Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Core Knowledge Blog
Rigor? Who Has Time for Rigor?
by Robert Pondiscio
August 25th, 2010
Tags: college readiness, The Concord Review, Will Fitzhugh
Posted in Education Practice |
Most people would agree that it would be beneficial for high school students to write the kind of research paper that Will Fitzhugh publishes in The Concord Review, the only publication in the country [world] that features scholarly papers penned by high school students. The ability to research and write a thoughtful, cogent research paper fairly screams “College Ready” no?
Just back from a three-day workshop with a group of “diligent, pleasant and interesting teachers” in Florida, Fitzhugh describes at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog teachers who “were genuinely interested in having their students do serious papers and be better prepared for college (and career).” The problem is that the teachers each have at six [one has seven] classes of 30 or more students—180 to 210 students each.
Fitzhugh is a man of letters, but he does the math:
“After absorbing the fact of this shameful and irresponsible number of assigned students, I realized that if these teachers were to ask for the 20-page history research paper which is typical of the ones I publish in The Concord Review, they would have 3,600 pages to read, correct, and comment on when they were turned in, not to mention the extra hours guiding students through their research and writing efforts. The one teacher with 210 students would have 4,200 pages of papers presented to him at the end of term.
“It made me both sad and angry that these willing teachers, who want their students to be prepared for higher education, have been given impossible working conditions which will most certainly prevent them from helping their students get ready for the academic reading and writing tasks which await them in college,” Fitzhugh concludes.
The man’s got a point. Always does. It’s easy to make grand pronouncements about college readiness, rigor, and high expectations. It swells the chest with pride to be on the side of the angels. Fitzhugh’s example shows the long distance between what it takes and mere homilies.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Washington Post
theanswersheet.com
25 August 2010
Valerie Strauss
'Impossible' working conditions for teachers
My guest is Will Fitzhugh, editor of The Concord Review, believed to be the world’s only English-language quarterly review for history academic papers by high school students.
[Note: In fact, it is the only academic journal in the world for the serious papers by high student scholars in any subject—from 39 countries so far....WF]
By Will Fitzhugh
I have just returned from giving a three-day workshop on student history research papers for English and Social Studies teachers, both high school and middle school, in Collier Country, Florida.
They assessed and discussed four high school student research papers using the procedures of the National Writing Board. We went over some of the consequences for a million of our students each year who graduate from high school and are required to take (and pay for) non-credit remedial courses when they get to college.
I talked to them about the advantages students have if they have written a serious paper, like the International Baccalaureate Extended Essay, in high school, and the difficulties with both reading nonfiction books and writing term papers which students (and college graduates) have if they have not been asked to do those tasks in high school.
It was a diligent, pleasant and interesting group of teachers, and I was glad to have had the chance to meet with them for a few days. They seemed genuinely interested in having their students do serious papers and be better prepared for college (and career).
At lunch on the last day, however, I discovered that Florida is a “right to work” state, and that their local union is rather weak, so they each have six classes of 30 or more students (180 students). One teacher is being asked to teach seven classes this year, with 30 or more students in each (210).
After absorbing the fact of this shameful and irresponsible number of assigned students, I realized that if these teachers were to ask for the 20-page history research paper which is typical of the ones I publish in The Concord Review, they would have 3,600 pages to read, correct, and comment on when they were turned in, not to mention the extra hours guiding students through their research and writing efforts. The one teacher with 210 students would have 4,200 pages of papers presented to him at the end of term.
It made me both sad and angry that these willing teachers, who want their students to be prepared for higher education, have been given impossible working conditions which will most certainly prevent them from helping their students get ready for the academic reading and writing tasks which await them in college (and career).
-0-
Follow my blog every day by bookmarking washingtonpost.com/answersheet And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our new Higher Education page at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Bookmark it!
By Valerie Strauss | August 25, 2010; 6:00 AM ET
Categories: Guest Bloggers , Teachers | Tags: class loads and teachers, class size, florida teachers, history papers, research papers, right to work state, teachers
theanswersheet.com
25 August 2010
Valerie Strauss
'Impossible' working conditions for teachers
My guest is Will Fitzhugh, editor of The Concord Review, believed to be the world’s only English-language quarterly review for history academic papers by high school students.
[Note: In fact, it is the only academic journal in the world for the serious papers by high student scholars in any subject—from 39 countries so far....WF]
By Will Fitzhugh
I have just returned from giving a three-day workshop on student history research papers for English and Social Studies teachers, both high school and middle school, in Collier Country, Florida.
