BARACK OBAMA: “THE HARRY POTTER PARENT”

The American Library Association calculates that from 1999-2004, J.K. Rowling was the number four most banned or challenged author in the country. http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/authors19902004.cfm

 

We all know the complaints.  The Harry Potter books are evil.  They teach witchcraft and corrupt the children of good churchgoing people.  Recently, however, Harry and his friends have gained an illustrious champion, none other than Barack Obama.  In an interview with Michelle Obama, the senator’s wife referred to him as the “Harry Potter parent.”  Obama has read the entire series with his older daughter; and the senator, lest we forget, is a Christian.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/18/politics/p150814D75.DTL&type=politics 

 

What does Obama know that some churchgoers do not?  It’s simply this: Reading makes kids smarter.  And here’s another fact: most kids, unless they’re psychotic, can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  Harry Potter fans are no more likely to lose their minds and start worshipping Satan, than they are to jump off the roof after watching old episodes of Superman. 

 

Fantasy has fallen into disrepute and not just with evangelicals.  Lots of parents and teachers have condemned the reading of fantasy literature, be it Goosebumps or the Potter books.  While fears of witchcraft constitute an extreme version of fantasy-phobia, many adults see fantasy books as trivial and mind-polluting.  They try to steer kids away from them.  What a terrible mistake.

 

Literacy experts tell us that one way to turn kids into great readers is to give them high-interest books.  What do they find interesting?  Fantasy, sci-fi, mysteries and adventure stories are all very popular.  When we put “proper” books into children’s hands, thinking they’ll learn important life lessons, what they take away from the experience is: reading is boring.  Children will resist reading if they see it as a chore.

 

The only activities we repeat willingly are those that are pleasurable.  Pleasure isn’t a sin; it’s a survival skill.  Children who have fun reading books, including fantasy novels develop:

 

Ø      Critical thinking skills

Ø      Communication skills

Ø      A broader vocabulary

Ø      Empathy

 

Yes, I said empathy.  Novels in all genres take us inside the characters’ heads and help us to feel emotions along with them.  This is a transferable skill.  Children who read fantasy and other literary genres learn to get inside other people’s heads.  This helps them understand real people in the real world.  If you know Harry Potter, for example, you know what it feels like to be a maltreated outsider.  What a great starting point to teaching children about bullying and racism!  One expert believes that reading novels generates greater interest in human rights. 

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2002/april17/hunt-417.html 

 

Senator Obama, who has risen to the top of the Democratic Party by the sheer force of his intellect, has pointed the way.  Harry Potter can prepare our children for their future lives by building-up their cognitive and social-emotional skills.  If we want our children to do well in life (and maybe even run for president some day), then we should all become Harry Potter parents. 

SECRETARY SPELLINGS’ “GROWTH MODELS”

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is experimenting with a new and (potentially) promising model of accountability: the Growth Model.  Some states are experimenting with this model in order to meet the NCLB requirement that all children be proficient in reading and math by 2014.  What is the model?

 

Simply put, each child’s progress is tracked from year to year.  The idea is to assess whether individual kids’ skills are advancing, and to implement strategies for improving their skills if sufficient movement hasn’t occurred.  On paper, it’s a great idea.  I hope that some of the states that are piloting the model succeed and show the rest of us the way.

http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/growthmodel/index.html

 

I do, however, have concerns.  I’m most assuredly in favor of the Growth Model but I wouldn’t want to see the same results that I’ve seen, thus far, in my hometown: NYC.  This year, a Growth Model was implemented—sort of.  There was a big announcement in the media and the chancellor and mayor spent a lot of time before the cameras patting themselves on the back.  And then…

 

Those of us on the front lines discovered that the program wouldn’t come online on time in all schools.  The start-of-the year assessments never appeared.  In the high schools we received them at the end of the year: just a tad late. 

 

There was another problem.  Those who did have student data on the system couldn’t always retrieve it.  Why?  The system couldn’t handle the volume of individuals trying to retrieve data.  Try the system at off-peak hours, we were told.  4 AM might be a good time.  (You can’t make this stuff up.)

 

As always, the teachers’ union added to the problem:

 

United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said that the money might be better spent elsewhere. “You can lower a lot of class sizes with that money – or buy a lot of supplies,” she said.  

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/0316/news/017.html

 

Weingarten, a master at defending teacher mediocrity while appearing to support children, didn’t like the proposed system.  Of course she didn’t, because her real problem was that:

 

Some of the data may be used to evaluate Principals’ performance and to determine if Teachers get tenure.

