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Michael Ross needs to go back to school
By adamg on Tue, 05/08/2007 - 9:34am
Update: With boston.com now sporadically available, I see that the councilor is only proposing PE for middle and high schools. That eliminates my first objection, since I was talking about elementary schools, but the second two still hold.
On the way into work this morning, I heard Michael Ross calling for a mandatory four hours a week of physical education in Boston public schools. Great idea, but the good councilor has obviously not spent much time in Boston public schools, because otherwise he'd know there are three reasons why accomplishing this would require far more money and time than what sounded like his fairly blithe assessment:
Lack of facilities. Many Boston schools simply don't have gyms. Hard for suburbanites - and, obviously city councilors from Beacon Hill - to imagine but true. Back in the day, when James Michael Curley was mayor and these schools got built, kids didn't need gym class - they got enough exercise shoveling coal or whatever it is kids did after school back then. My daughter goes to one such school. The teachers there do an excellent job of getting the kids outside for 15 minutes of recess on almost every single day in which the schoolyard is not coated in two inches of ice or rain or frogs, but no way could they guarantee four hours of physical activity a week during your basic New England winter.
Money. Where's the money going to come from to pay for these gym classes? Councilor Ross wants more than just kids running around throwing large balls at each other. Even at schools with gyms, that means gym teachers. And they like to get paid for their time.
MCAS. Earlier this school year, the kidlet's teacher wouldn't let her and a friend take out Nancy Drew books from the school library because those are "fifth grade" books that would do nothing to help prepare them for the third-grade MCAS test (yes, I wish I were making that up, and yes, we told her she can read as many Nancy Drew books as she can take out from the local BPL branch). With so much time going to prepare kids for tests, how are you going to carve out four hours a week for gym? Some Boston schools are now experimenting with longer school days, which is cool (although the kidlet would beg to differ), but to implement that citywide brings us back to reason 2.
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Comments
Mens Sana in Corpore Sano
With one kid through BPS and two still in, I have to say that Ross' proposal needs consideration. Those reasons not to do it deserve weighing too, but should not end discussion and refinement.
I don't buy into the screeching hysteria of an obesity epidemic. There's some basis for that, even though doctors keep redefining fat.
More to the point, we oldies grew up with PE and benefited. Plus, making kids sit all day is damned hard on them. It leads to drooping attention and the fidgeting that teachers hate so much. Most kids aren't on sports teams; where will they get any physical activity?
There has to be a way to incorporate physical activity into the curriculum. It might even mean giving the teachers a period to do paperwork or goof off and extending the school day 45 minutes or the like. Options should be open.
It is a pity it came from him, but hey, even a stopped clock is right twice as day, as the cliché goes.
Sitting all day
Yep; there is a huge increase in making kids sit in desks all day and read/write/listen. When I was in school 20 years ago, we did a lot more projects and multisensory stuff. I'm seeing a lot of kids in elementary schools whose teachers and families are concerned that they have LD or AD/HD, but once I work with them, I think the issue is more that the schools are having them sit in desks all day way before it's appropriate to their developmental level.
Several books on nonverbal learning disability speculate that the huge increase in NLD and asperger's is partially due to the combination of 1) schools having kids sit all day and 2) kids in most communities no longer being able to run freely in the neighborhood, having structured "playdates" with adults choosing the activity, and reading and playing video games instead of running around. Sure, some kids are going to have these disabilities regardless of what we provide them, but there are others who aren't necessarily predisposed to these disabilities, but they develop them because we work on vocabulary instead of sensory integration and learning facts instead of experimenting with social situations.
Schools don't necessarily need "PE" as it was when I was in school, but there needs to be an increase in moving around and using all their senses all throughout the school day. Arts, hands-on science, incorporating drama into languages and social studies, etc.
While I agree that simply sitting at one's desk all day long,
without any kind of real change in programs, movement, et, is detrimental to a kid's growth and development, I beg to differ with the following quote from your post:
"Several books on nonverbal learning disability speculate that the huge increase in NLD and asperger's is partially due to the combination of 1) schools having kids sit all day and 2) kids in most communities no longer being able to run freely in the neighborhood, having structured "playdates" with adults choosing the activity, and reading and playing video games instead of running around. Sure, some kids are going to have these disabilities regardless of what we provide them, but there are others who aren't necessarily predisposed to these disabilities, but they develop them because we work on vocabulary instead of sensory integration and learning facts instead of experimenting with social situations."
