Posts Tagged ‘school reform’

Technology as a Connection, not a Solution

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Face Book posting, January 25, 2010 – 2:45 p.m.

I saw a piece in last week ASCD’s SmartLinks about SmartBoards and their effectiveness in the classroom. Many of you have heard me give my 2 rules for them – 1) Because they are a sizable investment (up to $5000) I would want them in use at least 50% of the time; 2) No teacher could touch them. I know, sounds counter intuitive, but the thought was that having students help learning occur via the Smartboards would have many benefits. Besides saving tons of money on PD for teachers, it would ensure deep student understanding of the concept by the students responsible for causing learning to occur that day, etc.

I made a comment on my FB page after posting the link to the ASCD story today and got some interesting reactions. Then as luck would have it, I watched a short video by Zak George. Now you may not have heard of him, but he works with dogs. One of the reasons I like him is because he stresses over and over that it’s not about control, it’s about the connection with your dog that is important, the “bond” that you have heard me talk about in referring to one of the great secrets in The Little Prince.

Zak was talking about discontinuing rewards once a “trick” is learned (Dan Pink would love this). In fact, he used the example that when you were in 2nd or 3rd grade you might have gotten a piece of candy from the teacher for learning your multiplication tables. By the time you are in 6th grade, that was certainly no longer the case. He said the whole point of the reward is not the focus on the behavior that is learned, but instead it’s a way to establish the connection and signify praise, pride and accomplishment of something new. That was when it hit me.

You have perhaps picked up on my observation that it’s all about relationships in the learning process – that’s what teachers (should) do best. Unfortunately, the relationship we hold to be most valuable is the one between the teacher and the content, and we see how the student reacts to that relationship. In a learning environment, the most important relationship should be between the teacher and the student, and the learning of content and skills is enabled by that relationship. The deeper it is, the more the child can and will learn.

This answered the technology question for me. We have made the same mistake there – we believe the untruth that the most important relationship is between the teacher and the technology, and then we see how the student reacts. Witness the huge investment in PD to help teachers understand how to use the newest technology. What we need to realize is that technology should be seen as just one more way to connect the teacher and the student. What’s the best way to use technology to connect with kids? I sure don’t think the answer is for the teacher to be the “guardian” of the technology, like the Wizard of Oz behind the screen moving the levers to impress Dorothy and her friends. If we recognize that technology is just one more way to connect to students, then teachers no longer need to feel like they have to be the expert, the guru, or the Wizard. They have the freedom to do what I originally suggested, turn the technology over to the student to use in accomplishing the goals. Don’t forget, Dorothy and company were not helped by the Wizard’s “technology”. They came to understand that it had been about relationships all along.

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“Time Warp” thinking in Education

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Back in the days when we used to write checks, it was pretty common to get the year wrong in January. Force of habit. What amazes me is the way so many education leaders and thinkers seem to be stuck in a time warp and have trouble understanding that this isn’t 1970. We aren’t still writing checks by hand like we used to. Let me give you an example . . .

The headline “Rural Students” in the Report Roundup section of the January 6, 2010 edition of Education Week carries this pull quote immediately under it: “Students in Rural Schools Have Limited Access to Advanced Mathematics Courses.” Are you kidding? I mean, really, are you kidding? In the U.S. today there is ‘virtually’ no limit to access to any course.

What makes me angry is the real problem in 2010; namely, the unwillingness of teachers, schools, and districts to encourage and document learning when it occurs outside of their buildings or schedules. With internet access available at home, at school, at the public library, or elsewhere, the access is there! Why perpetuate the culture of dependence that has become so entrenched? Why do we hold onto the myth that the only learning that “counts” is what happens in 175 days from August to June – and only between 8 AM and 3 PM — and only from a “certified” teacher, and only when it occurs in a school building?

It is unacceptable that we continue to spread the myth that students lack access to opportunities for learning. This is 2010, not 1970, remember? It’s a bit like saying that students lack access to the latest video making the rounds on YouTube because the clip isn’t available on one of three channels that the student’s TV receives.

