After reading all of the articles about RTI (response to intervention) programs and the focus it has been given lately, I'm really struck by one thing...why do we spend our time looking for the magic bullet? After all of the info. and discussions we've had in class regarding learning styles, physiological development (including brain development), intelligences, etc., we should all know by now that not one thing works for all students, but yet the policy makers seem to be looking for "the" strategy that will make our education system perfect.
I really like the premise that each student be evaluated early and get the help s/he needs in order to catch up with other students. That seems like education at its best and something that all students deserve. However, the problem lies, like many things in our society, with implementation...particularly with commitment and follow-through. Education at its worst is implementation procedures that delay help for any student and the transformation of schools into some canned content delivery systems.
This is not just a school problem, it's a societal problem. In the U.S., we are dreamers. We love big ideas that are going to change the world, but sometime we lack patience, long-term vision, and persistence (especially when things get difficult or when we feel like someone else's needs might be the focus instead of our own). We want the answer to be easy, quick and cheap, but don't the best things in life take more commitment than that? The princess may have gotten a prince by kissing a frog, but we're still fighting civil rights issues that we've been fighting for 300+ years. How do we teach our children not to complain about how hard a test is when we complain about how hard it is to educate them? How do we teach them that it takes less effort to do something than to complain when we don't do spend so much of our time pointing fingers?
The main goal for myself in my classroom...a good model of what to do when things get difficult.
