Will

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’.

I came across a 9th grade unit test on ancient history and Islam recently. One hundred point test. Forty-five multiple choice worth two points each, then choose one of five essay questions for the last 10 points.

Of the 45 multiple choice, 17 dealt with the names of capitals, countries and land masses. The rest looked pretty much like this:

This Roman emperor changed the official religion of the Roman Empire and moved its capital to Constantinople (today Istanbul):

A. Ptolemy
B. Cyrus the Great
C. Constantine
D. Jesus

 You get the idea. 

So, 90 points of this test was basically a Jeopardy game, asking isolated, disconnected (and therefore fairly useless) facts that the student could have answered in about 15 minutes using her computer or phone for that matter. Facts that, no doubt, that student spent much longer trying to memorize. Facts that, in all likelihood, that student will have little or no recollection of a year from now. Facts that, without some contextual understanding, are irrelevant.

The remaining 10 points came picking out one of the short answer questions. Here’s one:

What are the positive and negative aspects of Uthman’s caliphate? Why do you believe these aspects to be positive and why do you believe them to be negative. [Sic] Explain your reasoning. 

And the student needs to know this why?

To be fair, a couple of the questions were more interesting:

Is Islam a religion of violence? Why do you believe this to be the case?

Or

Explain the differences between Sunni and Shi’a. How have these differences led to the tensions that exist today between these two groups. [Sic]

Ten points for being able to discuss something relevant to today’s Middle East world if, and only if, the student chooses that question. So ninety, and maybe 100 points for facts that hold little value or relevance to anything important to know about the Middle East today.

This from a reputable, college prep school that parents choose to send their kids to. Spend money to send their kids to. 

I have to ask, why? Why are we asking kids to do this? Or if we are asking them to do this, why aren’t we dealing with reality and letting them use their connections and networks to get the answers? (I know, not every child has networks and connections, but the kids at this school do.) What value is there in this type of assessment? What is it preparing them for?

We have to stop this. Ok?

Headmasters, teachers, parents, Arne Duncan, Pearson, Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, union members, principals, college admissions officers, President Obama, board members, superintendents…make it stop.

Please.

All sorts of silliness in this New York Times article which attempts (once again) to paint the technology in education discussion as either/or rather than right time/right place. We considered Waldorf schools for our own kids at one point, and there was much to like in terms of their focus on the environment, social justice and more. But we knew from the outset that their no-tech approach probably would not win the day for us. (There is much to learn and do with the environment and social justice with technology, you know.)

But to have well-heeled Silicon Valley executives tell it, these kids can just pick up technology and work it’s wonders any time. They don’t need it in school.

“The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.”

“Technology is a distraction when we need literacy, numeracy and critical thinking.”

“At Google and all these places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out when they get older.”

And so on.

 I love Diana Laufenberg’s response to the either/or nonsense, captured in a couple of Tweets:

Yep. 

I’m not saying that my kids don’t need teachers. But I am saying my kids don’t (won’t) need teachers any more to get them to pass the test.

Knewton’s software analyzes students’ performance on practice questions and recommends tutorials based on the student’s answers. Knewton optimizes learning by focusing only on the areas that students need to improve. The software determines subject areas at a granular level. it doesn’t just know whether you need improvement in algebra. It knows specifically whether you’re having trouble with, for example, quadratic equations.

According to COO David Liu, an afternoon of studying can give Knewton 100,000 - 150,000 data points about the student - such as how long it takes them to answer questions or what time of day they learn best.

And it’s not just math, by the way. If nothing else, the new iPhone’s integration of Siri is a clear indicator of how far technology has come in terms of understanding semantic cues and interactions. No tested subject area is “safe.” 

In case it’s not obvious, this is the real danger to public education right now should we choose to continue down the path we’re currently on. If it’s all about test scores and “student acheivement” measured by test scores, immersing kids into Knewton-type environments is by far the easiest, cheapest, path of least resistance for the system’s current definition of “learning.” And it’s not just Knewton; there is big business in creating and providing these types of “learning” experiences to kids. Many others are salivating at the prospect, and education policy, just like all others, is driven by those with the deepest pockets. 

