Deep Knee Bends And Test Prep

I understand the argument that "back-to-basics" supporters make: under-served kids have different academic needs, are further behind, and therefore need the extra time on reading and math skills. You don't have time to do everything, so you have to focus on the essentials because these kids need the essentials.

However, I don't buy this argument for two reasons:

1. short-changing these kids and depriving them of an experience that nurtures and develops their minds and bodies, as well as their creativity and passions, is not acceptable
2. there is no evidence that short-term increases in test scores is indicative of any deep or long-term learning

The so-called "nation's report card," the NAEP -- the National Assessment of Educational Progress -- reveals that test scores typically go up, plateau, and then fall around middle school. This is due to the fact that (1) basic skills drilled into kids when they are in the younger grades are not transferable because (2) the tests get more difficult as kids get older and the test prep they were given as younger kids no longer works.

Here's another way to look at it.

Imagine that a bunch of affluent kids and a bunch of low-income kids are training for a decathlon. The affluent kids eat a healthy variety of foods, get plenty of sleep and rest, and engage in a broad array of exercises and activities as part of their training regimen. The low-income kids focus on doing deep knee bends only. They don't eat healthy foods, and they don't get the amount of sleep and rest the affluent kids get.

Now, don't get me wrong. Deep knee bends are great. And they certainly help develop and strengthen leg muscles. But they don't do much for cardiovascular stamina, nor do they do anything for arm, back, and chest muscles.

Having a strong cardiovascular system as well as strong arm, back and chest muscles are crucial to ensuring success in a decathlon competition. Strong leg muscles are not enough.

So which group of kids is more likely to do well in the decathlon? The answer is obvious.

But now apply the analogy to the test-centric curriculum that low-income minorities are subject to. Loading up on academically-oriented tasks and discrete skill acquisition are the equivalent of doing deep knee bends. Eating well, resting, playing, and doing a broad series of exercises is the equivalent of a curriculum that exposes kids to art, music, drama, dance, and recess. The decathlon competition is the equivalent of life.

So which group of kids is more likely to do well in the decathlon of life? Unfortunately, for folks like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama, the answer is not obvious.

Let me give you a glimpse at what this looks like here in Portland, OR.

At Rosa Parks Elementary, Kindergartners have 3 “specials”: drama, PE, and library. They are all 30 minutes each.

But wait: here’s the ringer — they are all offered back-to-back on Wednesdays. So for an hour and a half, the kids go from one to the other.

Then, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, they do nothing but the academic curriculum. No art, no music, no PE, no library, no nuthin’ for 4 out of 5 days.

They have a single lunch/recess period that lasts about 40 minutes. The kids eat lunch first and then go to recess. The teacher I spoke to estimated that recess was about 20 to 25 minutes long, depending on when the kids finish lunch. School starts at 8:30 and goes until 2:45. So that means for those 4 out of 5 days, they have 25 minutes to be goofy and run around and be little kids in a span of 6 hours. The rest is all business.

91% of the kids there are eligible for free and reduced lunches. The school is right smack dab in the heart of a new public housing project.

Meanwhile, in a highly-affluent part of Portland called the West Hills, Kindergartners at Ainsworth Elementary School have three (3) recess periods per day: morning recess, lunch/recess, and afternoon recess. Kids get PE, music, art and singing once a week each. They get 30 minutes for PE and music and an hour for art. Singing happens every Friday. They are also taken to the library once a week.

5.9% (five point nine per cent) of the kids at Ainsworth are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

Rosa Parks is rated as a “satisfactory” school by the state. Ainsworth is given an “exceptional” rating.

Something stinks here.

The poor kids do deep knee bends while the rich kids sing every Friday.

She Did It!

In my post from yesterday, I talked about how difficult and frustrating it is to give my daughter space to choose. This has been difficult and challenging in so many ways, but I've maintained my convictions because I want my parenting to be in synch with my values. In other words, being a parent is a way for me to act on my beliefs.

