The Importance of Play in the Classroom...

In today's classrooms, especially from grades one on up, there is a lot of 'business' that MUST get done.  Besides teaching, teachers are required to pre-test, and post test students over lessons.  The testing results are expected to show a mastery of the lesson taught.  Students are expected to sit in their desks, following the rules: quietly sitting, not bothering their neighbors and staying on task.  Time for students to create seems to have vanished with the extra recess part of the day at most schools.

In an article from Reading Research Quarterly, Dr. Karen E. Wohlwend (2008) documented the importance of play in learning within a kindergarten classroom.  Specifically, Dr. Wohlwend goes on to say that playing school at school is an important tool for students.  In playing school the students pair up reading and playing as reading-to-play, and playing-to-read.  Students showed these disciplines connected by reading books, reading charts, pretending to be the teacher, and by teaching pretend students.  In these ways, students made sense of books and multimedia, as well as produced social spaces where they indicated how kindergarteners should acts as readers and writers, leaders and followers, or boys and girls.

If these practices in a kindergarten room reinforce peer learning and set the stage for norms expected within the classroom, why is it that school districts feel teachers should act more as disciplinarians and less like facilitators of knowledge bearers?  Why are students expected to sit and be spoken at all day long?  How drab.

I understand the importance of being able to account for what our students are learning, and agree that tests are a quick and easy way to test knowledge.  But I feel there are also other ways our students can show what they learn.  I feel deeper learning happens when students are allowed to learn through inquiry, and study topics that matter to them.  Upper elementary students still need play in their lives.  I hope to be able to facilitate playing-to-learning within my classroom through role playing.  To learn about different cultures and groups who shaped our history, and to grasp the important lessons to be learned, my classroom will transform into those different cultures.  As an example, when studying Indiana history, we shall become members of tribes or explorers from the early days of Indiana.  We will write about our experiences in authentic ways, keeping journals, writing letters, reading recipes.  We will read stories that connect us, our classroom, to our community of long ago.

I believe no child benefits from being seated at their desk the entire school day.  Truly, most adults in the real world function by interacting with others.  Most adults are not in stationary positioned all day long either.  Why then do we expect that of our students?   In order for our students to become active learners, they need to be inspired by teachers who are willing to interact with them.

~ltk

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 
                                                                                        ― Benjamin Franklin

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reference:

Wohlwend, K. E. (2008) . Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play and Design in an Early Literacy .  Reading Research Quarterly, 43(3) , pp. 332-334 . Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20068350?uid=3739664&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103781288033

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Testing. A Necessary Evil?

Testing.  A necessary evil?  Achievement...what is it, really?  How does one measure it and, can it authentically be measured?  These are questions that I am trying to define this semester as I study to become a classroom teacher.  

Standardized testing has been in place for a long, long time.  Not long ago, standardized tests were just one of many tests given to students to measure their abilities.  

As adults, we are tested daily, and in many ways.  Did you get up for work and arrive there at a certain time?  Did you care for or feed any children or pets before you left the house?  If you have children, did you make them a healthy lunch or make sure they have money to buy lunch?  Did you get them to school, or watch them catch the bus?  Did you follow the traffic laws on your own way to work, or to run errands?  Are you wearing appropriate clothes? Are you using appropriate language?  The “tests” we go through are non-stop.  Each “test” tells a tiny little bit about what makes us who we are.  

If I get up late one day and arrive late to where I need to be, most around me would chalk it up to I’m just having an “off” day.  One messed up “test” does not define all of me.  And yet, in our schools...one test can mean a lot.  

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), created in 2001, requires states to develop assessments in basic skills.  In order for schools to receive federal funding, they must give these assessments to all students at selected grade levels.  AND, annual improvement must be shown. 

The assessments given in Indiana, are the ISTEP tests.  ISTEP is given in grades 3-9 each spring.   In grade 10, students take the ISTEP and a Graduation Qualifying Exam.  If students pass those tests, they will be able to graduate from high school upon finishing up their required credits.  If they do not pass the Graduation Qualifying Exam, they would be placed in remedial classes until they pass.  Actually, at any grade level students may be placed in remedial classes based on their one test score.  

