I thought I knew what a hitchhiker is

My daughter loves science but lately I've been hearing complaints about hitchhikers, and it took some clarification from her to figure out what she was talking about. Turns out a hitchhiker is someone who doesn't contribute in the group projects they do in school, someone who's just along for the ride. Not only are they just along for the ride, they fool around and generally distract focus from the subject at hand, taking much of the fun out of doing the group project from the others. My daughter's disdain for hitchhikers is unfortunately rubbing off on Science itself, and I'd hate to see her lose her interest in science, but I can see it happening and my encouragement to make the best of it isn't changing the way she feels about it.

In looking at the PPS web site, I see some of the "best practices" being touted for the new science curriculum include-

• "inquiry based hands-on and minds-on components"
• "teachers as facilitators - coaching and demonstrating (e.g., engaging children in cooperative groupings/collaboration)"
• "instructional methods and strategies such as discovery learning ..."
• "instructional methods reflect a constructivist approach"
• "student-centered decisions/responsibilities ..."

In doing some research on the Internet I've learned that harmlessly-inviting phrases like "inquiry learning" and "discovery learning" are codewords for more group-based learning, which seems to be a theme in the "best practices". This upsets me since there's already too much of this in Portage. It's a great ideal to believe our children are capable of making decisions and taking responsibility for their education, and that we only need teachers to facilitate and coach, but in reality (especially in middle school), few children are that grown up. Our children still need to be taught, and that's what we're paying teachers and administrators for.

Some group work is a good way to teach children how to cooperate and work together and respect differences, but we already have more than enough of this in the Portage Schools. Adding even more of these 'best practices' may help the slower student, but it only slows down the more advanced student. Or worse yet, kills their interest for learning. What's needed is more teaching and not so much coaching and facilitating. This new curriculum needs to be rethought before it's implemented.

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