First of all, the predisposition towards Aspergers, autism, ADD/ADHD and learning disabilities are biologically based, most likely having been present well before the person afflicted with such disorders is even born--inotherwords, it's prenatal--in utero--in the womb-- occurring during fetal development.
Secondly, I think, that certain circumstances, such as being deprived of freedom of movement and exercise and various ways to promote sensory integration is bound to aggrevate the symptoms of the above-mentioned disorders in some people.
And your background in child
And your background in child development and brain development and disorders is...?
As to your second point, that's exactly what eeka said.
Yeah, you're saying the same thing I am
First of all, the predisposition towards Aspergers, autism, ADD/ADHD and learning disabilities are biologically based, most likely having been present well before the person afflicted with such disorders is even born--inotherwords, it's prenatal--in utero--in the womb-- occurring during fetal development.
Yes, and these are all spectrums. Some people are so hard-wired that all the intervention in the world can't drastically change the extent to which they have a disability. Other people have milder tendencies toward symptoms of LD or AD/HD or autism spectrum disorders, and how the people develop is completely dependent on the type of parenting and schooling and environment.
It should also be mentioned that all of these diagnoses are met by displaying a certain number of behaviors observable by a clinician. We don't diagnose these disorders by looking at chromosomes under a microscope or counting blood cells. This means they can have multiple "causes." Most children who grew up in super-chaotic homes meet the AD/HD diagnosis, but many of them aren't actually strongly wired that way and wouldn't have developed serious AD/HD if they had grown up in a consistent environment.
Right on the money, eeka.
There is no way to diagnose any of the above-mentioned disorders through blood tests, or chromosome observations, although there's more evidence that does point to a genetic component to autism and Aspergers syndrome. I still believe that ADD/ADHD are biologically based, but that growing up in a really chaotic home can and will magnify it. The same thing is true, I believe, with autism and aspergers.
"Running in families" isn't the same as "caused by genetics"
If you put any 10 healthy infants in extremely chaotic homes and another 10 in very orderly and loving homes, you'll probably have 8 or 9 kids out of the chaotic homes who meet the criteria for AD/HD (note the correct spelling of the disorder; "ADD" is a pop-psych term, not a legitimate clinical term) and maybe 1 out of the orderly homes who meet it. The 1 in the orderly group was wired this way, and can't change his/her overall tendencies (but can learn skills to manage successfully). Likewise, there might be 1 or 2 kids in the chaotic environment who are so strongly wired to be self-disciplined and focused that they won't meet the criteria for AD/HD (they'll probably have different psych issues).
Most people don't have really strong wiring either way and are going to be more influenced by environment. For instance, we know that kids with PTSD will often meet the criteria for AD/HD when they didn't meet it before the stressor. They might meet the criteria for a few years, but we wouldn't say they "have" AD/HD, if we have good evidence that the observable behavior is the result of PTSD. If someone has chronic PTSD, it may be hard to determine whether they actually "have" AD/HD.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
The symptoms of many disorders tend to overlap, which is why
it can be difficult to tell and/or make a right diagnosis sometimes. If, however, something does tend to run in families, wouldn't that at least sometimes be indicative of a genetic link somewhere? I'd think that it would.
Regarding PTSD, from what I've read/heard, depending on a person's overall physical and psychic make-up, environment, and experiences, not to mention the stressor, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be short-lived and temporary, long-lasting and temporary, or, even permanent.
Many soldiers who've seen combat, especially our soldiers who've served in Indo-China, and, more recently, many who're serving, or who've been over in Iraq, are coming home with PTSD, pernanently efffected by it, enough to become drug addicts/alcoholics, or, in still more extreme cases, end up being institutionalized, go out and commit crimes, or even commit suicide.
Milder cases of PTSD, from what I 've also read/heard, can and do mimic things such as ADD/ADHD, whether they're temporarary or permanent .
what
> however, something does tend to run in
> families, wouldn't that at least sometimes be
> indicative of a genetic link somewhere?
No. It's hard to find families who share a good portion of genetic material but have been raised in substantially different environments. This is what you'd need to prove that these things are genetic.
You'd need to find like 1000 sets of identical twins where one had been raised by some crack whore (that's a clinical term) and one had been raised in a super-stable home and community.
We can, however, demonstrate that personality and behavior are very much determined environmentally. This is pretty obvious; look at the culture of any group of mostly nonrelated people -- a neighborhood or a workplace or a school. The more insular, the more similarities in behavior.