NCLB creates high stakes testing.  High stakes tests do NOT mean the characteristics of the test are high stakes, but rather that the consequences placed on the outcome are high stakes.  

A school that receives passing test scores is eligible for federal funding or specific grants.  

As an educator, I know there is more that makes up Timmy than what one test tells.  But to policy makers, if Timmy doesn’t get a certain passing score, or show improvement, he may be retained.  Possibly, I could get fired as well, based on Timmy’s score.  (More than likely though, based on the overall scores of my class.)  And if I get fired based on my student’s scores, good luck to me in getting re-hired else where.  I am expected to teach material that is or may be on the tests...not necessarily things to enhance my student's lives, or make them richer thinkers.  Yet, I know that all students are NOT created equally!  Different techniques for learning work for different students.  Tests can’t always measure, AUTHENTICALLY, what a person/student knows or needs to know!  For example, I can bake a meal from scratch, make Halloween costumes by reading a pattern, and administer shots to my diabetic cat two times a day, and yet there isn’t a test I can think of that would allow me to shine in those areas of my interests and abilities.  

Studies have shown that when levels of teaching to the test increase, the quality in level of instruction goes down.  Principals are walking that line between enforcing policy makers policies and allowing teachers the freedom to teach in their classrooms.  Parents need to take note of what is happening in schools.  It is natural as a parent to want to trust in the system that has worked for so long.  But, the decisions being made in schools are really being made by policy makers removed from getting to know your child.  Parents and teachers need to work together.  Principals and teachers need to be supported by parents.  Parents need to connect with their policy makers.  A hands-off approach will not fix what is ailing in today’s education system.  

We may be creating a majority of students who can take tests, but intellectually we are not stimulating our children.  Future policy makers won’t be armed with creative abilities, and in my opinion, creativity leads to solving problems.  

How sad to label an entire school as failing or needing to be restructured based on one test score.  Teachers are trained to teach.  We need to allow them to shine by letting them do so.    

~ltk

CITATION: Baker, E. A., & Dooley, C. (2010, March 1). Teaching language arts in a high stakes era. Voice of Literacy. Podcast retrieved from http://voiceofliteracy.org

Practical Thoughts and Helpful Words...

“You cannot see into children’s minds, but their behaviors can guide your teaching decisions.” 
                                                                           ~ educators Fountas and Pinnell (2006) 

As an educator, it is my job to: 

• confer with my students as they read, and as they write 

• to take note and take notes

• to evaluate the things they can do, and the things they can almost do

• to be able to note when a student is ready for the next challenge in their reading and writing growth  

A good teacher makes plans for her whole class, small groups of students, and one-on-one teaching. Then, she can almost simultaneously execute her plans!  But, teachers are not superhuman beings.  They do eat, sleep and exercise too!  Sometimes they even spell words incorrectly or mispronounce them. 

To allow me to be the best teacher educator I can be, I will work with my student’s families.  With that thought in mind, here are a few tips I will share with my classroom families:   

• No one is held back from beginning reading, even if they do not know all of their letter or letter sounds!  

• Share with you student, no one memorizes every book they read!  Readers learn to figure out the words.  Remind them that you learned how to do this and they will be able to learn this too!

• Reading isn’t about just saying the words...it’s all the thinking that goes on in your head at the same time!  

• Remember those “rules” about language that WE learned...less than 45% of the time those hold true!  Besides, if you have to stop and recall a “rule,” you might forget what it is you are reading about!  

• If a book is too easy for your student, that’s okay!  Quantity of successful reading builds the assured independence of a competent reader. But, if you think your student needs more variety, send me a note.  We, your student and I, can work together to find some other great books to read!

• It’s more important to me that your student understand and comprehends what they are reading. I place less emphasis on students reading levels.  AND I know each student  will progress at a level and speed that is appropriate for them.  

• To create a love of reading in your student...read aloud to them!  Enjoying books together is a wonderful way to share time. 

• Let them read to you, then celebrate their independence of being the reader! Be a good listener.  

I know these tips may seem more appropriate for beginning readers and their families to hear, but as a mother of two college students, it is ALWAYS important to be a good listen to the children in our lives.  ~ltk