Terrific Turnout for November's Book Discussion

The RFArea REA's November book discussion drew a dozen members to talk about Amanda Ripley's 2013 The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way.  Ripley follows three American AFS exchange students--from rural Oklahoma, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Minnetonka, Minnesota--as they experience three of the most high-performing school systems in the world, Finland, Poland, and South Korea.  Ripley's purpose is to compare the curricula, academic environments, and educational experiences of American and international students.

 In attendance were Nancy Peters, Dave Peters, Marylin Plansky, Tony Pedriana, Karen Brohaugh, Bernie Brohaugh, Larry Harred, Jane Harred, Ethel Johnson, Ruth Wood, Cheryl Maplethorpe, and Laura Zlogar.

A lively discussion focused on a number of topics raised by the book.  We talked about the lack of rigor that Ripley noted in her comparison of American and international classrooms.  Tony Pedriana concurred, citing his own experience of 35 years in the classroom and as a principal in the Milwaukee public schools, as did a number of others around the table.  Students in many American schools are not held to high standards, are not required to do work of high quality or quantity, and are often more concerned about extracurricular activities than they are about their academic performance.  Another contrast Ripley noted was in teacher candidate selection and preparation.  In America, education students are often not at the top of their class, do not achieve high scores on SATs or ACTs, and are not subjected to a challenging curriculum and training unlike those in other countries.  Members of our group agreed that colleges of education need to be more selective and to provide their students with more knowledge and tools to become better teachers.  But we all agreed that it is not likely to happen unless a more serious crisis of some sort brings it about.

Part of our conversation included the role that teachers' unions and tenure play in American education.  Ripley points out that in Poland and Finland, teachers unions were very important in representing the interests and rights of teachers as well as students.  When Ripley asked principals abroad about whether unions prevented their dismissal of poor teachers, she was told that poor teachers are never hired; therefore, they had no need to dismiss them.  Clearly, the training and hiring of teachers in
these countries are very different than in America where poor teaching can and does occur.  As a public school teacher for 14 years and as a student teacher supervisor for many years, Ruth Wood expressed the ambivalence many of us feel about providing due process for teachers through tenure while acknowledging that it can also lead to teachers who grow complacent and lazy after achieving it sometimes in as short a period as 18 months.

We also talked about parental involvement in children's education, the role of the community, legislatures, and the federal government in standardized testing, the Core Curriculum, and expectations of schools, teachers, and students.  While we were only able to scratch the surface of many of these topics, we will undoubtedly raise them once more when we come together again to discuss our next book.

This book discussion proved once again to be thought-provoking and stimulating, giving us an occasion to talk about ideas and issues that, as former educators, still concern us.

Next on our reading list is Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars:  A History of America's Most Embattled Profession.  The date and time for that discussion will be announced as soon as we can determine what works best for everyone.

Here are some reviewers' statements regarding the book:

"[A] lively account of the history of teaching ... The Teacher Wars suggests that to improve our schools, we have to help teachers do their job the way higher-achieving nations do: by providing ­better preservice instruction, offering newcomers more support from well-trained mentors and opening up the “black box” classroom so teachers can observe one another without fear and share ideas. Stressing accountability, with no ideas for improving teaching, Goldstein says, is 'like the hope that buying a scale will result in losing weight.' Such books may be sounding the closing bell on an era when the big ideas in school reform came from economists and solutions were sought in spreadsheets of test data."
—New York Times Book Review

“Why are today's teachers pictured simultaneously as superheroes and villains? In clear, crisp language, Dana Goldstein answers that question historically by bringing to life key figures and highlighting crucial issues that shaped both teachers and teaching over the past century. Few writers about school reform frame the context in which teachers have acted in the past. Goldstein does exactly that in thoughtfully explaining why battles over teachers have occurred then and now.”
—Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education, Stanford University