This is why we should all be feeling an acute urgency right now to take back the definition of what “learning” really is in a world filled with content and teachers and personalization. It’s not an easy task, especially when test scores and grades take such precedence in the conversation. Don’t get me wrong; there is some opportunity in the use of technology to prepare kids at a content level for the bigger learning conversations to come, the conversations that we need real teachers for, the ones which develop the dispositions of learning that are uniquely human.

Can Knewton prepare our kids to work with others around the world to solve problems? Can it show our kids how to create and share works of meaning and beauty that can change the world? Can it help them think critically about developing issues and events that impact their lives? Can it teach them to care deeply and act in ways that benefit the species?

Knewton doesn’t develop learners. It develops knowers. We’re in serious trouble if that’s all we value.

(Thanks to George Siemens’ riff on Knewton for getting me thinking…)

(Source: readwriteweb.com)

Deborah Meier gets right to the point in her essay “Reinventing Schools That Keep Teachers in Teaching”:

If we want teachers who are smart, caring, alive to students’ needs, and are in it for the long haul, we need to consider how to create schools that are themselves centers for the continual learning of everyone connected to them. We’ve learned most of what we know about teaching K-12 from our own schooling experience. Unlearning powerful past history in the absence of equally powerful settings for relearning won’t work.

Amen. How do any of us expect change to occur in schools if we don’t create a culture around unlearning the old and relearning the art of teaching? And I’m not just talking here about change as it relates to technology; Meier, in fact, does not even mention the role that technology plays in that process. On a basic level, we have a lot to unlearn around the way we’ve dumbed down the whole process of schools in our rush to raise test scores and promote “high student achievement” that’s measured by numbers and not actual performance.

But on another level, we need to create places where technology is simply an invisible part of the unlearning and relearning process, where we are continually learning with our connected networks and communities outside our physical spaces as well as inside. This isn’t just about moving to a more child-centered, progressive model of education; it’s about doing that through a global, digital lens that frames those ideas for this moment.

Easy to say, I know. So how do we do this? How do we provide the time and the support for teachers to “unlearn powerful past history” and move themselves and their colleagues to this new and different place? 

I actually had a conversation around that recently with Joel Backon, the Director of IT at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. And while there’s nothing inherently new about this idea, the way Joel framed it made a lot of sense. And it centers around this basic question: In a world where we have access to so much information and knowledge, where technology is providing more and more personalized learning environments for our students that are of quality and high engagement, do we really need to meet with our students five days a week, face to face, in physical space? In other words, could we work toward a model that allows students to work independently for let’s say one day a week, thus freeing teachers up to do the important work of unlearning and relearning either on their own or with their colleagues? Can a blended learning solution that takes advantage of all the Web affords perhaps make the Google “20% time” idea a possibility in schools?

I know this would require that every child have access. I also know that it would require some added time to plan those independent learning experiences for students. And I know some would struggle with the idea that their kids could actually learn on their own without them. There are hurdles.

But if we’re serious about giving teachers much needed time to learn, if we value it and Meier urges us to do, it’s “doable,” I think. Maybe not next week or next year, but as a part of a three-year plan? IF we value it. I love how Meier makes that case, too.

It’s doable. The details will vary from school to school, and some will fit one person and not another. But we cannot dare continue to keep kids in schools for so many, many years—incarcerated if you will—without doing a better job of making our schools places we all love. Places that we can’t wait to come to every morning and that we leave, exhausted and pleased with ourselves, every afternoon. Places where long-term experience and wisdom are not dismissed as the bad products of “seniority” rules, but what good societies take seriously. Schools are for the children, but they are also where the young build their images of adulthood. Our schools need to serve the students and the teachers.

So, how are your schools serving you as a learner? What other ideas do you have to make that happen?

That’s the title of a chapter in a new free e-book my Martin Weller titled The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly Practice. And the answer to that question is, in a word, “maybe.” It’s a pretty interesting look at the research on digital technologies in a learning context (or lack thereof) and the tensions of the moment when trying to figure out exactly what all of this means for higher ed with, I think, some useful applications to the K-12 world.

One conclusion that I totally agree with concerns the knowledge that kids have around these technologies from a learning perspective:

Overall, as Bennett et al. (2008) suggest, there is little strong evidence for the main claims of the net generation literature, which they summarise as follows:

• Young people of the digital native generation possess sophisticated knowledge of and skills with information technologies.

