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A rainbarrel can hold no water above its shortest stave. Education has many short staves. Replacing one stave does not increase literacy or reduce incidence of at-risk youngsters. Many staves must be replaced at the same time: psychology, philosophy (including the influence of teachers, and bureaucratic decisions), curriculum, evaluation, teaching technology, character of text books, and state/federal funding.
Curricular changes and emphases (See below)
Changes in classroom technologies (See below)
Changes in state and federal funding. Change emphasis of subsidy payments from an average daily attendance base to lessening numbers of youngsters at risk and increasing literacy--both in numbers of young people who are literate and in the quality (cognition and scope) of literacy
A Student's And Parent's Guide To Success Oriented Schools
At the beginning of each school year, the Success Oriented School plan is explained to each student. Copies of the plan are posted in pertinent school rooms and sent to all parents of grades 3-12 young people. A separate letter for parents may include items listed below. Note: few third graders can handle unstructured classrooms.
Dear Student:
Your school is a Success Oriented School. You will find here two basic experiences: structured and unstructured. Most students are assigned groups which are somewhere between these two extremes. You are assigned according to your attitude toward school last year and the speed with which you reach mastery. If you believe you have been incorrectly placed, tell your teacher, show your teacher by your mature attitude and your quality of work that you will prosper in another group and you can expect to be changed in a short while. [Notice the SOS emphasis on attitude and growing up.]
Unstructured school experiences are for those of you who have developed enough grown-up attitudes to prosper by them and who have learned most of the essential material at school, home or elsewhere. Your unstructured day begins when you check in at school. The learning experiences for which you have contracted (Essential Concepts, Cultural Literacy Concepts, general experiences, requirements and test dates) for the coming weeks will be outlined on a bulletin board. Though supervised, you do all your own in-school scheduling, which must include two hours a week of physical training (not consecutive) and two hours of Life Orientation (subjects announced on the bulletin board). School will furnish large group instruction, video tapes, slide/tape, other learning resources for each chapter in the text and individualized instruction upon your request. From among them, you may choose your own learning device or technique. When you are satisfied that your learning is complete enough for permanence and use, you may, for the remaining time, contract from offerings in Creative Arts (music, art, dance, laboratory, computer literacy, writing, composition, media programming. . . . .), Interpretive Arts (literature, poetry, music, dance, opera . . . .) or Life Arts (cooking, sewing, floriculture, volunteer work, home repairs, auto repairs . . . .). Your choice(s) must be prearranged and with counseling, may be changed at almost any time. You will be assigned a teacher advisor, and unless the advisor requests a meeting, you may schedule your own counseling and self-growth sessions with him or her. Examples will vary with grade level.
The school will provide instruction until you understand or can use the material. You must do the learning yourself.
Sample reading and mathematics problems which you must know how to do will be posted on a bulletin board. You may obtain other samples upon request. Samples vary with grade level. You will be evaluated by how much you prosper, your attitude toward school and your abstraction and cognition levels.
Structured classrooms (see below) are assigned to those of you who need intense school experiences. The teacher who knows you best will do all of your in-school scheduling, and may assign you to other classrooms for Enrichment Exercises. Although you will know assignments for coming weeks, the teacher will make short-term assignments, drill until you master Essential Concepts, coordinate concepts, select appropriate Enrichment Exercises and give frequent reviews and tests for you.
You will be evaluated on what you learn and your attitude toward school.
You may change to an unstructured situation as you mature and begin to learn on your own.
Advice to students:
- Your decision-making skills are based upon what you know. Learning
one concept will help you learn many more. Learn all you can about everything you can.
- You are the only one who knows when you have learned well enough. Study until you can say the material out loud and know you will remember it. Do not forget that understanding alone is not learning.
- Life is a do-it-yourself project. No one can live it for you, and you cannot blame someone else for what you become. You have what attitudes, behaviors and demeanor you are willing to settle for.
- If you do not have ego-strength enough to avoid experimenting with substances, crime or sexual activities, see your teacher advisor to help you map self-growth strategies.
In addition to the information for students, a letter to parents includes (with appropriate lack of jargon):
SOS compared to usual schools: a) structured classrooms include fewer students and students nearly alike in willingness, acceptance, and conceptual and abstraction levels upon which they can work, b) structure teachers have fewer students for longer time, hence come to know them better and can most accurately monitor learning voids, individual concept, attitude, and ego-strength growth and prescribe accordingly, c)teachers have greater curricular menu and choice of methods which allow tailoring, d) textbooks are coordinated with many fields and tailored to interest and reading level.
Amount of structuring and size of classes will vary from school to school.
Structured classrooms are grouped according to the degree of willingness and quickness to reach mastery, thus some classrooms are largely unstructured. Students may work their way into unstructured experiences from structured classrooms. Transfer from one classroom to another is easily accomplished because the classrooms stay on nearly the same Essential Concept schedule (by prearrangement among teachers). Changes can happen within a few days after involved teachers have made the decision and parents, supervisor and principal have been notified. Some students can begin unstructured classrooms at about grade three; others may gradually start later. Highly structured rooms for predicted Risk Youngsters (RYs) may start in second grade. (Early characteristics of RYs are available upon request.) Structured classrooms may continue through grade twelve for some students.
Advantages of SOS classrooms include: a) that students who do not need instruction are not forced to have it and all can work on appropriate cognitive levels, b) that those who need intense instruction and monitoring can experience it with fewer numbers in their classrooms, c) that those who can handle responsibility are allowed to do so, d) that young people place themselves, by attitude, in the group in which they want to be, e) much greater curricular menu, f) preemptive counseling through Life orientation and more individual counseling is possible, g) segregation by attitude and ability for some learning experiences and integration for others. SOS do not increase costs!
