Play is an important part of growing up. Trying out roles, acting out adventures… imagination! Here are some improv activities adapted to the classroom with some rubrics.
I first saw these on a TV show in the ’90s called “Whose line Is It Anyway?” where comedians performed improv scenes. I adapted them to teaching French at the time in order to develop conversation skills and improvised speaking in a fun lesson. When I switched to social studies in ’04, I sometimes used these at the end of a unit.
Stranger in Town
This activity must have a real name among improv comedians, but I just called it this. Three volunteers come to the front of the room. One goes out into the hallway briefly, out of earshot. The two who are left quickly agree on a scene they will perform for 3 minutes. The person in the hall, the “stranger”, is invited in and the scene commences. After 3 minutes, the stranger has to guess who they are based on the scene, in which, by the way, they had to participate. Imagine walking into a room and finding out you’re Henry VIII!
Here’s a sample setup for a social studies class where students had chosen their activity in advance and I had prepared it. To save time, I would sometimes generate the scenes for stranger in town and have teams roll the dice to see which to play. The identity of the person playing “stranger” was always a surprise!
The volunteer goes to the front of the room, preferably to a lectern, and pretends to be some famous person in history. The class are reporters whom she will call upon to ask questions. Pretend you’re Hannibal and you’ve just gotten your army with your elephants over the Alps. Can you answer some questions from our reporters before you disembark?
Although I often had students prepare for these if they weren’t confident, it can be an improv exercise for the brave and bold. Let it be a surprise to the volunteer whom they will play!
Newscast
Two volunteers for newscast come to the front of the room to play reporters who are to report on a scene from history. They don’t know what they scene is until they get there! (Presumably this is at the end of a unit and the scenes are from the current topic of study). One student plays the anchor at the desk which the other is “in the field”, a reporter on the scene. A third student may participate as a bystander whom the reporter will interview.
In artifact, students create a quick construction paper cutout of some object associated with our unit. It could be an Egyptian scroll or a Greek sword or Thomas Jefferson’s quill. The student presents the artifact to the class as an archaeologist at a conference. For teaching world language, the artifact is something from our current vocabulary or reading.
I used all of these to teach French as well. For teaching world language, these scenes would not be about history, but of everyday life. Stranger in Town could be a scene in a restaurant and the stranger is a waiter serving a fussy customer. Press conference or newscast could be an event of current interest.
Improv is fun, but may not be for everyone.
Improv is fun. If you have time for it, dive in! Some kids are uncomfortable with this and I never made them play. I confess that in my later years teaching social studies, I was forced by time constraints to abandon these for my older kids. The demands of curriculum and remediation and state tests were such that the minimal content reinforcement provided by these activities, well, the juice was just not worth the squeeze.
Not all classes are right for this kind of thing. If you have a middle school class that has trouble self-regulating or is over-excitable, this may not be a good idea. It also does not work well with students who feel very uncomfortable in ambiguous situations or in performing. You will know who can benefit from this and who might not because you know your kids.
“General History”, A Local Diploma Secondary Social Studies Course
Originally printed January 2017
Abstract
“General History” is a proposal for a district-approved regular education class designed for students with an IEP seeking a local diploma via the safety net options. Students will be able to earn local credit working at a course within their proximal zone of development such that their effort can be rewarded and the data on their achievement be truthful. They will remain in the society of their peers in the regular classroom but the report card and school official transcript will identify the class distinctly as “General Global History”. Content will be limited to about half of that typically tested on the NYS Global History and Geography Regents exam. Reading and writing tasks will be designed and assessed at the Common Core State Standards’ fifth grade level.
The Problem
For some students, the Regents level standard high school course is too difficult. In the small, rural school there may be circumstances which impede the creation of self-contained 15:1 special education classes or consultant teaching arrangements for students with an IEP who cannot earn passing marks in regular secondary classes. This may be especially true for content courses such as social studies and science where the qualification for passing legitimately rests on the student’s understanding and recall of a minimum quantity of content material. There is a finite range of student ability served even by a highly differentiated classroom situation. Some students face obstacles beyond their power to ever passing these classes. Simply passing the student by fiat or simplifying the curriculum continually until she or he passes could easily be construed as an act of fraud. If the report card and transcript identify the class by its regular name, someone outside the district would never know that the evidence collected in support of the student’s grade assignment was not the same as for the rest of the class. It reduces passing to an arbitrary and capricious political expediency.
