Harvard Educational Review
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Winter 2002 Issue

Article Abstracts:

• Neoliberalism, Corporate Culture, and the Promise of Higher Education: The University as a Democratic Public Sphere
  -by Henry A. Giroux
• Extracurricular School Activities: The Good, the Bad, and the Nonlinear
  -by Herbert W. Marsh and Sabina Kleitman
• Teaching and Learning with Thoreau: Honoring Critique, Experimentation, Wholeness, and the Places Where We Live
  -by David A. Gruenewald

Winter 2002 Reviews of Current Books (Full-Text)

• Succeeding with Standards: Linking Curriculum, Assessment, and Action Planning
  by Judy F. Carr and Douglas E. Harris
• The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide
  by Robert L. Fried

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Harvard Educational Review
Winter 2002 Article Abstracts:

Henry A. Giroux

Herbert W. Marsh and Sabina Kleitman

David A. Gruenewald

  Back to top

Harvard Educational Review
Winter 2002 Reviews of Current Books
(Full Text)

Succeeding with Standards: Linking Curriculum, Assessment, and Action Planning
by Judy F. Carr and Douglas E. Harris.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001. 204 pp. $24.95.

In Succeeding with Standards: Linking Curriculum, Assessment, and Action Planning, a practitioner-oriented publication from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Judy Carr and Douglas Harris provide a highly readable and relatively comprehensive resource for implementing academic standards. Harris and Carr assemble a wide range of materials, which they organize around building connections among classroom practice, curriculum, and assessment, and link the three in an action-planning process that focuses on clear standards for student performance. Almost all states have adopted or created academic standards — what the authors describe as “a balanced, coherent, articulation of expectations for student learning” — and most have begun to develop assessments that attempt to measure student performance in relation to these standards. This book offers timely support for practitioners at all levels who are responsible for implementing standards for student learning.

The book begins with a systemic perspective on academic standards. Here, the authors unabashedly state the need for standards:

Administrators, teachers, students, parents, and the community need a clear vision of what is expected in terms of student learning. Clarity is achieved when districts and schools formally identify standards and then use them consistently throughout the curriculum process. (p. 2)

Although aligning standards with curriculum and assessment is necessary, in itself it is insufficient to achieve the linkage advocated for by Carr and Harris. Linkage requires that educators explicitly delineate the relationship between what students need to know and be able to do (learning standards), how learning is expected to occur (curriculum), and how progress is measured (assessment). It also requires that they delineate the relationship between the standards and other parts of the educational system. Specifically, Carr and Harris identify eleven areas that educators must monitor and integrate in order to link standards effectively: vision, what is currently being taught and assessed, a curriculum and assessment plan, school decision-making, resources, a professional development plan, supervision and evaluation, student profiles, a comprehensive assessment system, reporting, and an action plan. The authors qualify this assertion by noting that their framework represents a logical process, not a linear one, and that paying attention to the eleven areas is recursive, requires an ongoing commitment, and depends on understanding the systemic nature of reform. For each consideration, the authors identify key questions that policymakers and practitioners should answer in designing a well-integrated system that links the learning standards to the eleven areas. For example, under vision, Carr and Harris ask, “What are the standards, evidence, and learning opportunities to which the school or district is committed?” (p. 3). In considering professional development, the authors ask, “What do teachers need to know and be able to do in order to teach and assess? How will opportunities to address these needs be provided over time?” (p. 3).

Carr and Harris provide several strategies for linking these eleven key areas. They borrow from previously published materials (e.g., by the Vermont Department of Education) and from practices and tools selected from their work with K–12 practitioners engaged in standards-based reform. For example, in chapter two, which focuses on the curriculum and assessment plan, the authors argue that “the fundamental decision in developing standards-based curriculum is assigning standards to specific grade levels, course, or classroom settings” (p. 25). They present a series of questions to help curriculum developers think through how to introduce concepts, gradually increasing in complexity and depth (what Harris and Carr call “spiraling”):

• Which standards and evidence will be spiraled in the standards-based curriculum?
• How will students experience the standards and evidence at each grade level?
• What ways will students apply the standard at each grade level?
• What ways will the student critically examine the standard at each level? (p. 28)

