http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/ Online Education Blog – LetGoLearn.com en aekwilliams@LetsGoLearn.com Copyright 2008 2008-03-14T17:16:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/the_end_of_print_as_we_know_it/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/the_end_of_print_as_we_know_it/#When:17:16:00Z As far as reading goes, while I still read books, I now spend copious amounts of time reading material on the Internet - much more than I do reading from the pages of reference books or magazines. It's amazing to me that in fewer than a dozen years of my life, my experience of text has changed so drastically that now much of it happens electronically. by Paolo Martin  For a number of reasons, I started spring cleaning early this year.  In the process of rummaging through my things and figuring out what stays and what goes to a fundraiser garage sale, I came across a number of old files with journals I had written, and a few other items like lesson plans, student reports, and so forth.  Unlike other instances in which I have been struck by the person I was years ago or by the creativity that seems to have evolved (and in some cases, dulled) over the years, this time I was struck by my penmanship.  Yes, penmanship!  I barely recognized it.  It was clean, legible, effortless. Nowadays, certain muscles in my hand tremble just trying to write a personal greeting on a birthday card!              All of this, I believe, is because I’m spending less time writing things down by hand and more time typing things out on my laptop.  As far as reading goes, while I still read books, I now spend copious amounts of time reading material on the Internet - much more than I do reading from the pages of reference books or magazines.  It’s amazing to me that in fewer than a dozen years of my life, my experience of text has changed so drastically that now much of it happens electronically.  I don’t know how my personality or my learning experience would have been different had my grade school been completely digital when I grew up, but we can be the first to watch some of our children develop in a completely digital environment, as many classes are now offered online.  In the city of Makkah (sometimes Mecca), Saudi Arabia, a school without paper and pens--completely electronic-based--opened recently.  According to an article from Arab News, "...the main objective behind establishing the school was to develop and modernize the Kingdom’s education system and produce a new generation of Saudi students armed with knowledge, information and technology - the three essential factors for progress in the modern world.....All [the school’s] academic and administrative activities are based on electronics and students of the school will not use any books."  Is this just another sign that the end is nearing for print as we know it?  I can’t say for sure, but I honestly don’t think so.  While Bill Gates has been quoted as saying "Reading is going to go completely online" in an advertising conference in Seattle, I think there’s something about the portability of a book and the ability to flip through the pages of a novel that will keep it from becoming extinct.  However, I do agree with Washington Post columnist Howard Gardner, who recently wrote that the prevalence of electronic media jeopardizes two aspects of the traditional book:  1) "...the author’s capacity to lay out a complex argument, which requires the reader to study and reread...." and 2) the "hallowed" status of books and their ability to draw people into their own world for hours at a time, as online networking communities compel people to stay connected with each other 24/7.  But these are only possibilities.  One never knows what life brings.  In the meantime, the book is here to stay - to stand alongside the Internet, hand-held devices, video, graphic arts, and the many other forms of literacy developing and evolving today.  Howard Gardner put it nicely: "If we’re going to make sense of what’s happening with literacy in our culture, we need to be able to triangulate: to bear in mind our needs and desires, the media as they once were and currently are, and the media as they’re continually transforming." Reading, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Special Education, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2008-03-14T17:16:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/lets_go_learn_co_founder_featured_in_district_administration_article/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/lets_go_learn_co_founder_featured_in_district_administration_article/#When:21:24:00Z District Administration has released an article highlighting the need for diagnostic assessment in the classroom. Featured in their article is Dr. Richard McCallum, co-founder of Let's Go Learn.District Administration has released an article highlighting the need for diagnostic assessment in the classroom.  Featured in their article is Dr. Richard McCallum, co-founder of Let’s Go Learn.Click here to read the full article. Reading, Math, Assessments, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Experts, Richard D. McCallum, Ph.D. 2008-03-07T21:24:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/resolution_for_the_year_of_the_rat/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/resolution_for_the_year_of_the_rat/#When:03:35:00Z Let us hold on to our promises to kids – for California, to really make this the “Year of Education,” for the U.K. to encourage others to make this the “National Year of Reading” – and stop for a moment and make a resolution to see education as something beyond the books, classroom lessons, and homework assignments – to see the face of real children whose lives affect us and are affected by us. Let’s make this year, perhaps this era, one for the prosperity of our children and youth.   