Won't somebody think of the children? An analysis of the segregation of Boys and Girls from the perspective of a Parent and Educator

Disclaimer: some facts or details from this post may be insufficient or even inaccurate due to the lack of communication parents are receiving from the school in question. That is part of the point. But I will own the inaccuracies in service to the reflection.

Even at Sea World, educators cannot
escape the call for innovation

The @40ishoracle and I were spending a lovely day at Sea World before the official start of #FETC (a decent conference and the best vendor floor that I have been subjected to in years), when i get one of the stomach churning texts from my wife "call me when you get a few minutes" -- In the modern world of texting, voice communication is at a premium. I immediately delayed my progress to the sea-lion show and made a phone call.

Parents of students in my daughter's highly successful 6th grade class had received a letter from the administration explaining that student safety was of the highest priority and that, due to some recent incidents, the 6th grade classroom would be "clustered" for an indeterminate amount of time. As one parent later put it, "if you didn't know what was going on, you would think maybe someone brought a weapon to school" (or possibly was using a make-believe hand-grenade to fight off evil on the playground).

So, some questions that arose:

1. What was the incident?
2. What does "clustering" actually mean? (aren't any student groups in more than one classroom clustered? Tracking is a kind of clustering, right?)
3. Is this clustering a long-term or short-term solution?
4. Is everyone ok?
5. Why is everyone being impacted by this "incident" if not everyone was involved in the "incident"?
6. Is this the only response?
7. Was my child involved?
8. What should I be discussing with my child as a concerned and supportive parent?
9. Not to be repetitive, but what happened?

Most of the explanation that follows comes second or third hand from the most reliable source that was willing to talk to my wife...namely, our 6th grade daughter:

6th grade boys and girls were involved in a "game" that involved inappropriate touching in one of the two 6th grade classes at the school. The incidents were repetitive, had been going on for awhile, and were, in some cases, not consensual. A student had told another student who had told an adult. (This happened at the end of the week before the letter went out). Related to this timeline, a concerned parent may or may not have called either the Indianapolis Public School security (we have an official e-mail that references the IPS police) or the Indianapolis Police Department.

As is often the case with children, concerned parents, and the possibility of legal action, investigations ensued. The culmination, at least from non-directly-involved parents' points-of-view was the aforementioned clustering solution.

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CLUSTERING (from Wikipedia): 

an educational process in which four to six gifted and talented (GT) and/or high achieving students are assigned to an otherwise heterogeneous classroom within their grade to be instructed by a teacher that has had specialized training in differentiating for gifted learners.^[1] ...Within a cluster, several instructional options are typically used, including: enrichment and extensions, higher-order thinking skills, pretesting and differentiation  compacting, an accelerated pace, and more complexity in content.^[5]

_______

Well, that doesn't sound too bad. Except that in this case, the CLUSTER was a euphemism for dividing the 

Went looking for a picture and found a good post

6th grade boys from the 6th grade girls for an indefinite period of time.

• All academic classes are segregated boys from girls.
• "Extras" such as art and music are also divided (there is a whole blog post on these things now being just "extras")
• Students attempting to communicate with other students of the opposite sex in the hallway are called out by the teachers monitoring the hallways with admonitions like "don't talk to them!"
• This has led to some of the girls passing by the boys quickly saying things like "UNCLEAN!" (I love pretentious Pre-teens). Other reaction have included suggestions of adding "Boys" and "Girls" signs to the drinking fountains.

My wife, an OB/GYN (and much more rational person than I am) wrote a well thought-out letter to the teachers and principal of the school outlining the limited information she knew and her reaction:

• This approach seems punitive on-face, particularly if a number of boys and girls were not involved
• While the students involved have been identified as "gifted", they are still pre-teen students with the hormones that accompany that age.
• Healthy and unhealthy sexual habits form at an early age (unhealthy examples include using sexuality as a bargaining chip, objectifying the opposite sex, and victimization) and this behavior presents one of those all-too-buzzwordy "teachable moments" -- she even went so far as to volunteer the services of medical students and/or residents who would be willing to talk to middle school kids.

The response from one teacher was essentially "I agree, but I am not allowed to talk about it"

The principal gave no response.

That was two weeks ago.

Since then, we get vague ideas from concerned parents who are trying to glean information and from students who are a-buzz with reactions and rumors. The most recent news is that the classes will be reintegrated, but that logistically this cannot happen for at least two weeks since science-project groups have now been assigned! (#edreform snark: This makes no sense. Are there even high-stakes tests associated with the science project? Let's keep our eye on the ball!)

Reflection:

 I do not want this to appear that I am dismissing the "game" or the students who started, participated, or may have covered it up. This can be a serious and traumatic experience and should be dealt with appropriately. Those involved should answer for their actions in a way that respects the severity of the action and the developmental age of the students who participated willingly.

