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A review by amypalo330
Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning by Mike Schmoker
3.0
I gave this a three simply because the title reminds us to focus on the essentials, and Schmoker reminds us of the simplicity and importance of authentic literacy in all classrooms. Reading and writing in all classrooms is essential to learning and to maintaining literacy levels. Additionally, the new Common Core standards (which are more simplistic, at least compared to our old state standards) focus on creating and supporting arguments, which Schmoker emphasized throughout. As far as a magic bullet to fix our curriculum and thus our educational system, the author might have had too narrow a focus.
I agree completely that literacy is the most important way to learn, I don't think that it is a magic bullet for student engagement. The author never addresses the issue of student engagement, or cross-curricular organization. As an avid reader, I would still be bored if I were in 6 hours of classes per day, and the majority of the time was spent reading. That's a manageable problem for creative teachers, though. What's not manageable, and what the author fails to recognize, are the roles of elementary, pre-school, and family and community factors. He argues that authentic literacy is the key to education, but does not recognize that many teachers already know this, but struggle with under/illiterate students at the secondary level. Getting books into the hands of pre school aged children, and getting students to similar reading levels by the time they leave elementary school is the challenge. It is also what is needed to make a literacy-centered model work in a differentiated high school classroom setting.
Additionally, there is much people have said about Schmoker's addressing of projects and labs. When I read, I did not believe that the author was saying that all projects and labs were poor use of instructional time. Rather, I think he was trying to say that many projects and labs are not tied to learning objectives, and do not always make the important connections. I think that the author did not clearly make this point, though. Any teacher who has applied backward design (or UbD) to their curriculum probably found projects or activities that were fun, and enjoyable by the teacher and students, but did not meet any important learning objective. That being said, there are plenty of authentic projects and labs that are connected to the curriculum and provide the students with a chance to increase their depth of knowledge on a particular subject.
Overall, the author wants teachers to ignore flashy new ways of doing things and technology and trends, and keep reading, writing, and speaking at the core of their curriculum. Overall, I agree with this approach to teaching. However, being "new" doesn't make something inherently bad. The author's focus is so simplified, it forgets to address the problem in many classrooms-- student engagement.
I agree completely that literacy is the most important way to learn, I don't think that it is a magic bullet for student engagement. The author never addresses the issue of student engagement, or cross-curricular organization. As an avid reader, I would still be bored if I were in 6 hours of classes per day, and the majority of the time was spent reading. That's a manageable problem for creative teachers, though. What's not manageable, and what the author fails to recognize, are the roles of elementary, pre-school, and family and community factors. He argues that authentic literacy is the key to education, but does not recognize that many teachers already know this, but struggle with under/illiterate students at the secondary level. Getting books into the hands of pre school aged children, and getting students to similar reading levels by the time they leave elementary school is the challenge. It is also what is needed to make a literacy-centered model work in a differentiated high school classroom setting.
Additionally, there is much people have said about Schmoker's addressing of projects and labs. When I read, I did not believe that the author was saying that all projects and labs were poor use of instructional time. Rather, I think he was trying to say that many projects and labs are not tied to learning objectives, and do not always make the important connections. I think that the author did not clearly make this point, though. Any teacher who has applied backward design (or UbD) to their curriculum probably found projects or activities that were fun, and enjoyable by the teacher and students, but did not meet any important learning objective. That being said, there are plenty of authentic projects and labs that are connected to the curriculum and provide the students with a chance to increase their depth of knowledge on a particular subject.
Overall, the author wants teachers to ignore flashy new ways of doing things and technology and trends, and keep reading, writing, and speaking at the core of their curriculum. Overall, I agree with this approach to teaching. However, being "new" doesn't make something inherently bad. The author's focus is so simplified, it forgets to address the problem in many classrooms-- student engagement.