Will

Just a couple of quotes that found me this morning, some pattern recognition in my sleepy brain.

Joi Ito in the New York Times:

I don’t think education is about centralized instruction anymore; rather, it is the process establishing oneself as a node in a broad network of distributed creativity.

And George Siemens at his blog:

Planned information structures like textbooks and courses simply can’t adapt quickly enough to incorporate network-speed information development. Instead of being the hub of the learning experiences, books, courses, and classrooms become something more like a node in part of a much broader (often global) network. The shift to networks is transformative in how a society organizes itself.

Two pretty smart guys echoing each other and making me think more deeply about what needs to happen to make this a reality in our classrooms. How do we help our students establish themselves as a “node” in a broad, global network of creativity and learning? Shouldn’t that be one of the fundamental questions that drives our work in schools right now?

The answers start, as always, with our own willingness and ability to go there. But they also start with transparently asking the big questions in our schools and communities. In light of the changes that the Web is bringing to our learning lives:

• What do we mean by learning?
• What does it mean to be educated?
• What is our value in a world filled with content and teachers?
• How do we best help students become patient, self-sufficient, sensitive, intelligent learners?

And finally this from George a couple of weeks ago:

When the education system is synchronized with the interests and passions of learners, the process is invigorating and tremendously motivating. However, when learners and educators have to fight the existing education system in order to learn and teach, it’s time for dramatic change.

Too many of us are fighting the system to learn and teach. We’re out of synch. If we’re not having these conversations in our communities, we really need to be.

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 here’s a little state of the world update from my recent trip to Wisconsin to speak at the state school board association conference there.

First, let me say there are a lot of folks who are beginning to talk with more relevance around change when it comes to education. The rhetoric, at least, around inquiry and problem based, student-centered classrooms seems to be expanding despite the frequent references to “higher student achievement” and “college readiness” that at the end of the day still drives the conversation around reform. As most know, Wisconsin is at the center of the firestorm when it comes to rethinking education, and not much of that rethink resonates with the real world, to be honest. But I met a lot of people who seem at least to be waking up to the realities of the moment and who seem willing to engage deeply in the big questions that all of us have to be asking when it comes to what best serves our students and their learning lives.

Two moments of zen…

First, as I normally do, I asked the 2,000 or so folks in attendance to raise their hands if I could go onto Google and find examples of their best practice or thinking around how to meet the educational challenges of the day and learn from their experiences or connect with them for a conversation. Two hands went up. Two. I know that most of these folks were school board members, but the silence that followed really struck me. How can they make policy and advocate for meaningful changes in what happens in schools without any practical sense of the connected, transparent world in which we now exist?

Second, US Senator Herb Kohl was in attendance (at least until I got up to speak…maybe someone warned him.) Twenty-four years in the senate, a man respected in Wisconsin and obviously well-liked. He helped present some awards to teachers and gave a short, very supportive speech to the audience thanking them for their work with kids in their state. Seemed like a very nice, thoughtful person.

But I couldn’t help thinking as I watched him amble out of the hall that there’s no way he has any clue about what’s really happening with education right now. In fact, in this country run by primarily old white guys who probably don’t know the difference between a Blackberry and a strawberry, guys who pretty much get their talking points from aides and advisors, I can’t imagine many if any of them have a clue. I think some of them probably woke up a bit with the whole SOPA protest, but by and large, I wonder to what extent our leaders can even hold a conversation around the ways in which the Web is impacting education. And the money to keep things status quo is flowing on Capitol Hill.

Sigh. Sigh.

First, let me thank everyone who commented and Tweeted examples of “bold schools” over the last few days. Very much appreciated, and over the next few weeks I’m planning to dig into the list and make some connections and inquiries around the learning that’s going on in those places. Meantime, if you have any other ideas for schools that might be worth checking out, I’d invite you to add them to the doc. 

Over the past month or so, I’ve been trying to come up with some “qualities” that might help separate a “bold” school from an “old” school. Actually, much of this whole effort stems from a similar search a couple of months ago by Sam Chaltain to find “the world’s most transformative learning environments.” (His list is a great starting point as well.) Sam decided to use the QED Transformational Change Model to use as a benchmark, and while I like the general tenor of the qualities listed there, I’m hoping to focus it down to a more manageable list.

So, I’m going to offer out the following with hopes that you’ll chime in with reactions, feedback, push back, and ideas toward creating a clearer picture of how to describe schools that really are trying to move toward a technology-rich, student-centered, inquiry-based learning practice that effectively prepares kids for the required skills and dispositions and realities of the world today and yet also prepares them to pass the test and satisfy the current expectations of parents and policy makers. Places, importantly, where those two things are not mutually exclusive ideas. 