• As a result of their upbringing and experiences with technology, digital natives have particular learning preferences or styles that differ from earlier generations of students.

Weller makes the point that 

There seems little real evidence beyond the rhetoric that the net generation is in some way different from its predecessors as a result of having been exposed to digital technologies. There is some moderate evidence that they may have different attitudes.

However, he also suggests that the influence of the Web on society is a large part of the reason schools need to consider changing:

But it is possible to at least conclude that there is significant activity online across a range of society, and the intersection of these activities (socialising, sharing, content creation, information seeking) has a direct relevance to education.

And one other interesting note. While dissatisfaction with schools is nothing new, Weller points out one big difference of this moment as compared to the past:

There is growing dissatisfaction with current practice in higher education – there seems little strong evidence for this. Probably more significant to the culture of education has been the shift to perceiving the student as a customer. There is certainly little evidence that the dissatisfaction is greater than it used to be, but what may be significant is that there are now viable alternatives for learners. Universities have lost their monopoly on learning, which reinforces the next point.

Higher education will undergo similar change to that in other sectors – there are some similarities between higher education and other sectors, such as the newspaper and music industries, but the differences are probably more significant. However, the blurring of boundaries between sectors and the viability of self-directed, community-based learning means that the competition is now more complex. [Emphasis mine.]

I’m really interested to see how those “viable alternatives for learners” play out. At some point, are we going to have move away from “college prep” and just make it “learning prep?”

Some interesting ideas to consider as we think about the scope and scale of change that we are considering.

So, I know I spend a lot of time here (and elsewhere) lamenting the state of education in general and, specifically, wishing my kids were in systems where they were allowed to follow their passions more, systems where they were more engaged in the learning process overall. So I’m happy to report that yesterday Tucker came home from school totally psyched about his Social Studies class because they are studying Greek mythology. Tuck is a HUGE fan of the Percy Jackson series, and the fact that he will be reading The Lightning Thief in his classroom has him totally stoked. (He’s read it “four or five times” already…)

I know it’s kind of luck of the draw in this case, that the teacher’s choice just happened to be Tucker’s, that he’s really not being given the option to do it this way, and that I’m sure there are kids in the class who aren’t all that thrilled with studying or reading any of it. But it’s great to see him this pumped, and it speaks plainly to the fact that kids will be more motivated to learn if we can connect our content to their passions. I’ve written before how I wish he could learn English and science and math in the context of basketball, another subject that he loves.

I know, I know. It’s hard from a classroom of 30 kids standpoint to personalize for every student like that. And there are things that we want kids to know that don’t lend themselves to this type of learning. But I wonder if we valued it more, if we tested for “learning dispositions” and what kids can learn through their passions if we wouldn’t make it happen in some form in our classrooms. I remember when I was teaching, I had kids learning to be journalists by becoming beat reporters for the World Wrestling Federation and Metallica. They loved it, and the writing process became a way that they could express that love.

Here’s hoping both my kids (and yours) experience more of that “I Love…” feeling this school year. 

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!

In about 15 minutes I’ll be waking Tucker up to get ready for the first day of public school seventh grade. Tess starts at her freshman year of high school at her independent school on Friday. And while I’m happy for them and the opportunities they have to go to places where they are cared for, places that are safe and where teachers take their jobs seriously, I wish I was more excited about their prospects for learning this year. Once again I’m weighed down by this question that Seth Godin asked yesterday on his blog:

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?

That pretty much nails it, but I would doubt that more than 10 percent of the parents or taxpayers in the US are “wrestling” with that question in any meaningful way. They…we all should:

As long as we embrace (or even accept) standardized testing, fear of science, little attempt at teaching leadership and most of all, the bureaucratic imperative to turn education into a factory itself, we’re in big trouble.

We are in trouble. And as Mary Ann Reilly commented on my blog, “We need to disrupt this. Soon. Now. Together.”

So how will you, how can we do that this year?

Fascinating piece in Smithsonian this month on the “success” of Finnish schools. And I put “success” in quotes because for most American observers, Finland’s school system works because they score near the top on PISA tests. When you read the article, however, you see that test scores have little to do with it from a Finnish perspective. 

