Canine reading tutors

This week's Artdog Image(s) of Interest

Today's images show an increasingly frequent literacy strategy for helping children learn to read with greater fluency and confidence: using reading therapy dogs. 

As you'll see if you take time to watch this video, reading to dogs can help children with difficulties grow into stronger readers--but also gain confidence, and improve in all sorts of other areas you might not expect, from better math skills to improved hygiene!

Are the dogs magic? No, it's just a natural outcome. People have taken comfort and strength--not just help, food and utility--from animals.

The first recorded use of animals for therapy that I've been able to track down was a program for disabled people to work with farm animals in Geel, Belgium in the 9th century (yes, during the Dark Ages), but they must've gotten the idea from somewhere--namely, the millennia-long history of interactions between humans and the other animal species they encountered, lived and worked with.

Side note: there's still an active focus on community-based psychiatric care in Geel today, based on its very old tradition.

During August, I celebrated the traditional back-to-school season with a return to the "roots" of this blog (which used to be called Artdog Educator) and a focus on education, which has been well received. I thought the photos and video of dogs at work to help children read was an appropriate way to close out this theme (for the moment) and segue into my September "Creative Approaches to Work" series. 

Keep checking back, for more working dogs in September.

IMAGES: Many thanks to FirstBook’s article Sit, Stay, Read about a program in the Chicago Schools, for the photo of the girl reading to the dog in her classroom, and to the Stamford Advocate, for the photo of two girls on a couch in Stamford, CT reading to a dog, and article about a local literacy program that uses dogs in schools. Thanks also to YouTube and Intermountain Therapy Animals of Salt Lake City, UT, for the video about their Reading Education Assistance Dogs.

"Weaponized" Education?

The Artdog Quote of the Week

I don't know about you, but I rarely think of education as a weapon. My general concept of education has always been that it is more of a path through a tool shop, although I suppose some of those tools could be considered sharp-edged weapons . . . especially those in the Critical Thinking Department.

And yet two of my earlier Quotes of the Week this month have looked at education as a way to fight poverty and terrorism, both of which are well worth trying to combat.

I think this "education is a weapon" concept is why folks at the more authoritarian end of the political spectrum so often seek to subvert, control, or de-fund universal education. They may come out openly against it (as does the Taliban).

Others may give lip service to the importance of education, but follow a more hyper-individualist and/or fundamental religious philosophy that can produce varying degrees of destruction as a side-effect (as do the extreme tax cuts in Kansas that were supposed to "free" businesses to create jobs but didn't, or the push to use public education money for vouchers to fund parochial schools).

However we think of education, we must always remember that it is a powerful force, a sharp-bladed tool. It can improve lives all over our country and our planet--or it can be subverted in ways that stunt and warp and destroy. As thinking adults, we must keep our wits, look at outcomes, and make our choices about education as wisely as we can, lest that weapon fall into the wrong hands.

IMAGE: Many thanks to "Basic Knowledge 101" for this quote image.

What terrorists fear--Education

Malala, of course, knows this. She has lived it.

The record backs her up, too. One thing that terrorists especially seem to fear (judging from their actions) is educating little girls. Big, fierce, criminal, weapon-wielding terrorists are themselves terrified above all else of schoolgirls. As well they should be. Kinda mind-blowing, isn't it?

IMAGE: Many thanks to A-Z Quotes for this image.

Did you have THAT teacher?

Alliteration's a lovely thing, and the point is still valid, if you take "chalk" to mean "inspiration."



Of course, fewer and fewer classrooms use actual chalk today. In that respect this quote is becoming an anachonism. The transition, first to whiteboards and then to smartboards, started decades ago.

But teaching has been around a lot longer than smartboards, or even books or chalkboards. The bigger, older, more universal point is what a difference a teacher can make.

Nearly everyone has had that teacher. The one who paid attention, the one who took the extra time, the one who cared. The one we never forget. We'd like to think every child has at least one of those teachers, but the sad truth is that not everyone does.

We're starting a new school year, so everyone involved in our schools has a new chance, either to get--or to BE--that teacher. Will this be the year?

IMAGE: Many thanks to SantaBanta for this image and quote.

World's best Kindergarten? Maybe so.

Perhaps you've heard about Fuji Kindergarten. I first learned about it from a YouTube video I no longer can find--but it's an amazing school, and a fascinating concept.

Listen to a 2014 TED Talk by its architect creator, Takaharu Tezuka, as he explains his concept:



The Montessori approach of the educators fits well with the open classrooms and the children's freedom of movement.

One favorite activity at Fuji School is climbing on the tree with the cargo nets. 

This play area was built after the school was completed in 2007, but uses many compatible ideas.

The deck is a prominent part of the school's design. The kids love to run there, but the government did require protective railings--no, school officials were told, they couldn't put up nets around the edges instead.

