The letter syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell received from a Michigan 5th grader that prompted him to go off on the boy’s teacher and the education system at large was not even a school assignment.
A debate in the comments section of this blog on the merits of having students write letter to prominent people–the practice blasted by Sowell–prompted me to put in a call to Jennifer Murphy, the principal of Sayre Elementary School, the Michigan school Sowell cited in his column. I wanted to ask a simple question: “What was the assignment?”
Two surprising facts emerged: No one at the school was aware that Sowell had singled them out in his column as as an example of how “our children are frittering away time on trivia, other children in other countries are acquiring the skills in math, science, or other fields.” Even more interesting: The letter in question was not even a school assignment.
Ms. Murphy sent the following email explaining how the letter arrived in Thomas Sowell’s mailbox:
There appears to have been some misinformation concerning the letter written by a Sayre Elementary student to Dr. Sowell.
At Sayre Elementary, the Habits of Mind, developed by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, are part of our district curriculum. Students work on strengthening those habits both at school and at home. A Habit of Mind is knowing how to behave intelligently when you DON’T know the answer to question or problem. As a school, we highlight one or more of the habits each month, and students are given an optional list of activities that they can do at home to practice those featured habits. In September, students worked on questioning skills. One of the optional activities directed students to “Think of an important person you would like to meet. If you could ask them to try to solve a problem, what problem would you choose? What questions might they ask when trying to solve the problem? Make a sign with the name of your person, the problem you chose, and the questions they might ask.”
Writing a letter to that expert was not a part of the assigned task, although one particular student chose to extend the activity and do so on his own. The “important person” was kid language for a successful person they admired (in this case, Dr. Sowell) and was meant to have students learn how such a person used this “habit” to help him/her succeed. In this way, the student can see that habits of mind have a place in the world beyond school.
I wish to make it clear that no instructional time was used for the writing of this letter; it was completed independently of the school, with parent guidance, at home.
I encourage you to learn more about the Habits through a simple Google search or specifically at http://www.habits-of-mind.net/ . I have also attached an evaluation tool that can be used as a self-assessment of the habits.
Jennifer Murphy
Sayre Elementary Principal
(248) 573-8500
murphyj@slcs.us
