Common sense wins out in school reform - includes related articles - Cover Story - Interview

School reform gets a big yawn from many teachers. Maybe you're one of them. You've lived through pendulum swings, when one "cure-all" teaching approach that you barely had time to implement in your classroom was swept away in favor of another trend. To keep yourself sane - and do what was best for your students - you picked eclectically from the buzzword smorgasbord, incorporating some ideas into your teaching practice, while quietly rejecting others.

What's different this time? The face of school reform has changed dramatically with the publication of The Basic School by Dr. Ernest Boyer, one of education's most respected leaders, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and former U.S. Commissioner of Education. In his report, Dr. Boyer describes good schooling and good teaching for the 21st century. Here's what it's not: The latest innovation, a piecemeal approach, or massive restructuring. Here's what it is: A reaffirmation of what good teachers have been doing all along, an integration of isolated truths into one powerful whole, a blueprint for educators.

To bring you this firsthand report on the forefront of school reform, senior editor Meg Bozzone interviewed Dr. Boyer in his offices at the Carnegie Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey.

We keep hearing about how our nation's public schools are failing. Is this true?

I've never accepted the notion that our schools are failing, and I'm offended when they are described that way. This blanket condemnation goes unchallenged and successes unreported. In fact, schools are one of this nation's institutions that are still working.

By taking cheap shots at educators and sitting in judgment in spite of their efforts, the media has sent a tragic signal to teachers who are struggling heroically. We must move quickly beyond the notion that schools are failing and recommit ourselves to a system of excellence.

Although the system has not failed, there are pockets of failure. Even so, we must be careful about the diagnosis. It's difficult for schools to be an island of excellence in a sea of societal problems - such as violence - that invade them. Also, the demands on schools have increased, the stakes have been raised so that teachers are working against higher expectations, and overburdening has resulted. In some ways it's a miracle that some schools are working. Still, I don't take schools off the hook and I give them a mixed report card: 20 to 30 percent of our schools are the world's most outstanding; 30 to 40 percent are mediocre to good (although they have solid structures in place for learning, they're not performing fully - they are, however, responsive to renewal); one third are in desperately bad shape and, perhaps, getting worse.

How can your report help?

There is a sense of urgency about The Basic School. We've learned lessons about excellence and quality in the years we've spent researching and talking to teachers. In our report we reaffirm the best practices that are already at work in schools and aim to turn to the task at hand: reinforcing these practices in all schools.

What do you say to teachers who have seen the prevailing winds shift repeatedly in school reform and fear that this is another pilot project?

The last thing America needs is another edict from Mt. Olympus, a school-reform-of-the-month approach, one more dazzling experiment. In this century we have tried hundreds of isolated innovations. Now it's time to stop condemning the present system and pretending that there's some magic innovation we have yet to discover, and start concentrating on what good teachers already know and do.

Did you visit schools?

Our report is filled with real examples from real schools - not visions of what we hope to see in a utopian future - because we spent three years visiting schools from coast to coast, observing teachers and talking to educators. We also surveyed 22,000 teachers - the largest teacher survey ever conducted - in which we included an open-ended question and invited teachers to respond. More than 11,000 wrote poignant, insightful, and deeply moving comments, describing with elegance the day-to-day problems they encounter, their hopes, and their sense of commitment. We also met with principals and parents, examined the current research and literature on education, and invited educators to the Foundation. In addition, we conducted a survey of ten-year-olds and their parents around the world. Above all, we listened to teachers.

You outline what the Basic School is. Why basic?

The word captures several key assumptions.

* Basic because we're focusing exclusively on the elementary school, the first years of formal learning.

* Basic because we're not talking about a national effort, but emphasizing the importance of the local, neighborhood school.

* Basic because we focus on language and curriculum.

* Basic because we turn to the best practices already in place in schools, defining programs and priorities that already work.

You talk about a curriculum with coherence. Please explain.

There's great confusion in schools as to what we should teach. We know we want students to be able to read, write, and compute, but beyond that there's no clarity or consensus. And failure to think carefully about it is serious and widespread.

We call for schools to organize the curriculum around three goals - content, integration, and relationships to students' lives. We're troubled by students learning fragments of knowledge or isolated pieces of information. After third grade or so children stop asking "Why?" and begin to ask, "Will we have this on the test?" This reflects a profound shift from their curiosity and interest in discovering connections to their conformity to the system.

