{"id":71868,"date":"2024-02-29T00:12:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T05:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=71868"},"modified":"2024-02-29T00:12:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T05:12:06","slug":"how-educator-gloria-jean-merriex-used-dance-drills-and-devotion-to-turn-around-a-failing-elementary-school-in-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-educator-gloria-jean-merriex-used-dance-drills-and-devotion-to-turn-around-a-failing-elementary-school-in-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"How educator Gloria Jean Merriex used dance, drills and devotion to turn around a failing elementary school in a year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

When Duval Elementary \u2013 a school that served mostly Black and poor students in East Gainesville, Florida \u2013 failed the state\u2019s\u00a0high-stakes standardized<\/a>\u00a0test in 2002, district leaders pressured the school\u2019s educators to more closely follow the curriculum.<\/p>\n

But Gloria Jean Merriex, who taught third and fourth grade reading and fifth grade math, wasn\u2019t interested. She argued that doing more of the same would yield more of the same results. She rebelled by creating a customized curriculum and going out of sequence, teaching the hardest units first.<\/p>\n

Opting for a more kinetic approach to learning, she introduced music and movement. She revamped math and reading instruction by infusing the lessons with hip-hop, dance and other innovations.<\/p>\n

And she got results, leading Duval from an\u00a0F to an A in 2003<\/a>\u00a0and maintaining that academic excellence until she died of a diabetic stroke in 2008. Her students\u00a0achieved the greatest gains in math among all of Florida\u2019s fifth graders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As one who has spent years researching Merriex\u2019s career for \u201cClass of Her Own<\/a>,\u201d a documentary set for national release on April 16, 2024, I believe the example she set could help students from economically poor families make up the\u00a0considerable ground they lost<\/a>\u00a0during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

The pandemic cost these students three-fourths of a year in math and more than a third of a year in reading, according to the\u00a0Education Recovery Scoreboard<\/a>, a collaboration between educational researchers at Harvard and Stanford who are examining learning loss and recovery across the country. These students suffered more than twice the pandemic-induced math skills erosion than students from families of great economic means, the scoreboard shows.<\/p>\n

Merriex\u2019s students\u00a0consistently outscored their peers<\/a>\u00a0until her\u00a0death at the age of 58<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on what I learned of her approach in the classroom, here are some of the most important takeaways from Merriex\u2019s life and career:<\/p>\n

1. Meet your students where they are, from where you are<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Merriex breathed new life into this somewhat vague clich\u00e9 by being uncompromisingly authentic. She wasn\u2019t always that way. For much of her time at Duval, she followed the cookie-cutter curricula. But when Duval failed the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, she felt she\u2019d been letting down her students all those years.<\/p>\n

Merriex started incorporating community and cultural concepts into her curriculum.<\/p>\n

A church choir member, she also began keeping her students on task by snapping her fingers, lighting a fire under them by turning static class exercises into dance routines and engaging them in call-and-response. In one exchange depicted in the documentary, Merriex calls out \u201cone-fourths equal,\u201d \u201ctwo-fourths equal,\u201d and her class responds in unison \u201c25%,\u201d \u201c50%\u201d and so on until they reach 100%.<\/p>\n

In another, after giving an incorrect answer, one of her fifth graders says: \u201cI made a mistake.\u201d Merriex calls out, \u201cIt\u2019s OK. Why?\u201d Her students respond, \u201cNot too many.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was out of this authentic stance that Merriex wrote the\u00a0\u201cMath Rap\u201d and other hip-hop-fueled educational songs<\/a>. Her teaching style exemplifies research that has found Black students learn best through \u201cculturally relevant curriculum<\/a>\u201d and by having classroom activities connected to \u201cprior knowledge and \u2026 real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personally,\u00a0Merriex preferred other musical genres<\/a>, but she knew rap would resonate with her students.<\/p>\n

2. Make repetition a habit<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Merriex turned repetition into an art. She demonstrated that saying it once means simply mentioning it; to teach, you must repeat. And, through her reverse sequencing of teaching the most challenging concepts at the outset, she gave herself plenty of chances to revisit them throughout the year.<\/p>\n