In the same chapter, the authors provide an “assessment checklist” that raises questions about various aspects of assessment, such as consequences: “Is the assessment worth the instructional time?” (p. 33); fairness: “Does the assessment enable all students to demonstrate what they know and can do in the areas being assessed?” (p. 33); reliability and validity: “Does the assessment include explicit criteria for scoring and preferably a guide describing the application of these criteria?” (p. 33); cognitive complexity: “Does the assessment use tasks whose solutions cannot be memorized in advance?” (p. 34); content quality and coverage: “Does the assessment use tasks consistent with the instructional guidelines?” (p. 34); meaningfulness: “Does the assessment engage and motivate students to do their best?” (p. 34); and cost and efficiency: “Is the assessment administratively feasible?” (p. 34). The authors suggest that practitioners consider each of these areas when developing a comprehensive assessment system.

The rest of the book provides examples, tools, and other information designed to help school and district leaders meaningfully link curriculum, assessment, instructional practices, and planning to clear standards for student achievement. For example, in the chapters on effective practice, action planning, and reporting, Carr and Harris provide graphic organizers, conceptual models, and other tools for reflection and/or assessment to guide the creation of a coherent, linked educational system. Although the tools illustrate how practitioners might build a coherent standards-based system and the models illuminate key concepts, the authors present them as a smorgasbord of possibilities. They do not provide much guidance about which tools complement one another, the specific situations that may call for the use of one over another, or issues likely to surface during implementation.

Although this book provides some practical ideas and useful tools for creating a coherent system organized around clear expectations for student learning, the authors do not probe into many of the complexities of a standards-based approach. For example, Carr and Harris take as axiomatic the idea that it is good to have consistent practices across classrooms and schools. In the introductory chapter, they assert:

Clear articulation of district-wide expectations in the areas of curriculum, instruction, and assessment leads to much greater consistency across classrooms. Clear articulation provides guidance for teacher decisionmaking and establishes a common language and focus for several important areas: professional and school development, supervision and evaluation, and planning for comprehensive assessment systems and action planning. (p. 10)

Advocates for greater teacher autonomy, however, will take issue with the scant attention the authors pay to questions such as whether having high expectations for all students actually requires greater uniformity of practice. One can imagine clearly articulated learning standards pursued in a context of decentralized decisionmaking. Schools and/or teachers in this policy environment would have greater latitude in their practice while still being held accountable for student progress toward achieving a consistent set of standards. The current charter school movement in the United States reflects such a model. While Carr and Harris do an adequate job of explaining why the different parts of the system need to be thoughtfully integrated, they do not offer much insight into the complex nature of many of the larger issues touched upon in their book, such as where decisions about practice should be made or where accountability for results should rest. There is virtually no mention of the context in which practitioners have used the tools or developed the models. This risks oversimplifying the many challenges of organizational change, be it in standards-based educational reform or otherwise. Another area receiving insufficient attention is the role of leadership, which is periodically mentioned, but with largely superficial treatment. For example, the authors summarize the foundation of instructional leadership as staying focused on student results, understanding the origins of the results, and establishing improvement priorities (p. 59). Yet they do not discuss the necessity of professional development or instructional expertise.

What Carr and Harris do provide is a clear argument for taking a systemic perspective, along with some tools to help reformers build a coherent strategy to link standards to curriculum, assessment, and action planning. In addition to numerous examples spread throughout the text, the authors include two appendices: 1) an example of an instrument to assess teacher training and on-the-job learning opportunities available to them, and 2) a sample district action plan that links the expectations for student learning to issues around curriculum, assessment, and budget.

In this short, readable, and fairly comprehensive resource, Carr and Harris do not deeply examine many of the contradictions and complexities of a standards-based approach. They do, however, describe the logic of a systemic approach to standards implementation and provide several useful examples from the field. Succeeding with Standards is a resource useful to educators who are championing or leading the difficult process of implementing academic standards in K–12 public education.

T.M.B.

 
The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide
by Robert L. Fried.
Boston: Beacon Press, 2001. 304 pp. $15.00.