How do you organize the curriculum around these goals?

This may be the most distinctive or novel feature of our report. The Basic School presents not so much new curriculum as a new way to think about the curriculum. Rather than a laundry list of separate subjects or isolated units, what we propose is to take the traditional subjects, along with other important topics to be studied, and organize them thematically around eight integrative themes called the Core Commonalities. By Core Commonalities we mean those universal human experiences that are shared by all people, those essential conditions that give meaning to our lives (see box on page 62).

There is a home for every subject in this framework. It's comprehensive because students learn content. It's coherent because it shows how relationships occur and it relates to students' lives.

Why a thematic approach?

We want students to move beyond fragments of knowledge and to make natural connections, look for patterns, see how subjects interlock. Thoughtful teachers we met overwhelmingly talked about teaching integrative units. However, often these units lack depth in context, relationships to other units, connections to what other teachers were teaching, and so on. Because the Core Commonalities apply from kindergarten throughout the grades, we see teachers organizing their curriculum around them so that not only will their themes connect, but also the overall school curriculum will be integrated vertically as well as horizontally. As children move through the grades, the curriculum will spiral upward with greater degrees of sophistication.

With interdisciplinary themes, will each subject get the rigor it deserves?

I can't stress strongly enough that every area of knowledge that's expected at the district or state levels - and in such standardized tests as the California Achievement Test - fits within this curriculum framework. It's not a matter of trade-offs. Over the years educators have gotten into either/or debates - phonics versus whole language, graded versus nongraded - with high priests in one ideology or another capturing an enthusiastic following for a time. Integrating the curriculum is not either/or, but both.

To imply that integration means shallowness is to miss the essence of what it's all about. It's depth based on knowledge in context. Rather than learning about science or history in fragmented academic boxes organized for the convenience of scholarly inquiry - not greater insight - students can become well-informed and think integratively. If we don't put education in this context - in the context of the whole child - we have an exercise in trivial pursuit.

What do teachers think of your Core Commonalities?

The idea has been received with interest and enthusiasm. What's needed now is to find ways to define the content so teachers can move from the broad ideas to Monday morning activities that work.

The Foundation is following The Basic School report with practical materials to help teachers take that next step. So far, a core group of teachers we worked with for a year and a half have translated these themes into 25 lesson plans. Beyond that, we aim to create units of study that teachers can use to teach content throughout the grades as well additional practical lesson plans. We expect all of these materials will be available in a year or two.

Do you see teachers having a hand in creating curricula?

Yes. I'm very leery of a curriculum that's imposed from the top. At the same time, I'm also leery of a curriculum that is chaotic, that has no framework or pattern. While it's not wise to dictate a standardized recipe for a curriculum in a narrow sense, it's not practical either to have every school decide what it wants to teach. That's why the Core Commonalities help us agree on the territory of knowledge we want to teach and how to integrate it. After that, a commitment from teachers is critical to help translate these ideas into lessons.

There's no question that time for professional development is at the heart of our report.

Is your curriculum practiced?

We are working closely with teachers at 15 schools across the country of a variety of geographic and ethnic characteristics and levels of renewal.

What about national standards?

In my judgment the movement toward national standards and a national curriculum framework complicates curriculum reform. If you look at the standards published for each discipline - which are often heavily developed by university faculty, not by school people - the area of knowledge they define is so comprehensive you'd have to be in school 500 years to begin to cover the wish list. Without an integrative thematic notion, such as the Core Commonalities, schools will end up with long laundry lists.

Schools are locked in the horns of the dilemma over whether to teach values. Where do you stand?

We wrestled with this issue - should or shouldn't schools teach values? We concluded that it's impossible to separate an integrated curriculum from a value structure. This is not a sentimental add-on to an academic program - it's fundamental.

With that said, which values are we talking about? There are two types - contested values (such as sex education, prayer in school) and consensus values, virtues that any society can agree on. We affirm that schools should commit to teaching consensus values, including honesty, respect, responsibility, compassion, self-discipline, perseverance, and giving. There is no way to achieve academic excellence without teaching these virtues. For example, you need perseverance to finish your homework and honesty to see why plagiarism is wrong.

How can schools teach these "consensus values"?