Several\u00a0domestic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0international<\/a>\u00a0studies illustrate the benefits of repetition to a\u00a0variety of students<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Get parents involved<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Merriex believed parental involvement boosted student success \u2013 a notion that is\u00a0backed up by research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a kid forgot their homework, she\u2019d get on the phone with their mom,\u201d University of Texas at San Antonio assistant dean of research Emily Bonner says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

To enable parents to keep up with their children, Merriex offered them evening math and reading classes. \u201cAnd she sometimes used to go by their house, especially kids that are really going through a lot,\u201d parent volunteer Anthony Guice says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

Guice continues to share Merriex\u2019s math and reading raps and dance routines with North Florida residents.<\/p>\n

4. Show you care<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Merriex provided free after-school tutoring and Saturday sleepover test prep at Duval. She sewed school uniforms and graduation gowns. She cooked meals. \u201cShe put us before anything, before her own health,\u201d former student Brittany Daniels says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

A diabetic, Merriex could ill-afford to do that. Research shows overwork can be\u00a0hazardous to your health<\/a>, potentially even deadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe only missed three days out of 30 years of school,\u201d her daughter, Tayana Davis, a certified nurse, says in the documentary. \u201cThat\u2019s when she was in the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, Merriex has provided us with two lessons, one unintentionally: Care, in a multitude of ways, for your students \u2013 and yourself.<\/p>\n

5. Embrace standardized testing<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Critics have long called standardized testing\u00a0inequitable and unfair<\/a>. Their\u00a0criticism reached a crescendo with passage of President George W. Bush\u2019s 2001 No Child Left Behind Act<\/a>, which required yearly assessments and carried consequences such as being forced to restructure or or replace staff, including the principal, for schools that didn\u2019t make adequate yearly progress.<\/p>\n

In recent years, states have opted for less ominous evaluations through the\u00a0National Assessment of Educational Progress<\/a>. Most universities have\u00a0scrapped SAT and ACT requirements<\/a>\u00a0from their applications.<\/p>\n

Yet Merriex, who rejected other educational mandates, welcomed Florida\u2019s standardized test. She viewed it as an equalizing factor. She used the exam to raise expectations and motivate her students. One of the means to a bigger end, it played a part in her mission to give her students the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in school and beyond.<\/p>\n

Recent studies show she had a point. Researchers have found a correlation between\u00a0how K-12 students do on standardized tests and how they do in college<\/a>. For this reason, some universities, such as\u00a0Dartmouth<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Yale<\/a>, have reinstated the SAT and ACT.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s test certainly leveled the playing field for Merriex\u2019s students. Their success transformed Duval from an underserved school into a well-funded\u00a0magnet arts academy<\/a>\u00a0in 2005.<\/p>\n

It was quite telling that after her students took Florida\u2019s state test every spring, Merriex continued drilling its concepts through the end of the year.<\/p>\n

The most relevant Merriex lesson, however, has nothing to do with state tests or hip-hop or chanting. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to know who your students are, and you need to teach those students,\u201d Bonner, the research dean from Texas, says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

Not every group of students responds to rap or chanting, but children respond to a teacher who knows and cares about them, seeks to genuinely connect with them and unleashes their true self in the classroom to bring out the best in them.<\/p>\n

The year after Merriex died, 2009,\u00a0Duval failed<\/a>\u00a0the state test. The school never regained its academic footing and ultimately\u00a0closed in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Boaz Dvir is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Penn State<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Duval Elementary \u2013 a school that served mostly Black and poor students in East Gainesville, Florida \u2013 failed the state\u2019s\u00a0high-stakes standardized\u00a0test in 2002, district leaders pressured the school\u2019s educators to more closely follow the curriculum. But Gloria Jean Merriex, who taught third and fourth grade reading and fifth grade math, wasn\u2019t interested. She argued […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[434846],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-71868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-customized-curriculum"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow educator Gloria Jean Merriex used dance, drills and devotion to turn around a failing elementary school in a year - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-educator-gloria-jean-merriex-used-dance-drills-and-devotion-to-turn-around-a-failing-elementary-school-in-a-year\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How educator Gloria Jean Merriex used dance, drills and devotion to turn around a failing elementary school in a year - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Duval Elementary \u2013 a school that served mostly Black and poor students in East Gainesville, Florida \u2013 failed the state\u2019s\u00a0high-stakes standardized\u00a0test in 2002, district leaders pressured the school\u2019s educators to more closely follow the curriculum. 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