In The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide, Robert Fried argues that many of the difficult issues in education today can be faced constructively, and perhaps be overcome, by passionate teachers. Fried has developed the concept of the passionate teacher through his work in teacher professional development in schools throughout the country. For Fried, “to be a passionate teacher is to be someone in love with a field of knowledge, deeply stirred by issues and ideas that challenge our world, drawn to the dilemmas and potentials of the young people who come into class each day — or captivated by all of these” (p. 1). Speaking to both experienced teachers and new teachers, Fried examines several of the challenges that confront educators — including the amount of content to teach, the nature of assessment, and the most effective ways to motivate students — and illustrates, through stories of practitioners and their teaching, ways that passionate teachers can work through these dilemmas. While Fried acknowledges his debt to Deborah Meier and Ted Sizer for many of the ideas that he raises, his unique and effective contribution to the literature is the connection that he forges between philosophical ideas about teaching and practical steps that teachers can take to infuse their own teaching with passion.

The book is organized in five parts. In Part One, The Passion, Fried demystifies what he means by the passionate teacher. Breaking passionate teaching down into three components, he argues that passionate teachers can be passionate about their field of knowledge, issues facing the world, or children. Speaking to teachers, he says: “The passion that accompanies our attention to subjects, issues, and children is not just something we offer our students. It is also a gift we grant ourselves: a way of honoring our life’s work, our profession. It says: ‘I know why I am devoting this life I’ve got to these children’” (p. 19). Interweaving stories from practitioners he has met in his professional development work, Fried brings passionate teaching to life by demonstrating ways that specific teachers forge relationships with their students, create classroom environments that promote integrity and respect, and provide students with opportunities to take ownership of their learning. Students referred to one passionate teacher who developed close relationships with her students as “not only a teacher, but a kind of mother to us” (p. 11). With this example, Fried emphasizes that students felt so close to this teacher that they used familial language to describe their relationship with her. Another teacher pays close attention to the role of the classroom environment in promoting respect between herself and her students by posting on the walls of her classroom what she expects of her students and what her students can expect from her. A third teacher promotes student ownership of their learning by involving students in the design of collaborative projects that both fulfill curricular requirements and address student interests and concerns. With these and other examples, Fried hopes to illustrate practical ways that passionate teaching can take shape in real classrooms.

In Part Two, The Game, Fried discusses what he believes is the greatest obstacle that educators face: what he calls “having to play ‘The Game of School’” (p. 93). As he sees it, educators face this obstacle “whenever nobody cares what’s going on intellectually in the classroom or the school, when the idea of learning is treated as a mindless duty — something to ‘get through any way you can’” (p. 93). Students play the game of school when they figure out what teachers want and treat school as a trick rather than as an opportunity to learn. However, Fried argues that administrators, teachers, and parents can also play the same game. For example, administrators who value quiet classrooms and clean hallways above teaching and learning are playing the game of school. Teachers play the game of school when they are more interested in covering the curriculum than in their students’ learning. Parents who pressure their children to take on activities or courses with the purpose of constructing transcripts and records that will impress colleges, regardless of their children’s actual interests, are playing the game of school. According to Fried, the way that schools function makes us vulnerable to the game. As he explains, schools “load us up with things to do that help everybody avoid confronting issues about meaning and motivation and choice in our work” (p. 96). Fried maintains that passionate teachers can change the game of school by generating excitement about their subject matter, about issues in the world, and about students and their learning. The genuine enthusiasm that passionate teachers express in their work can motivate students and focus the attention of administrators and parents on student learning as the highest educational priority. In this way, passionate teaching counteracts and interrupts the game of school.

