Will

As Royan Lee points out, there’s every reason to have a conversation with students about SOPA and PIPA in almost any classroom right now. (If last Wednesday wasn’t a teachable moment, I don’t know what was.) For most older kids, the debate strikes at the heart of their practices online, and even for younger kids, the larger themes are well worth the mention in general terms. My guess, however, is that a very small percentage of students have had a chance to learn and think about those proposals in the presence of peers and teachers.

Why? For one, I wonder how many teachers could lead a cogent discussion about them. The whole world of online interactions and knowledge sharing is not something most teachers yet participate in. But as Royan points out, in order to have a really meaningful conversation about SOPA and PIPA, students need to have a larger context other than the pirating of copyrighted music and films. He writes: 

Do you know what made it a lot easier to have a discussion about SOPA and PIPA in my class? The fact that my students post regularly to the internet, comment on one another’s work, receive comments from the far reaches of the globe, remix work, share links, and honour CC licensed work.

I asked the students how they would feel if their ability to do all of things was restricted, or even taken away, without debate or a tribunal of some variety. The room went silent for a minute which felt like an hour, but we proceeded to have a rich discussion about democracy without ever mentioning the word itself.

I know they still care much more about whether the next Eminem song will get on their iPods, but at least we were speaking about something we really know, not just have heard of.

And Royan can do that because he really know this through his own practice as well. Those conversations in his class would have been far less relevant without that.

So this pretty much sums it up as well it can be summed up right now:

U.S. schools under the jurisdiction of state and federal governments are now scripted processes that view knowledge as static capital, students as passive and empty vessels, and teachers as compliant conduits for state-approved content. The accountability paradigm is antithetical to human agency and autonomy and thus to democracy, but it serves the needs of the status quo and the ruling elite; in effect, accountability paradigms driving compulsory education are oppressive.

Amen.

(Source: dailykos.com)

A couple of days ago, my friend Howard Blumenthal sent along this essay that his 86-year-old father wrote in response to a post here about online learning from a few weeks ago. I thought it might make for some uplifting Sunday reading, so I’m sharing it here. Enjoy!

By Norm Blumenthal

As the fourteen year old son of a widowed mother in 1939, I had to contribute to the lowly household income. As a teenager, any dreams I had for my own future had to be secondary. Supporting my mother was most important. After school and on weekends, I worked at the local hardware store, but I spent most of my spare time drawing pictures. Sure, I played lots of street games, but had more fun drawing pictures of my favorite baseball players. To me, drawing was like a hobby, or a game I seemed to enjoy.

To another person in my young life, it seemed to be more than a mere hobby. Mr. Solomon Schwartz, my elementary school art teacher, was a talented artist in his own right, but far more adept at guiding young hopefuls like me. With his encouragement, and his unrelenting perseverance, he made it possible for me to apply to New York City’s prestigious High School of Music and Art. Thanks to Mr. Schwartz, I passed the entrance exam and was on my way to join the Old Masters.

Surrounded by other talented Young Masters, I quickly realized I was in the wrong place. The High School of Music and Art prepared students for further education at the finest of art institutions. That was not something I could do, not with my responsibilities at home. I simply didn’t have time for that kind of education. I needed to support my mother. I needed to finish high school as soon as possible, and get a paying job. What’s more, I was failing French. In addition to that, keeping up with my classmates, while feeling guilty about being in this luxurious place, made me wonder about my own artistic abilities. Was I good enough? Was Mr. Schwartz wrong about me? With apologies to him, I decided to call it quits and change the type of school I should attend. With my family responsibilities, perhaps I should attend a high school that teaches students how to use things like typewriters and other vital instruments of the business world.

Abandoning the creative life of music and art was not as simple as I imagined. Radical changes to an educational agenda, by a fourteen year old, are rarely considered. Even a note from my mother was insufficient. It took the influence of my uncle, a member of the school board, to switch me over to a seemingly more practical existence.

Without much concern from anyone, especially a teacher, with the foresight I lacked, I transferred to Eastern District High School. This is where teenagers from my part of Williamsburg, Brooklyn went to get a diploma, if not a complete education. Fortunately, I didn’t have to take a test to get in, but I did have to face another fear-inducing French class. After a two terrifying weeks, my French teacher, Mrs. Cozzens, asked me to meet with her after class. I was doing very badly, and assumed she would either help me or suggest some dire alternative. I even thought I was going to be expelled. I was partially right. She definitely wanted me to leave that school, but not for my difficulty with the French language. Somehow, Mrs, Cozzens had seen my artwork, and decided to change my life. She told me it was “a crime to waste my talent at a school like this.” Like Mr. Schwartz, she was a very persistent guardian angel. She would not rest until this wrong was corrected, even though the school year had already begun. I explained why I had left Music and Art, but she would not give up. Within days she found the school she knew was right for me. The School of Industrial Art’s slogan was, “To Train Artists and Designers for Industry.” Even to a fourteen year old me, that made good sense — upon graduation I could become a commercial artist, and get a job to support my mother. I never really thought of myself as a potential Old Master, so Industrial Art seemed like a very good idea.

