Subjects Matter Chapters 1 and 2

The authors, Daniels and Zemelman, immediately make a compelling case for why reading deeply and thoroughly is so important.  The students at Best Practice High School read meaningful articles, understood what they were reading, and created projects which were relevant to their lives and to the lives of others.  This kind of learning reminds me of what Wilhelm talks about in the second chapter of the article we read.  Reading content for a real purpose, not just to be able to answer questions at the end of a chapter, is what inspires students.  Daniels and Zemelman make it a point to remind the reader that inspired students learn and retain the most.  

            I’m glad that they go on to talk about the over exaggeration of test scores that has been happening in recent years.  This was a topic that was covered last semester in Dr. Brell’s class and as a mathematician I feel strongly about this issue.  Everyone thinks test scores are going down and that the U.S. is so far behind other countries.  This is simply not the case.  More people than ever are taking the SATs and other standardized tests, so by increasing the test population the scores will stagnate or appear to decline even though students are improving overall.  Just having more students taking the test in the first place should be seen as an improvement regardless of their score because it means more students are motivated to go to college or pursue some other form of post-secondary education.  The authors also mention that if the U.S.’s most well off students are compared with other countries’ students, the U.S. is first in reading.  

This shows SAT scores going down, but what is not shown is a breakdown of the scores by socioeconomic status.  Our country's poorest students earn the lowest scores on the SAT, giving further evidence that poverty is probably the biggest issue in education.

 

This misconception that the U.S. is falling behind is corrected in Diane Ravitch’s recent book, Reign of Error, and I’m glad these authors are following her example and getting the truth out there.  Another point I appreciated in the first chapter was their critique of the Common Core Standards.  When I first read through the ones for math and other subjects, my initial impression was how dry and robotic they seemed.  The standards are populated by lists of “know this fact” and “be able to replicate this process”.  I like that the authors tell us not to be resigned to just following these lists and to make it a mission to use our content to inspire joy and a love of learning.

            The second chapter, was really eye opening for me, since it has been a while since I was really challenged by a reading.  You tend to forget how reading those stories felt in high school once you have been away from them for several years.  The examples they provided made me think about the students who give up and begin to dislike school because everything is “too hard”.  I think I would feel the same way if I was in their shoes, especially if I was an English language learner.  The chapter is a really effective reminder that we need to provide context for the content.  We need to build off of what they already know so the readings can make sense.  This focus on building the student’s schemata, or webs of prior knowledge, is something that really clicked with me when I read it.  As a math teacher I need to be conscious of what my students already know and what they don’t know.  I have to be careful not to send the students straight into reading a mathematical text.  They need to first be shown the commonly used abbreviations, the style in which theorems and proofs are presented, and then how examples flow in the different subjects.  Once they have a good background and some context from me, they can be more confident in themselves and more successful in their studies.  When the student feels they can succeed they are motivated to do so and that’s when the real learning can start happening.