I am also not dismissing the literature on single-gender classrooms. In fact, this has little to do with the research in that area. The school is not making a decision based on a thought-out education policy and review of literature that concluded more effective education occurs in a segregated environment. If that were the case, we would expect to see separation of the 7th and 8th grade classes as well, parents would have been given opportunity to weigh in on the decision and choose whether that was the learning environment best suited for their children. -- This was a consequential reaction. Whether those consequences were a reaction out of a concern for safety or a concern for avoiding litigation cannot be determined.

We do know that the consequence was not out of a concern for the education of the 6th grade class as a whole. The response, lack of communication in the past two weeks, as well as the literal and metaphorical separation from any type of formation or educational opportunity is disturbing but indicative of many trends in education.

Lack Education by Context: 

The use of context acknowledges an individuals background, history, learning style and current situation in order to craft the best learning program. It is the true definition of personalized education. In this case, it would treat students who were tangentially involved differently than students who were directly involved and who may require more in-depth education or even counseling. One can only hope that there is some minimum of context being considered here, but there is no indication of that from the outside looking in.

Lack of Education by Relationship: 

As I have written about in a number of posts, one key to education is the use of relationship to help the learner understand (beyond parroting back answers from a personalized software platform). One concern in the educational reform culture that de-values teachers  in favor of a common curriculum, standardized software metrics, and high-stakes testing is that this essential relationship component is lost and we (students and educators) miss out on key learning opportunities that are indicated by behavioral signs and unique learning moments that arise outside of a lock-step curriculum and its corresponding metrics. 

There are a number of relationships that this current reaction ignores and in some cases attempts to sever: 

• Boys-Girls -- Boys and Girls are shown that their relationships are, at the core, something that can be dissolved with little consideration and that is probably, at some level, a bad thing that should be avoided if not punished. 
• Teacher-Student -- Teachers are once again moved along the continuum from guide to enforcer-of-rules which from the student perspective seems arbitrary and ineffective.
• Parent-School Adults -- Parents are frustrated by the lack of explanation about the thought process behind the platitude of "student-safety" concerns. This makes it difficult to be supportive of the administration and the teachers.

Lack of Education by Reflection: 

Khan Academy notwithstanding, the process of education involves combining new and authentic experiences with past context in a process of reflective questioning and application. While it works in math and world languages and computer programming, this process of reflection is particularly necessary when dealing with inter-personal relationships, demonstrating appropriate behavior, and "figuring out" what kind of person one hopes to be as an adult. When the only message from this incident is "when boys and girls touch each other, there will be consequences for EVERYONE", we have missed out on the most basic form of education, namely being able to talk about the incident with caring adults who are able to guide students, hormones and all, through very complicated feelings and reactions.

Final Thoughts:

At the end of the day, most of these students will be undamaged by their month or so "time-out" from the opposite sex. But the decision making process that led to this separation still deserves examination. If we have moved past making decisions that are developmentally appropriate, we become unable to guide teens and pre-teens through an emotional and confusing time.  if our decisions are no longer those that are educationally indicated, we miss out on key moments that may not come around again (not to mention that we give up the authority that comes from being educational experts in society). Heck, at least if our decisions were made based on test-scores we could have some data at the end of the day (*cringe*)

I am concerned for students who have had one skewed imagery of healthy sexual behavior replaced by a different, but also skewed perspective on gender roles and relationships.

I am concerned that we are so afraid of honest communication, reflection, and context that we are willing to warp our students' social structures on a reactive whim.

I am concerned that, ultimately, our actions reflect those things that we value most and that the values being represented here seem cold and distant from adolescent formation or healthy education.

As a parent and teacher, I am concerned.

#savethedinosaurs - What NYC DOE's attack on the Terrible Lizards reveals about Education

UPDATE: The New York DOE has backed off of its banned words list, relegating my #savethedinosaurs campaign to pithy quotes of the past. But feel free to read on for some nice hypothetical discussion. -- adding a few updates from social media comments too.

If you haven't followed, heard about, or laughed out loud at the latest educational gaff from a Department of Education, you can read about it in a CBS news report or any number of blogs like this one. In short, the New York City DOE has proposed a list of 50 words (and concepts) that should not be used on standardized test for fear of their potential to be upsetting or create an unpleasant testing environment.

I sat on this for a few days...ok, I tweeted about it, but i refrained from blogging for a few reasons. First, I was infinitely hopeful that NYC DOE would back off of the statement (They haven't. Originally, they were attempting the "but Florida does it too" defense that is so popular among my seven year old's Sunday school class). Second, there are much better general education writers out there (looking at you, Answer Sheet), and I wasn't sure if my voice had much to add to the discussion. Third, I was really struggling on the best format: I considered a McSweeney's style letter to the Dinosaur, a classic rant decrying the downfall of education due to big government short-sightedness, etc.

So why write?

1. I think #savethedinosaurs is a meme that really needs to take off
2. One thing that i haven't seen written yet is the intersection between this testing mandate and our current reliance on testing as an evaluation tool for schools, teachers, and students alike.

For lack of a witty subheading -- Seriously?

I am not going to include the full list in this post (the links above do a good job of listing), but I am willing to call out some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet (or at least not enough).

