You always make me think and appreciate what we, my husband and I, were able to give our children. I just started recently working as a floating substitute teacher in a very small community school for children ages 3-12 or so. Mixed ages in the four classrooms and no boxed curriculum. So much potential in each classroom for kids to learn what they want and how. It’s the tail end of the year and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens between now and the end of school and then again what happens next fall.
Cathy, I am always *delighted* to hear about schools where kids are still allowed to learn this way. Is it a public school? Is your state less standards-driven? I’m always curious to understand why some teachers are still allowed to teach this way when so many aren’t.
It’s a community school that is private but had to prove to the superintendent of the town schools several consecutive years that the teachers there are following state standard before the school was allowed to operate without taking year end tests (if I’m correctly remembering what I read in my training). I am in MA and believe the state school standards are pretty high compared to some other states.
As a homeschool parent I always checked when the state was requiring my kids to learn and met or exceeded them each year. The students do not take the state required MCAS tests as only public school students must take and pass them.
Thank for explaining! It frustrates me that public schools are so hog-tied to testing and textbooks. It so clearly undermines the educational experience and yet…
This is what my classroom used to be like where I could be learner centered with my reading, writing, and math workshop. It was a magical place! I left the classroom two years ago after being bullied and harassed for continuing this approach. I was told I needed to follow the boxed reading curriculum even though it did not meet needs and kids were bored. And there was no more writer’s workshop for my students. I sometimes watch my videos of my students in workshop format and it is deeply saddening to think this is no longer the way kids are learning.
This breaks my heart, truly! These are the kind of comments I got on my tiktok video. I was afraid I was overreacting and that things were not as bad as I imagined—and then I heard from many, many teachers like you, confirming my suspicions. As Suki notes, it will take SO MUCH change to turn this around—but it matters! I want younger teachers and parents to understand what’s been lost so we can all fight for change. Thank you for sharing your story, Elizabeth. 💕
My third grader seems to get a mix of both--lots of testing and basic five-paragraph essays, but also lots of exploratory stuff too. This week she is teaching the class a lesson of her choice and she has to do some public speaking about it and make a Google slide show about it. She decided to teach an across-the-floor dance from her jazz pop class. I thought this was a pretty cool way to get the kids to practice all kinds of skills, and I love how interactive it is. They're also having a class "arcade" and everyone has to build their own arcade game from scratch! I am also intrigued by how both of my younger kids take a lesson they're interested in from school and do it on their own at home--they repeat it as a teacher would, or use it as a jumping off point. My oldest son has had some amazing junior high teachers who do a lot of project based learning. Others are more rote and he HATES it and totally shuts down...
I'm always so relieved to hear about classrooms where kids are still getting to do cool stuff. Public speaking and slide shows about dance moves! Building self-designed arcade games! Hooray for this teacher! (I taught third grade and have a special fondness for that age.)
Boo for the rote teachers in middle school--but I'm glad your kiddo gets some project based learning. Damn, I wish kids got more of that. I volunteered at an internship-based public high school here in Oakland and the engagement from the students was so much better than at typical schools. I'm just one person but I will keep climbing this hill, screaming that this is what kids need.
Thank you for taking the time to share this, Edan. I hope you know how it lights up my day.
I was trained as a teacher in the late 80s. Very much in the way Patricia has described. Although I only spent two years in public schools, out of total of a 20 year teaching career, I was lucky to be at schools that welcomed child-centered learning. As described in your piece, the classrooms were dynamic and incredibly generous to the students, which made planning and teaching a joy. Happy students who look forward to their work, and sometimes don’t even think of it as work, are learning in their least restrictive environments. What also worked for all the K-3rd grade students in our classes was knowing them well! Some would thrive and learn all they needed and then some needed more prescribed, structured ways of learning to read and write. Those students benefitted from more tailored approaches to give them tools they could not glean from a total whole language approach. Our twin daughters truly needed both kinds of offerings (whole language and phonics) to become confident writers and readers. But for all students they worked in the same supportive, collaborative environment that bred trust and confidence. Children need the space and time to explore their interests and opportunities to explore how they want to know the world. Writers workshops were a perfect way to allow every student a unique voice. Can’t wait to read your book!
