A Teachers Perspective On School Reform

When people talk about problems with our schools, I hear a lot of blame: blaming, teachers, blaming parents, blaming kids. And when they talk about how to reform schools, I hear a lot of "get tough" measures: get tough on schools, get tough on teachers, get tough on kids.What I don't hear are the sort of obvious,?logical reforms that educators - people who have the most direct experience in education - advocate.None of my ideas are original, but I have compiled them here to give you a sample of what what one teacher, one person who actually works with students on a daily basis, strongly believes would make a difference.1. Small Class Size. I am fortunate to have one class of just six students. That class gets three times as much work done as my other classes and has three times as much time left over for fun and games. That's a happy and productive class. Until this semester, my idea of a dream class size was 16 students. But from this year's experience, I see that a class of 6 students can easily soar way beyond what a class of even 16 can accomplish.2. Small School Size. In his book, the?Tipping Point,?Malcolm Gladwell's refers to Dunbar's number, the maximum number of people in an organization that can form a cohesive group.This number is approximately 150. At six students per class, that would be about two classes per grade from kindergarten through eighth grade, along with teachers and support staff. I have worked in schools about that size (although the classes were larger), and they feel more like a community than larger schools. This decreases student alienation, and strengthens relationships. To further strengthen relationships, teachers should stay with the same cohort of children for multiple years. This can help to create an emotionally safe and secure environment for learning. It also reduces the time students need to adjust to a new teacher so they can more quickly allow themselves to open up and fully participate.3. Goodbye Summer Vacation. Come on - we all know that the school calendar in the United Rosetta Stone Software States is antiquated. We spend 180 days of the year learning and the entire summer trying our best to forget everything we just learned. When school starts up in fall, we play catch-up to make up for all the backsliding that's occurred over the summer. School calendars should be year-round and have their vacations timed to meet the local climate demands. So, in the North East, there should be a vacation scheduled in the dead of ?winter, when people take their lives in their hands to brave the treacherous roads to an expensively heated school. And, in the South, a vacation would make sense when students risk heat stroke on their way to an expensively air-conditioned school in the height of summer.4. Reinstate P.E. and Recess! Physical education is good for brain development, and students consolidate learning while they are playing at recess. Plus, as a teacher I can tell you that students who get a chance to run around are much more able to focus in class. It's unnatural, and counter-productive, to force children to sit still all day.5. Utilize Multiple Intelligences. Music, visual arts, kinesthetic learning, and exposure to nature should all be fully incorporated into the curriculum. Right now, we are so focused on the laudable goals of improving math and reading skills that we forget that those skills will more easily be improved if we accommodate different learning styles. There should be dancing in math class and nature walks in English class.6. Emotions and Logic are not Mutually Exclusive. Affective thinking should not be separated from cognitive thinking. To put that in more universal language, our feelings help us learn. This isn't just a made up notion. Learning is deepest when contains an emotional component. We should be aware of how we feel about what we are learning.7. Social and Emotional Learning. We also need to teach children the social skills necessary for successful interactions in school and in life. One thing I've noticed is that the inability to deal constructively with conflict and emotion interferes with the student's ability to focus on learning in school.

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