Strong statement? Maybe… but I think I may be right.
One of the things I continue to see is a barrage of methods to teach just about everything from reading to math to writing. You name the content area, the masses of choices are out there.
On one hand, I can see this as being great. With so many choices, surely we can find something that works right? Well maybe… My rationale starts here. How will you know if it’s working if you never give the time to see mastery?
Let me share with you why I think this is so. I just googled “Writing Graphic Organizers” and “About 1,440,000 results” came up. I checked the images and “About 4,420,000 results” came up. Herein can lie a solution, but herein also is the problem.
Now let me note here, I know someone is reading this and is screaming at me about differentiation and the importance of reaching every child. I am not advocating this not happen. By all means do those things. But, let’s give a chance for something to work.
My own case study… non-scientific.
As a new 5th grade teacher in the 2001-2002 school year, I knew nothing about the Direct Assessment of Writing test given to all 5th graders in the state of Alabama, but I knew some writing test would be given so we wrote throughout the year. We, as well as every other 5th grade teacher, used a wide array of graphic organizers throughout the year. Our students were writing, so they would do fine, right?
At the end of the year, scores came back… We were in the Alert Status. About 9% of the grade level was “proficient.” You couldn’t get much worse. After looking back at scores of previous years, this was a trend at our school. I knew we had good teachers, and I knew we had a lot of smart kids. There was a disconnect and we decided to try to find out what it was.
As a grade level, we decided one method would be departmentalization. I took Language Arts, not because it was my best subject, but because I was mad. I didn’t want to see our students fail. As I prepared for the year, I did a lot of reflection and put a lot of thought into the upcoming year. I knew the ADAW results would be on me.
Over that summer, I had a thought. Captain Obvious here realized the reason they did poorly was a lack of mastery. Could the reason our kids did so poorly be because we never let them master anything? Could it be because we used over 4,000,000 graphic organizers and never gave our kids a chance to achieve mastery? My theory was yes. I settled in on using one main way to teach writing. I thought to myself, “If I can just get our kids to master at least one method surely they will do better!” So, I gave it a try…
Short story long… they did better. Much better! They went from Alert to Clear which is an amazing jump! I don’t say that because I want to pat myself on the back. I didn’t do it. Our kids did. They worked hard all year and wrote and wrote and wrote. They deserved the credit. The point… It’s Mastery!
So when I say, “One Reason Why What You Are Doing Simply Isn’t Working.” The reason may be a lack of mastery. It’s a constant challenge to want to try everything new and fun in the classroom, and I am not suggesting not. All I’m thinking is tone it down. Pick a top 3 to 5 methods and focus on mastery.
When mastery is achieved, learning has taken place.
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