They assessed and discussed four high school student research papers using the procedures of the National Writing Board. We went over some of the consequences for a million of our students each year who graduate from high school and are required to take (and pay for) non-credit remedial courses when they get to college.
I talked to them about the advantages students have if they have written a serious paper, like the International Baccalaureate Extended Essay, in high school, and the difficulties with both reading nonfiction books and writing term papers which students (and college graduates) have if they have not been asked to do those tasks in high school.
It was a diligent, pleasant and interesting group of teachers, and I was glad to have had the chance to meet with them for a few days. They seemed genuinely interested in having their students do serious papers and be better prepared for college (and career).
At lunch on the last day, however, I discovered that Florida is a “right to work” state, and that their local union is rather weak, so they each have six classes of 30 or more students (180 students). One teacher is being asked to teach seven classes this year, with 30 or more students in each (210).
After absorbing the fact of this shameful and irresponsible number of assigned students, I realized that if these teachers were to ask for the 20-page history research paper which is typical of the ones I publish in The Concord Review, they would have 3,600 pages to read, correct, and comment on when they were turned in, not to mention the extra hours guiding students through their research and writing efforts. The one teacher with 210 students would have 4,200 pages of papers presented to him at the end of term.
It made me both sad and angry that these willing teachers, who want their students to be prepared for higher education, have been given impossible working conditions which will most certainly prevent them from helping their students get ready for the academic reading and writing tasks which await them in college (and career).
-0-
Follow my blog every day by bookmarking washingtonpost.com/answersheet And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our new Higher Education page at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Bookmark it!
By Valerie Strauss | August 25, 2010; 6:00 AM ET
Categories: Guest Bloggers , Teachers | Tags: class loads and teachers, class size, florida teachers, history papers, research papers, right to work state, teachers
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tony Wagner, the only person I know at the Harvard Education School who is interested in student academic work, did a focus group with some graduates of a high school he was working with, and they all said they wished they had been given more serious work in academic writing while they were in the high school. I asked him how many schools he knows of which take the time to hold focus groups with their recent graduates to get feedback from them on their level of academic preparation in school, and he said he only knew of three high schools in the country which did it.
WHAT STUDENTS DO
Will Fitzhugh
The Concord Review
24 August 2010
In the 1980s, when I was teaching history at the high school in Concord, Massachusetts, one day there was a faculty meeting during which some of my colleagues put on a skit about one of our most intractable problems: students wandering in the hallways during classes. One person played the principal, another the hall monitor, and others the guidance counselor, the vice-principal, and I can’t remember who else from the staff. One teacher played the student who had been in the halls.
They did a good job on the acting and the lines were good, but as it went on, I noticed something a bit odd. Everyone had a part and things to say, but the only passive member of the show was the student, who had nothing much to say or do.
I notice a parallel to this in the majority of discussions about education reform these days. With some exceptions, including Carol Jago, Diane Ravitch, Paul Zoch, and me, edupundits seem occupied with just about everything except what students do academically.
There is a lot of discussion of what teachers do, and what superintendents, curriculum coordinators, principals, financial officers, mayors, legislators, and so on, do, but the actual academic work of students gets very little attention (perhaps especially in history).
This observation was reinforced for me when the TCR Institute did a study in 2002 of the assignment of serious term papers in U.S. public high schools. It was the first (and last) study of its kind, and it found that the majority of HS students are not being asked to do the sort of academic writing they need to work on to prepare themselves for college (and career).
In the last eight years, I have sought funds for a study of the assignment of complete nonfiction books in U.S. public high schools, but no one seems interested. Of course, many billions have been spent since 2002 on school reinvention and reorganization, assessment plans, teacher selection, training and retention, and so on, but again, the academic work of the students (the principal mission of schools) is “more honored in the breach than the observance.”
My perspective on this is necessarily a bottom-up, Lower Education one. I publish the serious research papers of high school students of history [912 from 39 countries since 1987]. Most of the 20,000+ U.S. public high schools never send me one, which is not a great surprise, because most history departments, other than in IB schools, do not assign research papers.
But it gives me a curiosity over the neglect of student work which is all too present in those whose focus is at a Higher Level in education. Those who live on the Public Policy level of Education Punditry can not see far enough Down or focus closely enough on the activity of schools to find out whether our HS students are reading history books and writing term papers.
I believe this is because foundation people, consultants, education professors, public policy experts, and their tribes mostly talk to each other, not to students or even to teachers, who are so far far beneath them. They hold conferences, and symposia, and they write papers and books about what needs to be done in education, but from almost none of them comes a suggestion that involves the academic reading and writing our students should be doing.
Of course what teachers do is vastly important, as well as very difficult to influence, but surely it cannot be that much more important than what students do.