So, with a minimum of description, I’m thinking “bold” schools are:

1. Learning Centered - Everyone (adults, children) is a learner; learners have agency; emphasis on becoming a learner over becoming learned.

2. Questioning - Inquiry based; questions over answers

3. Authentic - School is real life; students and teachers do real work for real purposes.

4. Digital - Every learner (teacher and student) has a computer; technology is seamlessly integrated into the learning process; paperless

5. Connected - Learning is networked (as are learners) with the larger world; classrooms have “thin walls;” learning is anytime, anywhere, anyone.

6. Literate - Everyone meets the expectations of NCTE’s “21st Century Literacies”

7. Transparent - Learning and experiences around learning are shared with global audiences

8. Innovative - Teachers and students “poke the box;” Risk-taking is encouraged.

9. Provocative - Leaders educate and advocate for change in local, state and national venues.

I want to delve into each one of these in more detail, and my hope is that as I visit schools this year I’ll be able to connect these ideas to stories and practice that make them come to life. 

But for now, what do you think? What am I missing? How else might you describe a “bold school” as I’ve defined it above?

For lots of reasons, some of which I articulate here, 2012 feels like it’s shaping up to be a critical year in the conversation about schools. Politics and money are no doubt driving the mainstream conversation, but I sense an Occupy Wall Street-ish push back coming from a lot of parents and educators that seems to be finding some traction as well. In fact I’ve had some interesting conversations of late with some very “successful” public schools who have hit their testing boiling point and are starting to resist the status quo. As this year starts, I’m actually feeling a bit optimistic for the first time in a long time. Not optimistic that change will come any time soon. Not optimistic that we’ll adequately deal with the poverty problem that is a the root of so much about what is wrong with this country and its education system. But instead, optimistic that we might at least be on the verge of gaining a voice in the larger conversation around real equality in education, equality that in some part stands on regular, dependable access to technology and the Web.

Given that window, we need schools that are bold in their practice right now. And by “bold” I mean schools that make sure their kids pass the test and get “college ready” because, unfortunately, that’s about the only definition of “success” that people want to talk about right now, but also schools that prepare their kids for a world that the tests and the definitions of “readiness” or “achievement” haven’t caught up to yet. A world that I think is so wonderfully articulated by the National Council Teachers of English 21st Century literacies that I keep trotting out wherever I go. In other words, bold schools are the ones that do both, because to do anything less at the moment would not serve our students in the ways they need to be served. Equally important, bold schools are the ones that know that those two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. You look at SLA or High Tech High and you see that creating student-centered, inquiry-based, technology-rich learning opportunities in our classrooms can help kids navigate the world they live in AND pass the test. 

What a concept.

To that end, I’ve decided to dust off my journalism degree this year and do some “real” reporting and writing about those schools that are being “bold” in that context. As much as my travels will allow for side trips and site visits and interviews of teachers and students and leaders in those spaces, I want to really wrap my brain around what’s special and replicable about those schools and share them back out. Who knows, there may be a book in it as well.

Along the way, I’d like your help, if you’re so inclined. And my first request is to help me identify some schools that I might visit. But one caveat: I want these to be entire schools where that type of boldness is being displayed, not isolated classrooms or teachers. I’m looking for places where there has been a commitment as a school community to the best of what a progressive education can offer along with an immersion in technology and connectedness to the world. Schools whose teachers and whose graduates are literate by NCTE standards. And schools that are advocating in their communities for this different path. These schools can be public or private and anywhere in the world.

Any come to mind? If so, please note them in the comments.

At some point in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be asking you to help me flesh out in more detail the characteristics of bold schools. I’m hoping to have lots of these conversations at SLA during Educon in a few weeks. I’m sure I’ll be picking a lot of people’s brains while there. 

Regardless, my sincerest wish for you to set a powerful path for your work and learning this year. As someone who may or may not be Goethe once said:

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Let’s be bold this year. 

Some interesting thoughts on networks by Deborah Mills-Scofield:

For me, the network is literal survival. My family, throughout history, escaped to places where we had family or friends who would support, hide, and in the case of America letting my mom and grandparents enter, sponsor us. No sponsor, no entry; no entry, Auschwitz. Without the network, the odds of survival were slim to none. Fortunately, for most of us this is not the case. But don’t let that negate the importance of the network for your survival.