When I first moved into my fixer-upper almost five years ago, I had a long-lasting stand-off with rodents.  They were intruders, squatters who violated my space.  Friends said they were "only" mice.  Well, if they were only mice, then they would have fallen mindlessly for the humane plastic traps filled with crunchy peanut butter which gave their captor the option of banishing them into the wilderness.  But these things were cunning; my roommate swears that he saw one jump on top of the plastic trap as the vermin threw him an obscene hand signal.  So, by virtue of their behavior, I called them rats.  But unlike the filthy, manipulative intruders I experienced in my home, according to tradition, the Rat appears in the Chinese Zodiac as an animal which bears prosperity, charm, and order.  Some also say it brings with it death, war, and pestilence.             As thoughts from the Western New Year fade away and the lunar/Chinese New Year approaches (Feb. 7), ushering in the year of the Rat, I wonder whether this year will indeed bring prosperity and order to education, or pestilence instead.  I really want to be optimistic and believe that all the hard work policy-makers and educators do in the interest of kids will make a significant difference this year.  However, the way I see it, things are not looking all that rosy right now, especially in California, where hopes of a "Year of Education" have vaporized with the reality of California’s budget crisis as reported in the San Jose Mercury News.  Also, many schools continue to languish in the bottom percentage by standards defined by NCLB with no clear changes expected to this legislation in the near future.  Many teachers are even considering leaving the classroom as they feel less and less supported by educational environments that are less concerned with authentic learning and more focused on testing.            And then I remember my work with kids in South Central LA 13 years ago when I first started out in education:  kids like Richard, scrawny, often hungry and unkempt, wheezing through the halls because as he shared an inhaler with his brother.  And there was Yolanda, a sixth grader barely reading at a first grade level because she had spent most of her young life moving from town to town, living in a car while her classmate Monique fought to survive physical abuse at home.  Yet somehow, these same kids had the ability to start and end a school day with a contagious smile.  They remind me that for many school kids - especially in the poorest areas of the U.S., be it the Appalachians or Watts--there is so much more going on than what tests or grade level expectations can explain.              So as we continue to evaluate the direction our lives are taking early this year as they are affected by our personal decisions, political events, government policies, and so forth, I say that we not let The Rat dictate the outcome of this year.  Instead, let us hold on to our promises to kids - for California, to really make this the "Year of Education,"  for the U.K. to encourage others to make this the "National Year of Reading" - and stop for a moment and make a resolution to see education as something beyond the books, classroom lessons, and homework assignments - to see the face of real children whose lives affect us and are affected by us.  Let’s make this year, perhaps this era, one for the prosperity of our children and youth.  Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Special Education, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2008-02-16T03:35:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/response_to_intervention_what_you_need_to_know/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/response_to_intervention_what_you_need_to_know/#When:22:01:00Z Whatever your political leanings may be, you can probably see the argument that NCLB has in many ways been good for low-achieving students. Titles 1 & 3, among others, have channeled funds directly toward students who need help, whether during the day or after school. An outgrowth of the focus on low-achieving kids has been a movement to systematize and structure the types of interventions schools offer for such students. This process has been codified in what is termed "Response to Intervention," or RtI.by Richard D. McCallum, Ph.D.Whatever your political leanings may be, you can probably see the argument that NCLB has in many ways been good for low-achieving students.  Titles 1 & 3, among others, have channeled funds directly toward students who need help, whether during the day or after school.  An outgrowth of the focus on low-achieving kids has been a movement to systematize and structure the types of interventions schools offer for such students.  This process has been codified in what is termed "Response to Intervention," or RtI.RtI sets out a structure for the range and types of interventions schools might provide, from targeted small group work to Special Education placement.  RtI outlines "tiers" or levels of interventions that schools may offer. These tiers vary by the size of the cohort of students addressed and by the nature and type of instruction provided.Perhaps more important than the tiers themselves are the process measures that are required for identification and delivery of services.  