A passionate teacher. Wilson certified.LETRS Level 1 & 2 Certified. UFLI, OG & PAF trained. #SOR believer & lifetime learner. My tweets are my personal views.
New York, NY
Joined March 2019
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Ms. Benison- retweeted
No matter how well you know your subject , it takes a very long time (several years) to come up with the best way to explain topics on your own.
And the more complex a topic is, the longer it takes to develop your own explanation for it.
So, a quality scripted curriculum would be a godsend - stress on the word “quality.”
After a few years you could make your own improvements but you’d be starting way ahead of where we are now.
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The good thing is that knowledgeable & skilled leaders/educators know that a script isn't a fix for all the educational problems. They also know that not all programs & scripts are created equal.
A good scripted program would make teaching more equitable and efficient.
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Scripted Lucy Calkins or F and P programs are no better than non scripted L Calkins and F & P. Why? Because their educational premise is not effective for most kids.
So a script for the sake of a script is not what is being suggested.
Kids know when they are left behind...
A former student stopped me in the hall today to tell me how lost she feels in social studies this year. She wishes they still did retrieval practice like we did in my class last year.
She explained that she struggles to recall information when she needs it, which leaves her confused as new content builds on what she can’t readily remember. She didn’t articulate it in these terms, but she described exactly what I used retrieval practice to prevent: essential knowledge and vocabulary that aren’t sufficiently secure in long-term memory competing for limited working memory resources when learning new information.
When students can automatically recall essential knowledge, they have more working memory available to make connections, interpret new information, and encode it meaningfully. It all builds. New knowledge is understood through the lens of what students already know and can readily retrieve from long-term memory. The more secure that knowledge, the more effectively students can make sense of what comes next avoiding potential feelings of being “lost” and “confused.”
Regardless of content or grade level, every teacher needs a deliberate plan for securing essential knowledge in students’ long-term memory. Without one, you’re teaching based more on vibes and feelings than science.
Q: is this bad?
A: it is really bad.
NEW: Last school year, a 7th grader viewed 4,700 YouTube videos during class.
An 8th grader viewed 5,700 videos in class.
A 2nd grader viewed ~500 in just 2 months.
Less than 5% were educational.
@nbcnews analyzed the YouTube watch histories of students from across the country. My new story shows how far some take it on their school laptops and iPads -->
nbcnews.com/specials/hooked-…
Ms. Benison- retweeted
💜 Dyslexia for Dummies starts shipping next week... and will be sold in select Barnes & Noble stores!
💜 Designed to be a clear, practical guide for families of struggling readers
💜 Dedicated to Penelope, my brilliant student who has testified on Capitol Hill about the power of early reading intervention
#DyslexiaAwarenessMonth
“Why are scripts for teachers treated as an affront to professionalism?”
It’s not that teachers hate script; it’s that the educational environment taught teachers to hate scripts.
College professors did a poor job at teaching teachers and administrators the research
The hate for “teaching scripts” didn’t grow in a vacuum. It grew in an environment, saturated by the balanced literacy ideology of Lucy Calkins and F & P and feel good movement, all of which to the untrained Eye seem like good teaching, when in fact, the opposite was & is true
Ms. Benison- retweeted
Doing the same thing over & over is not the idea. The idea is to both a) teach explicitly and b) support 15 to 20 percent who might need intervention. The reason why so many kids don’t know is b/c they aren’t being taught well in Teir 1.
The “feel good movement” in education has done a lot of harm.
Most kids who experience academic success feel good about themselves. Kids who experience academic failure most often have low self-esteem.
This negative impact often shows up as early as the end of 1st gr.
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Just stopping by to say that advocating for compliance is not the same as advocating for kids.
The ed system is designed for the appearance of compliance.
For example, when schools refer children for sp ed services the child might be denied services because of lack of interventions in the schools.
So who then supports these kids when the schools point to the special ed depart and the special ed department points to the school?