Naturally, we should design curricula rich in knowledge, but if they don’t include serious independent academic work by students, the burden will still be on the teacher, and many too many students can slide through under it and arrive in college ready for their remedial classes in reading, math and writing, as more than a million do now each year.
Tony Wagner, the only person I know at the Harvard Education School who is interested in student academic work, did a focus group with some graduates of a high school he was working with, and they all said they wished they had been given more serious work in academic writing while they were in the high school. I asked him how many schools he knows of which take the time to hold focus groups with their recent graduates to get feedback from them on their level of academic preparation in school, and he said he only knew of three high schools in the country which did it.
We do need improvements in all the things the edupundits are working on, and the foundations and our governments are spending billions on. But if we continue to lack curiosity about and to ignore what students are doing academically, I feel sure all that money will continue to be wasted, as it has been so many many times in the past.
WHAT STUDENTS DO
Will Fitzhugh
The Concord Review
24 August 2010
In the 1980s, when I was teaching history at the high school in Concord, Massachusetts, one day there was a faculty meeting during which some of my colleagues put on a skit about one of our most intractable problems: students wandering in the hallways during classes. One person played the principal, another the hall monitor, and others the guidance counselor, the vice-principal, and I can’t remember who else from the staff. One teacher played the student who had been in the halls.
They did a good job on the acting and the lines were good, but as it went on, I noticed something a bit odd. Everyone had a part and things to say, but the only passive member of the show was the student, who had nothing much to say or do.
I notice a parallel to this in the majority of discussions about education reform these days. With some exceptions, including Carol Jago, Diane Ravitch, Paul Zoch, and me, edupundits seem occupied with just about everything except what students do academically.
There is a lot of discussion of what teachers do, and what superintendents, curriculum coordinators, principals, financial officers, mayors, legislators, and so on, do, but the actual academic work of students gets very little attention (perhaps especially in history).
This observation was reinforced for me when the TCR Institute did a study in 2002 of the assignment of serious term papers in U.S. public high schools. It was the first (and last) study of its kind, and it found that the majority of HS students are not being asked to do the sort of academic writing they need to work on to prepare themselves for college (and career).
In the last eight years, I have sought funds for a study of the assignment of complete nonfiction books in U.S. public high schools, but no one seems interested. Of course, many billions have been spent since 2002 on school reinvention and reorganization, assessment plans, teacher selection, training and retention, and so on, but again, the academic work of the students (the principal mission of schools) is “more honored in the breach than the observance.”
My perspective on this is necessarily a bottom-up, Lower Education one. I publish the serious research papers of high school students of history [912 from 39 countries since 1987]. Most of the 20,000+ U.S. public high schools never send me one, which is not a great surprise, because most history departments, other than in IB schools, do not assign research papers.
But it gives me a curiosity over the neglect of student work which is all too present in those whose focus is at a Higher Level in education. Those who live on the Public Policy level of Education Punditry can not see far enough Down or focus closely enough on the activity of schools to find out whether our HS students are reading history books and writing term papers.
I believe this is because foundation people, consultants, education professors, public policy experts, and their tribes mostly talk to each other, not to students or even to teachers, who are so far far beneath them. They hold conferences, and symposia, and they write papers and books about what needs to be done in education, but from almost none of them comes a suggestion that involves the academic reading and writing our students should be doing.
Of course what teachers do is vastly important, as well as very difficult to influence, but surely it cannot be that much more important than what students do.
Naturally, we should design curricula rich in knowledge, but if they don’t include serious independent academic work by students, the burden will still be on the teacher, and many too many students can slide through under it and arrive in college ready for their remedial classes in reading, math and writing, as more than a million do now each year.
Tony Wagner, the only person I know at the Harvard Education School who is interested in student academic work, did a focus group with some graduates of a high school he was working with, and they all said they wished they had been given more serious work in academic writing while they were in the high school. I asked him how many schools he knows of which take the time to hold focus groups with their recent graduates to get feedback from them on their level of academic preparation in school, and he said he only knew of three high schools in the country which did it.
We do need improvements in all the things the edupundits are working on, and the foundations and our governments are spending billions on. But if we continue to lack curiosity about and to ignore what students are doing academically, I feel sure all that money will continue to be wasted, as it has been so many many times in the past.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
WRITING
...But all this well-laboured system of German antiquities is annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply. The Germans, in the age of Tacitus [56-120AD], were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge and reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and the illiterate peasant. The former, by reading and reflection, multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and confined to a few years of existence, surpasses, but very little, his fellow-labourer the ox in the exercise of his mental faculties. The same, and even a greater difference will be found between nations than between individuals; and we may safely pronounce that, without some species of writing, no people has ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and agreeable arts of life....