Here's a glimpse of the open classroom design of the school. Architect Tezuka asserts that the noise is healthy for small children. As a teacher who's had to teach in noisy conditions, I'm less sure about that (of course, I was teaching high school, so that may be different).

The school also was profiled by the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Monocle Magazine's Asia Bureau Chief Fiona Wilson (don't miss the video she narrates), and many others.

VIDEOS AND IMAGES: Many thanks to YouTube for the TED Talk video and images of the tree, and the play area.  The aerial view of the deck is from Upworthy, and the photo of the open classrooms is from Detail Inspiration. Fascinating articles and more photos are available from most of these. Many thanks to all!

Poverty's cure?

The Artdog Quote of the Week

John Legend thinks schools should nurture all of children's talents, and empower them to be creative.

Singer-songwriter and actor John Legend has had an amazing career, but he feels if he'd had an education that valued and nurtured his creative talents his life might have gone much better. If every child's greatest potential could be activated and empowered, it seems reasonable to believe that poverty could decrease.

"We must break the long-held expectation that schools exist to mold and manage kids," he said in a CNN interview. "In today's world, expecting every child's education to be the same, progress at the same rate and be measured against the same narrow standards of performances is not just outdated, it's a disservice to young people and the educators who dedicate their lives to helping them."

This month we'll look at some of the ways innovative schools and educators are trying to break out of that old-fashioned paradigm.

IMAGE: Many thanks to A-Z Quotes, via Hippoquotes, for this image. 

Artdog Quote of the Week: If you don't educate . . .

In honor of the start of school in many places around the nation and the world this month, here's a thought to bear in mind:

 

Always true, even if you don't like paying taxes. 

I would prefer not to think that manipulation is the plan of those who seek to slash education spending or shunt money away from public education, thereby creating even more obstacles to equality for the poor than already exist. 

I would like to be able to say with confidence that this is not the plan of those who would deny higher education to those who were brought as small children to my country, by parents seeking a better life. 

I would like to think that everywhere in the world, people are coming to the realization that educating girls is the best economic idea we've seen in ages, because of the predictably positive results, and that those who would rather kill or rape them than educate them are a dying minority.

I would like to. But I fear it would be a lie.

IMAGE: Many thanks to the Urban Drops Facebook Page, for this image!

21st Century Teaching "Grin of the Week"

My son sent this to me a while back:

This is from "Encyclopedia of Entertainment" on Facebook.  In light of my opinions about digital media in the classroom (see my article "Teaching like it's 1980" from back when this blog was called "Artdog Educator"), you can probably guess my reaction.  I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Image credit: See above.

On Merit Pay for Teachers

I believe that excellence should be rewarded, and that teachers routinely go unrecognized and seriously under-rewarded in the monetary sense. 

But do the people who advocate merit pay as an “incentive” actually think that somehow teachers are “holding back”?  Do they imagine that we’ll “teach harder” if we are offered extra money?  If so, they have some really weird ideas about what motivates teachers!

There’s currently a popular mythology about “bad teachers” who need to be gotten rid of.  This is an ugly, distracting distortion.  It’s true some don’t live up to the calling, but the vast majority of us are here because we care, and we are doing the best job we know how to do. 

If you truly want to help educators teach children better, give us adequate funding across the board—with better salaries and professional development, and with quality materials and equipment.  Make sure our students have reliable access to good health care and nutritious food, and that they have safe places to live, in supportive communities where they all receive encouragement to learn (think “Harlem Children’s Zone”).

Sure, it’ll be nice for a few of my excellent colleagues to get more money because they teach well.  But don’t expect “merit pay” to make a discernable difference in outcomes, because it won’t.

Include Top Experts--Teachers--in Setting Standards

I want to be clear on the subject of national standards for education. I think that it absolutely makes the best kind of sense to establish broad answers to the question, “What do people need to know, in order to compete in the global market?” If we as a nation do not answer that question, clearly and consistently “from sea to shining sea,” we will continue to decline into has-been status in the world.

But who will provide those answers? And how will they be framed?

In the US, it’s politics and money that dictate our approach, so we know we’re in for a rough ride. Already the debates have begun. I would like to add my voice to the chorus of people saying, “This time, don’t leave out the teachers!”

In June, Education Week published an article about leaders from the major math and reading professional education associations publicly voicing concerns that they are being shut out of the process in favor of the national testing companies (“Subject-Matter Groups Want Voice in Standards,” published June 15, 2009).

Recently, developments seem to be headed in the direction of greater teacher inclusion. Education Week’s July 1 story, “Expert Panels Named in Common-Standards Push,” describes the addition of significant numbers of representatives from teachers’ subject-matter organizations to the panels developing drafts of proposed standards. This seems to me to be the only rational approach.