Without the network, you don’t get new ideas into your organization, you don’t see trends and issues that affect you and your customers, you don’t grow and develop your people with new challenges and opportunities, you aren’t attractive for young talent, you don’t learn about new technologies or business models, you don’t create new markets and you risk deluding yourself with your own ideas. You don’t increase your own value and advance your own career. Without the network you stagnate, you become stale. With the network you grow, provide meaningful and valuable solutions to your customers and not just survive, but thrive.

Much of this rings true for our learning networks as well, assuming, of course, we’ve done good job of including a diverse set of voices in the mix. 

No question, one of the most talked about, Tweeted about, blogged and written about ideas in the past year has been the “flipped classroom,” the idea that we can use technology to deliver the “lecture” as the homework and then use class time, ideally, to bring the concepts to life in meaningful, real world ways. And it’s been interesting to watch the “debate” around the merits. 2011 ed tech media darling Sal Khan and his Khan Academy supporters would tell you it’s a transformative, new way of thinking about the classroom fueled by technology. Detractors argue it’s old wine in new bottles, that a lecture is a lecture regardless of form, and that at best the opportunity is to help kids who need remediation or extra help.

While I’m still leaning to the latter (I’ve encouraged my own kids to use Khan as a way of answering questions about the concepts they’re covering in the classroom), my visit last week with the folks at Knewton has me wondering if “flipping” is going to be around very long at all regardless the positives or negatives. And even more, I’m wondering if Knewton’s vision of its role in education is in some ways as brilliant as it is inevitable given the direction things have turned.

In case you’re not up to speed on what Knewton is doing, here’s the brief from their website: 

Knewton’s award-winning Adaptive Learning Platform™ uses proprietary algorithms to deliver a personalized learning path for each student, each day. Knewton’s technology identifies each student’s strengths, weaknesses and unique learning style. Taking into account both personal proficiencies and course requirements, the platform continuously tailors learning materials to each student’s exact needs, delivering the most relevant content in the most efficient and effective form.

But here’s some of what I found out during my visit. First, the data crunching that their platform does is mind-boggling. Without getting too far into the minutia, it’s not just identifying strengths and weaknesses. Basically, after a fairly short period of time working with Knewton, the platform can begin to identify, for example, what time of day is “best” for a student to be studying science as well as a myriad of other tendencies that then allows the platform to select the most effective stacks of content in its database based on what has been most successful for students with a similar profile. In the next year as the network of Knewton users grows, it will then be able to connect individual students to other users who share those profiles, allowing them to ask questions, work problems and help each other learn in real time. In other words, it’s able to “socially personalize” (my words) the content learning interaction solely using the technology. And more.

The bottom line? Knewton wants to do “the dirty work of education,” the content part that we’re so hepped up about testing. CEO Jose Ferreira feels that by putting individual students into Knewton’s data-driven, highly personalized and adaptable learning environment, they will more effectively learn the concept mastery necessary to then do great things in the classroom with teachers who spend far less time on skills and far more time on the practical application of the skills in real life. To put it another way, Jose says “we want to fix the factory side of education and do it better and let teachers do the important stuff that technology can’t.” When I asked him about other entrepreneurs who seemed much more focused on just having students do better on the test, he said “the practical application is the sea change; that’s the part that’s going to benefit kids.”

Let’s be really clear. This is not Khan Academy, which at the end of the day is a one-size-fits-all lecture with a little curricular personalization built in. This is one on one (student to machine) that creates a different path to understanding based on the individual needs and dispositions of the student. Your path to learning algebra in Knewton will be decidedly different from mine, but at the end of the day, in theory, we’ll both have mastered the concepts.

Let’s also be clear that this is still in the early stages of development, and Knewton hasn’t made any inroads into the K-12 space…yet. No question, its recent $33 million investment from Pearson is going to steer it down that path soon enough. Currently, Knewton’s being used at a number of universities, primarily for remediation. For instance, at Arizona State University, 30% of incoming freshmen need remediation in math. (Says a lot about the current standardized testing regime, doesn’t it? Every one of those kids had to pass the math section in their states I’m sure.) So rather than spend teacher and class time getting those students up to speed, ASU uses Knewton to do the bulk of that work. But it’s not hard to see the path to Knewton-esque platforms becoming the primary methods of concept instruction (and, inevitably, more.)