Edward Gibbon
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776]
London: Everyman’s Library, 1993
Volume I, pp. 242-243
...But all this well-laboured system of German antiquities is annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply. The Germans, in the age of Tacitus [56-120AD], were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge and reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and the illiterate peasant. The former, by reading and reflection, multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and confined to a few years of existence, surpasses, but very little, his fellow-labourer the ox in the exercise of his mental faculties. The same, and even a greater difference will be found between nations than between individuals; and we may safely pronounce that, without some species of writing, no people has ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and agreeable arts of life....
Edward Gibbon
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776]
London: Everyman’s Library, 1993
Volume I, pp. 242-243
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Theodore Sizer
[1932-2009]
Introduction to Volume One, Number One
The Concord Review, Fall 1988
Theodore Sizer: late Professor of Education, Brown University Author, Horace’s Compromise, Horace’s School; Chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools; Former Dean, Harvard School of Education; Former Headmaster, Phillips Academy at Andover.
Americans shamefully underestimate their adolescents. With often misdirected generosity, we offer them all sorts of opportunities and, at least for middle-class and affluent youths, the time and resources to take advantage of them.
We ask little in return. We expect little, and the young people sense this, and relax. The genially superficial is tolerated, save in areas where the high school students themselves have some control, in inter-scholastic athletics, sometimes in their part-time work, almost always in their socializing.
At least if and when they reflect about it, adolescents have cause to resent us old folks. We do not signal clear standards for many important areas of their lives, and we deny them the respect of high expectations. In a word, we are careless about them, and, not surprisingly, many are thus careless about themselves. "Me take on such a difficult and responsible task?" they query, "I'm just a kid!"
All sorts of young Americans are capable of solid, imaginative scholarship, and they exhibit it for us when we give them both the opportunity and a clear measure of the standard expected. Presented with this opportunity, young folk respond. The Concord Review is such an opportunity, a place for fine scholarship to be exhibited, to be exposed to that most exquisite of scholarly tests, wide publication.
The prospect of “exhibition” is provocative. I must show publicly that I know, that I have ideas, and that I can defend them resourcefully. My competence is not merely an affair between me and a soulless grading machine in Princeton, New Jersey. It is a very public act.
The Concord Review is, for the History-inclined high school student, what the best of secondary school theatre and music performances, athletics, and (in some respects) science fairs are, for their aficionados. It is a testing ground, and one of elegant style, taste and standards. The Review does not undersell students. It respects them. And in such respect is the fuel for excellence.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
GLOBAL PROVINCE
17 July 2010
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Global Province Smith
113. Best Kids' Expository Writing
The Concord Review is shockingly good, and we are annoyed that we did not see it sooner. It is "A Quarterly Review of Essays by Students of History," a selection of papers from high school students all over the country [and 38 other countries] who, in general, write and research better than their college cousins. You can find a short history of IBM, a piece on Williston Academy and World War I, two treatments of Marbury vs. Madison, a memory of Julia Morgan (the architect of Hearst Castle and friend of the great California architect Bernard Maybeck), and just about everything else you can imagine. This is the child and worthy compulsion of Will Fitzhugh of Sudbury, Massachusetts. A one-time teacher who has spent 23 years building the Journal, he has earned the praise of everyone, even though, financially, his enterprise has been a hand-to-mouth affair. So subscribe and get your friends to endow it. On the Internet, you will find some sample essays at www.tcr.org. Send praise and dollars to Mr. Fitzhugh at fitzhugh@tcr.org.
17 July 2010
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Global Province Smith
113. Best Kids' Expository Writing
The Concord Review is shockingly good, and we are annoyed that we did not see it sooner. It is "A Quarterly Review of Essays by Students of History," a selection of papers from high school students all over the country [and 38 other countries] who, in general, write and research better than their college cousins. You can find a short history of IBM, a piece on Williston Academy and World War I, two treatments of Marbury vs. Madison, a memory of Julia Morgan (the architect of Hearst Castle and friend of the great California architect Bernard Maybeck), and just about everything else you can imagine. This is the child and worthy compulsion of Will Fitzhugh of Sudbury, Massachusetts. A one-time teacher who has spent 23 years building the Journal, he has earned the praise of everyone, even though, financially, his enterprise has been a hand-to-mouth affair. So subscribe and get your friends to endow it. On the Internet, you will find some sample essays at www.tcr.org. Send praise and dollars to Mr. Fitzhugh at fitzhugh@tcr.org.
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