If we believed that behavior was mostly genetically based, there'd be no reason to educate our children or parent them or provide them with any sort of nurturing environment, since we'd know this was useless. Genetics are a very small component.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Some of us oldies ...
Grew up in New York City during the "Ford to New York: Drop Dead" days and so spent our gym classes sitting in the bleachers because our classes had like 150 kids in them (three years of high school and not once did I have to endure a locker room or shower).
But yes, PE is good (he says, somewhat hypocritically, having hated most pre-high-school gym classes). I'm not arguing against it, just against the idea that in Boston this can be accomplished through a simple snap of the city council's fingers.
Phys. Ed.:
Back when I wemt to high school, in the mid-to-late 1960's, in a suburb west of Boston, during our class's first two years there, kids only had Phys. Ed. twice a week. However, at the end of my class's Sophomore year, it was announced that Phys. Ed. would be occurring 4 times a week instead of only twice, and, the following fall, that went into affect.
This is a very different world today than it was. It's unfortunately true, too, that, in many districts throughout the country, Phys. Ed. programs, after-school sports programs, and various Arts programs have been either whittled to the bone, or axed altogether, which is really, really sad--and disgusting, to boot.
It's all about test scores,
It's all about test scores, unfortunately. I never learned a damn thing from a standardized test, and I doubt most people have. I learned way more from orchestra, art, and even my ill-conceived foray into the world of athletics than I ever did from taking tests.
(Said foray consisted of being on the girls' eighth-grade volleyball team. Said lesson was "Don't.")
Very true, Molly.
Test scores basically meant nothing--especially since I happily ended up where I am today--a silversmith and a piano tuner.
I had good test scores, and
I had good test scores, and I'm a musician (and government hack, but we don't need to talk about that).
If there were any evidence that high test scores made for better education, I'd at least consider the idea, but all anecdotal evidence I've heard from parents indicates otherwise.
That's what I've heard/read too, particularly recently.
" evidence that high test scores made for better education--anecdotal evidence from parents indicates otherwise."
Even though I'm neither a parent or an educator, that's what's especially troubling about the MCAS tests that kids are required to take in order to graduate from high school. Imagine a whole kid's future depending on those exams! That's disgraceful, imo, because there are plenty of bright kids who really don't test well, and kids with learning/developmental disabilities, and kids who're just not cut out for the academic world. Kids like that are put at a real disadvantage by the MCAS tests. One doesn't have to be a parent, or even in one of the helping professions, such as education, to be aware of that.
I'll let everybody in on a little secret: I wasn't a good student--I didn't test well. It's a good thing that the MCAS tests (I forget what those letters stand for) weren't required back when my sister, brother and I were going to high school. I know I would've been pretty well screwed if they had, given my lousy academic record and the fact that I've always tested poorly.
Anyway, all this being said, back then, anybody who was resourceful, determined, and with good, strong family support was able to find a way around. I know I did, with help, but I did.
You get more than one chance to take the test
It's not like you fail the test and you immediately get assigned to a cardboard box under a highway ramp.
Aha.
That I didn't know. Like I said, things have changed.
Sure, but
...at least in the school systems where I see kids, you get pulled out of class to retest, and everyone knows who FAILED. With projects and portfolios and stuff, there's the reality of seeing the results and the feedback that Timmy just isn't detail-oriented, and Sarah hardly ever turns anything in on time, but kids aren't divided into "pass" and "fail."
A client of mine has been in tears over failing parts of the MCAS and hates school and has gotten the message that s/he isn't good at it. It just doesn't ease the blow when everyone tells this kid that s/he has other strengths and is still a good person despite being a poor test-taker.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
This is exactly the reason that the idea of the taking and
passing of the MCAS tests being absolutely required for graduation from high school goes against my grain. It's a gut reaction with me. Imho, it conveys the message to a kid who fails any or all of the MCAS test(s) that s/he will never succeed in school, or have a future, and that's very, very sad, indeed.
GED equivalence?
If you don't graduate high school, but need to get certified as having done something equivalent, you have to take a test. The test that you have to take (GED) is often far more difficult than if you had stayed in school - at least it used to be. It measures a very specific set of competencies.
I don't think the MCAS should be any harder, easier, or different than the GED. If you can pass the GED, you should get a diploma (personally, I think it should mean you can take the test and be done with high school). If you can't, keep working at it. If that means some graduate earlier than others, so be it. People don't all wear the same shoe size, and some take longer than others to finish up for various reasons. You should have all the time you need so long as you are not causing problems at school.