Students and parents need to begin demanding that schools understand that a new but important part of the educator’s role is to validate and document learning, no matter the time, the place or the source. While there may still be a few rare and isolated instances of pockets with no connection to the outside world, that is not the problem. The problem is systems that will not document learning when it occurs. We should be teaching students how to access the unbelievable learning resources available to them.

It’s 2010. The future’s ours, if we can free it!

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American Education — Race to the Top in a K-Car

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

This morning I was listening to a report on the opening of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. You know the scene, every year the car manufacturers get together to roll out their latest models, and congratulate one another with prizes.

It made me think back to what earlier auto shows must have been like. I checked out the website and learned that this was the 21st anniversary of the event going international. Hmmm that would have made it about 1989 when they realized that the world was changing. A bit late, perhaps, considering that in 1979 90% of the cars in America were actually made in America, but by 1989 the transition to a world economy was in full swing.

By 2005 over 60% of the US car market belonged to the Japanese alone. We all lament that the auto industry couldn’t see it coming, or if they did, they didn’t know what to do. If the “Big 3” had realized how the world was fundamentally changing would it have made a difference, or would they still have been trying as hard as they could to bring out those old “new” models every year?

That brings me to the K-Car, the vehicle that defined Chrysler during the 80’s. Google “K-Car” and you will be amazed. Initial articles make you scratch your head in wonder that we aren’t all still driving them. The reports make them sound pretty fantastic. Too bad the company officials kept busy improving a product that was farther and farther out of touch with the world and that was becoming more and more irrelevant to the consumer.

It’s easy to rail against the auto companies and wonder how they could have been so blind. The rest of the world was increasing industrial capacity by leaps and bounds at the same time as they were increasing the available manufacturing work force. This was accompanied by rapid technological advances in the industry, along with global communication and supply networks that were rendering old auto manufacturing models obsolete. Why couldn’t they see? Why didn’t they think to apply a litmus test when roaring through production of the K-Car? If they had asked if their basic business model was the same as it had been twenty years before while the rest of the world was fundamentally changing, they might have at least had a chance. But they were too busy building cars that fewer and fewer people actually wanted while congratulating themselves and handing out awards at the annual NAAS.

So is American education in a ‘Race to the Top in a K-Car’? Try the litmus test – Is there anything in the fundamental nature of the proposals in Race to the Top that could not have been done 20 years ago? No. For instance, look at the four school reform models: Turnaround; Restart; School Closure and Transformation. You’d think we were Rip Van Winkle, waking up after 20 years and picking up like nothing in the world had changed. Any of those 4 could have been done 20 years ago. Every single “new” initiative is based on the notion that school will still be the only acceptable place to acknowledge as a learning environment. But the world has fundamentally changed. Students are wired to one another and to the rest of the world in ways that we didn’t imagine even ten years ago. While there is, of course, mention of the use of technology scattered throughout the administration’s plans, I have yet to hear of one element that would really pass the litmus test. Ignore the changing world; get the new education K-Cars built!

Suppose a student “aces“ the mandatory state assessment in mathematics, but then it is discovered that the student did all of her work on her own, using her iPhone and home computer, studying with teachers and content experts and other students from around the world. Could that happen today? Of course! Are student’s today learning amazing things and producing amazing products outside of school? Of course! Is this a trend that will decrease as learning apps proliferate at geometric rates? Not on your life The world has changed! Mr Duncan, it’s not 1989!! So tell me, should the school get credit for that student’s assessment scores? You tell me. Better yet, tell Arnie Duncan, if you can find him. He will probably be awarding a “Race to the Top” school a ribbon for “Highest Achievement in a 19th Century Institution”. Maybe the winners in the Race To The Top should be given the “Chrysler Award”, in honor of a vanishing but cherished institution!

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Schools as Foster Homes

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

First of all, let me say that I have tremendous respect and admiration for individuals who serve as foster parents to children in need of a home. I’ve known some of these individuals and am in awe of their dedication, commitment and love. Thanks to each of you for what you do for children in need of a home.

