Book Blog

Big Picture

Big Picture
By Dennis Littky and Samantha Grabelle
Forward, Preface, Chapters 1 and 4

Book review by Fred Andrews

Forward: On Being Bold by Deborah Meier
Deborah Meier talks about how Dennis Littky has changed the set up of schools he has helped develop. In these schools, they do more talking and doing than reading and writing.
What Littky has done was "create a part-time community for kids where they can use their expanding knowledge of the real work as the foundation for new growth-an environment where they can learn about being a member of a peer group, where they can reflect on what they are doing at their work sites, and where they can hone skills and explore concepts that, they are coming to realize, will be critical to their futures." These are the ways people learned to do things thousands of years ago.
Deborah talks about how Littky has used new tricks to get parents more involved and students more interested in school. Littky has had success with this setup at many different schools and backgrounds. He accomplished this getting the students excited about school and learning, even though there have been some places where people have not been receptive to his style and tried to get him fired.
Eventually he teamed up with others to work at Brown University's Annenberg Institute for Education Reform in 1994 to set up the "Big Picture Company" a non profit education design organization that take their ideas throughout the world to set up vocational education.
These new schools, called "The Met" have linked schools and communities together to help students get more excited about coming to school. ¾ of the students ended up becoming first generation college students. These schools have been setup all over the US, including some as close as Indianapolis.

In what ways can we use our community resources to help create a atmosphere that will allow the students to get more hands-on experiences within the classroom?

Preface
It starts off with a letter to Dr. Littky from a former student at The Met thanking him for everything he did for her. She later went on to become a Brown University graduate. It goes on to talk about his decision to write this book and why he did it, the students. Put best by Littky, in "The Big Picture" "we cannot forget that we must start with the students. The kids must and always come first. There is no other way."
It talks about one of his tradition that he does every Friday called TGIF memo. The memos contain personal reflections, upcoming schedules and important announcements for the week to come. This tradition eventually is passed down and used by some teachers as well. It moves him listening to teachers talking about their work, how they appreciate their kids or verbalized their struggles as well.
He went on to talk about why he and his colleagues started The Met, to provide an example of what schools could be like; a passion about educating one student at a time, evaluating students with multiple forms of assessment, and measuring students' progress against real-world standards. They value students as individuals, understand that families are integral to each child's learning, communities as resources and educators as change agents who have the power to better every part of your community.

Do we as teachers or future teachers always try to put our students needs in at the top? What ways can we accomplish this and what are the situations that make it tough for us to put this in effect?

Chapter 1: The Real Goals of Education
When Dr. Littky is teaching someone, he talks about what his goals are for that student. The goals he sets are to find out "what I want them to be like on their last day" or "what they want to be like when I walk into them 10 to 20 years later at the grocery store." He wants them to:
• Be lifelong learners
• Be passionate
• Ready to take risk
• Be able to problem-solve and think critically
• Look at things differently
• Be able to work independently and with others
• Be creative
• Care and want to give back to their community
• Persevere
• Have integrity and self-respect
• Have moral courage
• Ability to use the world around them well
• Speak, write, read and work with numbers well
• Truly enjoy their life and work
Aren't those the real goals of education?
He talks about teaching students to use resources around them. To find something they are interested in and to use multiple sources like phone calls, books and the internet to get more information about the topic. He feels that someone who follows his passions learns to become a thinker and doer with enthusiasm. He wants them to feel good about themselves and have respect for others.
Dr. Littky encourages the students to develop basic life skills that will help them get along in the adult world. He wants them to keep developing skills, learning and growing. "The only really substantial thing education can do is help us to become continuous, lifelong learners." This is becoming life long learners. "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."
Dr. Littky talks about how a Howard County, MD school board removed two criteria from its official policy to determine grades, "originality and initiative" because they were no longer important and impossible to measure. They say that if we can't measure it easily, we don't care about it. He states that "our addiction to testing is blinding us to what we believe in our hearts are the important lessons our children should learn", which he feels is meaningless.
Because everything in schools today is focused on testing, they forget how much the process of finding the information influences how a kid takes in knowledge and then applies it. We need to motivate students to go out and find the information and to get a deeper understanding of the material. After this we need to teach them how to apply the knowledge in the real world.

Do you agree with Dr. Littky in that the schools place too much emphasis on testing?

Dr. Littky talks about getting the students to develop skills they will need to use in everyday life. What are some of the skills that we as teachers need to teach that these students will need to be successful in the real world?

