Rebuilding America: Bringing students into learning

Nat Hentoff, WND - At Pittsfield Middle High School in southeastern New Hampshire, the students are individually and actively involved in their own learning. This enlivening approach to education, which I’ve been advocating for years, is beginning in an evolving number of schools around the country.

Here, Emily Richmond of the Hechinger Report, an education news site, writes, “student-led discussions, small-group work and individual projects dominate” As Noah Manteau, a senior at Pittsfield, tells Richmond: “There used to be a lot more of teachers talking at you – it didn’t matter if you were ready to move on. When the teacher was done with the topic that was it. This is so much better.”

Richmond adds: “Educators, researchers and policymakers at the state and national level are keeping close tabs on Pittsfield, which has become an incubator for a critical experiment in school reform. The goal: a stronger connection between academic learning and the kind of real-world experience that advocates say can translate into post-secondary success.”

This kind of goal could turn future generations of Americans into more knowledgeable participants of what our nation began as: a self-governing republic whose Bill of Rights guaranteed each American individual constitutional liberties.

For years, educational reformers have too often just glibly emphasized “critical thinking” as a key goal of education. But students who are mainly talked at by teachers and then graded by collective standardized tests don’t get to do much critical thinking in school.

By contrast, here is some of Richmond’s report of a class she observed:

“In an 11th-grade English class … Jenny Wellington’s students were gathered in a circle debating Henry David Thoreau’s positions on personal responsibility.”

One student asked: “Do you think Thoreau really was about ‘every man for himself’?”

To this, another student responded: “He lived alone in the woods and didn’t want to pay taxes. So yeah!”

“Sitting off to the side,” writes Richmond, “Wellington took rapid notes. When she noticed the conversation being dominated by a couple of voices, she politely suggested someone else chime in. Otherwise, she stayed out of the way and let the discussion take shape.”

Richmond: “The traditional grading system has been replaced with a matrix of ‘competencies,’ detailing the skills and knowledge students are expected to master in each class.

“Students are graded on a scale of 1 to 4 – with 2.5 considered ‘proficient’ – and those numbers are converted into letter grades for their transcripts.”

In addition, “teachers meet at regular intervals to review how closely their instruction is aligning with the competencies; they use on an online database to continually track individual student growth.

“Additional online classes allow students to further challenge themselves and earn college credit. …”

And dig this: “The Extended Learning Opportunities (program allows students to earn credit for workplace experiences that reinforce their academic studies, such as interning at a dentist’s office or the local radio station.”

Accordingly, “all of this means students are shouldering more responsibility for their own learning.

MORE SCHOOL REFORM NEWS