Jennifer/Profe Loca’s brilliant comparison between TPRS and Pacing Guides was posted here a few days ago, but Robert put it into a nice format and has posted it on his site (see list of TPRS bloggers on the right side of this page). The reason I am making Robert’s instructions into a blog here is to keep this information from scrolling away with the comments – it is now categorized under the “TPRS vs. Traditional” category on this page. Doing this hopefully makes it a bit more accessible. Anyone who wants to make a point with a colleague who enjoys attacking TPRS might want to just unload a bit of this mace on them.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
5 thoughts on “Robert's Version Of Jennifer's Post”
Great stuff! I would heartily recommend that each of us make it our individually own by recomposing it to include one’s own quite minimal clarifications, adjustments, and additions. In such manner, you can present it as your own while avoiding plagiarism and still giving large credit to Jennifer. The side benefit is that you will thereby not only hone your own personal perspective, but also will better understand Jennifer’s way of putting it.
In fact, I see this as good advice for every statement of high value that anyone of us takes as one’s own from this site or elsewhere: tweak someone else’s take just enough to make it your own personal take. That way, when you present it to a recalcitrant, anti-CI colleague or administrator, you will achieve in their mind your own well-deserved notoriety as a profe loc(a)(o) (Prof fou/folle).
BTW, that’s how great manufactured products become even better. Tweak and retweak!
You a trip, Frank. I don’t think they are anti-CI, just not aware of its power. They really believe that kids get better at writing by writing all the time and at speaking by practicing speaking way before they are ready, before the deep neurological input programming which takes years to get into the brain has been completed. My kids this year literally wrote for about 45 minutes the entire year, and wrote o.k. on the district assessment, if not brilliantly. Brilliant writing is a function of time, not good traditional teaching. I could have spent all year breaking down writing and come out with about the same result, but I used that time for inputting the language into their brains as spoken and read language instead. I’m glad I did. Those kids are going to kick ass on the AP exam in a few years because I did that. Sorry it’s a digression but what the hey.
As far as tweaking Jenn’s work, I guess we can, but then we end up focusing more on discussions of methodology, focusing more on those who oppose us, instead of working on getting better at what we do in the classroom. That is why I – and apparently Robert – find Jenn’s list so excellent.
She, in one single document, has singlehandedly ended the need for nuanced discussion about TPRS. She has laid it out there as clear as the argument can be made. That done, we can print a copy, hand it to anyone who wants to read it, and then getting about our business of focusing on how we spend our time working together on how we deliver input skills in our building. That is why I suggest today the Grab 5 program.
Hopefully the Grab 5 program in the buildings and some good summer workshop instruction in a few months (who recently published a list of all the summer workshops on their blog?) can get us ready for next year in a concrete, not theoretical, way.
By the way, if you click on Jennifer’s blog link above right you can read a very sobering post about an autistic kid. Man.
Ben, I have no intention of removing any full focus from our function as classroom practitioners of our craft. I merely suggest that each of us, dans son for intérieur even if not in writing, at least half-consciously reflect upon each others’ wording of principles that we all accept and reword them according to one’s own individual manner of understanding. That sort of forces each of us to reflect upon he/she does what we all try to do in the classroom and how that feeds into or out of one’s individual practice, which of course can productively modify that practice. Or something like that!
Hey, I was thinking labeling about resistant colleagues and administrators as “non-CI” instead of “anti-CI”. But oh, what the Hell! There’s no need for diplomacy when its merely between us: off the cuff.
Oh yeah I’m for that. True dat. By the way, the expression “en mon for intérieur” totally rocks.