In many cases, such students fail and then are assigned to summer school, where they participate in some sort of credit recovery course which may not be equivalent to the original class that they failed. It happens sometimes that participation alone will earn the student credit in summer school no matter the competency level actually achieved and then as a formality the student is advanced to the next course. It may be argued that this is something akin to simply assigning a student a passing mark without possessing competency with only the twist of demanding seat time for six weeks in summer. It is a compromise situation.
This post discusses a way to address this situation by creating a regular education “class within a class” for students with an IEP who lack the capability to meet the minimum standards of a secondary course. This class creates a different set of standards for the special education student in the regular classroom such that the district will offer local credit for passing the class at a reduced difficulty level. The training program offered to the student will prepare him or her to score in the range of 45-55 on a standardized test of the subject and graduate on one of the four safety net options currently in place in NYS regulations.
Research and Principles of Information Rationing
One of the most common misconceptions regarding learning is the effect of the amount of information on how well one learns it. Some believe that the amount has no effect on learning and that a student who applies him- or herself to any body of knowledge no matter how large or elaborated will just hopefully come away with a passing amount. A strong body of research contradicts this view. Trying to learn less results in learning more.
Frank N. Dempster was a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In an article was published in Phi Delta Kappan in February 1993, and subsequently in two books on effective teaching practices, he makes the well-researched case that “… our students are exposed to too much material and that this practice is antithetical to what is known about effective learning.” Dr. Dempster points out that research shows “… exposing students to information has a potential downside: it may actively interfere with the acquisition and retention of other information.” He goes on to exhort educators to “…think about separating the wheat from the chaff, so that they can get on with the serious business of effectively teaching the essentials” (Dempster).
Research in the area of cognitive load supports the idea that students with more limited working memory capacities will learn significantly less unless the quantity they address is limited. Cognitive load is the term for the burden working memory has to carry “in the form of information that must be held plus information that must be processed” (Clark & Mayer 41). “[I]f cognitive overload takes place, then learners will be more likely to make errors, not fully engage with the subject materials, and provide poor effort overall. The change in the schematic structures and pathways will not occur, simply because the learner cannot process the information being offered within the lesson” (Pappas). There is ample evidence supporting the idea that working memory is absolutely key to academic success and that it is an “even better predictor of academic success than I.Q.” (Alloway).
“Information rationing” means that the amount of information that the student is directed to learn is limited to only the most important. “Important” can be defined as including content which is
foundational to understanding the topic,
simple enough to connect with most students’ prior knowledge, and
most often asked on standardized tests of the subject.
It is based the premise that information overload will cause the student to learn less or none. It recognizes inborn differences in working memory that may not be ameliorated by any amount of drill and practice. In General Global History, information will be rationed to optimize the student’s learning. This is the key feature of the course that will give the student a true opportunity to pass.
How the Curriculum will be Developed
The first question in a content course is how much information to teach and which information to teach. It is difficult to itemize information, since it can be broken down into innumerable elaborated components and understandings. Nonetheless, the amount of content should not be an arbitrary list and should not be without basis in any known measurable standard. The New York State Regents Examination in Global History and Geography is a valid and reliable examination that may serve as a reasonable standard for determining the quantity and selected content to teach (as opposed to the teacher simply selecting content that is pertinent in his judgement).
New York State Education Department provides technical reports on the Global History and Geography Regents examinations (http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/reports/). These reports document the psychometric properties of the examination, the procedures used to analyze the results of the field test of the examination items, and are cited as evidence of test validity and reliability. There is no teacher-made assessment or textbook publisher test that would meet the rigor of an analysis of validity and reliability found in that of the Global Regents exam for this subject. Whatever one’s personal opinion on standardized testing, it is hard to dispute the benefit of basing decisions on a standard assessment administered annually to over 200,000 students for decades. Decisions about what to teach for content in General Global History will be based on this examination. It is a valid and reliable assessment, it provides a norm against which to measure competence in the subject, and it is the same standard against which student work in the Regents level class is judged. The latter will make it possible to reasonably accurately compare student’s performance to the regular class and for reliable and valid progress monitoring.
In high school, “General Global History” is a “class within a class” for students with an IEP who will be seeking a local diploma by any of the four safety net options. As such, the educational program will be directed at delivering enough content to score 55 on the New York State Global History and Geography Regents exam. This will be the determining factor in the selection of which content to learn. Ten years of exams (that is thirty exams, since they are given three times a year) will be analyzed to see what is normally tested in the multiple-choice portion of the test. 55% of this itemized content will be selected for learning by the student in the General Global History class. A score of 100 on a content test in General Global History will be equivalent to a score of 55 in the regular curriculum. Accurate comparative progress monitoring is now possible. This will also make it possible for the student in General Global History to be in the Regents Global History physical classroom setting, following along the same topical content as the rest of the class but in their own fashion throughout the year.