Thanks so much for sharing, Janet! It's always interesting for me to think about how we got our teaching credentials at the same time, and started out on similar paths and then verged: you continuing as a teacher and me becoming a homeschooling parent. It's always been interesting to see where your path took you because I could have gone in a similar direction. Then again, the school where you ended up shared so many of the values I had in as a homeschooling parent.
Yes to this: "What also worked for all the K-3rd grade students in our classes was knowing them well!" Absolutely! Obviously, this was a major upside to homeschooling, and I always loved hearing how you could do this in a classroom. And this is why the move toward standardization and testing in public schools upsets me so much--it completely undermines this. Surely teachers work to get to know their students regardless, but they have so much less freedom themselves in how they do this.
Thank you for sharing your experience, my friend. <3
I loved your article, Deborah! “What if students had expository writing classes every year for four years, regardless of their majors?” Indeed, what if? And what if they’d had twelve years of the same leading up to that? It’s always been mind-boggling to me that we give so much attention to math in school, and so little attention to writing, although it’s a universal communication and thinking skill. Why, why, why?
Ah, yes, I DO feel your blood boiling! NCLB was designed to suck money from actual learning and put it into the corporations who would write the curriculum and run the testing. Before we could implement learner-centered teaching in the public schools again, first, we'd have to suck the money back, pay top teachers well to go to underserved districts, understand that the criteria for success is different for each and every child, and, well, have a sane federal government.
You know it! You understand so much of what this is about. There is so much to unearth about how this all has deep roots in testing and textbook companies, which is why I want to explore this in another newsletter. It's revolting, as you know, Suki!
And yes, what an uphill battle it *will* be to return to learner-centered education. You are so right on all of this. But I have to believe we can do it. It may take years but we can't leave kids and teachers where they are now.
You always make me think and appreciate what we, my husband and I, were able to give our children. I just started recently working as a floating substitute teacher in a very small community school for children ages 3-12 or so. Mixed ages in the four classrooms and no boxed curriculum. So much potential in each classroom for kids to learn what they want and how. It’s the tail end of the year and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens between now and the end of school and then again what happens next fall.
Cathy, I am always *delighted* to hear about schools where kids are still allowed to learn this way. Is it a public school? Is your state less standards-driven? I’m always curious to understand why some teachers are still allowed to teach this way when so many aren’t.
It’s a community school that is private but had to prove to the superintendent of the town schools several consecutive years that the teachers there are following state standard before the school was allowed to operate without taking year end tests (if I’m correctly remembering what I read in my training). I am in MA and believe the state school standards are pretty high compared to some other states.
As a homeschool parent I always checked when the state was requiring my kids to learn and met or exceeded them each year. The students do not take the state required MCAS tests as only public school students must take and pass them.
Thank for explaining! It frustrates me that public schools are so hog-tied to testing and textbooks. It so clearly undermines the educational experience and yet…
This is what my classroom used to be like where I could be learner centered with my reading, writing, and math workshop. It was a magical place! I left the classroom two years ago after being bullied and harassed for continuing this approach. I was told I needed to follow the boxed reading curriculum even though it did not meet needs and kids were bored. And there was no more writer’s workshop for my students. I sometimes watch my videos of my students in workshop format and it is deeply saddening to think this is no longer the way kids are learning.
This breaks my heart, truly! These are the kind of comments I got on my tiktok video. I was afraid I was overreacting and that things were not as bad as I imagined—and then I heard from many, many teachers like you, confirming my suspicions. As Suki notes, it will take SO MUCH change to turn this around—but it matters! I want younger teachers and parents to understand what’s been lost so we can all fight for change. Thank you for sharing your story, Elizabeth. 💕
My third grader seems to get a mix of both--lots of testing and basic five-paragraph essays, but also lots of exploratory stuff too. This week she is teaching the class a lesson of her choice and she has to do some public speaking about it and make a Google slide show about it. She decided to teach an across-the-floor dance from her jazz pop class. I thought this was a pretty cool way to get the kids to practice all kinds of skills, and I love how interactive it is. They're also having a class "arcade" and everyone has to build their own arcade game from scratch! I am also intrigued by how both of my younger kids take a lesson they're interested in from school and do it on their own at home--they repeat it as a teacher would, or use it as a jumping off point. My oldest son has had some amazing junior high teachers who do a lot of project based learning. Others are more rote and he HATES it and totally shuts down...
