Friday, November 20, 2009

School improvement...

A while ago I was presenting a paper at a conference on school effectiveness and improvement in Mexico. After the presentation a strange guy in jeans, cowboy boots and a suspicious black leather holster on his hip approached me and introduces himself as a school principal from a remote pueblo somewhere on the border with the US. He said he wanted to share the success story of his school.

Apparently, they had a big issue with student achievement there. So, he decided to invite the fathers of the 8 graders to take the mid-term exams with their children. Mind you, the results were to be announced publicly... He invited the fathers to do the same for the finals as well. And, lo and behold, students suddenly wanted to learn!

Obviously, taking the exams made these farmers appreciate the hard work of learning and they started both learning themselves and assisting their kids in their learning process...

Javier Murillo


You can stuff the teacher room with 1000s of books, but this will not make them read if the reading culture is not there. You have to create such a culture, before you can nourish it! I would like to share a successful school improvement project in one of the schools in New Delhi.

About two years ago, a new principal was appointed to this school. To encourage the school to turn into a learning organization, she introduced DEAR time: Drop Everything And Read. At a certain time during the classes a bell goes on in the whole building and a sign flashes in all classroom, offices and corridors: DEAR. Everybody, even the cleaning personnel has to stop whatever they are doing at the moment, pick a book at hand and read for 45 minutes. Every day!

Now my kids can shout DEAR at home and well, we don´t have a choice, we read….

Tarika Roy

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Հավես էր: Կարելի ա DEAR-ը կիրառել Հայաստանում :)

Anonymous said...

Hrashq e!!!!

Anonymous said...

Շատ հետաքրքիր գրառում էր։ :) Կաշխատեմ DEAR–ն իմ ընտանիքի առօրյա էլ ներմուծել, երբ երեխաներս համապատասխան տարիքի լինեն։ :))) Համ էլ հետաքրքիր բլոգ ունեք։