National Standards

Websites for Learning
Funology has all kinds of acitivities for kids ages 5-8!!
Time for Kids - A powerful teaching tool, TIME For Kids builds reading and writing skills and is easily integrated across your curriculum, including social studies, science and math.
Discovery Kids is based on the Discovery Channel and has many interesting science and and nature activites and information.

Articles to Read
Differentiate Don't Standardize by Nel Noddings
"What do advocates of national standards expect to accomplish? Unless the ends sought are both significantly important and feasible, we should turn our attention to problems that are truly pressing, such as reducing the number of high school dropouts and curbing youth violence."
Debunking the Case for National Standards by Alfie Kohn
"I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does. Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability” began to squeeze the life out of classrooms."
We've Always Had National Standards by Diane Ravitch
"Most educators believe that the United States has never had national standards in education, but this is not correct. Without any action on the part of the federal government, we have indeed had standards in the past, and we have them now. They were not written in a document, nor are they now, but they are real nonetheless."
College and the Workforce: What 'Readiness' Means by Catherine Gewertz
"As the standards movement has evolved, one of its key questions has shifted. Instead of simply asking what students should know and be able to do to complete high school, educators and policymakers are now asking what students need to master to be prepared for the higher-level demands of college and career."
Teachers' Letters to Obama by Anthony Cody
"The overwhelming message is that, although we supported President Obama as a candidate and continue to have hope today, we do not feel heard by this administration, and have grave concerns about many of the actions of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan."
Educational Delema: Rigor v Relevance by Tom Vander Ark
"I remain committed to the idea that we can build rich instructional systems around fewer, clearer, higher standards--systems that incorporate content-embedded assessment (e.g., score from a learning game), performance assessment (e.g., essays and projects), adaptive assessment (e.g., quick online quizzes), as well as summative assessment--that promote rather than detract from engaging personalized learning experiences."

Thoughts from Yrisarri
In a mobile society standardized education seems an essential ingredient for success.  The big question is how do we standardize instruction across a vast population with diverse needs and wants?  Should all students in our public schools be studying the same thing at the same time? Are national standards a limiting factor to one of our national strengths ie: creative thinking? Will national standards prepare all students for their future? Will national standards cause teachers to become little more than technicians for a program? Will national standards solve our education dilemma? Do we truly have a dilemma?

These questions and more come to mind as I follow the debate on implementation of national standards for our schools.  My primary concern really comes down to the question of how we view our children.  It seems like we are experiencing another top down educational reform by people who are not cognizant of the true needs of our children.  Seldom are children mentioned as something other than a statistic to be manipulated by reform so that our national interests will be served.

If there is an educational dilemma it is based in my observation that many students see no connection between what they learn in school and what they perceive to be needed for their future.  By and large our students are not motivated to learn, and those who are learn to pass the tests.

I believe there have always been standards in our schools and that those students who desire to go to college are able to acquire what they need to succeed in college from their high schools.  Those students who did not wish to go to college have had various options during high school to pursue their perceived needs.  But, high school has not provided a well-balanced curriculum that provides for intellectual, physical  and emotional growth.  Without this balance we are sending our young people to confront life with only part of the skills they need.

Our emphasis has historically been on the intellectual side of the balance scale and today we have inactive kids who have a difficult time getting along with others who are different from them.  I believe that if we are going to create national standards they should be geared around developing programs that decrease our need for prisons,develop healthy and inquisitive young adults.

It is time we reorganize rather than reform education.  Instead of spending our time developing programs that have students lock stepping through an education, we should develop and organize our education system to allow for individuality and creative thinking.  A caring system that values the individual will cause more students to be motivated and prepare themselves for their futures.

There is agreement that we have a problem in particular with keeping our kids in school and that problem manifests itself around the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence.  Why don’t we address the problem at that level?  Most of the information needed for further learning is in place by that time in our children’s education.  Why not graduate our students from mandatory education at age 15?  If they have learned the information that our society deems necessary for understanding our society we should acknowledge it.  In New Mexico we have a pass or fail test given to students at 15 testing that type of knowledge.  Why should a student go on if they can pass that test?

After graduation, with basic knowledge for living in our society in place, let students choose what they wish to study for, college, business, vocation, military, or paraprofessional work.  As the Australian's call it, let us develop a useful tertiary education system from ages 16-20.  They can all be rigorous programs that teach all students workforce skills at the same time.  Aren’t workforce skills the ability to understand that you must be on time, you must focus on your work, you must take responsibility for what you do?  Reading is not the problem in our youthful workforce; it is attitude!