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2007/0316/news/017.html

 

While the system has lots of glitches, if NYC or any of the states involved in Secretary Spellings’ pilot program succeed in developing an efficient Growth Model, teachers unions will have fewer excuses when defending incompetent teachers.

 

So while we’re experimenting with Growth Models, here are my concerns:

 

Ø      How will we ensure that these systems are developed and implemented in an efficient and cost effective manner?

 

Ø      If Growth Models are used to evaluate teachers and principals (a move I do not oppose) how can we ensure that we are measuring all teachers equally?  How can we factor-in differences in student populations when evaluating teachers, since research shows us that children from poor and transient environments consistently do worse than middle class kids?  And will we provide re-training for struggling teachers before we take the costly (though sometimes necessary) step of casting them adrift?

 

Ø      How can we ensure that the training of teachers and principals is sufficient?   

 

Ø      How can we ensure that school teams are given time and paid for the use of their time when they retrieve and analyze data?

 

Ø      If students are struggling, will the Growth Model then link them to well-researched, field-tested programs to improve their skills?  Will funding be made available to all schools across the country so that they can buy these programs? 

 

Ø      If individual tutoring is needed, will the money and manpower be available to provide it?

 

Ø      Will the nation be able to put a muzzle on the teachers unions as they balk at the increased level of accountability?

 

Unless these questions are addressed, the Growth Model of accountability will quickly degenerate into the latest costly and meaningless fad.  Time will tell which way it will go.  Meanwhile, I’m crossing my fingers.  If it’s managed well, it’s a great idea. 

Are Standardized Tests Infallible?

I finally got around to reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.  Chapter 2 is disturbing, to say the least.  Gladwell cites a study conducted by two psychologists, Claude Steele and Joshua Aaronson.  They gave black students a series of sample questions from the Graduate Record Exam, a test that can either be a gateway or a barrier to higher education.  The students were given a questionnaire prior to testing.  Some questionnaires included one particular question and others did not.  The question?  What is your race?   Those who were given that question answered half as many test questions correctly.

The mind is like a pinball game, it seems.  Throw in one experience and it bounces off a series of psychological associations.  Growing up in America, we are constantly bombarded with racist images.  These get embedded in the unconscious mind.  Just asking a black student to name their ethnicity, it seems, is enough to aggravate these unconscious wounds.  And it was enough to taint the test results.

So many factors can influence the performance of black students and give their teachers, their parents, and the students themselves a falsely negative image of their capabilities.  This is functional racism, a situation where students of color are discriminated against because the testing conditions are unfair even if the test-makers and test-administrators didn’t consciously plan to implement discriminatory practices.

I’m not against testing; but I am opposed to using a single, standardized test as the sole judge of a student’s capabilities.  Tests should be part of an array of tools used to judge students and to help guide their progress.  Test-makers will often claim that their tests are culturally unbiased–but our society isn’t.  And societal conditions have as much influence on test results as the tests themselves.

Are standardized tests infallible?  No!

 

Excerpt from READ WELL, THINK WELL

Comprehension is a reader’s ability to understand the meaning of a book, a play, an article, a poem.  This is a very complex human skill involving many different types of thinking processes.  Many parents are familiar with programs that address…phonics.  Programs like Hooked on Phonics do a great job developing these skills.  There are far fewer resources available to parents who want to build vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension skills.  That’s where I come in.  Read Well, Think Well, is for parents—and teachers—who want to help children build vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

            Gone are the days when a youngster could leave high school and support a family by going to work in a factory.  Today, the ability to read critically is a basic economic necessity—a survival skill.  An unwritten rule of modern American economics is “read well or starve.”  Ours is a knowledge economy, one that stresses the finding and disseminating of information rather than the manufacturing of goods.  High-level reading is now an entry-level skill. 

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome! I’m Dr. Hal W. Lanse, author of READ, WELL, THINK WELL: BUILD YOUR CHILD’S READING, COMPREHENSION, AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS.

Over the years I’ve taught many workshops for teachers and parents. Parents are always thrilled to receive any information that will help their children succeed in school. They often ask me to recommend books for further reading. This was always difficult because too many books are written in confusing, educational jargon. I decided that if anyone was going to do the job it would have to be me. So, I set out to write a readable, user-friendly guide to building children’s reading skills—a book that would provide useful information for parents whose children are of all ages. Now, with the READ WELL, THINK WELL blog, I can provide you with up-to-date information on educational issues. Knowledge is power, they say; so I hope the knowledge I share with you helps you to empower the young people in your life, be they your children or your students.