There’s a lot to learn from what the Finns do, but more than anything, it’s an attitude toward learning that makes the difference. They’ll do “whatever it takes” to help a child be successful, whether that’s extra time, providing nourishing food and health care, or making play a focal point of the school day. School isn’t high stakes; as one principal said, “We are interested in what will become of them in life,” which is why 43 percent of Finnish kids go to vocational high schools and why there’s only one test in their senior years that they have to take.

But here are the three snips that really jumped out at me. First, the goal of the system:

“We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

What a concept, right? What they seem to understand that we here in the States can’t seem to get is that high test scores do not equal learning. That you can’t create a learning disposition if the focus is on content, Common Core or otherwise. That it’s about being a learner rather than being learned.

And this:

Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts,” Louhivuori teased, as he rummaged through his closet looking for past years’ results. “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

We’ve become so dependent on the test to tell us about our students that we know less and less about who they really are. And without really knowing them, how can we help them reach their individual potentials?

And finally:

In the United States, which has muddled along in the middle for the past decade, government officials have attempted to introduce marketplace competition into public schools. In recent years, a group of Wall Street financiers and philanthropists such as Bill Gates have put money behind private-sector ideas, such as vouchers, data-driven curriculum and charter schools, which have doubled in number in the past decade. President Obama, too, has apparently bet on competition. His Race to the Top initiative invites states to compete for federal dollars using tests and other methods to measure teachers, a philosophy that would not fly in Finland. “I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”

Why is it we have such a hard time in this country seeing this “human aspect” of education? Is that something only understood by socialist cultures who see government as a way of lifting everyone up, of providing an equal starting point for all kids, as opposed to countries like ours that are so hell bent on competition that we’ll let millions of kids suffer a mediocre education just so we can have winners and losers?

I don’t buy the argument that we can’t learn from Finland because it’s smaller and doesn’t have such a big system or that it’s different from our culture. At the core, it’s about caring for kids, doing what’s right by them not what’s easy for us. That’s the piece we seem to be missing, and that’s the piece that should be motivating all of us start screaming about a meaningful overhaul of the system. 

This resonates:

The digital outcast is not somebody who doesn’t have access to the technologies; s/he is somebody who, after the access has been granted, fails to actualise the transformative potentials of technologies for the self or for others.

That’s Nishant Shah, Research Director of the Centre for Internet and Society in India, and while I’m not a fan of another label, I am intrigued by the definition and the implications it presents for schools.

It’s one thing to grant or provide access. It’s totally another to help students understand what to do with that access…not just for themselves but also in the service of others. I think one thing that we don’t talk enough about is changing the world for the better using the connections that we now have available to us. If we don’t begin to explore the opportunities for that type of change with our students, are we really making the most of the access we give them?

George Siemens was nice enough to share a presentation he gave in South Africa yesterday, and while it’s always better to hear the context that any speaker brings to the ideas on the screen, a couple of the points in his slide deck got me thinking. Even though it’s articulating his thoughts around higher ed, I think there is a lot of relevance for K-12 as well.

In the accompanying blog post, George says:

I’m concerned about the narrowness of thought in higher education reform today…If you have one solution to the problem of education, you have missed the true nature of the problem. Many, many stakeholders have a vested interest in what goes on with our universities. Doing a better job of giving learners control and better tools for creating and accessing content is not enough. Most of reform suggestions are at best additive to the current model. None that I’ve seen have the prospect of replacing it.

Same can be said of the reform conversation in public schools; we’re tinkering on the edges, not understanding the true transformative nature of what technology is bringing. I’m reminded of this great Neil Postman quote:

Technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.

Amen.

But here is the deal, and this is one of the clearest points in George’s presentation: this technology thing and specifically the web is going to change us whether we want it to or not. He writes:

If it changes how information is created…
If it changes how information is shared…
If it changes how information is evaluated…
If it changes how people connect…
If it changes how people communicate…
If it changes what people can do for themselves…

Then it will change education, teaching and learning.  

It already is.

So here is our challenge, I think. We can go along kicking or screaming, or we can LEAD. As I said the other day, we are the learning experts (or at least we should be) in our communities. We need to become the learning with technology experts in our communities, the ones who understand deeply and personally the really powerful opportunities we have right now and who also understand the difficulties and hazards that technology presents us as well.

You have a choice. Which will it be?