[regional_school] Fw: Open Letter to Arne Duncan from Herb Kohl
- From: Dan Drmacich <dandrmacich@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Regional School <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:45:58 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Tue, 6/23/09, Lynn Ellingwood <lellingw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Lynn Ellingwood <lellingw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Open Letter to Arne Duncan from Herb Kohl
To:
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 7:56 PM
Open Letter to Arne Duncan from Herb KohlPosted at ARN, thanks to Monty Neill:
Herb Kohl: An Open Letter to Arne Duncan
Summer 2009
From Herbert Kohl
Dear Arne Duncan,
In a recent interview with NEA Today you said of my book *36 Children,* "I read
[it] in high school … [and] … wrote about his book in one of my college essays,
and I talked about the tremendous hope that I feel [and] the challenges that
teachers in tough communities face. The book had a big impact on me."
When I wrote *36 Children* in 1965 it was commonly believed that African
American students, with a few exceptions, simply could not function on a high
academic level. The book was motivated by my desire to provide a
counter-example, one I had created in my classroom, to this cynical and racist
view, and to let the students' creativity and intelligence speak for itself. It
was also intended to show how important it was to provide interesting and
complex curriculum that integrated the arts and sciences, and utilized the
students' own culture and experiences to inspire learning. I discovered then,
in my early teaching career, that learning is best driven by ideas, challenges,
experiences, and activities that engage students. My experience over the past
45 years has confirmed this.
We have come far from that time in the '60s. Now the mantra is high
expectations and high standards. Yet, with all that zeal to produce measurable
learning outcomes we have lost sight of the essential motivations to learn that
moved my students. Recently I asked a number of elementary school students what
they were learning about and the reactions were consistently, "We are learning
how to do good on the tests." They did not say they were learning to read.
It is hard for me to understand how educators can claim that they are creating
high standards when the substance and content o f learning is reduced to the
mechanical task of getting a correct answer on a manufactured test. In the
panic over teaching students to perform well on reading tests, educators seem
to have lost sight of the fact that reading is a tool, an instrument that is
used for pleasure and for the acquisition of knowledge and information about
the way the world works. The mastery of complex reading skills develops as
students grapple with ideas, learn to understand plot and character, and
develop and articulate opinions on literature. They also develop through
learning history, science, and technology.
Reading is not a series of isolated skills acquired in a sanitized
rote-learning environment utilizing "teacher-proof" materials. It develops
through interaction with a knowledgeable, active teacher—through dialogue, and
critical analysis. It also develops through imaginative writing and research.
It is no wonder that the struggle to coerce all students into mastering
high-stakes testing is hardest at the upper grades. The impoverishment of
learning taking place in the early grades naturally leads to boredom and
alienation from school-based learning. This disengagement is often stigmatized
as "attention deficit disorder." The very capacities that No Child Left Behind
is trying to achieve are undermined by th e way in which the law is implemented.
This impoverishment of learning is reinforced by cutting programs in the arts.
The free play of the imagination, which is so crucial for problem-solving and
even for entrepreneurship, is discouraged in a basics curriculum lacking in
substantial artistic and human content.
Add to this the elimination of physical education in order to clear more time
to torture students with mechanical drilling and shallow questioning and it is
no wonder that many American students are lethargic when it comes to ideas and
actions. I'm sure that NCLB has, in many cases, a direct hand in the
development of childhood obesity.
It is possible to maintain high standards for all children, to help students
learn how to speak thoughtfully, think through problems, and create imaginative
representations of the world as it is and as it could be, without forcing them
through a regime of high-stakes testing. Attention has to be paid to the
richness of the curriculum itself and time has to be allocated to thoughtful
exploration and experimentation. It is easy to ignore content when the sole
focus is on test scores.
Your administration has the opportunity, when NCLB comes up for
reauthorization, to set the tone, aspirations, and philosophical and moral
grounds for reform that develops the intelligence, creativity, and social and
personal sensitivity of students. I still hold to the hope you mentioned you
took away from *36 Children* but I sometimes despair about how we are wasting
the current opportunity to create truly effective schools where students
welcome the wonderful learning that we as adults should feel privileged to
provide them.
I would welcome any opportunity to discuss these and other educational issues
with you.
Sincerely, Herbert Kohl
— Herb Kohl
*Open Letter*
2009-06-16
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