Which, as I’ve been droning on about here and elsewhere for most of this highly disruptive year in learning, compels us to begin figuring out both the challenges and the opportunities of what is quickly becoming a viable “new story” for education whether we like it or agree with it or see it as good for our kids or not. I’d love to get rid of the factory side of education, not just do it better, but that’s a far off reality given the current climate. So what are the questions we need to be asking at this moment?

Here are some of the random bullet points that have been hanging around in my brain of late:

• For some kids, especially those in classrooms with 50 other students who have little chance at having any real differentiated, personalized instruction, these technologies will be a boon. In schools where the emphasis is on the factory, however wrong we may feel that may be, being able to do the factory better will be a good thing for the students ensconced there.
• But having said that, if we continue to value the factory and the assessments that test for that factory learning at the expense of real world problem solving and effective writing and speaking skills and adaptability and all of those important learning dispositions that we want kids to have, schools in their current iteration are toast. We’ll simply be Knewton factories, irony intended. (Interestingly, Jose has a bit of a different view on the whole testing debate, saying that he feels raising test scores is important if only to reduce the focus on the test. “Once we get everyone passing the test better, the pressure will come off.” Not sure I agree, but I hadn’t heard that line of thinking before.) 
• While it’s great in concept that teachers will be “freed up” to do the really important learning with students who have concept mastery, I wonder what percentage of teachers will be able to take advantage of that opportunity in meaningful ways. Let’s be honest, by and large, we’re still preparing new teachers to be curriculum delivery specialists, not participants in and facilitators of deep student inquiry in the classroom.
• And to what extent (and when) will technology make inroads into the practical application piece of it as well? Digital gaming environments are already becoming more socially constructivist and focusing on problem solving, and they will continue to evolve to present content and skills and application. What, with all of that, is the role of the face to face teacher and physical space classroom? (I think there is still an extremely important role for both, btw, but it’s one we’re not articulating very clearly yet.)
• And finally, who gets Knewton and who doesn’t? While I think it’s admirable that the company wants to use 20% of its profits to provide free access to students in schools or developing countries that can’t afford it, I don’t think we’ll escape a developing divide in this type of “learning” either.

Look, at the end of this day, at least, I’m feeling conflicted about much of this. I worry that we’re heading down a path that will turn schools into private, for-profit spaces that will put our kids’ best interests behind bottom lines, and that rather than starting a decidedly new conversation around learning, we’re just going to keep reaching for the low-hanging fruit of knowing, the stuff that’s easy to assess, the efficiencies that businesses love. That Nation article from a few weeks ago paints that picture all too compellingly, and as one of my network friends said in an e-mail after reading it, “last one out, turn the lights off.” It could be that bad.

But I can’t help holding out hope that at some point, the idiocy of the current regime will fall out of favor. I think a growing number of parents (like me) who have pretty much had it with the current emphasis will find themselves wondering what relevance much of our kids’ education has in their ability to live and flourish in a growingly complex world, and they’ll start really screaming “Stop!” (Hey, a guy can dream.) 

I’m sure for some, that test score will always be a powerful way of defining “educated” for their kids, and if technology can raise that score, they’ll buy in. But we educators who see learning as more than a score have to advocate even more loudly for for a different definition. While there may be a certain appeal in the world Knewton proposes, I worry it will be too easy to lose the best of what that world offers simply because the good stuff that teachers do that technology can’t isn’t easy. It’s messy, complex, resistant to standardization which despite being better for kids, is harder to define and deliver. In the near term, that “defining and delivering” part may be our greatest challenge of all.

One of the things I’ve been wondering more and more as I’ve been reading and thinking at length about the recent wave of corporate and private (mostly online) inroads into education is what happens when it no longer is about the best schools for our kids but, instead, the best education service? As more and more choices and paths crop up for MY children to “get an education” that are not dependent on geography or place, what happens to that sense of community that currently comes with a local education?

I know that most online providers include some type of “blended” approach to their thinking. They understand that schools will not be going away any time soon, and so they have to combine the virtual and the physical in some way. But I can’t shake this feeling that given the competitive nature of the education game to begin with, there will be a lot of folks who will jump on the virtually personalized education bandwagon with little thought as to the effect on the larger community. 

Diane Ravitch’s quote from a MisEducation Nation panel a couple of months ago brought it home for me even more:

But this is what I see as the next wave: demonize the public schools, create this marketplace where people think, instead of thinking of the common good, instead of thinking of community, instead of thinking what’s good for our children, we say, what’s in it for me? What about my child? Forget about your children, that’s your problem. My child. That’s market thinking…But the goal is to move away from public education as a public responsibility, like the fire department, like the police department, like public parks, like other kinds of public facilities. Privatize public education so that everyone becomes a consumer, children become products, and entrepreneurs can find lots and lots of money to be made. That is somehow going to make us globally competitive.

