Disruptive Thinking
As the pandemic continues, I am seeking various ways to engage students in reading. Most young people, my progeny included (to my chagrin), hate reading!
A research project for my TL credential repeatedly showed that students prefer to do anything else but read. Beers and Probst assert that since 2010, students who enjoyed reading has continuously declined. Many feel that it is a school activity only. Students find reading a chore, because it used to answer questions and validate opinions with evidence from the text, or to earn points for a grade.
Study after study shows that reading predicts school success. But equally important, reading opens our minds to various perspectives from our own. It helps us to imagine how others feel and think by understanding their motivation for not just their actions, but beliefs. As a result, reading reshapes us. Or it can - if the reader is doing more than extracting information from the text. I picked up Disruptive Reading by Kyleen Beers and Robert E. Probst, to find more engaging strategies to implement in a school wide book challenge. How to get my students to be aesthetic readers - readers that are aware of how the text effects them. I was slightly familiar with BOOK, HEAD, HEART, thanks to a colleague of mine. It was chapter 11 that effected my head and heart.
"There is a difference between doing something so AS to succeed & doing something AND achieving success" (Dov Seidman)
My school (like most schools), state testing is emphasized from the moment students step onto campus in August. The higher the scores, the more desirable the school (the neighborhood, the students). State testing is the be all, end all!. Beers and Probst state that the emphasis on achieving test score is at the detriment of interest, creativity, self-reliance and passion for disciplines. They go onto discuss that the extrinsic motivation involved in testing is one upmanship of rewards and punishments. Schools should focus less on scores and more on engagement., and as a result students will want to come to school; there will be less discipline issues; students will ask more questions, more class conversations will occur,AND higher test scores as a result. Emphasis on the test create students who hate school, hate reading, hate learning - the opposite of what we want. I can't agree more! So many things are wrapped up in testing: money and prestige at the forefront. Beers and Probst infer that schools in higher economic areas are able to create engaging environments, but it is the lower economic schools, schools where there are more students of color; where typically test scores are low; where teaching to the test/test-prep is exclusive throughout the curriculum. Beers and Probst advise questioning how we do things, and provide a list of questions at the end of the chapter to ask ourselves in order to disrupt our own thinking.
And here is my frustration (I can feel the irksomeness at the edge of my throat) - and honestly, I am having trouble pinpointing why I am feeling this reaction! It isn't the questioning. Maybe it is, as stated in their questions: pressure and powerlessness.
In this pandemic environment, data is still being required, and testing is still being planned. There is so much pressure for teachers and students to perform well.
As the pandemic continues, I am seeking various ways to engage students in reading. Most young people, my progeny included (to my chagrin), hate reading! A research project for my TL credential repeatedly showed that students prefer to do anything else but read. Beers and Probst assert that since 2010, students who enjoyed reading has continuously declined. Many feel that it is a school activity only. Students find reading a chore, because it used to answer questions and validate opinions with evidence from the text, or to earn points for a grade.
Study after study shows that reading predicts school success. But equally important, reading opens our minds to various perspectives from our own. It helps us to imagine how others feel and think by understanding their motivation for not just their actions, but beliefs. As a result, reading reshapes us. Or it can - if the reader is doing more than extracting information from the text. I picked up Disruptive Reading by Kyleen Beers and Robert E. Probst, to find more engaging strategies to implement in a school wide book challenge. How to get my students to be aesthetic readers - readers that are aware of how the text effects them. I was slightly familiar with BOOK, HEAD, HEART, thanks to a colleague of mine. It was chapter 11 that effected my head and heart.
AND higher test scores as a result. Emphasis on the test create students who hate school, hate reading, hate learning - the opposite of what we want. I can't agree more! So many things are wrapped up in testing: money and prestige at the forefront. Beers and Probst infer that schools in higher economic areas are able to create engaging environments, but it is the lower economic schools, schools where there are more students of color; where typically test scores are low; where teaching to the test/test-prep is exclusive throughout the curriculum. Beers and Probst advise questioning how we do things, and provide a list of questions at the end of the chapter to ask ourselves in order to disrupt our own thinking. And here is my frustration (I can feel the irksomeness at the edge of my throat) - and honestly, I am having trouble pinpointing why I am feeling this reaction! It isn't the questioning. Maybe it is, as stated in their questions: pressure and powerlessness.
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