I'm always so relieved to hear about classrooms where kids are still getting to do cool stuff. Public speaking and slide shows about dance moves! Building self-designed arcade games! Hooray for this teacher! (I taught third grade and have a special fondness for that age.)
Boo for the rote teachers in middle school--but I'm glad your kiddo gets some project based learning. Damn, I wish kids got more of that. I volunteered at an internship-based public high school here in Oakland and the engagement from the students was so much better than at typical schools. I'm just one person but I will keep climbing this hill, screaming that this is what kids need.
Thank you for taking the time to share this, Edan. I hope you know how it lights up my day.
I was trained as a teacher in the late 80s. Very much in the way Patricia has described. Although I only spent two years in public schools, out of total of a 20 year teaching career, I was lucky to be at schools that welcomed child-centered learning. As described in your piece, the classrooms were dynamic and incredibly generous to the students, which made planning and teaching a joy. Happy students who look forward to their work, and sometimes don’t even think of it as work, are learning in their least restrictive environments. What also worked for all the K-3rd grade students in our classes was knowing them well! Some would thrive and learn all they needed and then some needed more prescribed, structured ways of learning to read and write. Those students benefitted from more tailored approaches to give them tools they could not glean from a total whole language approach. Our twin daughters truly needed both kinds of offerings (whole language and phonics) to become confident writers and readers. But for all students they worked in the same supportive, collaborative environment that bred trust and confidence. Children need the space and time to explore their interests and opportunities to explore how they want to know the world. Writers workshops were a perfect way to allow every student a unique voice. Can’t wait to read your book!
Thanks so much for sharing, Janet! It's always interesting for me to think about how we got our teaching credentials at the same time, and started out on similar paths and then verged: you continuing as a teacher and me becoming a homeschooling parent. It's always been interesting to see where your path took you because I could have gone in a similar direction. Then again, the school where you ended up shared so many of the values I had in as a homeschooling parent.
Yes to this: "What also worked for all the K-3rd grade students in our classes was knowing them well!" Absolutely! Obviously, this was a major upside to homeschooling, and I always loved hearing how you could do this in a classroom. And this is why the move toward standardization and testing in public schools upsets me so much--it completely undermines this. Surely teachers work to get to know their students regardless, but they have so much less freedom themselves in how they do this.
Thank you for sharing your experience, my friend. <3
WHAT? learner-centered? But those classrooms seem so chaotic, so messy, and what are your DELIVERABLES? It's the gradual, insidiuous, terrible corporatization of education and i hate it. Also wrote about it, albeit from the other end of school: college: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/05/08/why-first-year-comp-classes-give-me-hope-opinion
I loved your article, Deborah! “What if students had expository writing classes every year for four years, regardless of their majors?” Indeed, what if? And what if they’d had twelve years of the same leading up to that? It’s always been mind-boggling to me that we give so much attention to math in school, and so little attention to writing, although it’s a universal communication and thinking skill. Why, why, why?
Ah, yes, I DO feel your blood boiling! NCLB was designed to suck money from actual learning and put it into the corporations who would write the curriculum and run the testing. Before we could implement learner-centered teaching in the public schools again, first, we'd have to suck the money back, pay top teachers well to go to underserved districts, understand that the criteria for success is different for each and every child, and, well, have a sane federal government.
You know it! You understand so much of what this is about. There is so much to unearth about how this all has deep roots in testing and textbook companies, which is why I want to explore this in another newsletter. It's revolting, as you know, Suki!
And yes, what an uphill battle it *will* be to return to learner-centered education. You are so right on all of this. But I have to believe we can do it. It may take years but we can't leave kids and teachers where they are now.