While my idea is not perfect and perhaps not workable, let us use the strength of America, creative thinking, to solve our problems.  Let us work together to identify the true problems and then create local solutions to those problems.  If we continue the path we are on we will only do more of the same, continue to create students as products rather than individuals whose futures are in their hands not ours!

School LIbraries

Websites for Learning
Digital Storytelling is an Open Thinking Wiki with some good resources for teaching about stories.
LibraryGames.com  is committed to making the Library fun and Librarian's lives easier by creating entertaining educational library games, library videos, and Cds for school Media Centers and Public Libraries. 
Zotero is a free easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.
ICyte enables you to highlight and save text on any webpage, allowing you to recall the most relevant
information.
Brain Games contains scientifically designed games to help you imporve memory and attention.

Articles to Read
The Impact of the School Library Media Centers on Academic Achievement  from the ERIC Digest
Proficient Readers Need Good School Libraries by Gaby Chapman from Education Week
School Libraries key in Teaching Information Skills by staff of ESchoolNews.com

Thoughts From Yrisarri
A local televsion news commentary program recently featured a panel sharing thoughts about different aspects of funding state and city programs.  During the discussion one panelist pointed out that library funding needed to be on the table.  His reasoning was that libraries are “antiquated institutions” in today’s world. If you go to a school or public library you will find that they are busy places.  So why do so many people believe the library is an antiquated institution? 

Perhaps it is a misunderstanding of the multifaceted roles of libraries and librarians.  One must view this institution through a wider lens that focuses on the needs of all members of a society rather than individual needs.  As a school librarian my roles have included purchasing all types of media, organizing that media, circulating the resources, serving as the school media specialist, integrating technology into the services, teaching  information retrieval, reading great books to children, finding good resources for teachers, assisting in literacy programs, designing facilities, serving on committees, and more.  What I did in my job depended upon the vision of the school board, administration and teachers about the purpose of school libraries and librarians.  In my view the best schools demanded that the library and librarian be at the center of the school both physically and intellectually. 

An important component of today’s lbrary is technology.  Narrow visions of the library can keep it from developing the technology infrastructure needed to deliver effective services.  Early in the technological revolution money was cut from the library budget to buy computers.  By cutting the budget without disucssion, I felt the library’s role in the digital revolution was being minimized.  That I believe is at the heart of the vision of the “antiquated" library. 

Many today believe they can find whatever information they need on the internet making the library irrelevant.  What these people do not know that librarians know is that only a small fraction of total information is available. Everyone agrees that you get what you pay for and that knowledge is power.  So why do people believe that the power of knowledge is free?  The most current, complete and accurate information costs money.  That is what libraries have been about, gathering that expensive knowledge and making it available to everyone no matter what media is being used to share the information. 

Historically the school librarian has been at the center of curriculum, using the library budget to acquire materials and services to suport teachers and students in their work. School library programs are being overlooked in the current round of educational reform presses forward.   Some schools do without librarians using assistants to check out books to the students. The next step is to get rid of school libraries all together.  After all they are “antiquated institutions”. 

Excellent schools have excellent libraries where students love books and know how to find the best information. Technology is an integral part of a library used to find books and other information offered by the library.  In these schools the librarian is a resource using the library to provide programs and services which assist teachers and students in their pursuits. By the way, these schools with excellent “antiquated institutions” also have high test scores.

Help not Punishment for Struggling Teachers, Schools and Students

Some Useful Websites
AAA Math features a comprehensive set of interactive arithmetic lessons. Unlimited practice is available on each topic which allows thorough mastery of the concepts. A wide range of lessons (Kindergarten through Eighth grade level) enables learning or review to occur at each individual's current level.
Energy Kids-Find energy related stories, hands-on activities, and research articles for your classroom! These curriculum-based lessons are separated by age-grade.
The Open Door Web Site is a reference source for both students and teachers.  The contents of this site are designed for use by students between the ages of 9 and 17.

Articles about Cognition, Affective Education and Pyschomotor Benefits
Emotional Intelligence Is the Missing Piece -This article is explains how social and emotional learning can help students successfully resolve conflict, communicate clearly, solve problems, and more.
Why Exercise Makes you Less Anxious - At a time when high stakes testing is imposed upon our students this article by Gretchen Reynolds point makes it clear that Physical Education should be more important to our curriculum than before.
Proficient Readers Need Good School Libraries - Gaby Chapman's article focuses on the fact that studies show that reading achievement in a school is directly related to the quality of its library but says,

School libraries are slowly but steadily being replaced by an onslaught of packaged reading programs designed to teach “virtual reading,” in which students can learn everything about reading without actually doing it.