I know it’s currently fashionable to look down our noses at teachers, and question how “highly qualified” they are. But the fact is that I don’t know any teachers who got into this gig for the money, and have no interest in their students’ well-being. Much political hay is made about tenured teachers who have burned out, given up, and don’t care any more. That such teachers exist is unquestionable. But, like Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen,” they mostly are the fixation of fevered ideologues’ ranting.

In my experience, no one thinks longer and harder about what students need to know, and how to teach it to them, than teachers do. Most of us care deeply, and constantly try to do better and better at our work. Our opinions are expert opinions, as opposed to the all-too-common ignorant bumbling of laypersons who may care, but who often have no clue what the craft and art of teaching is really like.

Any push to create national standards surely must involve the prominent participation of the nation’s best experts on the subject--Teachers!

An NCLB by any other name . . . ?

I spent way too much time yesterday on the "Eduwonk" blog, reading through ideas offered for the "Name That Law" contest to suggest alternative names for the No Child Left Behind law.

Check it out for yourself at http://www.eduwonk.com/2009/02/a-contest-name-that-law.html

I read through what were then about 620 or so different comments. Some struck me as pretty funny, but others made me stop and wonder about the contributor.

Some seemed to assume that all the problems with schools come from bad/lazy/uncaring/stupid teachers, which is a simplistic view that only occasionally is accurate, as far as I can tell.

Some appear to suffer from the illusion that schools are chronically preoccupied with artificially puffing up student self-esteem. This is something that I've never actually seen play a role in real school settings, but a certain brand of uninformed layman seems convinced it is the root of all evil in schools.

Other than those, the ones that bothered me most fell into three broad categories: those who wanted to blame the parents, those who thought "kids are just lazy and need their butts kicked," and those who baldly asserted that it's okay to leave "stupid" kids behind.

Granted, unfit parents do exist. But they are a really tiny minority of parents in any given school, and there aren't nearly enough of the real item to create a statistical ripple. No, in my experience the observers (including some teachers!) who place the blame on the parents are overlooking some important issues.

Usually, the parents who are blamed for not caring are those from lower socio-economic groups in overcrowded, poverty-strapped schools. They also often are persons of color, and may be immigrants. In my years of teaching in urban schools I've talked with many who are dealing with burdens you might never know about.

Sometimes they are working two or more jobs, and have little time to coach their children's homework efforts or go to parent-teacher conferences. Many times they did poorly in school themselves, and don't know how to help their kids be successful. That kind of experience among parents doesn't breed much trust in schools among them, either. There also may be an embarrassing language or other cultural barrier that make them feel cut off from the school and uncomfortable there.

Research shows schools with active outreach programs have less trouble with lack of parent/extended family involvement than schools where parents are just assumed to be negligent.

The "kids are just lazy and need their butts kicked" group really needs to remember that an attitude of "the beatings will stop when morale improves" is rarely a successful approach. You can't berate someone into developing a love of learning. Those who think you can probably need therapy for their control issues.

Probably the attitude I find most abhorrent is the one that says it's okay to leave "stupid" kids behind. First of all, what is "stupid"? We have long since learned that "I.Q." numbers don't begin to describe human potential, and the complexity of the reality is impossible to quantify with just a simple number. Is it, then, okay to ignore a physical impairment such as myopia or astigmatism? How about dyslexia? Cerebral palsy? Tourette's Syndrome? Where do we draw the line? Should we take a page from the Nazis and kill or sterilize anyone with Down Syndrome? If that's the American ideal of good education, count me out!

What I think the "okay to leave the stupid behind" crowd really is saying, however, speaks to allocation of resources. To sum up what I think they actually mean, they seem to be saying it's okay to sacrifice the "stupid" to save the "smart."

They see gifted education, arts education, field trips, and similar programs being more and more neglected and less and less well funded, as focus shifts to those inconvenient populations of kids that chronically fall in the "not proficient" test score categories.

One of the things NCLB was supposed to do--and is definitely doing--was draw attention to just those kids. We always knew they weren't well served by their schools (otherwise they'd be doing better). Schools just didn't apparently have a good enough reason to care until their existence depended on it. How sad is that?

I don't think the "sacrifice the stupid" group is blaming the right source for the problem. Kids who are not prospering in school DO need our attention, and they do need better support. The overall problem lies in the fact that the way things are set up demands that there be "winners" and "losers."

Given the way the law was set up, for schools the choice is on the order of "shall we breathe, or shall we pick flowers?" Kids who are safely in the "proficient" category don't threaten their existence; kids whose test scores are too low do.

What we really need is support for schools--and by that I include funding, but don't mean just money alone! We shouldn't have to make the choice of which children to sacrifice (or intellectually starve). Schools should be empowered to teach them ALL as they need to be taught.