Departmentalization in Elementary School?

By Tom

Mrs. Rooney was my third grade teacher. We spent all day with her, from September through June. She was tough, smart and observant. She knew me well, and was able to tell my parents about all the wonderful things I would accomplish once I began to "apply myself."

Today I teach third grade, and my students endure the entire day with me. I teach language arts, math, science and social studies. And sometimes art.

I'm what's called a "generalist." I have no specialty. I'm supposed to be as good a math teacher as I am a writing teacher. The prevailing wisdom in this country is that children in the younger grades benefit from the stability and constancy of a single teacher who teaches every subject. The prevailing wisdom also holds that once a student enters seventh grade or so, the benefits of having a subject-area specialist outweigh the benefits of having the same teacher all day long.

But that wisdom is being challenged. In fact, up to 20% of our nation's grade school students, some as young as six, are moving from room to room, just like their high school brothers and sisters, taking their classes from specialists.

Why?

Well, test scores for one thing. Principals are using data to find out which teachers do best at what subjects and "platooning" the staff accordingly.

I have some reservations. First of all, in my experience the best teachers do a better job teaching everything. A good math teacher is usually pretty good at teaching reading, too. Not always, but usually.

I also think children really do benefit from having the same, caring adult all day long. There are always those kiddos that silently under-perform, and I would be very concerned that having multiple teachers would make it that much easier for them to slip through the cracks.

Brain research tells us that true knowledge is built on making mental connections. As a generalist, I'm always looking for ways to connect ideas in one subject with something we're learning in another subject.

And there are practical considerations. I have a posted schedule every day, but I frequently extend or contract a lesson in the interest of student learning. Having to send my students onto their next class would put an end to that.

So here's my suggestion: Use the data. Find out who teaches what best. And then let those teachers help their colleagues better teach the subjects in which they aren't quite so adept. Raise the capacity of the entire faculty of generalists. There are models out there that would facilitate this process, Lesson Study, for example, was created in Japan precisely to fill this need. Critical Friends Groups are another effective way for teachers to help one another.

Keep Mrs. Rooney and me where we belong, up in front of the same bunch of third graders all day long. But get us to talk to each other.

Comments

[Molly]

Excellent dialogue here on a topic that is somehow considered "all the rage." Yet, when I google departmentalization it alot of "old" stuff. I can barely find any research supporting either side of it.

I will say that there is an excellent way to build dynamic classrooms so that teachers can by like you and Mrs. Rooney and support the data as well with your great suggestion.

Look up Total School Cluster Grouping Model by Marcia Gentry and Rebecca Mann of Purdue Univ. An excellent model that I have implemented and it is based and excellent research!

[Tracey]

I used to teach in an elementary school that did something unusual with groupings of students. I taught a first grade humanities block in the morning, then in the afternoon we had math and science. I taught the 4th graders. It was back in the day when we valued small schools. They all had the same lunch at the same time, so this wasn't a headache to schedule. I loved it. The student were flexible, able to work with different kids and different adults, helping theme ease into middle school when the time came. (The middle school teachers all told us that our students had the easiest transition.) They also had strong connections with two teachers, not just one. I wouldn't call it "departmentalizing" because I was still a "generalist" teaching everything - just different subjects to different kids. But, I think this set-up helped students be more adaptable.

I don't like the idea of departmentalizing. i want to teach everything and connect everything we're learning in some meaningful way, with themes and a purpose. I already feel out of touch sending my kids to the music teacher. But, as I see my time get taken away by more and more meetings, PD, book studies, and SIP directives, I feel frustrated and overworked. I might consider taking a humanities block or a math/science block and teaching it twice to two different groups of students if it meant my workload could be more reasonable. However, it didn't sound like easing the teachers' workload was the reason for this. Poor instruction and/or test scores, depending on your view, was the reason. And, Tom, I think you're right. A good teacher teaches all those subjects well. My guess is that you're not going to find teacher X with high scores in reading and low scores in math, and teacher Y with high scores in math and low scores in reading. It's never that clean and simple. So, we have to build capacity and teach everyone how to teach each subject well. I just hope we do it intelligently and don't make everyone sit through all those trainings, just to be "fair".

[Tom]

Well, it sounds like this was a timely topic. Frankly, I had never heard of departmentalization in the grade schools, and I was stunned to read that 20% of our grades use this practice. I guess I see how it might boost achievement, but at what cost?

[Eva]

I'm so glad you wrote about this topic, because I've been feeling the tension of departmentalization in my elementary school this year. Due to the demands set on us classroom "generalists" from on high, whether it be principal, district, or state, or budget cutbacks, it has necessitated the dividing and conquering of reading, writing, math, and science within my team just so we can keep our sanity and try to get the data results our "bosses" want from us. Teach social studies, geography, cursive, art, or grammar - who has the time?

I chose to be an elementary teacher because I wanted to have the same group of students for a whole year and the time freedom to juggle my schedule as I saw fit making sure I taught and the students learned what the state prescribed. But instead, we have to eliminate some of the basics to remediate over and over just to get the scores up. Some kids just aren't mentally ready to get it when I need them to, to improve the data.

So what will all this data do for a child? Give them and their parents a nice paper trail and pointing out all their glaring deficiences, but unless funding is put in place to help these students with smaller class sizes, and more specialized remediation of their identified problems, how will these students ever become successful in school now or later in life?

In addition to dividing up the students for Intervention or Walk to Read or some other hot topic that is supposed to be helping all, my students definitely know when they are in the "high" or "low" group and what does that promote? Poor self esteem for sure for those struggling all the time.

I feel like all I do is assess and track the data in multiple subjects and much of it is on my own time. Sure I can see the point in some of it, but at the elementary level it is going too far. In addition to helping my students learn curriculum that will continue to spiral as they advance through the grades, I thought I was supposed to help these children socialize, build positive relationships with them, and encourage all their talents to help them become complete human beings, not just testing robots.

[Brian]

I teach high school math, and the quarter just ended, so it's time for report cards. One of my students had 57%, so he was getting an F. I talked to him on Friday about how close he was (60%) to passing, and told him that if would turn in several of his missing assignments by Monday he could get a D on his report card. He said cool, he would do that. Towards the end of the period a colleague came in and asked to talk to him. He said, you know his mom died last month, right? No, in fact I did not. I don't think elementary teachers get that kind of question; they know. But I have 135 students , and there are huge cracks. Cracks we cannot have in our elementary schools.
Just today I watched the Teddy Stallard Story on http://www.makeadifferencemovie.com/. Give it a look (with a box of tissues) and see if you don't think Tom's right.
(My student turned in 12(!) assignments today, and he was really happy to be passing.)

[Kristin]

The most positive impact I've had on certain students has been because I knew them well, either because I coached them or because I taught them for more than one year.

As a high school teacher who has her students for a quick 50 minutes a day (that's 1.56 minutes per child, except for my 4th which has 38 kids so 1.32 minutes per child) I can tell you that I do not know my students as well as my daughter's kindergarten teacher knows my daughter, or as well as my husband knows his 5th graders. And students do slip silently through the cracks. By the time we've emailed eachother, held a staffing, identified that the absences weren't excused, and given the student missing work......well, you see what I mean. My daughter had a bad afternoon a few weeks ago, her teacher and I talked after school, and the problem was addressed. Faster is better. Deep knowledge of a student's abilities and challenges is better. I am FOR elementary teachers having children all day. I am FOR looping and blocking in the secondary grades.