Let’s just start with this money quote from Michael Feldstein in a comment on the must read post by Jim Groom titled “Networked Study“:
It’s hard to change the culture of education without getting the kids before their thinking processes begin to ossify, but in order to do that, you have to contend with their parents who, however well-intended, didn’t have the benefit of the kind education you’re trying to provide their kids and often see it as more of a threat than an opportunity.
To me, that’s the most interesting piece of this conversation right now, how to move the parents’ perspective of the nascent, non-traditional models of education to one that really embraces the opportunities that online communities and networks are creating for meaningful learning. I know that when I talk about my aspirations for my own kids, and I start going down the road that the traditional college degree is only one of many options for them, that they may be able to cobble together a more meaningful education (depending on what they want to do) through travel and apprenticeships and self-directed experiences and not end up in mountains of debt, most respond with all sorts of reasons why not going to college is a risk, “especially in this job market.” (As if college grads are stepping into great jobs these days anyway.)
Here’s another quote that speaks to this idea, this time from Anya Kamenetz’s new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education:
I’ve had a number of parents tell me that as much as they truly believe the educational landscape is changing, it’s hard for them to sanction their own kids being a part of that change. “To some degree I lack the courage of my convictions…I’m developing very strong convictions that the existing system is fundamentally and probably irreparably broken, but I would not yet take my kids out of their school,” Albert Wenger at Union Square Ventures said. “It’s one thing to experiment by investing money in start-ups or reading books, and it’s another to experiment with your own children.”
There are so many levels to this from a parenting perspective that it’s hard to know where to begin. Most parents think their kids schools are doing just fine based on the assessment systems we currently have in place. Most parents see the traditional track from high school to college as success. Most parents are ok with “online courses” and can use them to check the technology box since they don’t radically disrupt the status quo. Most parents have no clue as to what that change they might be sensing really looks like. They don’t, as Jim Groom writes, see education as “the biggest sham going.”
Whoa.
The roll your own education “movement” is obviously not just a disruption to parents; it’s a threat to educators as well. The question of how to help them find opportunity here is one we’ll be struggling with for decades, no doubt.
But isn’t the bottom line here helping our kids take advantage of the opportunities? This comment by Michael Feldstein about how kids don’t have the ability to direct their own learning echoes the ridiculous expectations floated by Mark Bauerline in the Dumbest Generation, that somehow, these kids today are supposed to learn this all on their own:
It’s not like student-centered education was created by the edupunks. And yet, students fail to learn in these classes all the time. The high drop-out rate in community colleges reflects a lot of different factors, but on major one is surely that many students who go there do not have the skills to take charge of their own education, no matter how much you try to empower them. I have no been given reason to believe that the digital version of this approach will be wildly more successful than the analog version.
Is it any wonder they can’t “take charge of their own education” when that self-directed love of learning on their own was driven out of them by second grade, when no one has ever allowed them to or taught them how do that? And are we at the point where we can begin to give them reasons to believe? Are we? (In fairness, Feldstein accedes to this later in the thread.)
The irony here is obvious: right now, as it’s currently structured, traditional schooling is in many ways the threat, not the opportunity that many still see it as. How we make that message digestable to parents is, I think, the most interesting question of all. And how we do it in ways that don’t drive people to the edges but instead help them work in the messy middle and make sure we ultimately keep in mind what’s best for the care of our kids is the most challenging part of all. To that end, I love this quote from a recent must read Mark Pesce post:
There is no authority anywhere. Either we do this ourselves, or it will not happen. We have to look to ourselves, build the networks between ourselves, reach out and connect from ourselves, if we expect to be able to resist a culture which wants to turn the entire human world into candy. This is not going to be easy; if it were, it would have happened by itself. Nor is it instantaneous. Nothing like this happens overnight. Furthermore, it requires great persistence.  In the ideal situation, it begins at birth and continues on seamlessly until death. In that sense, this connected educational field mirrors and is a reflection of our human social networks, the ones we form from our first moments of awareness. But unlike that more ad-hoc network, this one has a specific intent: to bring the child into knowledge.
Yep.
“The irony here is obvious: right now, as it’s currently structured, traditional schooling is in many ways the threat, not the opportunity that many still see it as.”
Very well said, Will.
You might want to check out Maya Frost’s book, The New Global Student, if you haven’t already.
Cheers.
Already have it, and it’s made me think pretty deeply about alternatives.
Will, as always, this is a thought provoking post. Sometimes I do feel like a voice in the wilderness, but not always.
Bringing parents into the tribe is critical. And i think that it can be done. It will take time but I don’t think we have that much time. We need to trumpet connected learning successes as loudly as we can. We need to use networks to connect parents.
I have had 1 on 1 conversations with many parents around transformational ideas. And as you said, they seem very open to it in theory, but want to be sure that it is good for their kids. So how do we begin to convince them?
If many parents are happy with the system, if many administrators are happy with the system, if test/textbook mongols are happy with [read: thrive on…] the system, if the Department of Education is happy with its system fixes[read: the system], and, if many teachers are happy with (or, at least apathetic about) the system, it would appear that large-scale change of the kind you present here would require a revolution.
We all need to keep talking, sharing, and advocating for… the students.
