Brian Cohen
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Neighborhood vs. Magnet: High-level conversations

10/23/2011

5 Comments

 
While I was student-teaching in 2008-2009 in West Philadelphia I noticed a very large contrast in the types of conversations I had with students in school and the teenagers I worked with in my Jewish youth movement. The main demographic differences were that the West Philly kids were mostly black, mostly lower income, and all living in a highly urbanized area versus the Jewish kids were all white, mostly middle-class, and mostly suburban dwellers. I distinctly remember working with the Jewish teens on weekends and debating the finer points of how history influences current society as it related to education, economics, and the like. When I came into school every day, however, the conversation focused on parties over the weekend, being "on punishment," and new tattoos. It was striking.

So you can imagine my surprise when I overheard a conversation that piqued my interest during my school's one hour advisory period on Friday morning. Two black students were arguing over which was worse: the Holocaust or slavery. They had just started reading (or finished reading, I wasn't sure) Elie Wiesel's Night and had very passionate views. While I wouldn't say either of them were married to a particular answer, there were definitely "camps" and one student argued the Holocaust to be worse while the other said slavery was.

The points they were using were so impressive that I stopped what I was doing and just listened. One pointed out that slavery lasted longer; the other retorted that the Holocaust's concentration in time was a reason for it to be worse; the first responded by saying slavery has had a longer lasting affect; the other said we cannot know what will happen with the memory of the Holocaust. These are comments that philosophers and researchers are using to guide their conversations at much higher academic levels than these kids are right now, yet they are using the same arguments.

In contrast, conversations I had in my two years in neighborhood schools sometimes hit this high level but never for a sustained period of time (the conversation on Friday lasted the entire hour). Is this because students who attend neighborhood schools go home and either their parents are absent or do not have the energy to hold these conversations? Or do they not have the education? Are the kids at my magnet school more inherently motivated to talk about these subjects and just have more resiliency to maintain the dialog? I'm not sure, but it was a REALLY interesting conversation to take part in. I hope for more of those in the future!
5 Comments
kyla
10/23/2011 06:26:15 am

brian, this doesn't seem like a hard question. magnet schools admit a select group of students, neighborhood schools take the students who didn't try to get into or couldn't get into, a better school. the admission requirements to palumbo require that students are advanced in english and math according to the PSSA, have no disciplinary or attendance issues, and have high grades on their recent report cards. whether because they have been given the gift of intrinsic motivation, are just naturally brighter, or have a homelike that benefits them academically or behaviorally.....the end result is that these are just more high-achieving kids. kids in neighborhood schools are more likely to be low-achieving due to a grab bag of factors all their own. to each his own lot in life, and best of luck if yours be a shitty one.

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Eddie Lopez
10/23/2011 11:31:17 pm

I would like to comment from the perspective of teachers and practicing the effective use of higher order thinking questions (high level Bloom's Taxonomy). Pretend we didn't have any specialized school systems (charters and magnets) and it was the teacher's job to create these "essential questions" (sound familiar?) for the students to pick a side, gather evidence, and debate over breakfast time. I to, have taught in three different schools as well (rural, urban, regular comprehensive, and magnet)and I noticed that the kids do have the potential to execute higher order thinking. The thing is the following: They have only been exposed to bits and pieces of good higher order instruction. When you have a teacher doing it 24/7 in the classroom and doing it well, the teacher might feel defeated because the students can keep the debate going for so long, then it's back to the standard thinking. If the students have been trained since the beginning (elementary) to think in a higher order fashion, then it would be more worthwhile for the teachers who teach that method on the regular. To solve this, teachers need to be trained to teach kids higher order thinking since day one. (again, answering from the scope of teacher training).

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Edith
10/23/2011 11:54:09 pm

Despite the fact that the magnet has more high-achieving kids, I would resist thinking that the other children are incapable of having this conversation.

Remember that kids (and people more generally) behave in ways that both reflect what interests them AND what they think will please the people around them. The kids at a neighborhood school might have really interesting ideas and just not have anyone with whom to talk about those ideas.

Besides, you can be someone who struggles in school and still think long and hard about important issues. Of course, you might articulate those thoughts better if you also do well in school...

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Brian Cohen
10/24/2011 01:00:49 am

I am glad this post provided so much fodder for conversation! I agree that students in neighborhood schools are probably capable of having that conversation and the unfortunate part is that scripted curricula do not always provide the opportunity for it to occur. I wish that schools needing more help were actually given help instead of a contracted curriculum that does not require higher-level thought.

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kyla
10/24/2011 09:47:52 am

i hope i didn't imply that kids in neighborhood schools were incapable of higher order thinking. my sense is that kids in neighborhood schools are more likely to be skill deficient due to a mashup of socio-economic problems. they are not being educated adequately or equally. on bloom's taxonomy, they are still struggling with the lower levels.

also, when kids are more than 4 years below grade level in reading (and sometimes altogether illiterate), those scripted programs can work. learning to read isn't the same as higher-order thinking, but its no less important. and i would imagine that learning to read would be something you'd want to tackle first.

that's why education in philadelphia (and elsewhere) is such an emergency -- we're not just graduating seniors who can't think critically. we're graduating students who lack basic academic skills.

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    I am a math teacher in the New York Department of Education. I infuse technology and real-world problems into my curriculum in order to prepare my students for the future. I would love for people across the country to recognize we teachers can't do it alone. If you don't believe me, come visit my classroom!

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