There is more than an ounce of truth in that, I fear. And that’s why I think we have a huge marketing job of our own to do when it comes to the value of schools, one that, so far at least, diverges clearly from the achievement-as-higher-test-scores narrative that most “providers” and vendors are selling. 

I can’t stop asking, what do we mean by learning? By education? What are now the fundamental, powerful advantages to places and communities in a world where instruction and content and answers are a screen tap away?

I’m looking forward to spending about an hour or so on Thursday morning in NYC with Jose Ferreira, the founder and CEO of Knewton. In case you may not be familiar with the company’s work, here’s a short synopsis from a release announcing their new partnership with Pearson:

Knewton’s award-winning Adaptive Learning Platform™ uses proprietary algorithms to deliver a personalized learning path for each student, each day. Knewton’s technology identifies each student’s strengths, weaknesses and unique learning style. Taking into account both personal proficiencies and course requirements, the platform continuously tailors learning materials to each student’s exact needs, delivering the most relevant content in the most efficient and effective form.

I’m trying to make sense of this new-ish personalized “learning” world fueled by technology and data, and I’ve got quite a few questions that I hope to ask Jose that will help me understand how he and his company define learning and how Knewton does or doesn’t help develop lifelong learning dispositions in its users. Obviously, there are a lot of potential implications for schools, teachers, classrooms and students. I’m wondering what you might be interested in knowing as well.

Any questions you think I should consider asking?

danah boyd articulates the move from private to public in online spaces about as well as anyone, I think:

Social media has prompted a radical shift. We’ve moved from a world that is “private-by-default, public-through-effort” to one that is “public-by-default, private-with-effort.” Most of our conversations in a face-to-face setting are too mundane for anyone to bother recording and publicizing. They stay relatively private simply because there’s no need or desire to make them public. Online, social technologies encourage broad sharing and thus, participating on sites like Facebook or Twitter means sharing to large audiences. When people interact casually online, they share the mundane. They aren’t publicizing; they’re socializing. While socializing, people have no interest in going through the efforts required by digital technologies to make their pithy conversations more private. When things truly matter, they leverage complex social and technical strategies to maintain privacy. [Emphasis mine.]

And this is more than just knowing how to “leverage complex social and technical strategies to maintain privacy,” something that in and of itself should be a required literacy for anyone using social media. (Are we teaching this?) It’s also about how we consume and share what others make public. 

We had this discussion during a Leading Edge session yesterday, and I was struck by how little I had really thought about that piece of it. That it’s not just about making good decisions when we publish, but it’s also about making good decisions when we consume what others publish as well. Not so much in terms of what’s good content and what’s not so good content. But in terms of what responsibility each one of us has as gatekeeper for the other. 

Are we teaching that, too?

All of which leads me back to why, I think, we have to help move educators into these public spaces online. There are levels of complexity here that can only be understood by participating, and while I realize there are risks, we have to find ways to mitigate them for the sake of teaching our kids those network literacies that will allow them to flourish. 

(This is a long one.)

So I hope no one minds if I continue to try to document the ways in which “education” is being reframed in this country at the peril, I think, of losing everything that is best about schools and teachers and classrooms.

If you’re not up to speed with these reframing efforts, the above titled article in the Wall Street Journal this morning should do the trick. The canary is singing in full throat. And let’s not make any bones about it: the Journal has a vested interest in making the type of online learning it describes successful as it owns a large stake in many of the vendors trying to occupy the space.

The author would like us to believe that education is being “radically rethought” by the online and “blended” options that are available to students. But let’s be clear; the only things being rethought here are the delivery models of a traditional education and, most importantly, the financial models to sustain it and make lots of money for outside businesses who see technology and access as a way to not only line their pockets with taxpayer money but also bust the unions that stand in their way. 

It’s a disheartening and disturbing vision of what an education might become:

Tipping back his chair, he studied a computer screen listing the lessons he was supposed to complete that week for his public high school—a high school conducted entirely online. Noah clicked on his global-studies course. A lengthy article on resource shortages popped up. He gave it a quick scan and clicked ahead to the quiz, flipping between the article and multiple-choice questions until he got restless and wandered into the kitchen for a snack.