RtI is a data-driven process by which teachers and administrators collect diagnostic data on students and use that data to place students in interventions and monitor their progress over time.  Both the initial screening and the ongoing monitoring of student growth are essential elements of RtI.Having such a data-driven process that is structured and organized to address specific student needs makes sense.  The current situation in schools is that many different types of intervention, offered by different groups and organizations, are not coordinated or structured to provide the maximum benefits. What we often find in schools is that well-meaning individuals are not pulling on the intervention rope in the same direction.  Such a situation is expensive and fails to coordinate our precious resources or meet the needs of individual students.There is another important issue involved in RtI and that is beginning the process of linking general education with special education.  For a long time SPED has been the ONLY intervention game in town, and because of that, the ranks of those identified as SPED have soared.  A key aspect of RtI is creating a series of interventions that don’t begin with SPED designation, but rather build toward such a designation.  The idea is that schools provide Tier I, II, and III level interventions BEFORE a student might be considered for SPED.  The goal is to get students the right level of intervention for their needs.  Children with special needs will still be identified and served, but RtI should help ensure that the truly needy receive the intensive services of SPED.Given the above factors, how do DORA and DOMA and the range of LGL’s products fit into structure of RtI?  First, DORA and DOMA are designed to provide exactly the type of diagnostic information that teachers and specialists need to screen students for intervention services. The literacy profile in DORA, for example, provides teachers and other interested parties a way to visually examine the relationship amongst sub-tests and identify where discrepancies exist.  Using the classroom profiles allows teachers to group students for targeted intervention.  Further, using the measures over time allows teachers to track student growth and adjust instruction.  The same reasoning applies in other LGL products such as Unique Reader, in which students’ performance on DORA is used to place them in the program and their performance is charted over time to gauge their growth. Our philosophy at LGL has always been that the best intervention is targeted specifically to student needs and short in duration.  Once students show that they have the necessary skills, intervention should end and kids should return to their regular classrooms.  This belief is consistent with practices in RtI in that the process assumes that many of the needs of struggling students can be met without having students designated as SPED, and that once their needs are met, kids can return to regular classrooms.The challenge for teachers and school administrators is to organize and align their current intervention services in such a way that, for once, we are all pulling in the same direction.  A key to doing this is to understand the nature and type of assessment information that teachers collect about students.  Individualized diagnostic assessment can act as a common thread to connect classroom instruction with the work of reading specialists, community-based programs, after-school programs, and summer school.  At LGL, this is how we’ve designed our products and worked with schools to implement the tools we’ve developed.  Whether liberal or conservative, we can all agree that we need to do a better job of meeting the needs of low-achieving students. Reading, Assessments, Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Special Education, Experts, Richard D. McCallum, Ph.D. 2008-02-15T22:01:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/alternate_materials_engaging_the_reluctant_reader/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/alternate_materials_engaging_the_reluctant_reader/#When:03:32:00Z When it comes down to it, whether our kids are reading "the classics" or Sports Illustrated for Kids shouldn't be our greatest concern. Really, the question is whether they are reading at all. And if we can find materials to engage them, they will!   A teacher recently said to me, "The boys in my classroom just don’t like to read."  This is a complaint that I’ve heard from many teachers, especially in the upper elementary grades.  But it’s not just boys who are more and more interested in other activities, leaving reading behind.  With so many other activities engaging our children, can we as educators and parents make reading something all kids can enjoy?Recently, the Library of Congress announced the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.  Jon Scieszka, author of The Stinky Cheese Man, is excited about his responsibility to "get kids jazzed about reading."  His goal is to reach the reluctant readers and offer suggestions to get those kids engaged in reading.Among his suggestions, Scieszka advises allowing students to pick their own materials and not strictly limiting those materials to fiction.  This suggestion is one that I have often found to be a door opener for reluctant readers.  In my own middle-school reading classroom, I allowed students to read a wide variety of materials, including magazines.  