This is an interesting and worthwhile essay from @rpondiscio examining and owning up to some of the consequences of the pursuit of a particular set of school reform policies. /thread fordhaminstitute.org/national/comme…
@rpondiscio He's wondering how we get students to be "in" not just for school, but for the larger civic project that is the United States. It's a worthwhile question to wonder about and I think school reform has done a lot of damage on this front.
@rpondiscio I teach writing and the primary emotion students feel towards writing is alienation, almost total disengagement from writing as a tool for expression, thinking, and communication. This is a direct consequence of the school reform movement.
@rpondiscio I make a case for this in Why They Can't Write, a book I've sent to every prominent school reformer more than once, including @rpondiscio and some of his Fordham colleagues. jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/why-th…
@rpondiscio Pondisco asks, importantly, how we're going to know if students are indeed "in." I'm with him. Nothing matters more when it comes to schooling and issues well beyond schooling. 
@rpondiscio I'm working with college freshmen in a humor writing course this semester, and they are clearly struggling with engagement with school. Those who love learning have experienced school as a chore. Others are now numb to all of it, marking time to "earning that paper."
@rpondiscio So let me suggest that a good way to measure if students are indeed "in" is to ask them. "Are you in?" and then listen to what they are telling you. For a long time, the answer has been "no."
@rpondiscio I can tell it's "no" by the increasing rates of anxiety and depression. I can tell it's "no" by the 80% of students who say they would take an A grade without doing any work not because they're lazy, but because school seems pointless to them beyond credentialing.
@rpondiscio I wrote Why They Can't Write to identify all the systemic barriers preventing students from being "in" when it comes to learning to write. There are many and they are, unfortunately increasing, not decreasing.
@rpondiscio I wrote The Writer's Practice because I'd had some luck getting students to opt "in" to writing by respecting that they are curious, autonomous people with interesting things to say about the world. They just needed a framework that allowed them to be those people.
@rpondiscio It works. This is the testimony of a student who used The Writer's Practice for a week, 90 minutes a day in a high school success seminar as a rising 9th grader in Chicago Public Schools.
@rpondiscio Here's another, from one of the supposedly most troubled school systems in the country.
@rpondiscio I've got a dozen more. How about the students from @aschoenborn's class who testify to how their spirits have been dimmed, but because Andy is allowing them the freedom to explore their own ideas, they're writing perceptively, and well. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
@rpondiscio @aschoenborn I want to scream sometimes. Reformers like @rpondiscio say they want to chart a new course and there's people out there ready to help them, but we never seem to get invited in. If this is sincere, I'm available, and I've got three dozen more teachers who've inspired my work.
@rpondiscio @aschoenborn In my experience, there are no people more willing to be accountable than teachers, but it has to be meaningful work. If reformers want change, start listening to them and students and you will see what it means for people to be all the way in.