So What Is Learning?
Learning is to set up exhibitions. This process is getting students to be passionate about something, getting a deeper understanding of the topic and then telling others about the topic. They are interactive with other students and teachers and this propels them to want to learn more. Finally, these students find a way to apply what they learn in the real world.
He talks about how 21 of 23 randomly selected Harvard folks couldn't answer one of two questions, "What causes the seasons?" or "What causes the phases of the moon?" They took every kind of science class possible, but could not apply it to something basic. But because they are Harvard grads they were going to be some of the most powerful people in the world. That is why The Met says "The use of knowledge is power!"
He goes on to say that learning is personal. Learning is what you do with it, how you use it in the real world, how you talk to your peers about it. It's learning how to think, not about memorizing. Learning is about being mindful. Learning can come in multiple forms and avenues and from different perspectives. Our goal as educator should be to create mindful learners. They are mindful of their surroundings and what is inside of them. The ability to be flexible, that there are different possibilities for every situation and to continue to seek information about this can help them. We have to have the imagination and creativity to learn what works best for you. That is what separates the average person from the best.

As teachers, do we try to get students to memorize things too much? Do you think that this is an important part of being successful in every day life? If not, why do you feel that the school emphasis testing memorization?

In your curriculum, what are some ways that you can give your students the freedom to explore and pursue things they may have interest in? Do you think it is beneficial to allow them this freedom to pursue things they have more interest in?

Then What Is Teaching?
Littky states that "the act of being a teacher is under standing the goals of education, understanding how learning works, and figuring out how to apply all this to each student, one at a time." You must be able to create the best possible environment that supports the students and learning. It's the teachers' ability to get the students to reach their goals.
It's the ability for the teacher to understand the background of the student and to figure out the best teaching method to use for that particular student. This comes from developing a relationship and finding the best way to communicate and push each other. The teacher must understand the family is an important part of this and we must include them in the process.
What we need to focus on is not the knowledge that we give them, but "bringing out what's already inside people." At The Met, they redefined teaching. They changed the teachers name to advisor. They inspire the students to find their own passions and ways of learning and then provide support for them by being a coach, role model and motivator. They help them find knowledge in the real world by brainstorming to solve problems, using various sources to find it. They give students one-on-one attention to help them feel good about their work.
They hire teachers democratically. They have a committee that includes the staff, students and administrators making the decisions. The main criterion they must have is a love and are commitment to students, they are lifelong learners and more importantly can be a positive role model with his passion to learn. Finally, they must be able to interact and respect the students they will be working with.
In the end, the teachers are inside the classroom working on projects together. They are passionate about the material and show the students' ways to find the answers themselves. A teacher knows what questions to ask the students when they are at a crossroad and they help students discover the learning on their own and to how to solve problems. Education is putting teachers and learners in the best possible environment for them to do this together.

In a public school setting, is it realistic and feasible to be able to develop the type of relationship with all the students you have like Dr. Littky recommends? Why or Why not?

How can having students involved in the selection and hiring of new teachers at a school be beneficial to them and the school?

Chapter 4: One Student at a Time
In a nutshell, this is "treating everyone alike differently." What we need to do is to think of the individual and what he or she needs and wants from education. We see too many students fall between the cracks because there is no personal relationship between the school and the student. He talks about how there were students at The Met who got letters from local public schools that they were not in a class, although they were never enrolled at the school. This shows that school don't take time to get to know the needs the student needs to be successful, what their interest are and this leads them to feel disinterested, unmotivated and not appreciated.
Developing the relationship with these students is important. Schools need to be personalized. Their primary concern is educating the students and the individual student themselves. You can't apply the "one-size-fits-all approach." He uses the example of going to a doctor's office. They don't throw 20 to 30 people with similar symptoms in one room and give them the same treatment plan. They treat and see each patient individually and develop a treatment plan for them. Littky states that this approach needs to be used in the classroom as well.
Schools need to develop structures and relationships with every student to take advantage of their strength and energies if they are serious about trying to get the maximum from each student. They must understand that it starts with the students. This starts with getting to know their families and their background. They have to find a way to get the students excited about learning.
They do this by creating an atmosphere where kids worry about failing themselves rather then competing with others. They develop as an individual and can get involved in a lot of different things. It's an "environment where diversity is truly respected and celebrated." You are force to understand each student's background, family setup, language and who has an active role in their life. You can't compare one student to another. Using a Michelangelo reference, within every block of stone, there is a beautiful statue. We must know how to remove the excess material to reveal the work of art.
While treating each student as individuals, you must get them to understand that they are part of a community as well. This is a struggle both in the US and at each school, including The Met. This philosophy involves the profession development of the teachers and administrators as well. Teachers' must have the freedom to develop their own plan, but we talk to them about their strengths and weaknesses and help them brainstorm about new ideas they can use in the classroom to make them better teachers.

What are the benefits in getting familiar with a students background and family setting in helping them be successful in your classroom?

What can teachers do to expose each student's strengths and create confidence and excitement in the classroom? Is it evaluating each student differently (test vs. projects vs. homework)?