And this vision is exploding:

In just the past few months, Virginia has authorized 13 new online schools. Florida began requiring all public-high-school students to take at least one class online, partly to prepare them for college cybercourses. Idaho soon will require two. In Georgia, a new app lets high-school students take full course loads on their iPhones and BlackBerrys. Thirty states now let students take all of their courses online.

It means the elimination of schools and teachers:

Although some states and local districts run their own online schools, many hire for-profit corporations such as K12 Inc. of Herndon, Va., and Connections Academy in Baltimore, a unit of education services and technology company Pearson PLC. The companies hire teachers, provide curriculum, monitor student performance—and lobby to expand online public education.

And the selling point is not just cost but personalization, which I’ve written about here before.

Advocates say that online schooling can save states money, offer curricula customized to each student and give parents more choice in education.

But this isn’t different. Notice the ways in which the “success” of online schools is being judged.

In California, Rocketship Education, a chain of charter hybrid schools that serves mostly poor and minority kids, has produced state test scores on par with some of the state’s wealthiest schools. Rocketship students spend up to half of each school day in computer labs playing math and literacy games that adjust to their ability level.

 At Southwest Learning Centers, a small chain of charter schools in Albuquerque, N.M., standardized test scores routinely outpace state and local averages, according to data provided by the schools. Students complete most lessons online but come into class for teacher support and hands-on challenges, such as collaborating to design and build a weight-bearing bridge. The high school recently received a statewide award for its students’ strong scores on the ACT college admissions test.

And don’t miss the point. It’s all about how we define learning. Listen to this one parent quoted in the article.

“I don’t think learning has to happen at school, in a classroom with 30 other kids and a teacher…corralling all children into learning the same thing at the same pace,” she says. “We should rethink the environment we set up for education.”

It’s an easy way for us to minimize the role of the teacher in a child’s education: 

The amount of teacher interaction varies. At online-only schools, instructors answer questions by email, phone or the occasional video conference; students will often meet classmates and teachers on optional field trips and during state exams. Southwest Learning Centers requires just 14 hours a week of classroom time and lets students set their own schedules, deciding when—or whether—to come in on any given day. And in Miami, students at iPrep Academy work in free-flowing “classrooms” with no doors or dividing walls but plenty of beanbag chairs and couches. Teachers give short lectures and offer one-on-one help, but most learning is self-directed and online.

 “If it seems strange, that’s because it is strange,” says Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the Miami schools. But he sees no point in forcing the iPod generation to adapt to a classroom model that has changed little in 300 years.

Cut teachers, save money.

The growth of cybereducation is likely to affect school staffing, which accounts for about 80% of school budgets. A teacher in a traditional high school might handle 150 students. An online teacher can supervise more than 250, since he or she doesn’t have to write lesson plans and most grading is done by computer.

In Idaho, Alan Dunn, superintendent of the Sugar-Salem School District, says that he may cut entire departments and outsource their courses to online providers. “It’s not ideal,” he says. “But Idaho is in a budget crisis, and this is a creative solution.”

Other states see potential savings as well. In Georgia, state and local taxpayers spend $7,650 a year to educate the average student in a traditional public school. They spend nearly 60% less—$3,200 a year—to educate a student in the statewide online Georgia Cyber Academy, saving state and local tax dollars. Florida saves $1,500 a year on every student enrolled online full time.

Make war with the unions.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who co-founded the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which promotes online schools nationwide, says learning will be “digitized” with or without cooperation from the unions. “I’m happy to go to war over this,” he says.

And make, potentially, lots of money.

Last year News Corp. bought a 90% stake in Wireless Generation, an education-technology company that sells hand-held computers to teachers to help monitor student performance.

And there, in a nutshell, is the future. (And to be really scared, read the comments on the article.)

<rant>

Look, not for nothing, but if we don’t start writing and advocating for a very different vision of learning in real classrooms, one that is focused not just on doing the things we’ve been doing better but in ways that are truly reinvented, one that prepares kids to be innovators and designers and entrepreneurs and, most importantly, learners, we will quickly find ourselves competing at scale with cheaper, easier alternatives that won’t serve our kids as well.

No doubt this will be hard. And I wonder if we can pull it off. But here’s the other thing. It’s not so much about tools and technologies as it is about that learning thing. To be honest, I think we’ve all got to stop cranking out blog posts and Tweets that tout new tools and the “10 Best Ways…” and instead begin to make the case in our blogs and in person that technology or not, this is about what is best for our kids. That in this moment, 20th Century rules will not work for 21st Century schools. That direct instruction and standardization will make us less competitive, not more. That those strategies will make our kids less able to create a living for themselves in the worlds they will live in. That as difficult as it may be for some to come to terms with, this moment requires a whole scale “radical rethink” in much different terms from the one Jeb Bush wants, the same type of rethink that newspapers and media and businesses and others are undergoing.

