[xmca] unions and reform/improvement

From: Tony Whitson (twhitson@UDel.Edu)
Date: Sun Jan 07 2007 - 09:26:56 PST


Here is a response from Patsy Wang-Iverson of Research for Better Schools
(RBS). Their pages on Lesson Study are linked from the post at
http://curricublog.org/2007/01/06/lesson-study-unions/

What this adds to Alice's response is the information about New Jersey,
which involves affiliates of the National Education Association (NEA); so
it's not just AFT-affiliated unions that are doing this.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 09:41:26 -0500
From: Patsy Wang-Iverson <pwangiverson@gmail.com>
To: Lesson Study Listserv <lessonstudy@listserv.tc.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: [lessonstudy] 2 questions about lesson study

Dear Tony,

Very briefly, Alice Gill, American Federation of Teachers, who is on this
list, was at the forefront of summarizing and disseminating TIMSS when the
data first began appearing in late 1996. Similarly, Alice has been actively
working across the country with AFT districts to introduce them to jugyo
kenkyu and to support their efforts in implementation. She also has
presented widely on her experiences with lesson study.

On October 4, 2006, New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), in
collaboration with NJ Principals and Supervisors Association, NJASCD, and a
project at Kean University, sponsored a symposium on lesson study. They were
oversubscribed, but in lieu of turning away people, they went above their
original participant limit.

Re < view that the unions are the obstacle to improvement of education.

At the heart of lesson study is collaborative improvement focused on
student's welfare, not fixing blame.

Regards,

Patsy
On 1/7/07, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
>
> 2 qustions:
>
> 1) What roles have teachers' unions played in places where lesson study is
> being implemented?
> (On the xmca list, a question has been raised about the view that the
> unions are the obstacle to improvement of education. I want to suggest
> that the experience with lesson study around the country could provide
> examples of unions contributing to improvement. It's my guess that this is
> so, but I don't know myself, so I thought I could ask the people here.)
>
> I have a post at
> http://curricublog.org/2007/01/06/lesson-study-unions/
> that elaborates more on the question. If anybody has examples of union
> involvement, if you add a "comment" to that page I can direct the xmca
> folks to see it there.
>
> The second question is related to the first one in a way that's indicated
> in that post, but is otherwise not obvious. It's a question about "lesson
> study" as the English translation of the Japanese term, rather than
> "teaching study." I'm very interested if anybody here has anything to say
> about that. Again, it's elaborated more on the post linked above.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK DE 19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> _______________________________
>
> "those who fail to reread
> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>
>
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--
*******************************************
Patsy Wang-Iverson
cell: 609.532.0292
net: pwangiverson@gmail.com

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