Dayton's Bluff Elementary of St. Paul, MN and then the incredible H-B Woodlawn program of Arlington, VA.
Dayton's Bluff was profiled by the pro-NCLB Achievement Alliance. The piece was written by a colleague of mine associated with the Education Trust, a woman for whom I have a great deal of respect. Dayton's Bluff is a high-minority, high-poverty school, that, as the profile notes, five years ago "was known as the worst school in St. Paul and one of the worst in Minnesota." After recieving a new principal and initiating a new program of reforms, Dayton's Bluff has gone from under 20% of third-graders passing proficient on both the reading and math MCA to over 80%.
How was it done? There were plenty of factors, such as the new principal and an increase in community resources, but pedagogically the shift was to the America's Choice program developed by the National Center on Education and the Economy.
Note how this relates back to the previous discussion of constructivism; it isn't thematic learning, it isn't fact-less learning, and it isn't anti-intellectual anti-rigor. This is an example of a sustainable reform that pedagogically resembles Authentic Education on at least some levels. It also shows, of course, that correct pedagogy is a necessary but not sufficient cause for successful learning; a great style of teaching still needs good teachers, a good principal and good resources. But similarly, good teachers, a good principal and good resources aren't going to impart the deep critical thinking skills doing drill-and-kill, for example. The pedagogy is the most fundamental layer, and everything builds from that.
Dayton's Bluff, happily, had something of a "perfect storm" of these factors -- but it's not random, and it's somewhat replicatable. There is no one-size-fits-all model of educational reform, which in some ways is the beauty of Authentic Education; it is a broad set of principles that can be tailored to individual schools, given the appropriate tools for implementation.
One school which is markedly different from Dayton's Bluff but still embodies these precepts is H-B Woodlawn. Woodlawn is a relatively small, public "alternative school," and one has to apply to get in; however, by law the application process is decided by random lottery weighted to ensure a locally proportional makeup (6% black, 19% hispanic, 15% FRL). The hallmark of Woodlawn is student involvement; throughout the grades (one can start in the program at grade 6) students recieve incrementally more authority over their own education. This comes in the amount of "unsupervised" time students recieve to do with as they wish -- study, extracurricular activities, take a nap, etc. Up to the student. Additionally, Woodlawn students participate in the governance of their school via regular "Town Hall" meetings where substantive school policy issues are decided, and by sitting on faculty hiring committees.
Most importantly, students take an active role in the classroom. An article in the Virginia Education Association's Journal (not online) several months ago profiled a 7th and 9th grade science class at Woodlawn. Coyotes had been sighted in the woods around the school after no sightings for years, and the students wanted to explore the hypotheses that coyotes had returned to Arlington. Guided by the teachers, the students went about designing an experiment, learning the local topography and ecosystem, writing grant proposals for the money to purchase GPS equipment and laser-guided cameras, and then performing the lab. This style of hands-on student-led learning is by all reports seen throughout Woodlawn.
Students with unsupervised time, students on the faculty hiring committees, students choosing their own projects -- recipe for disaster, right? Woodlawn is consistently ranked as the top high school in Arlington and one of the top high schools in the nation. The average SAT score hovers around 1200, 150 points higher than the national average. Over 90% of the students go on to college, and not just any colleges -- among others, the class of 2004 sent students to Harvard, Stanford, William & Mary, Penn State, Johns Hopkins and my very own University of Virginia.
Authentic Education works not only in theory, but in practice; The H-B Woodlawn program and Dayton's Bluff are just two tangible examples.
Dayton's Bluff was profiled by the pro-NCLB Achievement Alliance. The piece was written by a colleague of mine associated with the Education Trust, a woman for whom I have a great deal of respect. Dayton's Bluff is a high-minority, high-poverty school, that, as the profile notes, five years ago "was known as the worst school in St. Paul and one of the worst in Minnesota." After recieving a new principal and initiating a new program of reforms, Dayton's Bluff has gone from under 20% of third-graders passing proficient on both the reading and math MCA to over 80%.
How was it done? There were plenty of factors, such as the new principal and an increase in community resources, but pedagogically the shift was to the America's Choice program developed by the National Center on Education and the Economy.
The way America’s Choice works is that schools adopt the NCEE’s “New Standards” – which are aligned with but more rigorous than Minnesota standards -- and assign at least two coaches, a design coach and a literacy coach, to work with teachers on organizing their classrooms. America’s Choice classrooms are built on a workshop model, in which teachers present ten minute, very focused, mini-lessons and then lead students in independent and group work and a classroom-wide sharing of results, all geared to the standards.
Note how this relates back to the previous discussion of constructivism; it isn't thematic learning, it isn't fact-less learning, and it isn't anti-intellectual anti-rigor. This is an example of a sustainable reform that pedagogically resembles Authentic Education on at least some levels. It also shows, of course, that correct pedagogy is a necessary but not sufficient cause for successful learning; a great style of teaching still needs good teachers, a good principal and good resources. But similarly, good teachers, a good principal and good resources aren't going to impart the deep critical thinking skills doing drill-and-kill, for example. The pedagogy is the most fundamental layer, and everything builds from that.
Dayton's Bluff, happily, had something of a "perfect storm" of these factors -- but it's not random, and it's somewhat replicatable. There is no one-size-fits-all model of educational reform, which in some ways is the beauty of Authentic Education; it is a broad set of principles that can be tailored to individual schools, given the appropriate tools for implementation.
One school which is markedly different from Dayton's Bluff but still embodies these precepts is H-B Woodlawn. Woodlawn is a relatively small, public "alternative school," and one has to apply to get in; however, by law the application process is decided by random lottery weighted to ensure a locally proportional makeup (6% black, 19% hispanic, 15% FRL). The hallmark of Woodlawn is student involvement; throughout the grades (one can start in the program at grade 6) students recieve incrementally more authority over their own education. This comes in the amount of "unsupervised" time students recieve to do with as they wish -- study, extracurricular activities, take a nap, etc. Up to the student. Additionally, Woodlawn students participate in the governance of their school via regular "Town Hall" meetings where substantive school policy issues are decided, and by sitting on faculty hiring committees.
Most importantly, students take an active role in the classroom. An article in the Virginia Education Association's Journal (not online) several months ago profiled a 7th and 9th grade science class at Woodlawn. Coyotes had been sighted in the woods around the school after no sightings for years, and the students wanted to explore the hypotheses that coyotes had returned to Arlington. Guided by the teachers, the students went about designing an experiment, learning the local topography and ecosystem, writing grant proposals for the money to purchase GPS equipment and laser-guided cameras, and then performing the lab. This style of hands-on student-led learning is by all reports seen throughout Woodlawn.
Students with unsupervised time, students on the faculty hiring committees, students choosing their own projects -- recipe for disaster, right? Woodlawn is consistently ranked as the top high school in Arlington and one of the top high schools in the nation. The average SAT score hovers around 1200, 150 points higher than the national average. Over 90% of the students go on to college, and not just any colleges -- among others, the class of 2004 sent students to Harvard, Stanford, William & Mary, Penn State, Johns Hopkins and my very own University of Virginia.
Authentic Education works not only in theory, but in practice; The H-B Woodlawn program and Dayton's Bluff are just two tangible examples.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, September 10, 2005 at 11:08 AM.
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