Math In A Barn

I'd like to thank my wine drinking Wednesday at Vino Villa friend A.O'D for sharing an article with me entitled Math Camp in A Barn: Intensive Instruction, No-Nonsense Discipline. The article was written by Naomi Schaefer Riley on July 18th.  Ms. Riley is the author of "Got Religion: How Churches, Mosques and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back".  It's a rather lengthy article so I'll give you the abridged version.

Ben Chavis lives on a farm in North Carolina's poorest county.  He previously was a principal at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, California.  Most of the 50 or so children who attend his camp are Native Americans.  There are also some who identify as African-American or Hispanic.  Close to half of the children live in families below the poverty line, most households are headed by single mothers and these are the lucky ones.  Several students at math camp are living in group homes, and their parents are often incarcerated or to strung out on drugs to care says Mr. Chavis.  The author, Ms. Riley states at a time when the rest of the country thinks about American Indians mainly for offending team nicknames, Mr. Chavis is addressing the real problems.

Ms. Riley goes on to say if Mr. Chavis provided only a disciplined, safe environment every day, it would be a public service.  But this three week camp is so much more.

• From 8:30am to 4:00pm Monday through Friday the children learn math, interspersed with some reading, physical education and lunch.
• Each student gets 120 hours of instruction during the three weeks, equivalent to what they get in a year at a typical public school.
• Mr. Chavis's farm students don't switch classrooms during the day: the rooms all have restrooms and drinking fountains.
• Teachers drill math concepts over and over.  They use flashcards, ask children to do problems on the dry-erase boards and to compete with one another to get the answers right.
• The closest thing these classrooms have to technology is an electric pencil sharpener.
• Students are given about two hours of homework each night.
• Detention (which can involve anything from washing windows and emptying the garbage to shoveling manure) is given for infractions such as tardiness, talking back to teachers or failing to turn in homework.

According to Ms. Riley the method, as old-fashion as it sounds, works.

In just a matter of a few days I will be back in the classroom and this article got me thinking.  Why is this math camp successful?  Mr. Chavis is working with scholars from a low social economic background and so does my school.  Mr. Chavis is working with scholars from a single parent family and so does my school. Mr. Chavis is working with scholars that have parental units that are either incarcerated or have a chemical dependency are so does my school.  So what is the difference?  It's just one item, he took the scholars out of a marginal to horrible home environment, took them to a farm and sat them in a self contained classroom and starting teaching math without any distractions.  No television, no computer games, no XBox or Play Station, no videos filled with violence like Transformers, no concern about gang activity and drive by shootings, no concern about even leaving the house and getting mugged or worse, no concern about the next meal and it's nutritional value.  There is just school and the incentive to get you homework done to avoid shoveling "stuff".

So now what?  Two things come to mind.  One is math related and the other has to do with Newt Gingrich. I'll start with math because even mentioning Newt Gingrich probably has already ticked some people off. Last school year our scholars spent quite a bit of time playing math related games on the computer.  There is nothing wrong with doing math on a computer except for one thing.  The scholars really didn't put an effort into getting the right answer on the math problem.  They just guessed with the probability that the got the wrong answer but so what.  There were no computer consequences for wrong answers.  Their answer was wrong but the game (a PacMan like game) just continued on to the next level.  The scholars would play for fifteen or twenty minutes and learned very little math.  Going into this school year I have the advantage over the new teacher.  I know where the computers are stored.  I know where the two keys are to gain access to the computers.  I could have one of those senior moments and forget where I placed the keys.  After all, it's been six weeks and I'm old.  Now where exactly did I put those keys.  This year I'm pushing for drill, flashcards, Expo markers and dry-erase boards.  From my view at the back of the room I want to see personally that a scholar can add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Back in 1994 Newt Gingrich riled up the masses by proclaiming that the country needed orphanages for children of welfare families.  His thought was that by removing the child from an unhealthy environment the child could get a proper upbringing and the welfare family, in a lot of instances a single mother, could get her life straightened out by finishing her education and seeking gainful employment.  The idea was vilified by the opposite political party and the news media and it drifted off into oblivion.  It's twenty years later and the welfare state has grown exponentially.  Hundreds of thousands of children that we not fortunate enough to be a member of the lucky sperm club are trapped in a desperate situation.  How much longer can this go on? Fortunately Ben Chavis has found the way to help these children.  He's taking them out of the home and placing them in a healthy learning environment.  He started with fifty children and he has been highly successful.  He has plans to expand his math in a barn to include building an entire charter school on his farm. If Ben Chavis can do this why can't any other city with a large number of children trapped in poverty do this? I suspect funding will be a problem but so will politics.  Too many players in the game of education have staked out their turf.  Public schools, private schools, charter schools and unions all are protecting their turf and no one is going to budge.  That is a sad commentary and maybe some serious thought should be given to removing children from an unhealthy environment.  Placing them in an orphanage like Newt Gingrich wanted to do still won't fly but placing them in a school with housing and run them like a college campus just might be the answer.  If nothing else this will guarantee a scholar one hundred and eighty days of learning free from babies raising babies, poverty, crime and gangs.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog I truly appreciate it.