I’m sure that both Mr. Schwartz and Mrs, Cozzens are long gone, but I wanted to thank them anyway. Their confidence in me, and the determination they exhibited on my behalf, not only helped me, but countless others as well. First and foremost, I was able to support my mother at a time when she really needed me. Second, my life at the School of Industrial Art included a lot of working in live shows – which I produced, directed, wrote and performed in. As a Navy signalman, aboard a cruiser in the Pacific, during WWII, sharpened those skills, putting on shows for my 1,500 shipmates. Those war-weary sailors can thank those, and other teachers, who taught me how to make them laugh when it was so difficult. Third, I worked for several years as a commercial artist, working my way up to Art Director at Esquire magazine, and then I made the transition to television, as the producer of NBC‘s Concentration. Fourth, those teachers reached through several generations, as two of my (now grown) children have found careers in the media/entertainment business, and two of my grandchildren are heading in a similar direction (one, as a graphic designer, the modern-day equivalent of a commercial artist.).

Why did I write this? Because I’m hearing more and more about online courses that may take the place of teachers. And I can‘t help but wonder what would have happened in my life if my French class had been an online course..     

I’m working on a piece for the February issue of Educational Leadership and I’m hoping you’ll share your thoughts/ideas on the topic. Here is the issue theme:

For Each to Excel

High standards—personalization. Are these two education trends really in opposition? Because of today’s expectation that schools bring all students to high levels of achievement, many educators believe that it is more important than ever to get to know students as individuals, identify their needs, and target instruction to each student’s strengths and interests. This issue will explore how schools are personalizing learning to help all students reach common curriculum standards. We are looking for articles on new ways in which teachers are differentiating instruction and providing student choice and challenge at all grade levels. What does neuroscience tell us about the power of personalized learning? What are the benefits of the common core curriculum, and how can standards and personalization mesh? And what new possibilities for customized education are being created by technology, online courses, and virtual schools?

For my piece, I’m focusing on how technology can deliver more personalized, relevant, passion-based learning. To that end, I’m looking to include teacher stories of how you are making personalization work in your classrooms using technology. I’m not going to be focused on the Common Core standards as much as I am narratives that underscore the use of technology to enhance learning dispositions and create learners.

Please use the comment form below to share your stories, links, ideas etc. Or, you can e-mail me directly. Thanks!

Seems like I’m hitting a creativity theme here of late, but if you have 15 minutes to read this most excellent piece titled “The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience” by Andrea Kuszewski in Scientific American, you won’t regret it. It’s a research based look at why traditional teaching methods suck the creativity out of us and the hard work each of us needs to do to escape the effects as we grow into adulthood. The last paragraph captures the idea and the urgency:

What is supposed to be the most critical learning period for shaping children into the leaders of tomorrow has evolved over the years into a stifling of the creative instinct—wasting the age of imagination—which we then spend the rest of our lives trying to reconnect with. The time has never been more ready for systemic change than right now, and we’ve never had better tools to achieve this level of creative disobedience, to successfully prepare our children for the big challenges that lie ahead. It might be uncomfortable and take a bit of work, but our future depends on this radical change in order to survive.

Let me just add here the effects on creativity of the assessments we currently use are no less of a factor in this. They are what drive our teaching methods, and until we find a path to assessing something other than basic skills and content knowledge, we are assured of deepening the creativity crisis that is already here.

One more quick note of connection. I’m almost done with Eli Pariser’s great new book “The Filter Bubble,” and I hope to be blogging some thoughts on it shortly. But there is deep resonance between his thesis (watch his TED Talk to get the gist) that current search metrics are severely narrowing our access to the world of ideas and this quote from the Kuszewski article:

While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution…it seems that by directly instructing children—giving them the answers to problems, then testing them on memory—we are inhibiting creative problem solving, to quite a significant degree.

In a few words, we are killing creativity on all fronts. And we’re going to have to change the way we teach (as well as, to a large extent, what we teach) if we’re to resuscitate it in our kids.

And, in the end, it’s not just about our kids. We need creative, “problem-finding” teachers in our classrooms as well. How do we get there?