And it’s time to raise our game, write comments and op-ed pieces and journal articles and books, have conversations with parents (or at least give them some reading to do), speak up at conferences and board meetings and elsewhere, not about the wonders of technology but about the changed landscape of literacies and skills and dispositions that the current system, online or off, is not able to provide to our kids in its current iteration. That schools can be places of wonder and exploration and inquiry and creation, not just force fed curriculum 75% of which our kids will forget within months of consuming it. That learning and reform as they are currently being defined are both nothing of the sort. 

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“My Teacher is an App.” Really? If that’s fine with you, stay silent. If not, I don’t think it’s ever been clearer where the lines are being drawn.

You are the lead learner in your community. Not Jeb Bush. Not Rupert Murdoch. Not Pearson. You. 

Lead.

Still think we aren’t facing a bigger crisis in the teaching profession than we’re currently talking about? Try this from the Economist this week: 

The conventional explanation for America’s current plight is that, at an annualised 2.5% for the most recent quarter (compared with an historical average of 3.3%), the economy is simply not expanding fast enough to put all the people who lost their jobs back to work. Consumer demand, say economists like Dr Tyson, is evidently not there for companies to start hiring again. Clearly, too many chastened Americans are continuing to pay off their debts and save for rainy days, rather than splurging on things they may fancy but can easily manage without.

 There is a good deal of truth in that. But it misses a crucial change that economists are loathe to accept, though technologists have been concerned about it for several years. This is the disturbing thought that, sluggish business cycles aside, America’s current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much. The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete.

This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.

That makes a huge, disruptive difference. Not only is AI software much cheaper than mechanical automation to install and operate, there is a far greater incentive to adopt it—given the significantly higher cost of knowledge workers compared with their blue-collar brothers and sisters in the workshop, on the production line, at the check-out and in the field. [Emphasis mine.]

A few observations here. First, what does this mean for the kids in our classrooms (and in our own homes)? How are we going to have to think differently about their potential for employment in light of these trends? What are the broad brush outlines of what a job will look like for our kids?

And second, what will be the impact on the teaching profession? I really invite pushback here: am I wrong to say that if we keep defining learning as the consumption of a discrete curriculum that can be easily assessed that sooner rather than later economies of scale will radically restructure what we as “professionals” do in schools?

Good on those 400 Long Island principals who have stood up and said “Enough!” to the state of NY in terms of teacher evaluation and student assessment. (Let me note, however, that they’re not appreciably moving the “learning” conversation to any better place in their arguments.) How long will it take for teachers to start articulating a different vision for schools and classrooms that, aside from being better for kids, might just save their jobs?

So, regardless of whether you think Khan Academy adds real value to the learning conversation, don’t miss the shift in rhetoric around the potential:

In case you haven’t noticed, lots of people want to “blow up education” right now. And the monied interests are going to have much to say about which direction education takes from here. I know I’m sounding like a broken MP3 here, but the question once again is whether or not the focus moving forward will be on learning or test taking. 

We do have a voice in this, obviously. We need to start using it. 

Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking more and more that the biggest challenge we face as educators is redefining our value as schools and classrooms and teachers, not just to the taxpaying public but to ourselves as well. It’s becoming more and more apparent to me that unless we are able to articulate and manifest that shift, we really do risk losing much of what is meaningful and important about the school experience for our kids. 

And there is an urgency to this now that I’m not sure many are feeling. Recently, I heard a well respected author say during a presentation “We all know that kids don’t learn anything that we don’t teach them.” And I heard another wildly successful author about school practice comment that what we need to do to improve schools is to focus more on the techniques of direct instruction, using technology sparingly and on the edges. 

Here’s the point: if we see direct instruction as our value, if what we care about is “higher student achievement” in the context of passing the test, we are, in a word, screwed.

The reality? Technology will soon provide a better “learning” experience to kids needing to pass the test than a classroom teacher with 30 (or 50) kids. Self-paced, formatively assessed, personalized to each student’s needs. I wrote about Knewton a couple of weeks ago, and just a couple of days ago came news that they’ve joined forces with Pearson to create an individualized data-driven learning platform that will no doubt spawn a host of other startups in the education space. Read it, and most likely, weep:

Students in these courses use the computer during class time to work through material at their own speed. Through diagnostics taken along the way, the program creates a “personalized learning path” that targets exactly what lessons they need to work on and then delivers the appropriate material. Points, badges and other game mechanics theoretically keep students chugging through courses with more motivation. In the meantime, teachers learn which students are struggling with exactly which concepts.