Curriculum
Littky talks about the 3 ways they use to develop their curriculum:
1) All students' educational programs should be designed by the people who know them best: their parents, their teachers and themselves.
The parent must get involved first. They are the students' first teachers. They understand what they do at home, how the respond to situations, and what gets them excited about learning. They understand why a person has success one year, and fails the next. We need to respect the parents just like we respect the student.
This gives the teachers' more flexibility to design the right atmosphere to get the students to become successful. They can be creative in ways that solve problems and how they work with each individual student. They become an advisor rather than just a teacher.
2) We've got to teach students skills and knowledge.
We must teach the students how to get more knowledge and find ways for them to get things done. We teach them the skills to obtain the knowledge they need to be successful in the real world. This involves things like how to make a business call, how to network and plan for an event. Getting the students to want knowledge and teaching them skills they need to get the knowledge have become more important in today's world then reciting facts they memorized.
3) We've go to use and celebrate the real world around us.
Textbooks are too random and with 70% of the textbooks on the market today coming from 4 publishers, we are heading to a "national curriculum", not focusing on individualized education. Rather then looking at the order of the textbook, "the order we should be paying attention to is the one inside the kid." This means we need to look at what interest the student has about a particular subject and figure out how to help him learn more. Traditional curriculum pre-determines what needs to go inside the student.
An example Littky gives is of a student needing to do a paper in a history class. The student wanted to do his research on the Vietnam War because his father was in that war and was so distressed about it he would not talk to his children about this experience. However, the teacher would not allow this because they were focusing on the Revolutionary War in their textbook. At The Met, he was able to do his research. This led his father to open clips, notes and feelings he had with the experience. This inspired Daniel to do more research, local projects, and eventually traveling with his father to Vietnam. He led him to develop a website to help other kids talk to their parents about the war. That is why "there is no one body of content that is right for every kid."
Getting outside of our own environment to make learning real is important, like this experience that Daniel and his dad had. That is why The Met tries to seek out resources to help student bring their curricula to life. The include day outings, overnight trips and travel experiences that will be essential to learning like this. They try to get each student to experience at least one travel experience while they are at The Met.

What can we do to get students more involved when we can't get the parents to take an active role in their schooling?

How much freedom can we allow the students to have when choosing their curriculum?

Discipline
Littky wants to change the word discipline to training. Instead of punishment he would like to use justice. He states that teachers needs to promote an environment where the goal of the educator is to keep kids learning and growing. You do whatever you can to create an environment where this happens. When things happen that disrupt this, we need to make changes to preserve this environment.
Littky suggested that in order for the students to have ownership of the type of atmosphere they need in the classroom, students should be involved in making up the rules. When we do this, the students demand the same things that the adults wanted. By doing this, we make students more accountable about following the rules and this allows everyone to move ahead safely and smoothly without obstacles getting in the way.
When rules are broken and we need to deal with this, we must make sure that the consequence makes sense for everyone. First thing we must do as teachers is look deeper into the problem and find the best solution that help remedy this. For example, if the student isn't serious about something, ask him why this is the cause?
Another example he uses is having a heart to heart talk with a student to explain why the fight put the whole school in danger. The mentor talks to him about why owning up to his actions and talking it out is cool. This talk may include the student talking about why he started the fight and why the eventual punishment has meaning to him and the community in a positive way. In addition, learning has taken place by the student understanding why this type of action is a problem not only in class, but in society.
Another example he uses is trying to figuring out why a student is constantly late. Are there factors in his home life that cause this problem. Trying to get to the root of the problem is more important than the problem itself. You get to find out more about the background the student is coming from and then effectively finding solutions to fix it. It's not a behavior problem, but a behavior that needs to be changed. Finally, you go about it in a way that it gives the student and the family respect.
Finally, when dealing with problems, the teacher and administrators must not look at it as just the student's problem, but a problem of the environment. Is there something at the school that is contributing to the behavior problem? Are there changes that they can incorporate to help the student?
In the end, making the learning interesting is just as basic to working with kids as making the learning and the subject matter their own. We must help the students develop their own discipline. "We believe if the student has self-discipline, then, with effort, they can do anything well at any time."
That is why at The Met they find out what the students are interested in and then help them to set their own goals and standards around learning more about topics that interest. This allows them to be ahead of the other students when they head to college. They have acquired the skills that keep them organized and allows them do work without a lot of direction. This comes from the self-discipline and the amount of responsibility they had when they were at The Met.

Do the public school system and their teachers do a good job of trying to understand why students have problems behaving the way they feel they should? Do you feel that students do this as a cry for help?

Do you feel that creating an environment like The Met enables the students to go to college more prepared then most public school students? Do you feel that we need to give students more responsibility in the