Worthy Texts: Who Decides?

Worthy Texts: Who Decides?

What is good poetry? Good literature? Who decides? These are the questions that this article discusses. One of the goals of reading in school is to help the student develop the love and enjoyment of reading. Teenagers who read for pleasure read a variety of texts – except in class. Teachers and schools play an enormous role in developing attitudes toward reading. Many schools and classrooms fall short of helping students learn to love reading for two specific reasons. 1. They adhere to the canon of Western literature. 2. They fail to motivate students through choice.
*Nearly half of all 18-24 year-olds read no books for pleasure.
*Less than one-third of 13-year-olds read daily.
*Teens and young adults spend 60 percent less time on voluntary reading than the average adult does.
These statistics should be disturbing. The way reading is introduced in schools and the classroom is important in shaping the love of reading.
When an adult searches for a book at a bookstore, there are hundreds of books to choose from and a variety of genres. If an adult was only given one choice, that would be frustrating, yet this happens to students every year in the classroom. The article gives some practical ways to instill a love of reading in students: choice.
1. Pair a nontraditional text with a traditional one.
2. Use reading circles in place of one canonical text.
3. Highlight outside reading choices.
4. Choose books that link content areas and coordinate across departments.
In order for this to be successful, everyone must be supportive. Administrators must allow time for the departments to get together and discuss which books could be cross-curriculum. Teachers must have rationales ready for parents who may not understand alternative reading choices. It is only through reading what is great, what’s partially great, and what some people think is great can young readers develop the ability to evaluate, compare, and think critically about what they read.

Gilmore, B. (2011). Worthy texts: who decides? Educational Leadership. 68(6), 46-50.

"The Inner World of Teaching"

“The Inner World of Teaching” by Robert Marzano

Synopsis by Krissy Brown

How often do we as teachers assume the worst about our students? In his article, ‘The Inner World of Teaching,” Robert Marzano offers a strategy that all teachers need to consider when dealing with and evaluating students’ misbehaviors. After all, if our behavior in the classroom directly affects our students’ achievement, isn’t it important to take a deeper look at what affects our behavior?

Every teacher has had to interpret students’ behaviors, and Marzano encourages teachers to ask themselves three questions to help them better control their interpretations and to avoid over-reacting. For example, when a student disrupts a class, the teacher should ask:

1. How am I interpreting this event?

2. Will this interpretation lead to a positive outcome?

3. If not, what’s a more useful interpretation?

Rather than just assuming that the disruptive student is intentionally trying to be disrespectful, the teacher will be able to resolve the situation with a positive outcome. If the teacher takes a moment to reflect on the situation before reacting, she can avoid an unnecessary confrontation and have better control of his or her interpretation of the student’s behavior. We need to train our inner-selves to control our reactions and remember that negative interpretations have negative outcomes and positive interpretations have positive outcomes.

Bibliography

Marzano, R. (2011, April). "The Inner World of Teaching". Educational Leadership , pp. 90-91.

Demystifying the Adolescent Brain

Robert Ostrander

Education Leadership

Demystifying the Adolescent Brain

Adolescents can be mature one moment and frustratingly immature the next. Why?

The brain has reached its adult size by the age of 10, making it impossible that changes in thinking during adolescence are the result of sheer increase in the brain’s size.

Scientists can no take a picture of the brains activity (fMRI)- (measuring its brain function).

Many of the most important brain changes that take place during adolescence are not in the brain’s structure, but in how the brain works.

The brain has been studied when students are asked to do a task alone or when their friends are watching. The mere presence of peer’s changes brain activity between those of adolescents and those of adults.

Peers present in an adolescent’s life activate the reward center, but not those in adults. This makes teenagers MORE inclined to take risks when they are with their friends because they are more likely to focus on the reward of a risky choice than on the potential costs.

It is all starting to make sense to me now…

A key process in the early brain development is the development of connections – synapses – between neurons. By age two, a single neuron may have 10,000 connections to neurons. The development of new synapses continues throughout life as we learn new skills, build memories, acquire knowledge, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Synaptic pruning begins – at the age of one a brain will have twice as many synapses than the adult brain. Soon after birth, unused and unnecessary synapses start to be eliminated – this process called synaptic pruning.

Over time, people discover that one path is more direct than others, so this path becomes wider and deeper. Because the other paths are not being used anymore, the grass grows over the path and now they disappear.

Just like pruning a rose or a Christian, this is a healthy process in ones development.

What does this mean for the adolescent’s brain?

The most important part of the brain to be pruned in adolescence is the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain directly behind your forehead, which is most important for sophisticated thinking abilities, such as planning, thinking ahead and weighing risks and rewards.

Maturation of the prefrontal cortex is not complete until the mid 20’s, a much later point in development than scientist’s had originally thought.

What does this mean for the adolescent?

An adolescent will be more quick to jump into the reward and punishment process, and they will be quick to judge the social aspects – judging what a person thinks of us and reading facial expressions.

They are maturing in reasoned thinking as well as taking more risks.

Kissing, music, and much more become part of the risk reward behavior.

Dopamine is released when a pleasurable experience occurs, and this can becomes so strong that just the anticipation of a moment can produce the dopamine effect.

We know there is a rapid increase in dopamine activity in early adolescence…in fact more at this time of their life than at any other. Adolescents will go out of their way to seek rewarding experiences.

Unfortunately, this causes adolescents to overlook the risks.

They are in a tough situation…their ability to control their impulses is immature at the same time that their interest in sensation seeking is at its strongest.

It’s like starting a car without a skilled driver behind the wheel.

Can you say JESUS!

Teachers sometimes are surprised by the inconsistency in student’s behavior, especially during the MIDDLE SCHOOL years.

Understanding what is going on helps us know what is behind it. As far as basic abilities involving memory, attention and logical reasoning, the 15 year old is just as mature as the adult; but the brain maturation such as thinking ahead, consequences of a decision, balancing risks and rewards, or controlling impulses are still developing.

Experiences in the classroom re what help the adolescent learn how to think ahead and control impulses.

Practicing something will strengthen the brain circuits that control that behavior…so we must provide adolescents with opportunities to practice things like planning, anticipating the consequences of a decision, and regulating their own behavior.

Although it is frustrating, when they push for more control we are to give them slowly.

Adolescents who have not been given this opportunity to develop may not succeed, but be patient, with practice, they are pruned and maturity arises.

PRAISE GOD!

Educational Leadership

April 2011