Specific Example of Method of Curriculum Design
An example of the information rationing method proposed here is in order. The following table illustrates the content called for by the curriculum objectives and what has been typically tested on that over a decade of examinations for topic 9.1.
NYS Social Studies Frameworks ObjectivesTopic 9.1
What is actually asked on the Global Regents, topic 9.1
Students will analyze the political, social, and economic differences in human lives before and after the Neolithic Revolution, including the shift in roles of men and women. Students will explore how the Mesopotamian, Shang, and Indus River valley civilizations adapted to and modified their environments to meet their need for food, clothing, and shelter. Students will explore the Mesopotamian, Shang, and Indus River valley civilizations by examining archaeological and historical evidence to compare and contrast characteristics and note their unique contributions.
Hammurabi’s codeWhich statement most accurately describes how geography affected the growth of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia? / One reason early civilizations developed in China, Egypt, and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Mesopotamia is because / Which revolution led to the development of these civilizations?Characteristics of civilizationsOne similarity found in both Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations is that each developed aWhat is the main reason the Neolithic Revolution is considered a turning point in world history?* Planting wheat and barley * Domesticating animals * Establishing permanent homes and villages — At the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, the most direct impact of these developments was on Which name identifies the region located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers? The development of which early civilization was influenced most directly by the Tigris River, the Zagros Mountains, and the Syrian Desert?
The right hand column is drawn from Global Regents examination multiple-choice questions for ten years of tests. Duplicates have been deleted. These are the only questions that have been customarily asked for ten years on topic identified as 9.1 (grade nine, topic one). A cursory review will reveal that these questions do not cover all of the objectives. A reading of the technical report on the Global Regents will reveal that the designers of the assessment work hard to create tests that are statistically equivalently difficult from year to year. Given the long period of asking mainly these same things, it is reasonable to assume that these are the only things likely to be asked in future administrations of the exam.
In the information rationing scheme for General Global History, 55% of the content that is usually tested will be identified for study. The following table illustrates how that decision could be made.
Teacher Selections from what is actually asked on the Global Regents, topic 9.1
Target Learning in General Global History
Hammurabi’s codeWhich statement most accurately describes how geography affected the growth of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia? / One reason early civilizations developed in China, Egypt, and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Mesopotamia is because / Which revolution led to the development of these civilizations?Characteristics of civilizationsOne similarity found in both Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations is that each developed aWhat is the main reason the Neolithic Revolution is considered a turning point in world history?* Planting wheat and barley * Domesticating animals * Establishing permanent homes and villages — At the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, the most direct impact of these developments was on Which name identifies the region located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers?The development of which early civilization was influenced most directly by the Tigris River, the Zagros Mountains, and the Syrian Desert?
Hammurabi’s Code – What is it? Why is it important? What were some things it said?Characteristics of CivilizationWhy did civilizations developed in China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia?What is the Neolithic Revolution? Why is the Neolithic Revolution is a turning point in history?
Student learning in topic 9.1 General Global History would be focused only on these four items with only limited necessary elaborations. Students who could answer these to a level of satisfactory completeness would earn a 100 in General Global History. Knowing only these things on topic 9.1 would be worth a score of 55 on the Regents and in the regular class. Since knowing only about 65% of this list of four is all that’s required to “pass” General Global History, passing should be within reach of a large number of students.
It would seem important to illustrate why student achievement in General Global History cannot be construed as passing a high school level class as defined by the New York State Social Studies Frameworks. The following table illustrates how far General History is from the standard curriculum.
NYS Social Studies Frameworks ObjectivesTopic 9.1
Target Learning in General Global History
Students will analyze the political, social, and economic differences in human lives before and after the Neolithic Revolution, including the shift in roles of men and women. Students will explore how the Mesopotamian, Shang, and Indus River valley civilizations adapted to and modified their environments to meet their need for food, clothing, and shelter. Students will explore the Mesopotamian, Shang, and Indus River valley civilizations by examining archaeological and historical evidence to compare and contrast characteristics and note their unique contributions.
Hammurabi’s Code – What is it? Why is it important? What were some things it said?Characteristics of CivilizationWhy did civilizations developed in China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia?What is the Neolithic Revolution? Why is the Neolithic Revolution is a turning point in history?
