Implementing Progressive Education in New York City Public Schools

Answers by Ariel Sacks

You attended Bank Street School of Education in New York City. From your personal experience, what do you perceive to be their philosophy on education? What is their mission in the field of education?

Bank Street’s philosophy of education has been called the developmental-interaction approach.  What this means is that educational experiences should be designed to interact with the developmental trajectory of the child, rather than being imposed on the child regardless of his or her experience.  Child development includes physical, cognitive, social and emotional components of a child’s growth.  Although there’s great variation in how children progress in these areas, developmental researchers have found patterns that help clue educators in to what our students are experiencing so we can work more effectively with them. 

For example, I work with middle school students.  I know that early adolescents are growing physically at a rate so rapid it is only matched by the growth rates of toddlers.  We have no control over this growth and any attempt to ignore or deny it would be futile.  Yet it engages a good deal of our students’ energy.  I also know that physical development is not separate from cognitive or social-emotional development.  My teaching is most effective if I can interact with all of these areas of my students’ development, not just the cognitive one, providing opportunities for my students to be physically active, socially engaged, and thinking critically all at the same time.

Another way of saying this is that children construct their knowledge through their own experiences, as opposed to lecture style absorption of facts. (Though there may be an occasional place for lectures in the classroom, by themselves they will not work very well, and there are some students who may never learn much by listening to a lecture.)  Today the notion of experiential learning may be more widely accepted than it used to be, but to put it into practice takes a great deal of thought, time, and commitment, and sometimes risk.  One never knows how a particular student will experience something we do in the classroom.  A progressive teacher must be willing to listen, accept, and build on the experiences of all students, not just those who match what the teacher may have intended students to experience. This requires flexibility, an ability to let go of preconceived ideas, and a genuine interest in the students as people.

You are a relatively new teacher; you just finished your fourth year in a high-needs New York City public school. What have been some of the biggest challenges you have faced in the first few years of teaching in an especially challenging classroom setting?

There are two major challenges I’ve faced that I want to discuss here.  The first one has to do with setting up structures in my classroom to create a stable environment for my students and support the kinds of things I want us to do.  In addition to the instability that is part and parcel of being an adolescent, many of my students come from neighborhoods and homes where there is a high degree of instability and often danger.  High needs schools also lack stability as resources prove inadequate and turnover is high.  For these reasons, it has been essential for me to create a strong sense of community, stable routines and organization within the classroom. 

When these structures are not in place, middle school students communicate their sense of insecurity through behaviors that, well, cause even more chaos in the classroom.  At this point, teachers are told they need to develop “classroom management” skills.  What I found with classroom management was that it ceased to be an issue once I had been able to get to know my students, create curriculum that responds to their needs and experiences (back to development), and implement structures and routines that allow us to carry out our work in an organized, yet still flexible, fashion. 

This took some time.  Though I got ideas from my course work and student teaching experiences, a lot of this work needed to be designed specifically for the context of my school, my group of students, and my organizational style. Now that I’m at a new school, I’ve had to do some restructuring around the needs of my new group of students in the context of my new school.  The concepts are the same, but many of the details have had to change.

The second challenge was figuring out how to stay true to my beliefs about how kids learn once I entered the field.  There are so many mandates and trends in public education, and most are presented as simplistic short cuts to the deep learning we all want to see in our students.  Teachers are often expected to be diligent students in an authoritarian environment, take notes on directives, and implement them immediately without question.  I love to learn, and do a great deal of professional development reading on my own.  Curriculum mandates often have some helpful tips and useful resources to offer…but as short cuts to learning, they are basically myths.  Real teaching is as complex as the classroom full of students you have to teach, and I strongly doubt it can be effectively standardized.  

As a new teacher, I was immediately uncomfortable with being told how to teach, but it was hard to know just how to respond.  I might have been tempted to give up aspects of my progressive practice, were it not for my participation in a partnership between my school and Bank Street College called Partnership For Quality.  Through this program I maintained a relationship with my faculty advisor from Bank Street, who supported me as I devised ways to implement progressive pedagogy, and my school understood that many of my methods were coming from Bank Street, which the school had elected to work with.  Nonetheless, I felt some friction.