One of the things I believe -- and lots of research studies support -- is that children develop according to their own timeline. When they're ready to read, they read. When they're ready to write, they write. Etc., etc. Of course, as teachers and parents, we can prime the pump a bit. We can read to them and encourage them to experiment. But they have to decide when they're ready. Some teachers and parents describe it, literally, as a light going on -- the moment their kid or student realizes something and is ready to go.

Yesterday, I had such a moment.

As I've written about before, my daughter had a mixed experience as a pre-Kindergartner. She liked being with her friends, but she froze up when asked to write her name and do all the other skills-oriented tasks. Nevertheless, my daughter came to school five days a week for an entire school year, and the very first thing she did when she got there was write her name. She must have written her name -- "successfully" -- at least 100 times. But when she started Kindergarten this year and was asked to write her name, she couldn't do it. Or, more accurately, she wouldn't do it. Why not? I guess I'll never know for sure. But I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that she was pushed too early to do something she wasn't ready to do. Ironically, although she had proven that she could write her name, she later decided that she could not.

Fortunately for her, we changed schools and enrolled her in a Kindergarten that did not push kids and did not hold random, norm-based standards above their heads. This school honors the fact that children develop at their own pace and need to be supported and encouraged, not pushed. I told her teacher about her not being willing to write her name, so he came up with the idea of giving her a bunch of stickers with her name on them. When she needed to give something to the teacher, she simply put a name sticker on it. Problem solved.

Now flash forward 5 months. After school, she came racing in with a big smile on her face and said, "Guess what, Daddy? I'm so clever. Look, I wrote my name and this, too. It says 'Mayan Pottery.'" I hugged her and congratulated her and told her I was very proud of her.

What if I had bribed her with candy and with gold stars when she told me she couldn't write her name? Would her smile have been as broad and as genuine? Or what if I had said, "Of course you can write your name. Now sit down young lady and write your name or else!" I didn't do either of these things because doing them would have been manipulative and coercive. I chose to let her take control of her own development. I let her be in charge of saying what she could and could not do. More importantly, she was in a classroom with a teacher who believed the same thing.

Of course, as a teacher and a parent, you're always wondering whether to push a student to try harder or go deeper. But when you push a kid, you have to be sure there's something there that can be pushed, that can respond to a push. Otherwise, the push becomes a shove. And when you get shoved and knocked down, sometimes you don't get back up again.

KIPP Revisited

I think about KIPP a lot, so I write about KIPP a lot. My thoughts and writings are now part of a book by Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews. The book is called Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America.

Paul from Texas commented on my post called "Why KIPP Doesn't Serve as a Model for Urban Education." I responded to the post there, but I thought I'd post it as a new entry, too. So here is what I said.

Paul wrote, "As a middle class white, it is easy for Mr. Campbell to throw stones at the notion of punishments and rewards . . . No doubt, his children respond to the very system of incentives and consequences that any capable parent would provide."

So what does that mean?

Perhaps he's suggesting that I hang signs around my children's necks that say "Bench" or "Miscreant" if they misbehave? I don't. As a parent and educator, I find the notion of rewards and punishments to be extremely challenging. It's much, much easier to bribe kids with carrots and threaten them with sticks. But it also violates my own ethics and values, and it deprives kids and students of experiencing any sort of internal motivation.

In those instances when I've resorted to using bribes with my own daughter, I've always regretted it. Why? Because she's more interested in getting the goody for the behavior I'm trying to coerce her to perform. This also robs her of experiencing real consequences because she is not part of choosing the reward or the punishment. As much as I'd love, love, love to use time-outs as a way to punish her and manipulate her and coerce her to "be good"(or "work hard" or "be nice"), my wife and I don't use them because time-outs are . . . well, . . . manipulative and coercive. They also suggest that my love is conditional on whether or not I approve of her. Yuck.

As I say, I'd love to use them, though, because it would be SO much easier! But I choose -- perhaps masochistically -- to use other means. I talk to her. I explain what her choices are. I help her understand the consequences of her choices. And then I let her choose. I very often -- very often -- do not like the choices she makes. But she is a human being that is learning how to make good choices, so I allow there to be bumps in the road. Life is kind of like that -- bumpy.

But for the KIPP'sters and their ilk, there is only candy for good behavior and a sign around their necks for bad. Some choice . . .