After-the-fact treatment

I thought about that relationship too. AIDS and issues in education are both problems. Like a virus, the resistance to change can infect many people. Although, the change agent virus can infect people as well.

I think an example would be complacency. Once complacency invades and takes over, it is difficult to find the right prescription to completely remove the invader.

The idea of after-the-fact treatment was also part of my points of interest after reading chapters 1 & 2. What stuck out for me was the connection to special education in k-12 settings. My feeling is we spend so much time and effort on after-the-fact treatment for students who are struggling and that we truly miss the boat for long-term improvement.

Instead of focusing proactively on "vital behaviors," our current model focuses on what the author called "recovery behaviors." My personal feeling is we spend too much of our effort on recovery behaviors (in many cases ignoring the root of the problem) and then wonder why we don't see the results we desire. Although it seems so simple, I thought the author did a nice job of demonstrating the need to focus on a few "specific behaviors," not outcomes. As a profession that is focused on outcomes (student achievement) right now, slowing things down and focusing on what must actually be done to improve might be beneficial.

I see after-the-fact treatment in education all of the time. I think that we are particularly good at this when dealing with students having disabilities. I see special education programs constantly structured in a way that the students are being re-taught and tutored rather than the teacher's time being spent aiding the general education teacher in differentiating the program so that not only the special education student could benefit but other struggling learners as well.

Just last night I was listening to a radio story about how California is still going to spend multiple millions of dollars to help seniors in high school get tutoring for the high school exit exam (CAHSE)even after much research about how we can tell in 4th grade who is likely to fail. Why don't we start in 4th grade instead of waiting until students get to their senior year in high school to help them. Why are we waiting 8 years after they need the help to give it?

Yes, Dan - prevention is so important. Remediation is much more difficult as students get older. I work with school in the area of literacy. We, too, are working hard to develop a strong core program as well as interventions for students based on their needs.

Congratulations on your strong emphasis in K-3 literacy! You won't be disappointed in your efforts. Working with parents is also very beneficial.

Kathy

I believe that we do after the fact treatment when it comes to reading problems in my district. We have known for years that we had a problem in the elementary and now it is a middle school and high school problem. We have tried the same strategies for 5 years and saw no results before changes were made. The middle school didn’t address the issue. The high school ignored the issue in the freshmen class, and now we have a class of sophomores were more than 35% of the students are not proficient in reading comprehension test. The reason we worry about them now is because next year is a reporting year, but the problem was never seriously studied before now. We never thought about the possible small behaviors that teachers could adopt, and might make a system wide problem disappear. We only adopt a new strategy, and leave it up to hope.