Magazines tended to be a great equalizer in the world of reading classrooms.  Even the most reluctant reader could find a topic to interest him.  My hard core skateboarders, my athletes, even my computer nerds could find a topic to read about.  Another reason I allowed reading magazines was that magazines offered support to my reluctant readers that novels didn’t.  Once kids start reading chapter books, visual cues disappear.  Pictures aren’t available to assist struggling readers.  In magazines, however, there are plenty of visual cues to help a struggling reader.Another frustration I found with my middle schoolers was the constant need to compare the number of pages they could read in a sitting.  Struggling readers who were working on a novel could easily see how quickly they were falling behind, which often led them to give up more easily.  With magazines, students stopped comparing their reading speed.When it comes down to it, whether our kids are reading "the classics" or Sports Illustrated for Kids shouldn’t be our greatest concern.  Really, the question is whether they are reading at all.  And if we can find materials to engage them, they will! Reading, Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Special Education 2008-02-14T03:32:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/freedom_writers/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/freedom_writers/#When:19:57:00Z As I see it, when kids truly want to learn something - especially from curricula that encourage them to deal with real life issues like race and violence, while helping them develop strong enough literacy skills to make it to college - we do them more of a disservice by not allowing them to explore those materials.by Paolo MartinAt a very popular Indian restaurant near my house, a tall, friendly waiter with a full beard and a turban approaches my table.  He gently presses his hands together and gives a slight bow.  "Hello, my friend....  What can I get for you today?" he asks in a slight Hindi accent.  "I don’t know what I want for a main course yet, but let’s start with a veggie samosa," I say.  "A mimosa?" he chides.  As it is brunch, I take him seriously, so I respond, "No. A samosa!"  He continues to kid with me:  "O.K.  Two mimosas coming up."  He winks before he turns toward the kitchen.  Ravinder, or "Ravi" as his friends called him, and his brother, Paramjit, were living the immigrant’s dream in America (something I can appreciate, being an immigrant myself).  Penniless, they immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1997.  Once they had saved up enough money doing construction work, they successfully bought and sold real estate and eventually opened up Sahib Indian restaurant.  Tragically, their story was also an immigrant’s nightmare.  Two days after Christmas, as they were closing up their restaurant, they were shot to death by two gunmen.  The community was shocked and the police baffled, as no robbery had occurred and the two brothers were well liked by their community.  The FBI has recently been called in to investigate the killings as a hate a crime.A hate crime? In my neighborhood?  In the San Francisco Bay Area?  Just when I have been basking in the comfortable sensation that my neighbors (both far and near) of various ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds all get along with each other, I’m thrown into the cold reality that hate towards people who are different still thrives near our homes.  This is especially salient because yesterday, the nation remembered and celebrated the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of a more tolerant and peaceful nation.  In a small town in Indiana, a local high school teacher named Connie Heeman engages students in reading and writing activities as well as encouraging them to explore race issues by implementing the Freedom Writers’ program.  The Freedom Writers’ program is based on a program which successfully turned around the lives of over 150 inner city high school students in Long Beach, CA by getting them to examine personal race and urban issues through journaling and comparing their observations with experiences of other figures like Anne Frank, who wrote about the Holocaust.  Yet, according to an article in the Indianapolis Star, Connie Heeman could potentially lose her job, as she has been accused of teaching a book which had not been approved by the district.  Heeman contends that she adequately sought permission from her principal and from the parents of her high school students. I don’t want to get too heavily into the topic of text content and the authority to censor classroom materials.  However, I do wish for us to think for just a moment about how we weigh the nuances (i.e., language use) of content of classroom materials over the potential benefits that kids could experience.  When students do engage in a piece of literature, as in Ms. Heeman’s classroom, and when districts pull these books out of the students’ hands, as in the case of Ms. Heeman’s classroom, what kind of alternative is given to engage those students who refuse to hand over their books?  As I see it, when kids truly want to learn something - especially from curricula that encourage them to deal with real life issues like race and violence, while helping them develop strong enough literacy skills to make it to college - we do them more of a disservice by not allowing them to explore those materials.  