Ted Sizer

I started reading a book entitled, Horace's School, Redesigning the American High School by Ted Sizer. According to the Coalition of Essential Schools website, http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/about/org/execboard/ted_page.html

"Ted Sizer is arguably the leading educational reformer in the United States. In 1984, he founded the Coalition of Essential Schools and is currently serving as its Chair Emeritus Sizer received his B.A. from Yale, his doctorate from Harvard and held several teaching positions before becoming dean of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard and, subsequently, the headmaster of Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. He is the Founding Director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. After retiring from Brown University, Professor Sizer took a one-year position as Head of the Francis W. Parker Essential School. Since the late 1970s, he has worked with hundreds of high schools, studying the development and design of the American education system. For over twenty years, the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) has been at the forefront of creating and sustaining personalized, equitable, and intellectually challenging schools. Essential schools are places of powerful student learning where all students have the chance to reach their fullest potential."

The Coalition has founded and is committed to several common principles which outline their beliefs of purpose and practice of schooling including:

• Personalized instruction to address individual needs and interests;
• Small schools and classrooms, where teachers and student know each other well and work in an atmosphere of trust and high expectations;
• Multiple assessments based on performance of authentic tasks;
• Democratic and equitable school policies and practice;
• Close community partnerships

In the novel, Horace Smith, a 59 year old English teacher presiding at Franklin High School boldly states that, “We do not know what half of these kids can do.” Like Franklin High, most high schools across America look merely at the test scores the students earn. Why not? It’s an easy way to classify students into different track programs, The Honors kids, the College Prep kids, the Special Needs kids, etc. I can safely say that test scores are indeed an important part of evaluating students, but teachers need to look closer at students as individuals, and not just as numbers in their grade book. As educators preparing these students for life, we need to get to know our students on a more intimate level. This notion holds true for all schools: urban school districts, suburban, rural, private schools, etc. More important than just throwing information at a student and hoping that it sticks, we need to know how each student learns. Are they a visual learner? Are they an audio learner? Do they learn more effectively when we use pictures to help illustrate our point? Do they need to see the words in writing to better understand the concept? The list goes on ad infinitum. It should be paramount that each teacher speaks with each student’s former teacher to ascertain vital information about a particular student’s habits. By conferring with former teachers, it would allow each teacher to get a truer sense of who in fact we are educating or attempting to educate. Instead of the shy girl in the corner, the tall kid in the front row, or the habitually late young man, they should be referred to as Lacey, Mark, and Phil. On page four of Horace’s School, we are informed that, “Horace does not know how their minds work, how and why they make mistakes, what motivates them, what stars they seek to reach…” or whether they have any goals or ambitions at all. It is imperative that we as teachers know this precise information in order to make classroom time valuable, meaningful, and lasting.

Horace stresses that it is not only important for teachers to build meaningful relationships with their students but to also build relationships with their colleagues, gain support and help from the families of the students, as well as the community. Horace asks teachers to reexamine the current practices and critique their work in order to figure out what is the “best practice”

Throughout my reading thusfar there is one major question that stands out in my mind. Assuming that I am a new teacher and I see changes that need to and can be made, how would I go about trying to persuade the administration to agree to the changes in curriculum that I see fit. What happens when you have a principal who wants everything done the way it has been since 1895? Then, do I worry about being tenured first and try to implement changes after I have secured my livelihood?