Book Review
Mind Reading- by Allison Gopink  is a book review for Stanislas Dehaene's new book about the reading and the brain called Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention .  Neuroscientist are discovering that reading has not been around long enough for humans to have become an inate part of the human brain.

Thoughts From Yrisarri
In my years of teaching and working in schools I came across a few poor teachers.  But, as I listen to to the movement for reform it seems as if there are many more bad teachers than I ever imagined.  One of the cornerstones of the current push from the Secretary of Education and other reformers is to rid the schools of bad teachers.  It seems that teacher unions and teachers themselves are to blame for the education disaster in America!

Once again the Department of Education is missing the point of the future for our children.  It is more important in today's workforce to know how to cooperate, punitively firing teachers who are deemed "bad" teachers by some objective or subjective criteria, is not going to help create a culture of learning that teaches our children good values.  Competition is between companies, not between workers in the companies.   The current thinking seems to be that competition is the missing equation in education.  This includes students and the teaching force. It is as if teachers and students are always applying for the job but never get to practice their skills.

Instead of calling for dismissal of teachers for doing poor work, let us first decide that we will help any teacher who does not meet basic benchmarks without threatening the job of someone who invested personal treasure in themselves to become a teacher.  Perhaps schools that don't meet the benchmarks can be assured that their community will be helped without a threat of takeover or dismantling of a community investment.  Maybe we can even make it clear to our students that we want to help them not fail them.  I think that message is not received by many of our students today.

What I suggest is that our first instinct be to help others rather than dismiss them.  One of the great reforms for education could be to create a culture of kindness and a tradition of caring about others.  We can begin this by finding ways to "dismiss" the punitive natures of some of our classrooms and schools.  One way to begin this reform is by committing to help struggling teachers, schools and students rather than punish them when they fail. 

The Educational Crisis

Some Useful Websites
NCS-Tech! is a mix of K-8 educational technology resources, commentary, lesson ideas and more, for members of any school community and the world.
Crayola Digi Color is a site from Crayola where your young chldren can choose a type of pen and color and then scribble or write whatever they want.
Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! No signup, no passwords, no charge!
Rethink Learning Now is a powerful website where people share their most important learning moments, you can share your story here too!
Neuroscience for Kids is a site where you can discover the exciting world of the brain, spinal cord, neurons and the senses. Do experiments, activities and games to help you learn about the nervous system.

Some Articles to Read
When Teaching the Right Answers is the Wrong Direction
Dyslexia: Some Very Smart Accomplished People Cannot Read Well
Cognitive Scientists Debunk Learning-Style Theories -Scroll down the articles in the blog Inside School Research to access the article.

Thoughts from Yrisarri
I recently read Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them by Benedict Carey in NYTimes.com.  This article is primarily about teaching young children focused math education based upon  brain  and learning research.  Current research indicates that a number instinct is hard-wired into the anatomy of the brain.  Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist believes that

The firing of the number neurons becomes increasingly more selective to single quantities, he said; and these cells apparently begin to communicate with neurons across the brain in language areas, connecting precise quantities to words: “two,” “ten,” “five.”

A similar honing process is thought to occur when young children begin to link letter shapes and their associated sounds.  Cells in the visual cortex wired to recognize shapes specialize in recognizing letters; these cells communicate with neurons in the auditory cortex as the letters are associated with sounds.

There is some research indicating that the brain does not fully fuse letters and sounds until a person is about 11 years old.

I have always believed that the most important part of an early education are affective and psycho-motor learning not cognitive skills acquisition.  My experience and some early studies in learning revealed that by age 8 most children were in about the same place with their reading skills.  Brain research is teaching us that our brains are plastic and although there are optimal learning times for some things, any "learning deficit" is not irreversible.

If our "hardwiring" for sound-letter recognition is not fully developed by age 11, why are we pushing our children to learn to read before the age of 8?  The article in  NYTimes.com indicates to me our children could be much better served by focusing their learning on math rather than reading.  I think that it would be even better if we added second languages, dancing, singing, art and lots of movement into the early learning curriculum creating language rich and non stressful environments for learning.  They will learn to read when they are organically ready and motivated to do so.

It is my belief that we do not have an educational crisis.  The reform that needs to take place in education has to do with adults and their perception of what is important for children and what constitutes success.  Many successful people are poor readers,  yet we are planning to put teachers jobs on the line if they can not teach their classes certain reading skills within a certain amount of time. 

We do have a crisis in our inner cities.  That has been well documented by authors such as Johnathon Kozol.  When children are coming to school stressed from their environment they are not going to be able to learn.  We need to address the crisis in their environment and give them schools where learning does not add more stress to their lives.  When they are ready to learn we need to teach them skills that will lead to their success.

