This summer I’ve been reading the book, Focus:  Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, by Mike Schmoker.  It was given to each of the teachers on our staff by our principal for summer reading.  Schmoker advocates Simplicity, Clarity and Priority.  By this he means we need to simplify our curriculum by cutting the number of standards down, selecting only the most important, and then teaching them thoroughly, using recognized good consistent teaching.  In his words, our focus should be:

“What We Teach: A decent, coherent curriculum with topics and standards collectively selected by a team of teachers from the school or district that is actually taught.

How We teach:  Ordinary, structurally sound lessons that employ the same basic formula that educators have known for decades, but few implement consistently.

Authentic Literacy:  Literacy or authentic literacy simply means purposeful and usually argumentative reading writing and talking.”

Mike Schmoker has published four books, including his best selling book, Results:  The Key to Continuous School Improvement and Results Now:  How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning.  He is a public speaker and he has been a school administrator and English teacher.

In reading this book I first had to get past my anger which was generated by the usual inflammatory rhetoric about education reform.  This included comments like

“Despite the central importance of reading and writing to general learning and college preparation, students rarely engage in authentic reading and writing activities, even in language arts.”

And

“Teachers routinely call on students who raise their hands throughout the course of most lessons (vivid confirmation that teachers aren’t clear on the most critical elements of a good lesson).”

Schmoker also complains that teachers spend too much time sitting.

I don’t know whose classroom he has visited, but he definitely has never been in mine, or in any other classroom in my building.  My kids are reading and writing all the time, and while I sometimes call on those who have their hands up, I make it a point to include everyone in our class discussions.

If I had just picked up this book on my own, I might have abandoned it because of those issues, but since it was a “gift” I continued reading.

While there are things I disagree with in this book, it has really confirmed a feeling I have had for a while now.  I had a really terrific group of kids last year, but because of my attempts to comply with district directives, I felt like I did a really lousy job of teaching reading.  As directed by the “Non-negotiables”  I taught each and every one of the little HM readers.  I continued to teach with chapter books as well, but because of the time devoted to the readers, our literature group reading and discussion was disjointed and frustrating.

Schmoker began winning me over when he began quoting E. D. Hirsch.  I teach in a Core Knowledge School, which is based on Hirsch’s beliefs that the ability to argue, evaluate, and reason are

“attained by studying a rich curriculum in math, literature, science, history, geography, music and art and learning higher-level skills in context . . . there is a scientific consensus that academic skill is highly dependent on specific relevant knowledge.”

E. D. Hirsch is the author of Cultural Literacy.  He believes we need a common base of knowledge as a culture and that in order to be critical thinkers, we have to have strong content knowledge.  We can’t understand much less evaluate ideas in the news, in a magazine, or in a textbook, if they contain too much unfamiliar information.

This strong basis of knowledge levels the playing field for all students.  This is something that I have witnessed for myself.  I have students blossom when they get to study important subjects like Medieval History and the American Revolution.  I have seen those who typically struggle in reading and writing enthusiastically sharing their learning through research projects and other forms of writing and discussion.  They know this is important grown-up stuff, and they are interested and excited to learn about these subjects.

According to Schmoker, students need to be reading in depth articles, and responding to them in writing.  He feels that standards need to be simplified so that only the most important are taught, but in depth.  He states, also that the most important factor is how teachers teach.  He embraces an explicit instruction model (a la Madeline Hunter) where the essential parts of a good lesson are a clearly stated objective, the teacher models and demonstrates the skills, followed by guided practice and frequent checks for understanding, and then independent practice.

He also advocates teaching primarily in a whole group situation.  I have some reservations here.  Having lived through the Whole Language period, I am a firm believer in differentiation.  It is in small group situations that I really have an opportunity to understand the root of a student’s misunderstandings, and that small group is also a safe place for students to accept additional help.  Schmoker says teachers can determine this by moving around the room and checking on students, but I can do this better in a more intimate grouping sitting with just a few students.

Schmoker feels that all of this intensive reading, arguing and writing is easily transferable to any age group.  I’m not as sure of that, but I do believe there are parts that can be beneficial for younger children, and definitely for upper elementary students.  He seems a little hung up on having students writing lengthy pieces.  Over time, I want them to include more thought and detail, but that needs to be a gradual transition.

Schmoker is not enthusiastic about technology in the classroom.   I will agree that indiscriminate use of technology wastes valuable academic time, but I have seen tremendous growth in reading and especially writing skills when children are allowed to utilize technology.  Students who have been reluctant writers are eager to write a blog post or post their writing as part of an on-line poster on Glogster.   The criteria is being sure that the technology supports and contributes to achieving your academic goals.

There are some things that I will take away from this book.  I like the idea of spending time reading good articles about social studies and science, and then having students process, discuss and argue the important points of what they have read.  I do agree with Schmoker that students have to be taught how to read closely, and how to annotate, and take notes.  Connecting to current events, history, and science makes everything we do so much more meaningful.

In reading, I am going back to what I used to do, which is read a lot of really great books, and then teach required objectives and skills using these books that are interesting and fun to read.  We’ll hit the HM readers, but for a very short time each week.

Over the years, I have written many study guides for the 4th grade books we read.  I have been thinking about ways to share those questions and activities with others.  At first I was going to start a second blog that would be devoted to this. Instead I revamped my old blog, Prospecting for Treasure.   Each time we do a book, and a good book is definitely a treasure, I will share our activities there.  That will include a summary and questions for deeper discussion, including any writing or journaling prompts I come up with.  So think of that blog as Day At the Reading Table to compliment this blog, Day In the Classroom.

It will be interested to see how my colleagues respond to this book, and whether they interpret Schmoker’s philosophies in the same way that I have.  I am looking forward to our  book discussion.