Kudos to the 150 original Freedom Writer students who were allowed to explore and write about salient issues important to youth and make a commitment to create communities "where people feel safe, accepted, and understood."  Check out their website, http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org/, for more about their hopes for other young teens.  Problems like illiteracy and hate crime unfortunately still exist - and children encounter them daily.  It behooves us to help them deal with such obstacles and provide everyone with a better world where they can grow up free and strong.  Reading, Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Special Education, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2008-02-04T19:57:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/should_reading_be_so_hard/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/should_reading_be_so_hard/#When:17:25:00Z With the drudgery of some reading programs which employ rote tasks that aren't applicable to authentic and meaningful textual experiences, I fear that we make reading much harder for kids than it should be...by Paolo MartinLike most people, I believed in a lot of things as a kid.  Yes, Santa Claus - up until I was in seventh grade (don’t you judge me)!  Vampires, werewolves, that stepping on a crack would break the devil’s back, that I’d die if I didn’t hold my breath as I was passing through a cemetery.  But it didn’t stop there.  I believed that if I concentrated hard enough, I could make things move with my mind, transport myself to another time in space, or even make telepathic contact with people and cause them to do whatever I wanted.  When the Angels beat the Giants in the 2002 World Series, I could easily have been convinced that I had personally willed the miraculous comeback.  Augusten Burroughs calls this Magical Thinking:  "A schizotypal personality disorder attributing to one’s own actions something that had nothing to do with him or her and thus assuming that one has a greater influence over events than is actually the case."              Well, I have to admit that I’ve come down from the clouds since my youth.  But I think that as a teacher, I’ve occasionally (O.K., maybe more than occasionally) fallen prey to "magical thinking."  I fall prey to it when I let myself believe it is through the sheer strength of my will that my students remember to say "please" and "thank you" or that a force within me led a student to write a stellar personal statement which gained him admission to an Ivy League school.  Have any of you experienced "magical thinking," too?  Or have you been in a space where you seriously thought you could "will" your love of literature and reading onto your kids?  I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately and have realized a few things:  1) I have great intentions for my kids when I try to do what I can to get them to love reading.  Whether or not they really love reading, I know that I can only do my best to get them to that place lest I inadvertently cause them to hate it because of the torturous process of getting them to see it my way!  2) Reading shouldn’t be so hard for kids.  Reading isn’t like telepathically moving things with the mind or blinking one’s way into another time.  It shouldn’t be so hard that we see the veins throbbing in our children’s temples as they are asked repeatedly to sound out the words they’re not familiar with.  They should save the magical thinking for things that really matter - like floating in air and the tooth fairy.            According to a commentary entitled "Reading Shouldn’t Be Such Hard Work" by Alison Thompson, children don’t have the patience or love for reading books anymore.  She writes, "[C]hildren leave school unable to read and a quarter of the young haven’t read a book in the past year.  For many hard-pressed families and schools, reading has become too much like hard work."  With the drudgery of some reading programs which employ rote tasks that aren’t applicable to authentic and meaningful textual experiences, I fear that we make reading much harder for kids than it should be - much harder than "magical thinking."  If I were in their shoes, I’d prefer to spend my mental energy trying to telepathically set the books on fire rather than on working through the tedium of those reading lessons.  Wouldn’t you? Reading, Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Home School, Special Education, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2008-01-25T17:25:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/speaking_out_against_graduation_exams/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/speaking_out_against_graduation_exams/#When:20:11:00Z Educators and school board members alike are speaking out against the proposed graduation exam requirements in Pennsylvania. With the number of benchmark assessments on the rise across the country, there are many who feel that assessments are the only way to hold both teachers and students accountable for their learning. But in Pennsylvania, they disagree.  Educators and school board members alike are speaking out against the proposed graduation exam requirements in Pennsylvania.  With the number of benchmark assessments on the rise across the country, there are many who feel that assessments are the only way to hold both teachers and students accountable for their learning.  But in Pennsylvania, they disagree.Citing a number of arguments ranging from financial strain on the districts to the inability of some assessments to gauge what students really have learned, teachers are speaking out!  