할 수 있다는 생각이 하게 합니다

할 수 있다는 생각이 하게 만듭니다. 자녀에게 '너는 똑똑한 아이다'라고 반복하여 말하면 정말 똑똑한 사람이 됩니다. 자신의 생각 속에서 나는 항상  똑똑한 사람이라고 말하게 되니까요. '바보 같이 이것도 못해' 라고 말한다면 어쩌면 스스로 나는 바보가 아닐까 하는 생각을 하게 되어 바보같이 되기 십상입니다.

우리들 스스로에게 나는 참 똑똑한 사람이다. 나는 성실한 사람이다. 나는 근면한 사람이다. 나는 무엇이든지 하면 할 수 있는 사람이라고 말해야 합니다. 자녀들이나 주위 사람들에게도 똑 같이 말할 필요가 있습니다.

긍정의 씨앗을 심으면 싹이 나고 잎이 돋아나 꽃을 활짝 피울 날이 옵니다. 긍정의 씨앗, 가능성의 씨앗을 심을 것인지 부정의 씨앗, 불가능의 씨앗을 심을 것인지는 우리의 선택에 달려있습니다.

교육은 우리의 삶을 바꿀 수 있는 확실한 길입니다. 교육보다 더 확실하게 우리 삶의 질을 바꿀 수 있는 길은 없습니다. 어떻게 하면 제대로 된 교육을 통하여 자라나는 청소년들에게 더 나은 미래를 가질 수 있도록 할까에 관심을 가져야 합니다.

미국 저소득층 자녀를 대상으로 한 '아는 것이 힘이다(KIPP: Knowledge Is Power Program) 프로그램의 성공 사례는 눈여겨 볼만 합니다.     

 

<Yes, they can>

We Canadians like to congratulate ourselves that our society is less unequal than it is in the United States. Our schools are better, our income distribution is fairer, and our poverty is less entrenched.

We should stop feeling smug. We already have a two-tier society, and it starts in childhood. In the upper tier are kids with educated, middle-class parents who'll probably get post-secondary degrees and good jobs. In the lower tier are kids from visible minority groups with poorly educated, lower-income parents who very likely won't. The achievement gap opens early, and is usually permanent.

How to change the outcomes for second-tier kids is one of the more important challenges we face. People have plenty of ideas but very little evidence of what might work. The schools are not the social levellers we hoped they'd be. Most low-income children in average public schools wind up poorly educated. only a handful go on to higher education.

But, in the United States, a decade of educational experiments has produced some highly persuasive results. Education can make a difference - a big one. The leading example is the KIPP schools, which serve 17,000 children in 19 states. (KIPP stands for the Knowledge Is Power Program, and its slogan is "work hard, be nice.") Nearly 80 per cent of KIPP alumni - who are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic - go to college.

 KIPP classrooms tend to alarm advocates of progressive education. They are very orderly. No one is gazing out the window. No one is slumping in his seat. All eyes are focused on the teacher. The kids have learned the drill called Slant: Sit up, listen, ask questions, nod, and track the speaker with their eyes. They like it. They say it helps them to learn. KIPP schools have a policy of zero tolerance for misbehaviour. And they all have long waiting lists.

Jessica Hart is a typical KIPP kid. When she arrived as a fifth grader at San Francisco's Bay Academy, her English scores were in the 16th percentile. By the end of the year, she was in the 75th percentile. How, a reporter asked last year, did that happen? "Because I'm smart," she said.

Turnarounds such as Jessica's are common. When kids start at KIPP - usually in middle school - most are already a grade or two behind. But the teachers tell them constantly that they are smart - and they are. Every student knows the year when he or she will go to college. In New York last year, 94 per cent of KIPP eighth graders scored at or above grade level in math. In northwestern Baltimore, every eighth-grade KIPP student who'd enrolled in Grade 5 passed the state's math test - compared with 19 per cent in the control group. Almost every KIPP school decisively outperforms its district.

But it takes a lot more than high expectations to get results such as these. Students clock a huge amount of classroom time. The school day runs from 7:30 to 5, with homework every night, classes every other Saturday, and three weeks of school every summer. one of the school's slogans is: "There are no shortcuts." Another is: "No excuses. You are responsible for getting smart." The teachers have cellphones so the students can call them after hours if they run into trouble with their homework. The teachers are young, idealistic, incredibly hard-working, and very good.

KIPP's 66 schools are charter schools, which means that they're in the public system but have more operating freedom. They appoint their own principals, hire their own (non-unionized) teachers, and give them merit pay. They receive the same funding as public schools, but they cost more to run. To make up the difference, they rely on philanthropists (such as the Gates foundation and the founders of the Gap).

Some detractors - those who believe KIPP is too authoritarian - call it the "kids in prison program." Others have questioned whether the schools simply cream off the better students from the other schools. But several independent evaluations have found that this isn't the case. The students really are representative, and KIPP schooling really does make a dramatic difference.

KIPP was founded in 1994 by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two idealistic young veterans from Teach for America. They began with middle schools, and are now expanding to college-prep high schools. Other successful low-income schools share much of the KIPP formula. They offer the small and nurturing environment of a private school (but without the amenities). They rigorously track every student's progress, and believe in intense discipline. The aim is not only to teach reading and math but to instill non-cognitive abilities such as self-control, adaptability, patience and kindness. (These are traits that most middle-class kids pick up outside the classroom. They have a huge impact on any child's future success.)

Despite the impressive track record, it's obvious that this education model is tough to scale up. It costs more money. And it doesn't work for everyone. As many as 40 per cent of KIPP students transfer out for one reason or another (although some of the benefits remain after they leave). The demands on teachers are very heavy, and a lot of them move on, too. Nor can these schools succeed if they have to play by the rules of a public-school bureaucracy (although I've seen a few exceptional public schools that do).

What these schools tell us is there is a way to do it. But it's hard. Giving disadvantaged children the same education that middle-class students get won't work. It has to be considerably better. And it has to use methods that are radically different from those employed in most public schools. In fact, methods that may suit middle-class kids just fine can be ruinous for lower-class kids.

There are important lessons here. And if we don't want a two-tier society, we'd better study up.

 (source : The Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 21, 2009 page A21.by Margaret Wente)