If this is what we value, teachers will be reduced to folks who fill in the blanks that the software can’t…yet. Or to put it another way (again), if this is what we value, we don’t need teachers any more, nor do we need schools. And to be honest, it’s not hard to see a whole bunch of policy makers and businessmen who are just salivating at that prospect. I know that schools aren’t going away any time soon, (what would we do with our kids?) but our current concept of schools (or at least our greatest wish for schools) as places of inspiration and inquiry and joy in learning will die a quick death. 

I think Peggy Orenstein captures this pretty well in her column in the Times this week which described the tension between test scores and learning at a New Hampshire middle school that was featured in the paper earlier:

In the end, I guess, I believe in the quality, competence and creativity of her teachers. And perhaps that’s a type of faith worth having, one that in public education is being permanently (and sometimes understandably) eroded. Linda Rief, one of the Oyster River teachers, told Mr. Winerip that she feared “public schools where teachers are trusted to make learning fun are on the way out.”

“Ms. Rief understands that packaged curriculums and standardized assessments offer schools an economy of scale that she and her kind cannot compete with,” Mr. Winerip writes.

There is an urgency now to redefine our value. We cannot be about passing the test. We cannot be about content to the extent we are today because content is everywhere. We cannot be about a curriculum that’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Something else can do that now, and in some ways, that’s a good thing. We have to be about the thing that technology cannot and will not be able to do, and that’s care deeply for our kids as humans, help them develop passions to learn, solve problems that are uniquely important to them, understand beauty and meaning in the world, help them play and create and apply knowledge in ways that add to the richness of life, and develop empathy and deep contextual understanding of the world. And more. 

To me, at least, our profession is in trouble not because of the technology, but because of the current expectations we have of schools. We need to start these conversations around redefinition today, shift this thinking now, not tomorrow. We need to make the case to parents and board members and policy makers and each other that while technology may now serve as a better option for kids needing to learn discrete skills or facts to pass the test, our great value is to cultivate and help develop those uniquely human dispositions and abilities that in the end will allow our kids to use what they know in ways that can make this world a better place and hopefully, save us from ourselves. And that that is an opportunity for change that we cannot waste.

There is an urgency now, for if what we as a society continue to value is the test, we’re lost.

Look, I can get to why schools look and act the way they do. They were built to do a certain thing…”educate” every child…at a certain time when folks didn’t have a lot of easy access to “quality” content or instruction. It was a monumental undertaking, and regardless of the fact that the founders of the system wanted to create factory workers instead of problem solving, creative, collaborative, lifelong learners, I have no doubt that a lot of people (excluding John Dewey) thought “yep, this is the best thing for the kids in our society. They’ll all get an education if we line ‘em up and nudge them through, and we’ll all be better for it.”

Or something like that.

But now the premise has changed. We’re getting more and more easy access to “quality” content and instruction (if we’re literate enough to know it when we see it), and that means that some of those once fine ideas for “getting an education” just don’t fit any more. Many of those old answers are feeling less and less useful when it comes to actually developing learners out of our kids instead of workers.

Yet we stick to them. And I know the reasons are many and complex (it’s what we know and what we expect schools to be,) but I think at the end of the day, we’re loathe to change because it’s just easier this way. It’s not what best for our kids, but it’s what’s easiest for us. (I know…a lot of you are thinking “there ain’t nothing easy about this,” and you’re right. Caring for kids and doing right by them educationally in whatever system we have is hard, hard work.)

But I’m thinking it’s time to call some of these old school habits out and ask, “are we really doing what’s best for kids, or are we doing what’s easiest for us?”

Like:

• Is it better for our kids to be grouped by chronological age, or is it just easier for us?
• Is it better for our kids to separate out the disciplines, or is it just easier for us?
• Is it better for our kids to give every one of them pretty much the same curriculum, or is it just easier for us?
• Is it better for our kids to turn off all of their technology in school, or is it just easier for us? 
• Is it better for our kids that we assess everyone the same way, or is it just easier for us?
• Is it better for our kids for us to decide what they should learn and how they should learn it, or is it just easier for us? 

You get the idea. Add yours below.

So, are we in the business of easy? Or do we want to find ways to do this education thing in ways that best serve our kids given the realities of this moment?

Just askin’.