Direct Instruction and Rote Practices

Schools Seek Better Learning Through Direct Instruction and Rote Practices 

CHICAGO (AP) - At 10:10 a.m. on a hot summer day, teacher Marilynn Clark is racing against the clock. While third-graders in Chicago's 400 summer schools are due for a multiplication lesson, Clark's students are stuck on reading.

"Five minutes, you've got five minutes,'' Clark announced loudly, while currying around her stuffy classroom.

At 10:20 a.m., she hurried through a homework rundown. By 10:30 a.m., she was back on track, starting a multiplication drill and story problem along with the rest of the city's third-grade teachers.

For three years, Chicago's summer program for failing students has laid out what should be taught, minute by minute. Compared to most school systems, where teachers create their own lesson plans from a common curriculum, the approach leaves little to chance.

Buoyed by its success, officials are bringing a similar approach to the regular school year. While the optional daily lesson plans aren't as detailed, they generally tell teachers what and how to teach each day.

``People need help,'' said Paul Vallas, who began a reform effort in 1995 after taking over the city's beleaguered schools. ``If teachers are new, if they are teaching out of their certification, or they are simply clueless, they'll have the resources needed to guarantee that there will at least be a minimum level of quality instruction.''

But detractors say teachers in the nation's third largest school system shouldn't be asked to take a uniform approach.

``You can't apply the same cookie cutter to each school in the city,'' said Suzanne Davenport, acting director of Designs for Change, a local reform group. ``This approach said that all students and teachers are the same, and if we give them the same curriculum, we'll get the same results.''

The lesson plans, which cover kindergarten through 12th grade, were piloted in 60 schools last year. They earned praise from some teachers who either used them exclusively or combined them with their own curriculums.

``It gave me a road map to follow,'' said Derrick Williams, a high school teacher who switched from social studies to English last year. ``If we want to hold our kids to high standards, there needs to be more continuity in what's taught.''

Other teachers fear the plans will stifle creativity and reduce the value of their own education.

``If this becomes mandatory, why even get a degree in teaching?'' said third-grade teacher Heather Boland. ``All you have to do is read a manual.''

Since the late 1980s, many districts nationwide have tried to improve teacher quality by introducing competency tests, tougher educational standards and higher requirements at teacher colleges. But education experts say no other large district has gone as far as Chicago.

Once dubbed the nation's worst, the city's school system has lately earned a reputation as a laboratory for reform. Under Vallas, dozens of schools have been built or renovated, social promotion curtailed, and summer and after-school programs expanded.

Meanwhile, test scores have been inching up from dismal levels, and enrollment is growing after years of decline.

Vallas' latest initiative is targeted at the city's annual crop of 1,200 new teachers and the up to 10 percent of instructors who teach out of their subject area, along with those who simply don't measure up.

``If you can't get rid of bad teachers,'' he said, ``why not give them a curriculum developed by the best teachers in the system to use?''

But one expert said teachers may feel as if they're being lectured, not guided.

``The message of this is that we don't trust the teachers,'' said Jackie Ancess, associate director at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching at Columbia University. ``You're basically saying teachers don't know how to plan a series of lessons for a year.''

Vallas dismisses such criticism. This is not, he said, about ``teacher proofing,'' but about giving teachers the training they deserve.

``Only in education do we say, 'Here's your classroom, here are your general standards, you're on your own,''' Vallas said.

With the new school year just underway, many Chicago teachers say they're willing to defer judgment on the lesson plans. Anything that might raise standards, they say, is worth a try.

``If we were doing what we needed to be doing in terms of student achievement, this wouldn't even be coming up,'' said Sandra Lewis, an elementary school principal.

[ Written by Kate N. Grossman for Associated Press - 8/30/98]
To get something more of an understanding of the forces at play in these matters, please read the following Waking Bear articles: (1) Trouble, We've Got Trouble - Trouble with a Capital T(eacher), (2) A History of Teachers and Teaching in America, (3) Teaching Profession - An Oxymoron, (4) Teachers' Unions - Their Role and Influence, and (5) Public Administrators - Mixed Blessing and Personal Agendas.

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