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Note: 1) SOS are well contrived to accommodate Shaver and Freedman's offering: "Our happiest . . . are those who feel in control of their lives, and who compare their progress against their own standards, not those of others." (Shaver and Freedman, 1976. p. 75)
2) The degree of structuring can vary from school to school.
3) SOS mastery means learning for complete, permanent recall, and SOS cognition means how well, mastered concepts can be used. Cognition has more connotations with wisdom and creativity than with mastery.
Someone who has attended only success oriented schools will know no different way of schooling. Young people, parents or teachers who make the change to SOS will encounter subtle differences:
The emphasis changes from intelligence to maturation. Low achievers do not feel that they are unintelligent, but by insinuation, are led to believe that their attitudes have not matured enough for them to take responsibility for doing school work. And every young person is taught that she can manage her own attitude maturation and master school work by working until it is done well enough and thoroughly enough.
Young people who have developed the most mature attitudes are given the freedom of unstructured classrooms (see below). Those who are least mature are assigned to structured classrooms with a smaller number of students and a teacher who sees them for most of the school day and who makes all of their in-school decisions. Most students will be assigned classrooms with some structure and can experience unstructuring at teacher's option.
Adapted from Save Our Schools, Ralph E. Robinson and Barbara Ann Beswick, University Press of America, Lanham MD. 1996
Structured Classrooms
Structuring refers to classrooms with patterns, routines and schedules. Structuring also includes organization of presented material--bringing concepts together so their relationships can be seen. Organization aids transfer (relating many concepts). Without organizing and structuring, school is like reading a book written without an outline. Generally, as young people go up in the grades, or as we deal with increasingly capable and willing young people, we find less need for structure and organizing.
The SOS Model of Structuring Classrooms:
Note: Teacher's strategies for three types of classrooms may follow the structuring model described in NASSP's "Student Learning Styles" 1979.
Structured Classrooms
Structured classrooms contain a few students (grades 3-12) who are placed with one carefully chosen and well-qualified teacher for most of the school day.
Students are selected by their unwillingness (quality of homework, absences, behavior inclination, and aversion to master concepts outside of classroom--this is in reality a measure of mental maturity).
The teacher serves each student: does all in-school scheduling, selects teaching/learning method, enrichment/reinforcement, carefully monitors abstraction and cognitive levels of material to be learned, teaches (drills if necessary) until the learning (mastery) is done, meticulously monitors and guides both academic and mental maturity growth, and promotes (insinuates) the reason for structured classrooms is low mental maturity---NOT LOW INTELLIGENCE. The teacher also is careful about content of required work, always keeping it within acceptance levels (with minor emphasis on classics, reverence to taste [as in music, literature, art, macho], and reality [as opposed to futility or ridiculousness, in, for example, amount of memorizing required]).
Work is carefully sequenced (articulated), outlined, and coordinated with ancillary concepts. Essential concepts are frequently reviewed, tested and always reinforced immediately with Enrichment exercises.
Students may change groups within a few days--at teacher's/principal's discretion.
Classroom ambiance. Students are in competition with themselves--not their classroom mates. Their evaluation is on mastery of essential concepts not on the curve. These students see the unstructured students who have freedom and respect. They realize that the difference between them and the others is NOT intelligence or charisma but attitude/mental maturity (which are learned attributes--not life sentences). Note: report cards express levels of mental maturity and attitude on the curve. Structured classrooms contain few young people with more than C in attitude and mental maturity.
Unstructured Classrooms
Unstructured classrooms contain more students than normal. These young people show that they have already learned essential concepts, or are capable of learning by themselves and are willing to do so.
These young people do not need constant supervision or hands-on discipline, they will select the best offerings and resources of the school, they will select their own best method of learning and may opt to work in groups. They do not need frequent review, drill, or tests. For the most part, they will correlate concepts and will work on appropriate levels of abstraction and cognition. With supervision, they will establish their own in-school schedules.
The teacher acts as a job-outliner, resource person, personal mentor (usually does not initiate meetings), individual tutor, large group instructor, and keeper of records.
In the best of all possible schools, the numbers of students in structured and unstructured classrooms will be the same. The few teachers needed for unstructured classrooms will offset the cost of the extra teachers needed for structuring. The two situations do not interfere with normal school scheduling. Structured classrooms insure that students who need most intense school experiences get them and that no young person will fall through education's cracks--graduate without adequate literacy. Unstructured classrooms insure that the most capable students will investigate and enhance their own special interests, talents, and skills. They are not held back.
Classrooms Which Require Some Structuring
Classrooms which require some structuring contain two kinds of students--those who are sometimes mature and others who are somewhat mature (who with some degree of success can master on their own). Any number of scheduling schemes can be used to establish partially structured classrooms. The outcome must always be that the teacher will have the same students for appropriate parts of the school day. The only way for teachers to know students well is to be scheduled with them. Two of the great weaknesses of 20th century schools were their impersonalness (brought on by departmentalization--where one teacher sees a hundred or more faces each day) and the loss of self-esteem--brought on by competition inherent in curve marking and some forms of team teaching). Every classroom must be structured to the extent structuring is needed. In any event, teachers of these classrooms must expect to teach more than one subject field
Note: 1) We must begin to evaluate schools by decreasing numbers of Risk Youngsters (RYs) and increasing numbers of young people who are mature enough for unstructured classrooms.
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