Answering the four General History questions in the right hand column could not be construed as meeting the curriculum standards at even a minimum level. On average around 62% of students statewide (67% in rural schools like ours) can pass a test of the content in that right hand column (King). It is clear to any reader that the general history goals do not even really represent half of what is implied by the standard curriculum. This same process will be applied to the creation of each topic of the General Global History curriculum in the selection of content targeted for students to learn. Being in the regular class will at least give students in General Global History exposure to the full expression of the curriculum even if they are not responsible for learning it, with the caveat that over attention to too much information may be an impediment.
Reading materials will be provided at a fifth grade level.
With regard to writing assignments, a variation on the same writing rubrics used for the class will be devised based on the Common Core State Standards for writing in social studies for the developmental level in which the student is functional at a passable level. Most high schoolers who fit the profile of student for this program, for example, will be functioning at a fifth grade level in their writing. By way of example, here are the CCSS for writing arguments (persuasive pieces) for different grade levels. The grading rubric for the rest of the ninth or tenth grade class class assesses the elements listed in column A. Students in General Global History that function at a 6th-8th grade writing level will be graded on column B on the very same task assigned to the whole class. Students functioning at a 5th grade writing level will be assessed according to column C on the same task.
Precedents
Since 2000, a variety of similar strategies at my school had been applied to the problem posed by a class that is too difficult for a student and there being no alternative placement. Student X’s grades were simply artificially inflated to passing. Student Y was enrolled in a class-within-a-class for mathematics similar to the notion proposed here. Students Z and Q were enrolled in special segregated “intensive” classes. This writer’s classes are still differentiated by two tiers: “basic proficiency” and “standard inquiry”, basic being delivering just enough information to score 65% on a content test.
There is precedent for class-within-a-class for regular education students. Often times over the years, there have been classes in science, social studies, or English in which a portion of the class was earning community college credit while the other earned regular high school credit. In such cases, students working for college credit were graded differently and had more elaborate assignments. The example of the one room schoolhouse of days past goes without saying.
Conformity to Regulatory and Legal Mandates
Although initially envisioned as a special education class within a regular education class, “General Global History” cannot be claimed as such. The term “special class” now has a specific definition in New York State: “an instructional group consisting of students with disabilities who have been grouped together in a self-contained setting” (Continuum of Special Education Services, §52). When a special class exists within a regular education class, it must be configured as “integrated co-teaching services” where one of the co-teachers is a certified special education teacher. “General Global History”, proposed here, is a district approved regular education class designed for students with an IEP seeking only a local diploma. It is not a special education class.
Access to successful completion of General Global History is created by removing four main obstacles for students who fit the profile of those for whom this course is intended: time to complete tasks, amount and complexity of content, expectations for reading, and expectations for writing. Part 200 regulations express the expectation that “…specially designed instruction and supplementary services may be provided in the regular class, including, as appropriate, providing related services, resource room programs and special class programs within the general education classroom” (Regulations of the Commissioner of Education – Parts 200 and 201, §206(a)(1)). “General Global History” falls under the category of a special class program within the general education classroom. It is a locally-established regular education offering in which
the amount of information for which the student is held accountable is rationed to an amount around half of that of regular education students,
reading and writing expectations are set to the zone of proximal development, and
there are fewer tasks assigned to afford longer working times for unit of study completion.
Regulatory support for the course is drawn from current graduation requirements. Students enrolled in General Global History are not seeking a Regents diploma and so will not be prepared to qualify for one. “General Global History” is designed to help students earn a local diploma and it will “apply only to students with disabilities who are entitled to attend school pursuant to Education Law section 3202 or 4402(5)” (Part 100 Regulations, §105(b)(7)(vi)(b)). It is designed to prepare students to graduate on the basis of any one of four “safety net options” for graduation:
Low Pass Rate Safety Net Option (Five required Regents exams with a score of 55 – 64).
Low Pass Rate Safety Net Option with Appeal (Students who score up to three points below a score of 55 on a Regents exam are eligible to receive the local diploma via appeal if all of the conditions of appeal are met.)
Compensatory Safety Net Option
Graduation by superintendent’s determination
Students with disabilities entitled to attend school pursuant to Education Law section 3202 or 4402(5) have met the passing qualification on a Regents examination if they score 55-64. “General Global History” holds students accountable for the amount of content to earn 55 on a Global History Regents exam. In comparing score on a General Global History Interim to score on a NYS Global History and Geography Regents examination, a 100 on a General Global History exam is worth 55 on the Regents.