In Part Three, The Stance, Fried argues that passionate teachers have what he calls a stance: “a philosophy, an attitude, a bearing, a way of encountering students based on a set of core values about kids and their learning potential” (p. 139). Grounded in this philosophy, passionate teachers project their stance in their teaching, in their planning, and in their interactions with students, parents, and administrators. In the chapter “Putting Your Stance into Practice,” Fried gives readers questions to consider as they formulate their own stances as teachers. These questions are designed to encourage teachers to clarify and verbalize their values and to uncover connections between their values and students, the subject area, and teaching and learning:

What are the five most important values or beliefs in my life? What are the ideas and ideals I try my best to live by? What are five core beliefs that I hold about children and adolescents? If I were the boss of the whole school, what words would I like to see greet everyone who entered the building and every student who walks into a classroom? What is it about the subject(s) I teach that connects with my core values and beliefs? Why have I chosen to devote my professional life to this field? What might my students produce or demonstrate that would prove to me that they had really benefited from my role as teacher? (pp. 173–174)

Fried concludes Part Three with “Some Thoughts about Classroom Discipline,” a chapter devoted to the issue of behavior management in education. He argues that a well-articulated stance that is grounded in a teacher’s authentic passion can facilitate respectful relationships between students and teachers, as well as among students:

Once teachers have done the really hard work of rethinking how they want to work with students, what they really want to teach and why, discipline comes down to a few simple rules that almost all students are able to accept — and that many are willing to help their teachers uphold:

• Every person deserves — and owes — respect;
• Nobody may interfere with another person’s right to learn;
• School is a place to learn how to settle disputes by talking them through.
  (p. 181)

In Part Four, The Student, Fried discusses three ways that teachers and parents can inspire students to perform at their personal best. First, he argues that teachers should teach only what is most important about their disciplines, that the amount of subject matter that covered by most courses is too great, which gives students only superficial exposure to a wide range of material. By emphasizing depth over breadth, Fried hopes to encourage teachers and students to explore the curriculum through engagement with meaningful ideas and experiences. Second, Fried suggests that teachers give students meaningful challenges in the classroom, rather than rote or mechanical activities. He calls these challenges “real jobs” and notes: “There is hardly an instructional unit that cannot be transformed into a job that students can plan, organize, carry out and complete for the good of the community. Only then will we feel their pride and see how capable our students are” (p. 107). Third, Fried recommends that teachers coach rather than grade their students, as he considers grades poor motivators. Citing practitioners who use portfolios to collect student work and track student progress and learning over time, Fried points out that alternative assessment practices like portfolios are more like what happens in the world students will encounter when they leave school. As he discusses these specific forms of classroom practice that support his educational philosophy, Fried grounds his more general beliefs about teaching and learning in the specific context of schools.

In Part Five, The Course, Fried describes practical steps to passionate teaching. Although this information might have been useful sooner in his text, Fried describes how teachers can set high standards, plan and organize their courses, and assess their students with the aim of inspiring excellent performance. By presenting these and other ways that teachers can inspire their students, Fried brings passionate teaching vividly to life, making it something that teachers can believe in, strive for, and actually do. The book’s penultimate chapter, “What to Do Next Monday,” gives readers a way to begin to get in touch with their passions and become passionate teachers. For example, Fried suggests that teachers begin by listing the most satisfying elements of their work and listing specific qualities and abilities that they appreciate and respect in their students so they can encourage and nurture their students’ strengths. The book closes with “Is Passionate Teaching for New Teachers, Too?” which addresses how new teachers can develop their passions as they learn to negotiate the complex world of school. Fried argues that new teachers have a remarkable opportunity to define themselves and their teaching by creating connections with their passions.

The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide offers an inspirational perspective on teaching and learning. Furthermore, by skillfully blending philosophical writing, the voices of real practitioners, and practical suggestions for becoming a passionate teacher, Fried brings passionate teaching to life in all its richness and complexity. Works by John Dewey, particularly Experience and Education and The Child and The Curriculum, would be interesting companions for this book, as they are the most often cited formulations of these ideas in U.S. educational history.

Fried uses an informal, conversational tone that makes the book an engaging read, and his interviews with and stories about teachers seat the reader at a fascinating roundtable discussion with skillful, passionate practitioners. Some readers may find Fried’s focus too narrow, as he places the responsibility of facing — and perhaps overcoming — educational issues on the individual teacher. Nowhere in the text does Fried address the ways school structures can inspire and support passionate teaching. Still, The Passionate Teacher is must read for all teachers, no matter what subject or age groups they teach, and this book is a particularly valuable resource for educators of preservice teachers.

R.B.

Harvard Education Publishing Group