NCLB a Noble but Misguided Policy

 Some Useful Websites
Kids Count Data Center is a place where you can "access hundreds of measures of child well-being" from state data and data across states.
Coalition for Better Education is a site"Created to dignify the autonomy of our children and of their teachers."
Some Interseting Articles
It Is Time to Refocus on Education, R&D and Innovation If We Are to "Think Different"  from the Huffington Post, this article points to the importance of creative thinking. 

Talking to your child about technology is like having the sex talk. Except kids are helping to write the rules  is  a series of articles in the Laptop website about children and technology from a parents point of view.

I Don’t Need Your Network (or Your Computer, or Your Tech Plan, or Your…)   is from a blog by Will Richardson and points out what our children can expect from technology that we don't get.

Thoughts From Yrisarri
No Child Left Behind is a noble but misguided effort to level the playing field for all members of our society.  It is noble by its very mission.  To acknowledge that school has not paid dividends for a some of our citizens is the next step in the civll rights movement.  But the the cure for this problem targets all students in our schools instead of just those in need by gathering data from test results rather than taking constructivist action.

George Siemens recently stated in his blog that the term learning really has no meaning. 

....... our focus is not on some esoteric concept of learning. Instead, the intent is to orient ourselves to a complex set of phenomenon and to plan potential courses of action.

We are always learning, it is a function of our  brain’s reaction to its environment.  Siemens wants to replace the term learning with “sense making “  That should certainly be the mission of our schools in todays interconnected world where every kid will soon have access to all the information in the world on their phone.  I would add that that part of “sense making” is focusing our learning on environments appropriate to our cultural and societal needs as well as individual needs.

NCLB’s cure for what ails education is not based upon “sense making”  but as Dr. Deborah Waber says in an address at a Learning and the Brain conference, the cure is finding deficiencies in subject areas.  Therefore, reading scores are deficient because teachers and students are lazy. So instruction time is increased, tests are given, and failure is punished.   These deficits are seen as pervading all of our schools because there are students who do not succeed in all of our schools.  Instead we should be focusing our intervention on those students who need help by understanding the conditions that have caused them to be termed deficient.

Brain research is clear about the results of stress  on learning.  The data is also clear about who comes to school stressed.  NCLB seems to be based on the philosophy of the Education Equality Project .  They believe, and I agree, that "what happens in schools has a tremendous impact upon the achievement gap in our country".  What I don’t agree with is a one size fits all prescription.  That prescription has led to instructional practices that do lead to later success in life.  Joe Williams from the Education Equity Project in an interview in EdcationNext says,

We keep finding ourselves debating that key distinction with people who argue that the external forces in a child’s life represent obstacles too large for even great schools to overcome. While we are very sympathetic to the obstacles that impoverished children face to their physical, emotional, and educational development, and support policies to address these deficiencies, we believe that when conditions outside of the classroom are less than stellar, it is even more important that we get the schooling piece right

This philosophy seems to ignore the reality of many “deficit” children’s lives and rejects the brain research on stress and learning. Children from low income families are are at risk for educational achievement. Studies find that these children are more likely to experience violence than their middle and upper income peers. All indicators of stress are at higher levels for children from low income families. That puts them at risk for developing the affective skills needed for academic success. Executive capacity in our frontal lobes is responsible for development of self-regulation and if a child can not self-regulate learning becomes almost impossible. Impossible that is until we determine that they have a problem that needs medication.  Stress is cumulative and releases hormones into the brain that inhibit learning. A child’s language development is another predictor of academic success and students from low income families come to school with about 25% of the vocabulary of their peers from higher income families. The good news is that our brains are plastic!

So we can slow down!  Testing is not the answer  especially for our younger children.  It only causes more stress.   We can develop language rich environments with  projects and activities and teach young children to read and other academics when they are ready.  We do not have a reading deficit if we do not expect all children to learn the same thing at the same time no matter the cirucumstances!  We need to help students make sense of the vast body of knowledge at their fingertips rather than force feed information to them.   All kids come to school ready to learn, but we place them in competitive, stressful classrooms and tell them they have deficits before they have had time to make sense of the information they already have.  If we treat our youg chldren as individuals, when they reach the upper grades they will have the skills they need to begin making sense of the larger world!