First, schools can incorporate lessons on values into the curriculum, rather than teaching them in courses in isolation. For instance, villains and heroes throughout history provide rich ground for inquiry into virtues. And teachers can look to current events for ample examples, too. Second, students can learn these values through community-service projects, making connections beyond the classroom, crossing intergenerational lines, creating buddy systems where older students help younger ones, and so on. Third, teachers and staff can teach by example.

Can your work be construed as part of a political agenda?

I'm deeply concerned about the politicization of education that freezes schools around adult agendas - because schools are nonpartisan. Our aim is to make schools better by finding common ground for the sake of our children. We don't have a secondary agenda. Our agenda is to focus on what works in schools.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Is the Essence of the Basic School?

The School as Community - The Basic School has, as the first requirement, a clear and vital mission. The school is a place where everyone comes together to promote learning. Each classroom is, itself, a community. But in the Basic School, the separate classrooms are connected by a sense of purpose, in a climate that is just, disciplined, and caring, with occasions for celebration. Key components: * Building community * Teachers as leaders * Parents as partners

Curriculum with Coherence - In the Basic School, literacy is the most essential goal. All children are expected to become proficient in the written and spoken word. But in the Basic School, language is defined broadly to include words, numbers, and the arts, the essential tools of learning which, taken together, help create a curriculum with coherence. Key components: * The centrality of language * The core commonalities (see box on page 62) * Measuring results

Climate for Learning - In the Basic School, every student is encouraged to become a disciplined, creative, well-motivated learner. Class size is kept small, and the teaching schedule and student grouping arrangements are open to empower teachers and promote learning. Connections are made across the generations to enrich students' lives. Key components: * Patterns to fit purpose * Services for children

Commitment to Character - The Basic School is concerned with the ethical dimensions of a child's life. The goal is to assure that all students, on leaving school, will have developed a keen sense of personal and civic responsibility. Seven core virtues are emphasized to guide the Basic School as it promotes excellence in learning, as well as living. Key components: * The core virtues * Living with purpose

RELATED ARTICLE: Connecting Curriculum with 8 Core Themes

* The Life Cycle

Young children begin the study of the life cycle by observing animal life, gerbils, or baby chicks. They consider how the young enter the world, learn about eggs set afloat in the ocean, and examine nests warmed by a mother bird. They watch trees change through the seasons, and write stories about pets. Later, students begin to study their own bodies, the benefits of exercise, and how our bodies are nourished. They learn, too, about the damage done by tobacco, alcohol, and certain drugs.

* The Use of Symbols

This introduces students to the history of language. They learn how people made paper long ago, sent messages, used drumbeats or smoke signals, and drew pictures on the walls of caves. They begin to think about how other forms of life - birds, dolphins, bumblebees - send signals. They also consider how they communicate using words, facial expressions, and body language. And students study the logos, signs, and symbols in their own neighborhood.

* Response to the Aesthetic

This introduces students to a formal study of the arts. Children begin to understand and respond to music, dance, theater, and the visual arts - and see how they are woven through history. Above all, students begin to understand beauty and self-expression.

* Membership in Groups

Students discover the importance of the family unit in society and in their own lives, informal groups they are a part of (clubs and even cliques on the playground). Students also think of the role of community groups, service clubs, and religious institutions. They ask: Why do people come together in these ways? Students in the upper grades study civics.

* A Sense of Time and Space

Young children begin their journey through time by thinking about their own histories, perhaps creating a family tree. They talk with older people about life in other generations. They learn about how their school got started and when the community where they live was settled. Older students study the history of their home state and region as well as the history of the United States.

* Producing and Consuming

Children learn first about how to make things, learning at least one handicraft like knitting or caring for a garden. They learn about work from adults who visit the school and they visit workplaces, too. Older students learn about how work has changed throughout the years, why most people today live in cities, not on farms. Students learn about U.S. currency, and at a basic level, about the exchange of goods and services.

* Connections to Nature

Basic School students, while visiting the city park or hiking on a trail, can select rocks of special interest, identify trees, or study insects and wildflowers. Older students learn about scientists and inventors and begin to use the scientific method themselves.

* Living with Purpose

This commonality responds to questions such as: What makes people happy? What's wrong with being mean? Are big-league ballplayers really heroes? Why should I help somebody? Are some people better than others?

COPYRIGHT 1995 Scholastic, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group