This blog post is NOT about foster parents or children in foster care. It is using the notion of foster care as a metaphor. With that said . . .

I had the privilege this week to work with a wonderful group of courageous administrators. They get it. They understand that the world is changing radically and that school will need to change significantly if the children in their district are going to succeed.

Like many districts, they are anxious for suggestions and ideas that would help them in their quest. As I worked with them, one notion kept coming back to me more and more clearly. It struck hard when we watched a short comedy sketch of a teacher who had seen programs come and go for 25 years. The elementary teacher in the sketch had seen “open classrooms and back to basics, whole language, hooked on phonics, higher standards, no standards, you do your thing, but don’t do THAT thing, assertive discipline, no discipline, student-based education, outcome-based education, mastery learning, master teachers, merit pay, mentoring programs, peer coaching (gasping for breath) “I’ve done it ALL!” watch?v=ged6hKZOTqw It’s a great sketch from a great group. What struck me as missing was the mention of the learners. Too often school is a place where adults plan and institute programs and then wait to see how children will respond.

Perhaps at the heart of the problem is that we seem to treat children in school as if they were foster children. They come to us with teacher and student understanding that this arrangement is going to be temporary (usually 4.5 months or a year at most). We will “house” them for a certain period and then they will move on. While they are with us, we will open the drawers in our room and clothe them with the lessons that we have developed over years of caring for other foster children. We don’t need to take time to find what their individual interests are. By gosh they will “wear” what we pull out and better be grateful for it! If one child can’t quite fit into the shoes we pull from the closet, the best we can do is either stuff the toes with Kleenex (aka accommodations) or cut the end off the shoes (gifted and talented). Either way, by gosh, the kid is going to wear the shoes that we have decided (or been told) are the right ones for them to wear.

After a very short time, every child in this system of “foster care” learns that our response to them is conditional. If they obey, we reward them, with A’s, or praise and passing grades, so that they can leave us. If they are disobedient and don’t live up to our expectations, they are punished with low grades and labeled as failures and we push them out the door. We make them do tedious tasks over and over again, often with little relevance to anything else going on in their lives and then we are mystified when they try to run away, or drop out. These children are not slow learners, we are.
However caring the adults in the System, this System of “foster care” for learners is set up to breed mistrust. Every year we see children, who for one reason or another are passed on without the skills necessary for them to succeed. Every teacher has seen this, and every child who has passed with a D- knows this, as do parents and everyone else. At the other end of the spectrum are children that we force to spend more time than necessary at certain tasks or in a certain class. If a child could learn all that they need to know as a fourth grader by February, why on earth do we hold them back just because the paper on the wall says the teacher isn’t finished yet? How can anyone trust a System or the individuals in it when they know they will dutifully put children in situations where they cannot succeed, or hold them back from achieving what they could? Even those who are deemed to be prepared develop protective shells to some degree because they know what’s going on with others. Every parent who pays college tuition for a child’s “remedial”(non credit bearing) college class knows what is going on and knows that they cannot fully trust the system. Everyone knows that we look at students as “foster children”. We escape the needed long-term commitment to success because children in foster care will soon be “gone”.

This system of foster parenting and foster homes must be changed as the first step for any school or district or state that truly wants to see children be successful. Each child must know s/he belongs, and each must know that without a shadow of doubt. The truest adage is “A child won’t care how much you know until she knows how much you care.” It’s about developing relationships of deep and sacred trust. In French, there is a wonderful verb “apprivoiser” which means “to create bonds”. It is a two-way process of mutual bonding that is the super-glue of any successful relationship. It’s a glue almost always missing in our current system of schooling.

There are steps that courageous teachers, schools and districts can take to break away from this system of “foster” care. Attempting to tackle “solutions” before tackling this fundamental issue of committing to each individual child, will turn any evidence of “success” into an illusion.
I’ll talk about some of the procedures for “adoption” another time.

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