The Answer To Curriculum Might Not Be Content Part 2

Some time ago, in The Answer To Curriculum Might Not Be Content Part I, I argued that our previous approach of providing different courses for hard to teach students wasn't any more effective than providing the high status curriculum to hard to teach kids. I went on to argue that different content wasn't the answer to reaching hard to teach kids, but rather different instruction.

But in that post I didn't address the concern I've heard some of my colleagues and fellow educators express: the belief that hard to teach kids are not able to learn the high status curriculum.

In some ways, it is completely understandable that they may feel that way. If they have not had experience reaching hard to teach students, or if they see few hard to teach students do well in their school, how could they believe anything except that hard to teach kids can't learn that curriculum?

In 1to1: She Said She Hated Them, I had a similar discussion about 1to1 learning with laptop initiatives. If you don't see the laptops being successful in your school, how can you believe anything except that laptop initiatives don't work? But that argument is only valid if they don't work everywhere. So, if hard to teach kids don't learn anywhere, then we can say they can't learn.

But what if they learn some places? What if they are successful some places?

For example, I wrote this about Maine's learning with laptop initiative:

If there are a lot of schools where 1-to-1 is working, doesn't that prove that it is at least possible that 1-to-1 works. In fact, if we know that it is possible that it can work, then we have to look at why it isn't working in some places. If it didn't work in most places, then we could say that it didn't work in the girl's school simply because "it just doesn't work." But if it works a lot of places, then you have to ask the question, if it isn't working in this school, is it because they didn't make it work? The fault may not be with the laptops. It may not be the new element; the disruptive element. It might be what the school did or didn't do.

Likewise, if there are places having success with hard to teach students, doesn't that suggest that there are ways to reach hard to teach kids?

And there are places it works:

• King Middle School, Portland Maine. The Wikipedia says that it is cited as one of the most racially diverse in the state of Maine: the student body represents seventeen countries and 28 languages. They are having success through expeditionary learning - learning by doing!
  
  
• At Madison HS, Technology Education teacher, Doug Malloy, teaches a physics class to his "vocational track" students where they learn "College Physics" concepts by making them concrete through engaging, hands-on experiments and demonstrations.
  
  
• Maine had a large federal grant to train math teachers to use the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. Research on that initiative showed that not only did the students' achievement improve more than students learning the concepts in traditional ways, but the teachers' understanding of the mathematical concepts improved, as well.
  
  
• Remember Stand and Deliver? It's the story of a dedicated teacher, Jaime Escalante, and his success getting his at risk students at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles to learn calculus. His story shows that success comes from hard work (systemically) over time. There are no magical quick fixes.
  
  
• Maine's own JMG (Jobs for Maine's Graduates), a program adopted by many high schools in Maine, has had a long track record of more success (according to grades, test scores, graduation rates, and dropout rates) with their students than similar students who don't go though the program. There are many components that make JMG successful, but I believe their focus on adult mentor/student relationships may be the most critical. Their program is so successful, it is being exported to their parent organization, Jobs for America's Graduates and other programs around the country.
  
  
• Erin Gruwel, currently a "Distinguished Teacher in Residence" at California State University at Long Beach, was a high school teacher in Long Beach, CA, teaching the "unteachables." She had enormous success teaching these kids to write, by having students keep diaries of their lives and then connecting their lives to the lives of people in historical literature. Her students became known as the Freedom Writers and ended up having a much higher gradation rate and rate of going on to higher education than classmates who didn't participate in the program. She has gone on to form The Erin Gruwell Education Project and works with schools all over the country. (The Freedom Writers' story is about to be turned into a movie.)
  
  
• Maine's Seymour Papert and Jim Moulton have worked for years with students at the Maine Youth Center in Portland, students who literally have three-inch thick folders purporting that they cannot learn. But the folders are wrong. Seymour and Jim have had success with these ultimate hard to teach students (see my bookmarks on this topic). It was not the case that these hard to teach students could not learn, but rather that they would not participate in "school-type" learning. This is an excellent example of how changing instruction reaches hard to teach students.
  

Well, if these folks have had success with hard to teach students, doesn't it follow that there are ways to reach hard to teach students?

In fact, this is why I use the terminology "easy to teach" and "hard to teach" instead of other descriptors, such as quick learners and slow learners, bright kids and dumb kids. There is absolutely no doubt that hard to teach kids are challenging, taxing, and difficult to reach - that's why I call them "hard to teach." But it is also clear that with the right instruction and learning environment they can learn.