Social Emotional Learning

Some Interesting Websites
Picturing the 1930s is a site from the Smithsonian Institute that not only teaches about the 1930s but allows users to create documentaries that others who visit the site can view.
ReadKiddoread.com is a web site by James Patterson dedicated to reading. There are many book lists and all types of activities about books and reading.
Kids Activities from Education.com  if you are looking for kids activities to show your child the fun side of learning, from science experiments and math games to writing projects and more, you will find it at this site

Some Interesting Videos
Selling SEL: An Interview With Daniel Goleman describes the importance of social emotional learning in our schools.
I Am What I learn shows samples from The Department of Education's top 10 finalist in this contest.  Presented by ESchoolNews.com
Program Offering Recess Coaches to Schools a segment from the Jim Lehrer New Hour on PBS reporting on a program in the Oakland Public Schools to help students learn to cooperate.

Some Articles to Read
The Heart of Learning: The Value of Cultivating Emotional Intelligence by Ken Ellis
Raise Your Student's Emotional-Intelligence Quotient by Diane Curtis

Thoughts from Yrisarririck
The Social Emotional Learning Quotient

Intrinsically, schools are social places and learning is a social process.  Students do not learn alone but rather in collaboration with their teachers, in the company of their peers, and with the support of their families. 

Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning, Joseph Zins et al, editors

As the educational reform discussion takes place almost all of the emphasis is being placed on academic success for all.  We have goals that all children will be able to read, and do math.  Why don’t we have goals like, all children will learn to cooperate and all children will feel safe?  Those are some of the goals that social emotional learning promotes. Research shows that if students are taught social and emotional skills academic success will follow. 

Research finds that students who receive lessons in appropriate social and emotional behavior do better in school and life. 

Emotional Intelligence Research:  Indicators Point to the Importance of SEL, Eductopia Staff

When I ask people what they liked about school, the answer is almost something about the social emotional side of the schooling.  I liked being on the football team, the chess club, and hanging out with my friends are common answers.  My experience teaching indicated that the students who did poorly in academics had a more difficult time relating to the other students or had lives full of drama preventing them from developing the necessary social and emotional skills needed for success. We should recognize that creating goals to help all children feel secure and promoting cooperation are just as important as goals for reading. 

Social and emotional learning goals need to be an integral part of our curriculum and thinking about education .  CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning have developed a list of five core groups of social and emotional competencies that should be integrated into lessons from grades pk-8.  They are:

Self-awareness—accurately assessing one’s feelings, interests, values, and strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence
Self-management—regulating one’s emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and persevere in overcoming obstacles; setting and monitoring progress toward personal and academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately
Social awareness—being able to take the perspective of and empathize with others; recognizing and appreciating individual and group similarities and differences; recognizing and using family, school, and community resources
Relationship skills—establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation; resisting inappropriate social pressure; preventing, managing, and resolving interpersonal conflict; seeking help when needed
Responsible decision-making—making decisions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others, and likely consequences of various actions; applying decision-making skills to academic and social situations; contributing to the well-being of one’s school and community. 

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

I watched  a great show on TV called,  Program Offering Recess Coaches to Schools which aired on PBS’ The Jim Lehrer News Hour.  This program demonstrates a way to integrate cooperative learning and conflict resolution into a school’s curriculum.  Instead of thinking about social and emotional learning as fragmented programs which identify problems, we need to integrate this type of learning into our way of thinking about education and make it a part of each school day for all children. 

Development Based Education

Useful Sites  
Librarians' Internet Index
Refdesk.com
Infoplease

Articles of Interest
Schools Need a Culture Shift is an article by Betty J. Sternberg who addresses motivation in schools.
What the Workforce Will Require of Students is another Education Week article by Catherine Gewertz who questions the need for all students to have college-level skills.

Technology
Here are two short videos from ConnectEd a site for educators from Walden University.  They address topics that have been part of discussions with educators throughout my career.
Why We Need To Teach Technology in School
21st Century Skills: How do We Get There?

Thoughts From Yrisarri
As I listen to the discussions about educational reform I feel that a key concept is missing from the dialog.  I was trained to be a middle school teacher and learned the importance of considering how children are grouped in terms of developmental progress.  That was the impetus behind the middle school movement, that children have a stage between childhood and adolesence that requires a different approach to teaching than children or adolescents. 

I was reminded of this while reading  Scholars: Parent-School Ties Should Shift in Teen Years by Deborah Viadero in Education Week  as she talked about education reform and parental involvement.  She says that there is no mention of how the parental involvement requirements of No Child Left Behind should differ between age levels.  I believe this is the cause of some of our problems in education.  As we discuss public policy we do not recognize the different roles of each stage in the education system.

We only seem to consider that each grade is a preparation for the next grade.  We do not consider that children have development stages and teachers should employ different modes of teaching to capture the interest at different stages.  If the federal government is going to become the source of education policy then they should discuss educating our children not just general education beliefs.