Fwd: [arn2-strategy] Stupid Pet Kid Tricks

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

  From: Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>

  Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 12:55:16 PM US/Pacific

  To: ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>, ARN Main List
  <arn-l@interversity.org>, arn2-strategy <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>, ndsg
  Study Group <ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com>

  Subject: [arn2-strategy] Stupid Pet Kid Tricks

  Reply-To: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com

  Let's not forget the "edge," the "upper-hand," the "head start" that kids get
  through the developmentally inappropriate practice of pushing down the
  curriculum. What kind of advantage are they being given?

  They're being taught to concentrate on those things which can be most easily
  measured. So "reading" is not really reading at all, but rather discrete
  skills like sound and letter recognition and recall skills involving
  regurgitation from short-term memory.

  Here's a passage from my district's Comprehension Scoring Guide on how to use
  the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment)
  -- http://cms9.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/400/rid/10438/f/DRARecommendations.pdf
  -- in response to the question, "What is the benchmark level on the
  Comprehension Scoring Guide?"

  --snip--

  Before moving to the next assessment level students are to not only  read
  accurately (90%-100%)  and fluently  but also to score in the “Adequate”  to
  “Very Good” range on theComprehension Scoring Guide.

  --snip--

  Note that "accuracy" has a specific quantifiable value. Note also the
  expecation that (1) all kids are supposed to be at the same level at the same
  time and (2) that something as complex as comprehension can be reduced to
  either "adequate" or "very good" via a generic scoring guide that asks
  children to do things like recall events from a story, recite key details,
  answer literal questions, and make inferences. They are given points for each
  correct answer. Note also that "fluency" is defined as being able to read
  quickly without making mistakes.

  So do these assessments inform instruction? Or do they determine instruction?
  In other words, are some kids being taught how to read and write
  based exclusively on these data? 

  I spoke to the principal at my daughter's school about assessment. She
  claimed that the DRA and the DIBELS (they use the DIBELS at the school in
  addition to the DRA) are just one form of measurement, and that they use
  others. But when I asked her what measurements they used, how often they were
  used, and how they improved instruction, she had no answer. She just kept
  insisting that these practices were in place.

  I'm reminded of something that Seymour Papert wrote regarding fluency,
  something that provides a stark contrast to this incredibly mechanized,
  utilitarian notion of fluency. Papert worked with Jean Piaget in the 1960's
  and developed complex notions of how children think and learn. He was also a
  pioneering force in developing links between learning and technology. In
  "Technological Fluency and the Representation of Knowledge," Papert and
  his colleague Mitchel Resnick wrote, 

  "What does it mean to use technologies fluently? To be truly fluent in a
  natural language (like English or French), you need more than phrase-book
  knowledge; you must be able to articulate a complex idea or tell an engaging
  story -- that is, you must be able to make things with language. Analogously,
  fluency with new technologies involves not only knowing how to use
  technological tools, but also knowing how to construct things of significance
  with those tools."

  Needless to say, these reductive measurements do not determine how well
  children can construct things of significance. Rather, they tell you how
  quickly and accurately children can perform Stupid Pet Kid Tricks.

  Peter Campbell

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