CATS (Center for Alternative Teaching Strategies) — Developing the Humane Society

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Project CATS (Center for Alternative Teaching Strategies), a series of workshops which focused on process as a product in itself and the importance of affective education, is described in this paper. The target population was originally 70 fourththrough seventh-grade teachers of the Oak Park, Michigan, school district, that is, all language arts and social studies teachers at those levels. The year’s program was structured into eight sections, each section having a particular theme which was presented four times to four different groups of teachers. Three full-day sessions and five half-day sessions were hel’d during the year. Government monies paid for the released time for teacher attendance. Attendance at the first workshop was mandatory; all subsequent attendance was voluntary. The basic philosophy of CATS was to offer alternative strategies and action techniques that had been proven effective on a cross discipline and cross grade level. Each workshop is described and the accomplishments of the project are listed. (TS) * Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available, nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. * CATS DEVELOPING THE HUMANE SOCIETY EDUCATION 4 WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF -. > no,..M,”””!;0″,«N ~<>…o N. PAUL SILVERMAH, Director, Title III, ESEA o’-‘fn i K.-.C »L r A-, kitt-vtn * wov r Mf; PF K -,ON ‘IV ^Wf.AN .’,’.* ; >% CH ‘ . % A’i-sc. =* PC N’S Jt v( .’, OH J«; ‘N. V ,-, S’i T t 0 OC NO T FD^f-^’t^t^oipT.’V”‘ 01 Address Delivered to NCTE Secondary School English Teachers Conference April 18 f 1975, Kansas City, Mo. .’ ‘! ‘ ‘-. “‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ “‘ .. . .-.i.uttvf t,’.., .: ..-..; .,:::. ..-., . N. Paul siiverman .’:.;”..: r ; u; a ‘.;/ ; .; ‘ :”.;.; ;;. .. … ,.i;;…,’., .. : ,.., :..;.,.,: Several years ago, I was asked to serve on the Lecture Alternatives committee of the Ilichigan Council \c of Teachers of English. At that time, I was a high school teacher of dram£ and general composition courses. I’m sure that I was no better or even less stimulating than the average teacher of English, I do admit that while I served my four year term in teaching junior high, on one evaluation, the principal was deeply concerned about “the great abundance of black rubber marks on the light colored tile” and he wasn’t quite sure in my classes where “creativity ended and noise began.” My classroom shook frequently, even behind closed doors, and my depart­ ment chairman just as frequently inquired, “Why do you need this kind of aggravation?” referring, I suppose, to my unique assignments, my students’ activities, and the principal’s reactions. It wasn’t until I was transferred to the high school and subsequent advanced studies at Wayne State University, that I stumbled on the writings of James Moffett and dis­ covered that I was part of a legitimate movement. What was happening in my classroom was drama. I was involved in teaching strategies that were alternatives to traditional lecture approaches. I “covered” the required curriculum, but, like the song, I did it my way. An alternative process is a more descriptive phrase. Eventually, it was the process that became more and more significant. Obviously, students felt that they weren’t learning anything in my classes; they were having too much fun. They were involved -but their traditional conditioning to the classroom mostly inhibited their understanding of what they were learning. There was interaction, a developing sense of community, and there was trust. These were experiential values, and whether or not they knew it, students were also acquiring cognition. They read more, they wrote more, they participated more. Thus, if my classroom techniques were successful, I welcomed the opportunity to share them with others and the Lecture Alternatives committee seemed the logical outlet. ily work in the committee brought me into contact with Tom ricPhillips, who was then teaching in Detroit’s Kennedy Elementary School. He and I conducted a series of activities in his fifth grade classes using the techniques I had developed in my junior and high school experiences. I believed that an effective educational process should have some validity at all levels of teaching and this alliance gave me an opportunity’to t check out the philosophy. Tom and I were a very effective team. While I was able to offer him a variety of strategies in role playing and improvisational drama, he taught me the importance of specific goals and objectiv.es for these activities. To be cognizant of why you engage in an activity became as important as doing it. Ultimately, we published our experiences in an article, “The Hardy Boys’ * Magic Device” for the NCTE. By the completion of our project, we knew that: our approach was valid. We began expansion of our original activities with a great assist from Dr. Greta B. Lipson working in values education. .,.” ‘ 3 Greta had developed an exciting motivational technique which Tom and I field tested at various school levels. Within a role playing framework, entire classes became involved in trials of Hansel and Gretel and the often maligned Mrs. Salem. The excitement of open inquiry., critical thinking, valuing generated by the Hansel and Gretel trials led us to create a series of formats based on folk tales which wa called “Fairy Tales Revisited.” Drama, particularly the role playing aspects, stimulated us regarding in what we saw as an unique and highly effective tool for teaching. Additionally, we began to see the emergence of interdisciplinary values with culminating exercises for the formats during class use. And as our experience with fairy tale formats expanded, we were ready for a bolder and broader creative application of arts and humanities methodologies. The opportunity presented itself in Fall, 1973, when the Title III, ESEA application in Michigan addressed itself to projects emphasizing arts and humanities. I don’t know how many of you have ever had the opportunity to write a government proposal, but it is the pinochle of all writing experiences. Rather, it is like playing croquet with the Red Queen. The game is familiar, but the rules seem outrageous, and the greater your involvement, the less success you seem to achieve. When Greta Lipson and I sat down with Oak Park, Michigan , school officials in Fall of ’73, we must have discovered the right keys, for the right doors. Our application was selected along with 16 school districts in the state of Michigan to be awarded a Title III, ESEA grant. 4 CATS, (Center for Alternative Teaching Strategies), as we conceived it, was a project addressed to two major concerns -process as product itself and the importance of affective education. Through our action research in the field, we were convinced that the tech­ niques and strategies of arts and humanities were effec­ tive for interdisciplinary teaching. Art was the media. This was the uniqueness of our program. Newness emerged from the juxtaposition of an art process with the cognition of a different discipline. Thus, we envisioned and saw, dance as a technique for teaching math and science concepts, music for the exploration of reading and linguistics, puppets involved in the metric system, the possibilities were endless. More important, we began to realize that process, as we defined it, was cross discipline and cross age level. When the technique was valid, the sophistication of the audience determined the quality of the interaction in the subject explored. After a weeklong summer workshop where district personnel and university presenters shaped a common philosophy, we were ready to inaugurate our program. CATS began its first workshop on September 25, 1974. Our target population was originally 70 fourth through seventh grade teachers of the Oak Park school district, i.e., all language arts and social studies teachers at those levels. However, the population shifted when physical education, science, math, and even a home economics teacher became involved. The year’s program was structured into eight sections, each section having a particular’theme which was to be presented four times to a different group of teachers. f^ . o The Oak..Park High. School television, studio was centrally located and thus ideal for the workshop area. .Pre-semester discussions with principals of the six elementary and two middle schools determined which teachers would attend the individual sessions.