I discovered that, despite what the various mandates seemed to suggest, my methods were working well!  I ended up finding a balance that seemed to work for my supervisors and me, which I still use.  I always listen with an open mind at professional development meetings or when I am told of a new mandate.  You never know when you might learn something valuable, AND I need to have a working knowledge of whatever I’m expected to do.  I usually find that I am already engaging with some aspects of the new mandate, and may find something new I’d like to try as well.  This becomes an important bargaining chip.  When I come to something I don’t agree with—that I know will upset the learning of my students—I feel justified in rejecting it.  Sometimes I’ve done this quietly, other times I talk to my supervisor in a clear, honest way about it.  That conversation might go something like this: “About Mandate X…I have tried this, this, and this, and they are working well—look at my students’ work!—but that, I don’t think I can do. It directly conflicts with Practice Y I already have in place that is working so well—look at my students’ work!” 

I’ve rarely encountered a problem using this approach.  I’ve shown my supervisors that I’ve listened well, thought carefully, come to a conclusion that is in the best interest of my students, and used evidence to support my claim.  It can take some courage, but it’s worth it to speak up about really important things like what students will do in your classroom. If, after attempting to negotiate a few times, you find you have an unreasonably rigid principal, it’s probably best to find another school.  Most principals are willing to negotiate to keep good teachers. 

Bank Street’s Master’s degree program encourages teachers to think creatively and progressively about their lessons. How have you managed to combine this goal with the pressure you feel to “teach to the test” or meet the requirements of standardized testing? What were some of the difficulties you discovered while trying to satisfy both of these objectives?

In my first year of teaching (2004), there was less pressure to teach to the test, although it was there.  It is incredible how quickly testing has become such a huge factor in the lives of students, teachers, principals, and whole school communities.  It goes to show how much impact policy-makers can have on schools when they choose to.  

My initial attitude about “teaching to the test” was that good teaching is good teaching, so if I do my job well, the scores will reflect that—explicit test prep is unnecessary, except maybe to practice within the time constraints of the actual test.  I’m glad I started out teaching that way, because I developed most of my curriculum without the test in mind. 

I found that my hypothesis about test scores was partly true, but not completely.  My students always made progress on the test, especially the lowest level students, because my class ensured that they were reading and comprehending, and gaining confidence with their writing.  But I’ve also found that many of my students who come to me with the highest skill levels are not improving to the same degree.  So I’ve taken a hard look at this discrepancy and come to two important conclusions that will inform my next steps:

1. I am not providing enough differentiated opportunities for my highest performing students. I’ve already begun to work to develop in that area.  I am eager to implement some new strategies this coming year.
2. The New York State 8th grade ELA exam is much narrower in what it measures than I am in what I teach.  There are many skills and concepts that I devote a great deal of time to that the test does not include at all.  Most of these line up with state standards, but are still not included on the test.  Others have to do with social-emotional development and being part of a learning community, which the test doesn’t touch. Additionally, some of the expectations the test sets up—in terms of how the correct answers are selected and how the writing pieces are scored—actually contradict things I’ve taught my students. The writing required to pass these tests is not quality writing; it’s formulaic, phony writing. The analysis of literature and texts is not real analysis; it’s multiple choice strategic guessing.  It has nothing to do with the real experience or ideas of the students. 

The second point creates a dilemma for me.  Do I devote valuable time to prepare the kids to meet the narrow expectations of the test, even though I find some of them harmful? Or do I continue the practices that I believe best serve my students, even though the test scores are now used to evaluate my entire school community?

It is a hard call, but I like to think that tests are not the only “high stakes” area of my job. Teaching is a high stakes career because of the profound impact we have on our students’ lives and their futures.  The high school drop out rate in New York City is almost 50% and figures are similar in many areas across the country.  Kids who are excited about learning, whose minds are engaged every day in school are much less likely to drop out than students who feel bored, angry, ignored, and worried about failing.  Test prep creates a lot of the latter type of students, because it does not really engage individual’s minds.  It is a matter of extreme importance that teachers do not let testing become the focal point of any student’s education.

I compromise by talking openly with my classes about the test and what it means, and allowing them to discuss their experiences with testing.  I try to teach things that are likely to show up on the test in the fall instead of the spring, because the test is in January.  I devote only a few weeks to explicit test prep.  I also taught Saturday Academy which provided extra prep for students who were most concerned about their performance on the test.  And as I said before, I do look at the data each year and take it into account when I improve my practice, but I don’t let the become more important than my students. 

