New Energy in Detroit

November 15, 2010 - Crystal Towns, a 12-year veteran of the Detroit Public Schools, sees a new dynamic in her kindergarten class this fall. 

The students are less apprehensive and less hesitant. They work together, pairing off to discuss lessons and help each other before reporting back to the class. When Towns reads to them, they try to catch her using the wrong word. They are clearly enjoying themselves. 

The changes Towns is seeing are the result of teaching strategies she learned this summer through professional development provided by the Penn Literacy Network in a pilot program at 17 Detroit schools. 

For Detroit, which had earned the unfortunate distinction of having the nation’s lowest-achieving school district, PLN’s work with teachers will be a game-changer, Towns believes. “I see students being engaged, having a desire to be in school,” she says. “I see test scores skyrocketing throughout the district.” 

Since its founding in 1981, the Penn Literacy Network — the brainchild of Penn GSE Professor Emeritus Morton Botel — has given tens of thousands of teachers the chance to work together, along with Penn GSE faculty and GSE-trained facilitators, to build new strategies for teaching literacy to children across the K-12 curriculum. 

This summer, 135 educators — teachers and principals — experienced PLN’s professional development program in Detroit. And 14 of them, including Towns, were chosen to come to Philadelphia for leadership training. These 14 are already serving as resources for their fellow teachers; eventually, they will lead PLN-style professional development programs in Detroit themselves. 

What PLN gave her, Towns says, is not a new curriculum but “a priceless tool belt of strategies” that she and her fellow teachers can put to work to teach literacy in any class or subject. In a classroom run using PLN’s strategies, don’t expect to see the teacher spend a lot of time standing at the front of the class and lecturing. Students should expect to do most of the work, says Gina Calzaferri, PLN’s associate director. They’ll spend time in groups, talking to each other, with the teacher to guide and assist them. In this way, they participate in building knowledge rather than absorbing it passively. 

Bonnie Botel-Sheppard, PLN’s executive director, says teachers and administrators in Detroit’s schools had grown demoralized by years of low achievement. This fall, she’ seen educators who’ve gone through PLN’s training return to school with new energy and a new attitude. “It’s more than a little remarkable,” she says.