Kelly's Curriculum Corner

In my last post, I shared an article by Ed Week that highlighted the nonacademic skills needed for college and career success . The article brought me back to the framework for Reading Apprenticeship, an approach to adolescent literacy. The framework is posted to the right. When I was first introduced to the Reading Apprenticeship framework my initial thought was the social and personal dimensions were just like cotton candy…. looks good, tastes good, but not much substance. I have come to realize how very wrong I was. In fact, the personal and social dimensions are the very strength of the model. Look to the framework and ask yourself … Where do secondary teachers live? Where do students live? Most educators would say secondary teachers are focused on knowledge-building, while most say students value the social dimension over the others. It just is not realistic to think we will inspire deep content knowledge without valuing individual students and their need for soci...

Today I was catching up on some reading and ran across an article in Ed Week entitled, Experts Begin to Identify Nonacademic Skills Key to Success . “[T]he biggest predictor of success is a student’s conscientiousness, as measured by such traits as dependability, perseverance through tasks, and work ethic. Agreeableness, including teamwork and emotional stability were the next-best predictors of college achievement, followed by variations on extroversion and openness to new experiences.” What caught my eye was not the actual article, although I did find that interesting, rather it was the reaction to the article in the comments section. Many of the comments were rather negative, defensive even. Some even stating it is only through Charters and other private education institutions that these skills can be emphasized. Others were critical indicating this is not the job of schools, rather parents and community members should take the lead. Why is it that so many of us think it ...