As a teacher leader and soon-to-be department chair in your middle school, how did your progressive philosophy affect the promotions you have already received during your career?

Having a strong foundation in progressive education from Bank Street was a huge advantage for me, because I had a vision of what kind of teacher I wanted to be, and I’ve been persistent about it.  It was difficult at times and required some courage.  Sometimes I felt like I was being rebellious—I kept waiting to face some kind of consequence for my tendency to do things differently.  But the consequences never came.  It turned out, my supervisors and colleagues respected me, and as time went on, they let me know it.  The things I was most worried about getting in trouble for became the things I got the most credit for doing successfully.  In this sense, it was better to “stand for something than to fall for nothing.”  Teachers are too quick to give up practices they believe in for flavor-of-the-month mandates that usually disappear before they even have a chance to master them!  

Part of the reason things worked out well for me--being a progressive teacher in a more traditional school—was that I never made my differences with supervisors or colleagues personal.  I assumed we all had the interests of the students in mind and I recognized that administrators are under a tremendous amount of pressure.  By keeping an optimistic, professional attitude and being willing to communicate my perspectives clearly, I was able to stand out in a positive way, rather than relegating myself to an unhappy corner.  I now work in a school where teachers regularly take on leadership roles.  I’ve comfortably transitioned into the role of grade team leader, in part, because I’m firmly rooted in my vision of student-centered education (though I’m constantly learning).  This makes me pretty consistent in my interests—I don’t hold onto wild cards, so to speak.  I’m also a good listener, and I don’t make the leadership role about me.  I’m there to facilitate the growth of the group.  Within that, we’re all professionals with a lot to offer.

You have described your school setting as very collaborative among other teachers and administrators. How has this relationship helped or hurt your aim to be a forward-thinking educator?

It’s certainly helped me.  I think working collaboratively is really important for forward-thinking people, probably in all fields, and especially for creating effective schools.  I’ve learned a lot from my colleagues, especially being new to the school.  It’s been invaluable to work closely with a supportive team of teachers, and I was amazed at how we were able to impact our students together.  I’ve also been able to share aspects of my teaching with other teachers, especially within the English department.  They are incredibly open to progressive ideas, and are trying some of my methods out—many of which come from Bank Street—in their classrooms.  We’ve begun a great dialogue about practice that I think is very rich for all of us.  I’m excited to be leading in the English department meetings next year, because I want to make sure these fruitful discussions to continue!

I have had to adjust my outlook a bit in this tight, collaborative environment.  I have much less stake in being “different.” Most teachers in my school are interested in progressive education, and we share a lot of what we do.  Also, teachers co-create much of the school’s infrastructure, so we have little to rebel against.  It is clearly best for students when teams are on the same page and present a united front whenever possible.  That requires lots of communication, and is very rewarding; but it did require a slight shift for me personally, toward the group and away from my own practice.  Sometimes I have to consciously retreat to my classroom for some professional alone time!

In a Teacher Magazine article you write about a lesson you learned from your students about giving them some freedom and relaxing some classroom rules then finding they have a heightened sense of responsibility in return. What other lessons has your commitment to an open-minded attitude resulted in?

Almost every aspect of my curriculum has been built with students’ input.  One piece I’m especially excited about is a way I engage students with reading novels. I call it the Whole Novels Program, and I’ve been developing it with a faculty member at Bank Street, Madeleine Ray.  Some English teachers at my school are now adapting it for their classrooms.  The whole thing is based around the idea that after a group of students reads a novel, they create the content of what gets studied in the novel through student-driven discussions. 

I’ve found that when I back away from the content and let the students discuss the book honestly, the results are startling.  They might not start the conversation where I would have started—they might want to spend an entire day discussing the scene where a character dies, or why the beginning of the book was boring beyond belief—but that’s the point!  It’s their experience. 

After multiple rounds the discussions get deeper; examples of the literary elements and devices I need to teach emerge organically through their conversations.  My job becomes listening and taking notes, introducing academic terms for the things they’ve noticed, and pushing them to reread to find textual evidence for their claims.  This way, students learn literary concepts as they come up in their experience, not for seemingly arbitrary reasons that only matter to the teacher.  Students become more interested in reading when they realize I’m going to let them to have their own experience and opinions. The work gets sophisticated very quickly, and the kids are doing the heavy work—not me!  It’s the leap of faith in the beginning, and the willingness to listen openly to kids, that makes the difference in the end. 

