Subject: Bored Students

Posted by Della Robinson on 12/28/2010
In Reply To:Bored Students Posted by Jay Forrester on 12/28/2010

Message:

Jay's comments are taken seriously by the Schlechty Center for School Reform. I keep saying that if there were a marriage between the ST community and Schlechty the results would be remarkable.
Norwalk High School has been one of the Schlechty schools for 8 years. New teachers have to be inducted into the Schlechty model, for lack of a better term. Teachers learn lesson design...the first step is knowing the "Who", that is the students in our classrooms. A number of tools are used to find out about our students: we have access to test data, benchmark data, surveys that are teacher-made, etc. Teachers learn about the design-cycle, which includes feedback and re-design.
We took a long time to develop belief statements, which we refer to as we make decisions for our way of doing things at NHS. We have a long way to go, but we have evidence that students are learning. We focus on engaging students in the work.
I know there are other districts in the US and beyond that are finding other ways to engage students. The Schlechty center involves/recognizes various systems that need to be made visible so as to understand how they interact. There is a lot of work to be done...if we fail, so goes our way of life.
Della