Differentiation or Just Plain Laziness: What am I Thinking?

I read a blog posting from Scott McLeod on his blog Dangerously Irrelevant, that got me thinking about teaching. In his post titled "Ignore the Test" he suggests that teachers would continue to teach to the test even if the standardized tests went away. He believes that we (teachers) would continue with study guides, multiple choice tests and worksheets. The point he makes seems valid; we used those styles of teaching even before standardized testing, why would we change just because they went away? He brings this up in the context of his belief and that of many others that we need to be teaching students to think, analyze, defend, and apply. I completely agree in theory and mostly agree in practice and reality. I believe that there are many great teachers who are challenging students to think and apply knowledge outside the classroom. I would bet it is more than most think. But I also would guess that there are many teachers who still follow the lecture, memorization, worksheet, test style of learning. I can't speak for others because I am not an expert on others' classrooms, so I will discuss mine. When it comes to "teaching to the test" whether my own or a standardized one, or teaching to think, I have to admit I am a Jekyll and Hyde teacher. I have had certain classes that I created as more of a project based course to fit real life, application situations (not the projects that simply fill time, mind you) of the information where students create, cite, explain and defend, and I have some classes that are more rote "what happens in the story," define vocab words, answer grammar worksheets, "teach to the test" classes. Some might think that this Jekyll and Hyde was laziness on my part. I admit year-to-year, it is "easier" (none of it is easy) to "teach to the test"because once you create the curriculum on a daily basis there is very little to change and you know what to expect from the students whereas in project base you never know what to expect from the students in discussion and product of project. But I believe that I was simply (yes, I will drop the buzz word) differentiating my instruction.
Let's face it, even in high school, there are students who still have difficulty grasping basic information. They need a more "teach to the test" style teaching, discussion, and grade. And there is another population of student who has very little problem gathering and understanding information. They need instruction in the areas of using and applying information. What I am describing here are the basics of Information Literacy, by the way. However, that said, I do not believe that classes should be all "rote" or all "project based;" I believe that differentiation needs to occur and the classes need to address the needs of the students, but also keep 21st century skills in mind. Students need to be able to defend, create and think, but they also need to have ability to understand and gather information.
Now that I have spun my wheels, I'm getting on my bike to think this through a little.

This Can't Happen...I have an idea

As reported in the October, 2010 issue of Bicycling magazine, two towns in the United States have or have proposed banning bikes on their cities' streets. Black Hawk, Colorado has banned cyclists from most city streets for safety purposes. I have never been to Black Hawk, but the editors of Bicycling suggest that the law was passed so, "bus tourists and truckers traveling to local casinos wouldn't be inconvenienced by having to wait to pass bikes safely on narrow mountain roads." In St. Charles County, Missouri an ordinance has been proposed to ban cyclists from some state highways.

I am in support of this if these communities either close main road access to cars and trucks for bikes, runners and walkers to access all parts of the communities; or if they create dedicated and maintained lanes/trails that give bikers, runners and walkers access to all areas of their communities. I have no problem with communities keeping bike and pedestrian traffic off the space where motor vehicles drive, if bike and pedestrian traffic has dedicated and maintained space to ride that gives them same access to all parts of the community. Oh, sidewalks do not count. Sidewalks are not biking traffic friendly...not enough space.

If a community cannot create dedicated cycling lanes on their roads, or access paths/trails, it is absurd to keep them off the roads. I have mentioned in earlier posts, the easy solution is for every new federal dollar spent on road projects, 5o cents should go to cycling and pedestrian paths. Or if a road project uses federal dollars it should be required to include cycling lanes and side walks. This news from Colorado (of all places) and Missouri is very, very sad.

What's Been Going On?

Not much time to write lately as things in the library have been picking up. The fiction section is reset sending all of the fiction paper back books to the front of the library near the reading/discussion area, while the hard cover fiction books have found new life in the stacks with some added space. The top shelves now have room to display and feature books. Also, the Accelerated Reader books have been incorporated with the rest of the fiction collection. My aide and her daughter played a large role in helping to prepare and complete this huge change. Also, the students unknowingly played a large role in helping by checking out a solid portion of the collection so we did not have to move all of the books at the same time.
Also, a forgotten magazine back issue stock has new life. Mostly a new life in classrooms for cutting and reading projects. I cleaned out all magazines with dates prior to 2008, which was about three quarters of the back issue stock. Any "old" magazines not collected by teachers for classroom use will be recycled, but the back issue room is now very manageable. I will be better able to tell the staff what, exactly, we have giving teachers a better idea of how to use the back issues.
The back issue room also has a pretty neat special collection that has been growing for the last 20 years. I have the local newspaper, The Glasford Gazzette, collection with papers dating back from 1990. I'm not sure what to do with this collection, but it is very unique and interesting to look at.
I have also been doing some cooperative work with teachers. In the elementary library, we have put together a collection of reading materials that connects to the curriculum topics in the classroom. So, starting this week, when the kindergarten students come to the library for reading day, the books we read to them will be matched to the classroom topics. I hope that it helps the students to start making connections that what they learn in the classroom is not isolated to the classroom, but to a larger world. Also, I worked with the eighth grade social studies classes to create timelines using our new World Book online database. The senior research writing class also got help finding primary sources in the library and our World Book online database.
If I sound pretty excited about the changes, I am. But for every change or success, I realize what more could be done. There are problems with scheduling, holes in the collection of books, and quite frankly, inexperience issues with me as a new librarian. I am constantly learning, but moving forward to make a couple good libraries to support teachers and students.