In your blog, you comment frequently on the choices made by local and national education policymakers. To what extent do you think these choices have facilitated or impeded school reform and a more progressive approach to education?

I think policy makers make the mistake time and again of trying to standardize teaching, when it is much more complex than that.  Until they stop oversimplifying our work, I doubt we will see significant reform.  I imagine progressive educators will remain on the margins until we are seen as resources to policy-makers rather than outliers.

On the other hand, I have seen some aspects of progressive education slowly being embraced by a wider group of teachers due to policy decisions.  A few years ago, Chancellor Klein mandated the Reader’s and Writer’s workshop model in all K-8 schools in New York City.  At the time I resented it somewhat, because it was presented as a standardized, semi-scripted program, which had not been designed with middle school kids in mind. This kind of initiative runs contrary to a developmental-interaction approach to teaching, which requires flexibility, developmental rationales, and teacher autonomy.  But as the years have gone by, that mandate has been replaced by the single-minded drive to raise test scores.  In the wake of the Reader’s and Writer’s Project craze, I realize that its clumsy, broad implementation had some positive, possibly lasting effects on mainstream K-8 classrooms in New York City. 

For one thing, “the workshop model” freed many teachers from the idea that you have to be standing in front of the class for most of the period to be teaching.  It validated, on a mainstream level, the idea that teachers can work with individual students, small groups, and the whole class, at different, equally important points in a class period.  That’s a big move forward.  The workshop model also did another significant thing: it convinced the city to buy new, developmentally appropriate classroom library materials for every ELA classroom in the city.  Before that, only class sets of a few city mandated novels, and English textbooks would normally be found in our classrooms.  This was another positive step. 

Ironically, as much pain as the current testing craze is causing, when it is over (all that goes up must come down), we will probably notice that the vast majority of teachers now use data to drive instruction, which is another step forward.  The problem is that we—and all other concerned parties—need to look at multiple forms of data, not just test scores, and consider more carefully what the data means.  One thing that gives me hope for the future is that the concept of teacher leadership is catching on, all over the country.  I’m a member of the Teacher Leaders Network and am continually inspired by the work teachers on the network are doing in the policy realm.  I imagine that this would be great for policymakers as well—we are the ones their policies are written for!  They should bring us into their conversations!

You are just beginning your teaching career, yet you are already involved in the national Teacher Leaders Network, you're writing for national publications, and you're blogging in a highly visible place. What would you say to younger teachers who might be reluctant to view themselves as "ready" for teacher leadership?

All teachers are leaders in their own classrooms and must somewhere believe they have leadership qualities.  The shift to leading in the adult world is intimidating at first, I admit.  But pause to consider the potential of teacher leadership.  Imagine the impact we could have on our profession if we had a real voice in decisions that get made for us. Many of us will need to become teacher leaders for that to happen.  And the more represented we are the farther we can reach.  I would encourage young teachers to start by speaking up at their schools.  Most principals value input from their teachers and will appreciate that you came to them with an idea or concern (even if they don’t show it right away).  Even if your first attempt doesn’t yield the result you want at that moment, you’ve opened a door and can now cultivate that relationship.

Teacher leadership has some positive side effects for the teacher leader too…  It helps shift the focus away from the negativity that often broods in schools toward a model of possibility.  Maybe some of you are discouraged by how one-dimensional our career path looks at present…you’ve been trying to convince yourself to become a principal or get that phD, even though you’d really rather stay where your heart is, in the classroom.  Teacher leaders are carving the way for multiple career paths within the teaching profession.  You could become a master teacher, get paid well for your expertise, and share it with others.  One day, you might design your own new job description, based on your special strengths as a teacher and the specific needs of your students or school community.  I think we can make that happen if we start envisioning it now.   

About Ariel Sacks

Ariel Sacks teaches 8th grade English in Brooklyn.  She is a grade team leader and soon-to-be English department chair.  A member of the Teacher Leaders Network, and Ariel blogs regularly about teaching at http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/shoulders_of_giants.