Some students cannot attain that level. NYS local diploma regulations also provide that “… a student’s score of 45-54 on a Regents examination required for graduation, other than the English and mathematics examinations, may, for purposes of earning a local diploma, be compensated by a score of 65 or higher on one of the other required Regents examinations” (Part 100 Regulations, §105(b)(7)(vi)(c)). A student who can learn 80% of the content offered in General Global History can quite likely score 45. Passing on this plan requires that students earns a grade in the course that “meets or exceeds the required passing grade by the school” (Part 100 Regulations, §105(b)(7)(vi)(c)(2)) and has satisfactory attendance (Part 100 Regulations, §105(b)(7)(vi)(c)(3)). Given the drastically reduced content knowledge and that the reading and writing expectations are set for the grade level in which the student functions passably, it would seem highly likely that a student would pass the course so designed.
There is also the option of a local diploma with superintendent’s determination. In a press release in June 2016, the NYS Education Department explained that “School superintendents are now required to determine, at the local level, if a student with a disability is eligible for graduation. […] Specifically, the superintendent must review, document and provide a written certification that there is evidence that the student has otherwise met the standards for graduation with a Local Diploma”. “General Global History” could provide the superintendent with the “evidence that demonstrates that the student passed courses culminating in the exam required for graduation” (Regents Expand Diploma Opportunities).
Implications
The first implication of General Global History for the student enrolled is that there is no going back. The course cannot be listed on a report card or transcript as a Regents high school course and the training provided by the course will only lead to graduation under the safety net. General Global History is not a high school level course by any reasonable construction of the Common Core State Standards nor of the New York State Frameworks for Social Studies. It is a local high school course meeting the requirements for a local diploma for students with an IEP who have no reasonable expectation of meeting the state standards at the minimum level of competency.
The second important implication of the student enrolled in General Global History is that s/he will be doing noticeably easier work and less of it than the other students in the class. This cannot reasonably be kept a secret any more than eyeglasses or a wheelchair. Some students may need counseling to help them process the difference in expectations for them. Classes will need to be well managed by the teacher such that it is a community that welcomes differences with respect, empathy, and equanimity.
As a practical matter, regular classroom teachers deal with protocols for groups of students. This is a necessity because their “caseload” numbers 50 to 100 students. Highly individualized instruction is impossible. General Global History creates a separate standard protocol for a group of students representing probably between 5%-10% of the roster and it is not intended to be a highly individualized curriculum that will be tailor made for each student enrolled. Typically the student who would be recommended for enrollment in General Global History would score in the mid-30s on a content test where the rest of the class average score is in the low 70s and who reads and writes mostly at a fifth or sixth grade level.
How is this Different from “Basic Proficiency”?
“Basic Proficiency” refers to a package of differentiated lessons unique to this writer’s social studies classes. It is defined as “just that knowledge required to pass the NYS regents Exam”. It is open to any student at will and has these modified features: one less assignment than the standard curriculum, the amount of content reduced to “just enough to pass”, a single persuasive writing piece (instead of two), a summary (instead of a composition quiz), and a vocabulary quiz. It was created with the struggling student in mind. In terms of content quantity, insofar as that may be quantified, it represents 65% of the Regents high school Global History and Geography curriculum. Students on this plan usually have GPAs in the mid-70s.
Put in other terms, Basic Proficiency is the least difficult possibility for configuring the class while still earning Regents high school credit. General Global History is different from Basic Proficiency in that it represents a level of difficulty below Regents high school credit. The difficulty level of General Global History is below the minimum high school level competency.
General Global History differs from Basic Proficiency in another important way. Whereas in the Basic Proficiency plan, a score of 65 is 65, in General Global History a score of 100 has the actual relative value of 55 but it appears in the student’s grade as a 100. This is one of the main reasons why it must appear as a separate course in the transcript and report card.
It will be interesting to see what this program would do to Basic Proficiency. Perhaps that package would disappear. It happens at present that some students, capable of passing the standard curriculum with a little effort, choose the basic plan for lack of willingness to try. It will also be interesting to see whether, as a teacher, I can maintain three tiers of instruction.
Middle School Level General History
It may be desirable sometimes to create such a class as this for students in grades seven and eight. Students whose academic limitations would make passing the class at the regular difficulty impossible and who would certainly be destined for summer school could be eligible for “General United States History I and II”.
In middle school, the general history concept presented here would meet the definition of a “reduced unit of study” (Part 100 Regulations, §100.4(c)(5)(i)) and the definition of an “alternate performance level” (Part 100 Regulations §100.1(t)(2)(iv)).
