By Theodore Willson Executive Director, National Institute for Student-Centered EducationAt long last, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is taking a much needed step back to examine whether the state’s appetite for standardized testing is proving detrimental to teachers and students.Matthew Malone, the state’s education commissioner, thinks it’s time to review how testing is being handled in school districts around the state. He was quoted as saying in a recent Boston Globe article, … [Read more...]
Search Results for: Common Core
Measuring Success
I am a wood shop teacher at Dearborn Academy, a special needs school serving Eastern Massachusetts located in Arlington, MA. Like many teachers these days I have been thinking about how to measure success. It is a question that comes up with my colleagues and it certainly appears in the media frequently. As is so often the case in these sorts of discussions, it is important to reach a common understanding of definitions. Success can mean many things. It can be an on going process or and end. … [Read more...]
Comments On “Confessions of a Bad Teacher”
There is really nothing surprising about William Johnson’s op ed in The New York Times Sunday Review. Mr. Johnson eloquently describes the plight of many teachers in contemporary urban American schools under the peculiar and confused pressure of state and national efforts to reform education through reliance on high stakes testing. Mr. Johnson has the courage and patience to work with some of the most difficult students encountered in a public high school. These students do not receive high … [Read more...]
On Teaching Woodshop
When I tell people I teach woodshop to special needs students I am fairly certain to receive one of a couple of responses. Particularly when I first started, people would go on about what a noble thing I was doing. I don’t get that as much these days, and I don’t know whether that is a sign of the times or something about the way I now explain my work.People also tend to tell me about their own shop experience and how they still have this or that old shop project hidden away somewhere (that … [Read more...]
The Research
The National Institute for Student-Centered Education (NISCE) believes that ‘one size does not fit all’ when it comes to providing the best educational context for every student. NISCE advocates for the existence and development of a wide variety of educational options that will best support the diversity of students enrolled in our nation's schools. With an expertise in developing new educational services and innovative practices, experience in consulting with other schools, school districts … [Read more...]
Can a Military School Be Student-Centered?
As an institution, military education would seem to be something other than student-centered. Individuality may seem to be discouraged, with “service before self” being seen as the highest value. In other places along the continuum we have explored the role of the teacher and his or her capacity to be student-centered even in contexts that do not appear to have the individual learner as a central focus. Is it possible for an individual instructor or officer in a military school or for an entire … [Read more...]
The Value of Religious Schools
In religious schools, we may expect to encounter a very different conception of the role of education in a student’s life. Because there is often an essential and openly professed drive towards uniformity and the cultivation of religious values, the individual may appear to be secondary to the mission.However, a statement of purpose for one such school, the Covenant School in Arlington, MA, reflects the synergy between values formation and acquisition of knowledge (or wisdom): "We believe … [Read more...]
Lady Gaga’s Foundation – Preventing Bullying Begins With Us
Dr. Richard Weissbourd, a member of the Dearborn Academy Professional Advisory Board, was featured in yesterday's Huff Post commenting on the importance of constructively addressing the problem of bullying.The article's focus moves from simply blaming the bully or inoculating our own children to withstand bullying or harassment. Weissbourd recommends teaching our children to go outside of themselves by finding ways to care for and about each other.Dearborn Academy's Human Dignity Program … [Read more...]
No Child Left Behind, Leaving Kids Behind
The pressure to raise test scores and to compete with other countries generated bythe 1983 publication of A Nation at Riskhas led us in directions that decidedly do not keep students at the center inour focus. In particular, the recent wave of school reform enacted as law in theUSin 2001 under the mantle of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), mandates that allpublic schools make Adequate Yearly Progress demonstrated by raising scores onstandardized tests.At the core of this reform is the basic … [Read more...]
Launching a Broader Dialogue
With an expertise in developing new educational services and innovative practices, experience in consulting with other schools, school districts and human service providers, and with a history of constantly focusing on ways to enhance the quality and performance of their own four programs, Schools for Children found itself seeking a way to describe approaches and educational practices that would linked all of their schools and programs: Lesley Ellis School, Dearborn Academy, Seaport Academy and … [Read more...]