Extremely Sensitive: The initial claim is one of sensitivity -- not creating an unpleasant testing environment (Florida generally avoids the use of "hurricanes" for fear of PTSD triggers).Yet there are a number of items on the list that seem to be following this guideline in only the most general of terms:

• Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
• Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)

While I understand that there are religions that do not celebrate another-year-around-the-sun days, I am hard-pressed to find evidence of a birthday-related question triggering a stress-event that skewed a test (in fact, the only mention of this situation during my search was in reference to the NYC Banned Word list). It is common in our society today to base policy on the hypothetical rather than the actual (closely related to Generalization from Fictional Evidence, but if you know what the actual fallacy is, please let me know in the comments). 

While I understand the need to be boy-scout-level prepared in as many situations as possible, we do ourselves a disservice to create general policy to cover every situation...better to create a general policy that, through care and sensitivity, can allow exceptions (the Jesuits refer to this hallmark of effective education as cura personalis -- an understanding of student context, caring adults who are able to be flexible in the moment, etc. (Note: this is not en vogue in education practice today).

Not-So-Hidden Agenda

• Bodily functions
• Celebrities
• Junk food

There is always a risk when we mix assessment instruments with social-norm change goals. Again, I have trouble visualizing the PTSD moment from being asked to answer a question about hotdogs and potato chips (or the ever-popular porkrinds). At the point that we move away from the sensitivity claim, it seems that we have a number of items that are taboo because in an ideal world, we wouldn't have to deal with them (celebrity culture, overweight children due to malnutrition and overeating, fart jokes, etc.).

This becomes a slippery slope. Have we as parents and/or educators abdicated our duty of what should and should not be open for analysis and discussion? Arguably some of these "social" issues would be better served by some analysis and critical thinking. 


Note: one discussion in the Teacher Resource Center, points out that it could be even more insidious -- how difficult does it become to criticize the government when you can't discuss natural disasters (#FEMAFail), Politics, or War. Far from creating the informed citizenry, this list specifically encourages us to avoid assessing the ability to critique the government.

Good Test Practice: Even some of the legitimate test-avoidant topics:

• In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge

are not really there because of cultural awareness/sensitivity. They are there because calling on specialized knowledge in a general question is a bad idea. So is writing a multiple choice question with one answer that is particularly long or a fill-in-the-blank that has the answer embedded in the question. Rather than giving a comprehensive list of words.verboten, the NYC DOE would be better off making the statement "write a good test".

Aside: this particular topic led to an excellent dinner table conversation hypothesizing "bad questions" based on this concept. My favorite was the ten-year-old's analysis that a question referring to pre-cellphone responses (contacting someone, emergencies, etc) would be impossible for most kids to answer.

On Backward Design - The hidden curriculum message in banning the Dinosaurs

Early in my teaching career, there was a battle being waged over the amount of standardized content that was appropriate in a classroom. Should every English teacher set his own reading list? are there a few must-reads and some flexibility in the rest? Is each book and each unit designed as a whole? -- While this argument has been settled in some schools, it is one of those classic discussions that appears to cycle about every 3-5 years.

As Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design (sorry, no KINDLE link) took off in schools, the system began to weigh in on how we shape assessments and understand what is taught in the classroom. It is a popular framework, but by no means universal. In way-to-brief summary:

1. Identify the outcomes for the individual learner.
2. Identify the evidence that would constitute acceptable demonstration (mastery, etc.) of those outcomes -- commonly, this is the assessment instrument
3. Design lessons, activities, and experiences that lead to effective demonstration.

• In its most negative interpretation, this is "teaching to the test".
• In its most positive reponse, it is retorted "of course. If the objectives are sounds and the assessment is good, why wouldn't you?

But what if the assessment is not good?

The corollary of this mindset is that there is little-to-no reason to teach content that is not going to be assessed, because it is extraneous to the outcomes being worked toward.

• Why teach a lesson on junk food and nutrition if it will not be assessed?
• Why address issues of social injustice if there will be no questions about poverty, homelessness, or even computers that are owned by a family instead of the library?
• Why teach evolution if it has been banned from the assessment?

Teachers have been told (particularly in NYC) in no uncertain terms that the results of these test-scores are direct reflections on their ability as teachers and that this ability will be publicly pronounced in the virtual town square for all to see and comment upon. At the point that I have been told, specifically, that this content will not be a part of high-stakes assessment, the only responsibility I have to teach this content is my prerogative as a good educator -- and the DOE and legislatures have done a pretty good job of telling me, again and again, that this is not enough.

And so we are now to prepare students for a test that does not encourage critical thinking, does not ask for analysis of topics which may be deemed controversial or uncomfortable, and which puts forth a multi-faceted social agenda.

This goes beyond critical correctness.

And the dinosaurs will not the only casualties.

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As always, if you made it this far, I appreciate your thoughts, comments, likes, +1s and retweets. If you are so inclined to share, please include the #savethedinosaurs hashtag, because I think that would be cool :)