Redefining Honors in High School Starts With a Good Grilled Cheese Sandwich
by Brian Stack • • 0 Comments
This article was co-authored by Brian and his colleague Ellen Hume-Howard, the Curriculum Director of the Sanborn Regional School District
The Need For Change: Brian’s “Uh-Huh Moment”
Photo taken from www.closetcooking.com
Thinking back to that Food Network competition, it made me think more deeply about the shift our school has made over the past three years when it comes to working with students who regularly exceed the competencies we set for them. Consider these to be the kids who are ready to enter their grilled cheese sandwiches into a competition. In years past we had a separate track called “honors” for these students. In the honors track we expected students to perform at a “higher level” than their peers. Unfortunately for us, we used to define that higher level of performance in terms of the academic behaviors that students exhibited – things like meeting deadlines, actively participating in class discussions, producing “more” work than non-honors students, and working independently. The honors track at our school did little to challenge our students to learn at higher levels, and explains why for many years our top students failed to keep pace with top students from other high school on measures such as the NECAP, SAT, ACT, AP, NAEP or PSAT assessments. Three years ago we realized that we had to start thinking differently about what honors work looks like at our school because despite the honors distinction, they were still making mediocre grilled cheese sandwiches. We needed to get some of them ready to compete at the elite level.
What Defines Honors Work?
In a traditional high school, honors course work is defined by a course you take. At Sanborn our focus has been to personalize the pursuit of honors work and to focus on the work produced by students. Sanborn provides students with the opportunity to contract for honors consideration. This means that students who elect to participate and then produce honors level work will receive honors