New York State Commissioner of Education’s regulations, part 100.4, support the general history concept. Students are eligible for a reduced unit of study in middle school if they are eligible for academic intervention services (Part 100 Regulations, §100.4(c)(5)(i)). Regulations state that “A principal shall consider a student’s abilities, skills and interests in determining the subjects for which the unit of study requirements may be reduced” and that “a student’s parent or guardian shall be notified in writing, by the principal, of a school’s intention to [enroll the student in a reduced unit of study].”
General history is not necessary for all special education students. General history is for those whose disabilities related to this subject met the level of “severe disabilities” pursuant to §100.1(t)(2)(iv) such that alternative performance levels are needed.
With respect to the recipe of assignments in the middle school course, this would conceivably be the same as for high school. Reading materials may be provided at a third or fourth grade reading level. The IEP may inform decisions about course materials, with the caveat that the general history concept is a standard protocol approach, not and individualized plan.
Author’s Commentary
The difficulty level of a secondary high school class is not a completely arbitrary configuration set to the whim of textbook companies or the teacher. A measurable set of standards exists, in this case the New York State Social Studies Framework and the Common Core State Standards, which even allowing for variation in more subjective measures still provides obvious definition of what constitutes a high school history class.
Many will recall a time several decades ago when schools offered at least two difficulty levels of each class: Regents and non-Regents. The effort to remove the non-Regents local diploma in the late 1990s was an effort at social engineering the State Education Department thought would bring students all to the academic level. In 2000, NYSED mandated “academic intervention services” for students who struggled with the new higher standards. By the mid-2000’s, NYSED was forced to backpedal as the number of students meeting the traditional academic standards did not much change. Diploma requirements are now a very convoluted set of regulations allowing people a diploma who cannot reach the standards. Those of us in the profession for twenty-five years can see the change in the difficulty of the examinations to admit more passing, such as the change in the Regents examination in Global History and Geography scheduled for 2018-19. A review by NYSED of around 200,000 students taking this exam over 2006-2010 showed that on average only 62% of students across the state could pass it each year (P-12 Education Committee College and Career Readiness Working Group 3). The number of students failing this exam are those who would not have sat for it in the days of non-Regents, local world history classes.
A variety of examples of rationalized “compassionate fraud” are evident in the system which does not seem to be willing to admit to the cognitive limitations of a segment of the population with regard to traditional academic style work. One strategy involves having parents or special education teachers do work with the student to such an extent that the work is no longer the student’s own. They pass because someone else did a large portion of the work for them. Other strategies include modifying content for the individual to such a degree that the student is no longer taking the same class but gets credit for it as if s/he did. The summer school example has already been presented. Starting in June 2016, superintendents may grant local diplomas by “superintendent’s determination” to students with an IEP who did not pass the necessary assessments but who have good attendance and who completed the assignments with right effort.
These and other examples are “compassionately fraudulent”. It is dishonest to say that people meet a qualification that they do not. It is dishonest to refuse to see the fact before our eyes that some people are not born with the ability to succeed at a high level in this particular academic work. This dishonesty is an act of compassion, since we see and sympathize with the students placed in the unenviable and frustrating position of never seeing success. It is better to accept this dishonesty than to watch our students suffer the impact of policies we know to be wrong. Districts should only ever place students in classes they have a chance to pass. This compassionate fraud, however, does more harm than good. Firstly, it causes us to place students in impractical courses way above their ability instead of in useful education like completing job applications or managing a bank account. Secondly, such self-deceptions often distract us from addressing a student’s real needs. Thirdly, this deception affects the school’s credibility after graduation. Those acquainted with educators at the community college level will attest to the fact that they cannot rely on much data from public schools about student performance because of the kinds of complex political forces that distort this data. Fourthly and not insignificantly, many teachers like myself find the cognitive dissonance of the situation professionally and ethically unsupportable despite that we side with the student and regret the unreasonable demands of state policy.
The class-within-a-class proposed here is an attempt to be honest. In a way, it turns back the clock to a time when schools offered non-Regents courses. Students will be able to earn local credit working at a course within their proximal zone of development such that their effort can be rewarded and the data on their achievement be truthful. This is, after all, what everyone wants. These students will remain rightfully in the society of their peers in the regular classroom instead of being segregated and I can collect evidence and report on student performance with a clear conscience.
Clark, Ruth C and Richard E. Mayer. “E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning”. 3rd ed. Pfeiffer, 2011. Kindle ebook file.
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