Adventures in… Fifth Grade Follies

Public education is not broken.  For the few students that still come from educationally minded, financially solvent, two parent households, school is just fine.  When I think of the few high achieving students in my classes, they are the product of the formerly typical American family.  They do not have particularly high IQs or above average motivation, they just have solid supports at home.  In another time, not so terribly long ago, they would have been the part of the average population of a public school in our community.  Today, they are the shining stars.

These few high performing students prove that public schools aren’t broken, but just outdated.  The assembly line model of education doesn’t work anymore.  That being said, I have very few ideas how to successfully address educating the average student of today.  The average student seems to come from single parent, or second marriage homes, where most struggle financially.  Education may or may not be a priority, and prerequisite skills are not developed for their grade level expectations.

The lack of support that is given at home seems to indicate a longer school day, with structured independent work time. Funding is a huge obstacle to this type of program and some students do not need this type of support.  Would it be possible to extend the day for those in need, and send the others home?  Transportation, teacher compensation and probably snacks would need to be considered.  Could transportation be tiered, teachers’ schedules be staggered, snacks donated???

The prevalence of video games, TVs, DVDs, etc.., as well as the appeal of cell phones certainly promotes increased use of technology with students.  This strategy is highly limited by funding as well.  Also, teachers would need to be fully trained in how to effectively implement the technological tool. 

The dreaded word tracking pops up in my mind frequently.  I was trained to despise the idea of tracking, but honestly, it is hard to ignore the obvious benefits of this philosophy.  Students could truly be taught at their level, and learn at their own pace.  I know this model lacks the heterogeneous grouping and the modeling, but right now, I worry about my shining stars.  How much more could I teach them, if they could set the pace of their learning?  Am I taking the gap and just leveling everyone in the middle?  I think that flexible grouping could be the answer, but no one really knows what that would look like, or how to even start.  It becomes a matter of shifting routines and schedules, not too popular among educators!!

Whatever the fix is, it eludes me but teases me out of dreams at night and nags at me all day long!   Education needs a makeover!

I am in the midst of grading endless papers, and have so many things to consider.  Here are a few:

Do the Illinois Assessment Frameworks match the developmental level of the students they are intended for?  Every year, I see so many students who struggle with foundation skills in mathematics.  Number sense seems to get weaker and weaker.  It would be easy to point fingers, but I know we’ve got great teachers k-12.  What are the causes of the larger and larger deficits we are seeing?  Is it societal changes (single parent families, technology influence, apathy, poverty) or are we (my theory) pushing students to learn procedures for the many frameworks, without mastering foundation skills?  Could it be both?  And,whatever the causes, how can I close the gaps that are present in about 70% of my students and still teach fifth grade learning standards?

What to do about homework???  This year, I am seeing about only 50% completion.  I spend valuable time chasing late work, when I could be using the time for remediation.  Should I try the completion only approach?  Only grade assessments? 

How can I work more purpose into my lessons so that students have a strong connection to the objectives of each lesson?

Do I really have to go back to the intimidating stack of papers that need to be recorded??

I am doing an inquiry project for my master’s degree and I decided to focus my inquiry on fractions.  I researched the latest guru’s opinions and found that using manipulatives was still the “best practice.”  No surprise there–  what was different was that research shows that students need more practice with many many different representations of fractions.  I started implementation this week and it has been interesting to note some of the reactions of the “lower” students in the room.  We have worked with smartboard tech and circle models so far.  On day two, we constructed our own fraction bars to practice partitioning.  I asked the class why as our denominator increased, did our folds get smaller and more difficult.  The absolute lowest student in the class said, “I know… Each time we have a bigger number on the bottom, we have to make more folds so each piece has to get smaller.” Ahhh.. music to my ears.