Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Fourth Tips for Teachers Meeting

This Tips for Teachers meeting was a little different in that we were glad to have five teachers and the Principal from Hackensack High School as part of our group. As such, we discussed a topic of interest both to High School teachers and Writing Program instructors; namely, the transition from high school to college, and read and discussed Betsy O. Barefoot’s piece, “The First Year Experience: Are We Making it Any Better?” found at http://www.earlycolleges.org/Downloads/FirstYear.pdf

as well as “How is College Different From High School?” published by SMU, at http://www.smu.edu/alec/whyhighschool.html
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We started our discussion by asking how many students the High School teachers have, and were told they each have about 120! We then went on to ask about student expectations, and whether students anticipate that college will be a 24 hour party. The Hackensack Principal replied that they do a lot of preparation with the seniors, in terms of asking them to plan what their major will be, and how to be financially responsible. Additionally, they invite back high school graduates to talk to current high school students. They also plan to reform the senior year so that students do not waste time after their APs. However, he said that their efforts were not yet reaching all Black males in terms of helping them to be admitted to community colleges, although there was improvement with the Latino males.

One High School teacher said there was a much smaller amount of required reading in high school than college; sometimes articles would only be about three pages in length, or longer pieces would have pictures and maps, and even then often students would complain or resist doing the reading. It was asked whether this was due to a lack of time – the students do, after all, have six academic subjects a day so they have a lot of work - or a lack of good study skills. Another High School teacher said that often there would be minimum effort on the part of students, who prefer to use Spark notes, or quickly glean some information from the Internet.

We feel better study skills is obviously of much importance, so that students in Expository and other writing classes, do not think that it is sufficient to write their papers the night before (or minutes before!) the class. One member present asked whether it was necessary for a student to fail, to realize that procrastination is not a good modus operandi. A Writing Program instructor said that she has a class in which she asks students to write down what they think are good study skills, and then cross out everything which seems unrealistic. In this way, she says, she lets students know that if they produce good work at 3.00 am, then indeed they should continue doing so.

Another Writing Program instructor said that students complain to her that writing an assignment takes ten hours, because of all the reading, and she said that this is definitely realistic, and should be done, as the essays need to be reread so that critical thinking, which takes time, can occur. She went on to say that critical thinking and making connections is something foreign to them. A High School teacher said that it’s true that the emphasis is more on memorization than critical thinking, as she says they teach for the tests, such as the HSPA’s, and these tests are specifically looking for certain information, so the more that information is included, the higher the grade for the students. In this way, she said, all good student papers look the same, the implication being that there is no room for original thought or analysis. Someone from the Writing Program said that he saw that in High School, students are taught to write very neat, structured papers with five paragraphs, but when they come here, they are encouraged to take risks and make discoveries, which might result in quite a sloppy paper initially, until they learn to structure that.

We asked the question as to whether a rethinking to the pedagogy of exposition and risk-taking comes with maturity, and therefore whether high school students are not yet ready for this approach. The Principal answered that maturity plays a part in this, and that there is a mix of those who are sufficiently mature, and those who are not so mature, but also that there are a multitude of socio’economic factors to take into consideration. He said that, for example, 40% of their student population is not living in the parental home, which was especially true for their Black and Latino students. Last week, he said, he had to deal with a rape case, and a case of a punctured eardrum, and he went on to say that these kinds of incidents are not unusual. He also said that in the same class, there is a huge mixture of student abilities, ranging from those with special learning needs, to those who are going to Harvard. They are starting, he said, to have classes in such non-academic topics as culinary arts and metal shops, to cater to some student needs. But he went on to say that those who will be coming to Rutgers better be ready!

We went on to discuss technology in teaching, and the High School teachers talked of the digital divide brought about by the fact that some students had Internet access in their homes, whereas others did not. However, they are teaching high school freshmen about credit cards and cell phones, and they think that most students throughout the school are tech savvy. There was some difference of opinion amongst the Writing Program instructors present who teach a Hybrid, as to how tech savvy their students are, as some Hybrid teachers thought their students very capable with technology, and others did not, though we wondered whether some of the excuses were the modern day equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”.

Still on the subject of technology, the Hackensack High School teachers said that they think when it comes to research, students turn to the Internet, yet they do not know how to separate between “junk” and scholarly sources. They went on to say that 12% of their students take an online course, as many go on to Bergen Community College, where they are mandated to take one Hybrid course a year. One Writing Program instructor who teaches a Hybrid here, said that she thinks that a Hybrid teaches students to use their time wisely, and that the best students do well online, though the Principal said that he thought that if a student was not a high achiever, he or she would possibly not do well in the traditional class or a hybrid.

We then moved to a discussion of structure, and how in high school, so much structure is given, with teachers writing explicit notes of what to do on the chalk board. The High School teacher went on to say that she thought that students are given much less structure in college, and so she wonders whether in high school they are doing the students a disservice, or whether it is beneficial as it helps students learn how to manage their time. One Writing Program instructor countered this by saying that it might not be time management that is needed to be taught, but the concept of independent learning. She said, for example, she has a class that meets only once a week, and the rest of the week they are given quite a bit of reading, yet the students do not know what to do, as they are unclear about how to work independently.

Still on the topic of structure, one Writing Program instructor asked whether it might be feasible to lessen the amount of structure given in the upper grades of high school, as presumably there was less structure given to these students at home too, and school and home mutually reflect each other. The Principal said that the problem in their school came from the fact that they had such diversity of home backgrounds, and there might especially be problems if an economically disadvantaged minority student clashed with a white middle class teacher. He referred us to a book entitled Unequal Childhoods, by Annette Lareau.

And it is not only structure in terms of time management, but also in terms of writing a paper that can be significant, as a Writing Program instructor said that she thought that however much we say that we are moving away from the structured paper typically written in high school, we still advocate a structured paper (albeit different) in terms of topic paragraphs and quotation sandwiches. It was argued by some that this structure, or format, opens the doors to interpretation and analysis instead of summary and regurgitation, as it juxtaposes two readings, but then others present said this might only be true for the bright students, and those who are less bright might just be following a formula and not making meaningful connections.

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