I get annoyed, however, when state education wonks start braying about making the MCAS all about college and college entrance. They are forgetting something major when they do: 1) we already have the SAT et al for that and 2)it is supposed to be about minimal standards and basic skills (having that piece of paper mean something).
As a parent, I have seen what improvements the threat of MCAS has done for schools in districts where the school board formerly had the attitude that if you wanted an education you go to private school (and don't expect tax payers to foot the bill for anything). That "public education should be deficient" attitude doesn't fly anymore and things have improved a great deal - no more "go to private school" because now districts are accountable to the state for basic student performance. Also, behavioral standards have improved immensely because administrators realize that teachers can't teach if kids don't have the social skills and self-discipline skills to create an environment wherey they learn and let others learn. This isn't being sheep either - it has to do with being able to do what you want because you know how to put yourself to the task. Many older kids lack this ability because they never learned it, and are suffering because they don't have the first clue when handed an open-ended project or face getting a job.
But I have to say that the way the contractors that are feeding off the state keep coming up with more tests is ridiculous - basic skills people, basic skills!
Swirlygrrl, this is part of the rub:
"I get annoyed, however, when state education wonks start braying about making the MCAS all about college and college entrance."
The above-mentioned quote from your post says it all.....in a nutshell.
I'm admittedly not a parent, (though I do have 3 nephews and a young niece, all of which I love very much), but I feel that much too much is being made of the necessity of the MCAS tests for getting into college, or for graduating from high school....period. I think that kids seem to be under much more pressure than they were when my sister, brother and I were growing up, and it's not necessarily such a good thing, imo.
Imo, what passes for extreme maturity among kids is more pressure.
Please
I think that kids seem to be under much more pressure than they were when my sister, brother and I were growing up, and it's not necessarily such a good thing, imo.
Blame the parents, not the schools, for overprogramming their kids with an endless procession of structured after-school "enrichment" and sports programs. One of the great things about our street is that most of the kids spend weekends just hanging out and running around, like God intended. Well, except when they're throwing/kicking footballs at the back of my car, that is.
Yeah, but I think there's a little of both
In certain western/northwestern suburbs, kids in public school have these ridiculous schedules where their class schedule is different each day in order to cram in stuff like Latin starting in 4th grade (with 4th graders talking about how important Latin is for doing well on the SAT), they're given lists of books to read over breaks, and asked to complete projects that require knowledge of arts and technology and community resources that aren't taught in the school.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Not maturity
Problem solving skills and self-actuation skills are not necessarily maturity or pressure - they are skills. These are built out of practice with projects and word problems.
Some people say they see far less of this type of learning because of MCAS. That may be true in the wealthier districts where schools felt accountable to parents and parents made high demands. In middling and poorer districts, there is a lot more emphasis on writing essays and solving word problems and the like.
My husband's seventh and eighth grade students have problems with any problem which isn't already broken into pieces and explicitly drilled and then exactly like the drill. This is because they came from schools which didn't have accountability for students learning of integrative knowledge. He gives the undigested problems to our 3rd and 5th graders and they have no problem setting up the problems, even if they don't have the specific knowledge to solve them.
MCAS is thus stressful for older kids - I wouldn't say it shouldn't exist because it has been a badly needed butt kick for a lot of "just go to private school" idiots. However, it NEVER should have been implemented as a high stakes test as early as it was. They should have waited until at least 2008 or even 2010 to make it mandatory for graduation, so those who had accountable grade schools and junior high schools could have a chance to pass it. The kids who are being shafted now were the ones that came through a system that didn't teach much of anything but happy self esteem, if that. Now they are being pass/fail tested on what they really should have been learning all those years(but nobody cared or bothered to teach to them).
Writing
In middling and poorer districts, there is a lot more emphasis on writing essays and solving word problems and the like.
And as somebody who writes for a living, I say: Huzzah! Writing skills will go a long way toward getting kids a successful start on their adult lives.
I'm less enamored of the TERC math they use in Boston elementary schools, in part because now I know what my parents felt like when I couldn't do "new math" homework problems (Me: "What do you mean you can't just add those numbers up?" Kidlet: "Because I have to explain how I got the answer - three different ways!"), in part because the math part of the exam to get into one of the Latin schools doesn't use it, all but ensuring the continued financial success of after-hours ISEE prep schools in the city.