They argue that between end-of-course exams and the state-mandated PSSA exams, there is already too much time spent on assessments that are simply geared towards accountability."Right now teachers are being driven by the tests, and most tests don’t tend to encourage creativity and problem-solving," Ellwood City Area School District Superintendent Frank Aloi said. "It’s mostly rote learning."With teachers speaking up now against additional assessment measures, perhaps it’s time to consider what is truly being gained from assessments.  Are the assessments themselves diagnostic in nature or simply another data point in the world of accountability?  And what is the point of the assessment?  Is it to benefit the students by assisting their learning?  Or is it simply a tool to document the competency of the teachers and the ability of the student?And how are we using those data points?  Are we using the assessments’ results to measure students’ strengths and weaknesses?  Are we using assessment data to drive instruction?  Or are we simply using the assessments to measure a pass/fail rate that is then put aside until the next assessment comes along?Perhaps when these questions are answered about each assessment we ask students to take, educators will be able to distinguish between assessments that are a useful and integral part of student learning and those that are a waste of teaching resources, student time, and taxpayers’ money. Reading, Math, Assessments, Administrators, Teachers, Special Education 2008-01-22T20:11:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/its_a_bird_its_a_plane_its_areading_teacher/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/its_a_bird_its_a_plane_its_areading_teacher/#When:16:21:00Z According to a New York Times article, "Superman Finds New Fans Among Reading Instructors," the Maryland State Department of Education is planning on expanding a literacy program which employs comic books as part of its curriculum after seeing positive results in a pilot program...by Paolo Martin For some reason, this past holiday season was filled with more dinner parties and holiday activities than I can remember.  It was great.  A casino-style party which benefited a local homeless charity; an ice-skating event supporting the George Mark House, a home for children with terminal illnesses; and traditional neighborhood parties with way too many mini-quiches, spanakopitas,  sugar cookies, and egg nog (not that it really matters, since I am told that everything is zero points, zero calories over the holidays).  My friends, the Fisher-Paulsons, throw a "Misfit Ornament" party every year, too.  At this party they have a tree set out on their front porch where guests deposit the ugliest ornament they have and in exchange take another ornament they might find attractive.  You give your bad ornament; you take another’s trashy one.  That’s how it goes.  However, every year a few guests misread the invitation, or sample a little too much of the mulled wine, and find themselves leaving their misfit ornaments on one of the two showcase Christmas trees inside the house as they walk off with a glamorous Waterford crystal snowflake or a collectible limited-edition, Marvel Comic Christmas gem.  That’s right:  my friends have one lacey Christmas tree covered with snowflakes and unicorns and another tree with blue lights and superheroes.              I’m not too sure about the origins of Brian’s unicorn tree, but Kevin Fisher-Paulson has been reading comic books all his life and has amassed thousands of comic books over the years in addition to hundreds of collectible comic book art objects, figurines, ornaments, and outfits for himself, his partner, and their two boys.  Kevin not only reads comic books and collects comic book items; he’s also a lieutenant at a local maximum security facility, holds an M.B.A., is a published author, and has appeared in PBS documentaries and produced radio commentaries for National Public Radio (NPR).  Why are his credentials significant?  Well, because as educators we often brush off children’s interests in non-traditional texts like rap songs, magazines, and comic books as "non-educational" or in some cases even "detrimental" to their personal and academic success.  So, we judge others’ intellectual worth by the books they read and expect that only children who read "enriching" novels and other forms of literature on personally approved lists will be whole and experience successful lives.  NCLB only exacerbates this way of thinking - in which children’s individual differences and ways of learning are overshadowed by a strong drive to create citizens who look and sound the same way and value the same things.               Granted, most kinds of text genres contain a handful of pieces that are over-saturated with gratuitous violence or have thin story lines.  But there are also some that are generally of worth.  My friend Kevin acknowledges that some comic books sell gratuitous violence but claims that other comic books have real-life themes worth exploring in a safe, accessible, and digestible format.  Batman’s human fight against evil, he argues, is not unlike what he himself does for a living as a lieutenant in the sheriff’s department.  He says that he even learned to read with comic books.  According to a New York Times article, "Superman Finds New Fans Among Reading Instructors," the Maryland State Department of Education is planning on expanding a literacy program which employs comic books as part of its curriculum after seeing positive results in a pilot program.  Also, educators from Columbia University plan on opening a high school with comic books at the heart of its curriculum and even naming the school after the creators of Superman.  Some skeptics are worried that a curriculum centered around comic books would water down already over-simplified lessons.  However, some proponents argue that the Comic Book Project could really engage students in learning important concepts, especially reading and writing.  I don’t know how I feel about a school centered around comic books and named after the creators of Superman, but I can appreciate a curriculum that honors the things that really engage children in authentic learning, be it Shakespeare or Marvel Comics.  And if comic books can teach kids reading, writing, science, math, and history and help produce successful, thoughtful individuals like my friend Lt. Fisher-Paulson, then more power to them! Reading, Instruction, Teachers, Home School, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2008-01-08T16:21:00-08:00 http://www.letsgolearn.com/blog/dont_look_a_gift_horse_in_the_mouth_the_dilemma_of_the_gifted/ http://www.letsgolearn.com/site/dont_look_a_gift_horse_in_the_mouth_the_dilemma_of_the_gifted/#When:16:50:00Z When there isn't an attempt to explore and capitalize on what makes children unique, "gifted" or otherwise, all children are left behind. by Paolo Martin  A few weeks ago, my nephew was moping around the house, depressed that he wasn’t in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program at his school like his friend Evan.  While my nephew takes "regular" education classes with some honors subjects in middle school, his peers take "accelerated" courses in GATE.  So, he asked me, "Uncle, should I be in GATE to get a good job when I grow up?"  His parents have asked me, "What do you think of these schools/programs for the gifted?"  For me, these are tough and often loaded questions that I’m inclined to avoid like the plague, along with "What religion are you?" and "Do I look fat in this?"            Questions about "gifted" programs and "tracking" are difficult for me to answer because while I was one of those "minority" kids living in the lower-middle-class socio-economic strata, I also benefited from "tracking" and "gifted" programs.  Tracking is a system of placing students into different class assignments within a school, often according to academic ability.  The idea is that a more homogenous classroom benefits from instruction tailored to the abilities of that particular group of students.  However, researchers have argued that tracking is detrimental to kids in the lower track.  First, lower-track classes tend to be disproportionately composed of low-income minority students while the upper-track classes tend to be populated with higher-income White students.  As such, the differences in racial and socio-economic make-up do not adequately represent the abilities of the students and may create or heighten racial/class tensions within a school.  Furthermore, lower-track classes tend to be taught by less experienced teachers compared with higher-track classes which are taught by a higher caliber of teachers.  Some research has also indicated that those teachers in the lower tracks expected little from their students and rarely employed assignments which required critical thinking skills, while teachers from the upper tracks were enthusiastic about their teaching, expected much from their students, and often assigned challenging work.              As a person who benefited from a tracked system of education, it’s hard for me to say that the system didn’t work because it worked fine for me.  I don’t know nor do I want to guess how my educational experience would have looked had I not been in a tracked, "gifted and talented," college prep program.  But then, as an educator who has worked with inner-city schools and children who have had a history of poverty, violence, and racism/classism, it’s hard to endorse tracking when it appears that tracking doesn’t really help learners from these demographics.  My dream is to see kids of different backgrounds and academic abilities co-existing in a classroom in which they all get some sort of individualized support.  And researchers argue that that’s possible!            If so, according to an article in the Washington Post entitled "‘No Child’ Law May Slight the Gifted, Experts Say," the No Child Left Behind Act, with its widespread focus on increasing test scores and getting all kids to "grade level," leaves behind gifted kids who effectively operate above standard, grade-level expectations.  Because NCLB is centered on helping kids meet minimum standards, some say that the high-ability kids are left behind and aren’t challenged to meet their full learning potential.  In an ideal heterogeneous classroom, instruction would be individualized and differentiated in a way that met the diversity of abilities - to keep all students at their maximum "zone of proximal development."  The problem, according to some education researchers, is that teachers aren’t really differentiating their classroom instruction.  Instead, they are compelled, often by local government mandates, to teach a one-size-fits-all curriculum.  The way I see it, when there isn’t an attempt to explore and capitalize on what makes children unique, "gifted" or otherwise, all children are left behind.  Instruction, Administrators, Teachers, Special Education, Experts, Paolo Martin, Reading Specialist 2007-12-26T16:50:00-08:00