The Albert Wenger quotation hits the nail on the head. How do we solve the Catch-22 that people won’t explore alternatives to formal education until HR application screeners recognize their value and HR screeners won’t recognize the viability of alternatives until a significant group of people demonstrate that they can work?
I might argue that you don’t lose the majority of kids irretrievably until eighth grade, but that’s a nitpick. This is a great post.
Let me add one layer, though–and this goes back to one of the original points of the post I made that set this conversation off. Public education in the United States is a case in which the more well off subsidize the less well off. It certainly doesn’t work perfectly or uniformly, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are (AFAIK) the first nation in human history to have achieved some form of universal education. Yes, we want to raise the bar on how we define satisfactory education. But if the way we do that is for the families that are most economically advantaged to pull their kids out of the public school system, then it is only a matter of time before the taxes that support public education disappear and the kids who are least advantaged end up with even less.
This is a tough puzzle to solve. I agree that bold action is needed. But we need some sort of affirmative model that includes in it plans to ensure social justice and equality of opportunity. If we don’t, then we will just end up reinforcing and deepening the economic divide that is already intolerably wide.
“that doesn’t change the fact that we are (AFAIK) the first nation in human history to have achieved some form of universal education.”
Bullshit! Americans have one of the worst and less egalitarian education systems in the world. You are particularly bad in World history.
Thanks for the reply, Michael.
You echo a fear laid out in the Allan Collins/Richard Halverson book Rethinking Education in an Era of Technology. Have you read it? There is a danger, I agree, of a real disparity in educational opportunity if we’re not careful.
I keep wondering if there isn’t a middle way here though, one that provides access and education, and really focuses not on content so much as on learning. What if elementary school was all about maintaining that love of learning, nurturing it, celebrating it, instead of getting kids ready to take tests? What if it was about teaching families how to leverage online access (assuming of course we make that available to everyone in an equitable way) to perpetuate learning?
I’m dreaming, I know. ;0)
Not saying that social justice is guaranteed by access, but I don’t think at this point it can happen without it.
One of my favorite science “experiments” is filling a bucket with water and then wind-milling my arm around and observing that the water does not fall out at the apex of the swing. Once the motion has started it is easy to maintain, every swing around adds to the momentum of the next swing. While my arm gets tired from holding the bucket, the initial energy that it takes to start the swing never has to be repeated, only a slight pull to get the buck back up into the air. The messy problem comes when I want to stop, I can never just go back to a full bucket of water, the momentum that I have created must be extracted from the system and this normally comes in the form of wet shoes and pants. 🙂
I think our current educational system is at times like the bucket full of water, we have put a major amount of energy into it and we are very used to the motion, we rely on the predictable path, and we know that to deviate could cause calamity and that something could be lost.
Some want to just stop swinging the bucket and pour the water into a new vessel, others want to stop swinging and just carry the buck, and still others wonder if we should still be carrying the water at all, but most say “this bucket has been swinging with water for as long as I can remember, and if it was good enough for me it’s good enough for you.”
I think it is going to take brave people; teachers, students, parents, administrators, politicians and community members, to boldly step out one foot at a time, and develop relationships with one another as they model the new. To borrow a tag line from the U.S. State Department, it is going to take changing the “Hearts and Minds” of all the parties involved. It means doing away with fads and setting long term goals and staying a course and letting people know you are not going to jump ship with only a moment’s notice. It is going to take blazing a trail down this new highway and building a ground swell that develops into the new momentum.
Great analogy. The question is do we even care how much water we spill here, or are we ok with starting at empty?
Will,
I find it ironic that many of the parents who contest a shift in education also arm their kids with a smart phone, data pkg and leave their use unchecked and untaught. Its comparable to leaving sex ed to the playground. Two evens this week were perfect examples.
In the first senario, I had my students working with scribblar on a collaborative piece. Actually, as is often the case with a new app, I let them play first. My admin walked just as two students angry over how each were collaborating unleashed a barrage of techno warfare on each other. Student A just held her return button down in the chat function which caused the repetition of her name, effectively bring the chat to an end. Student B’s response was to delete all work completed by the other student. My admin, now questioning the value of the experiment was aghast when a third student log in as POOP and hit his return button shutting down the chat function as POOP scrolled down the screen. The experiment came to a halt. We spent the last 30 minutes of valuable computer time reviewing digital citizenary.
The second incident quickly followed as the OPP (Local police) removed students from the class for questioning on a facebook site that had been established by a student of our school who titled the facebook group-Let’s get rid of student D and make her move to a new school!
The kids are using it-let’s give it value and purpose.
“Bullshit! Americans have one of the worst and less egalitarian education systems in the world. You are particularly bad in World history.”
Hmm.
As far as I know, universal public education started in the United States in the 1840s in places like New York City and reached all 50 states by somewhere between 1910 and 1920. Maybe it started earlier elsewhere, but if so, I would appreciate some facts rather than just name calling.
I made no claims about the quality of American public education today relative to other countries. I simply said that, as far as I know, we were the first country to provide some form of education to every child.
OK, I did a little more research. I haven’t been able to find out conclusively who was first in achieving universal public education; the United States, France, England, and Germany all began moving toward it in different ways during the first half of the Nineteenth Century.
But my point still stands that the United States took an early moral stand to support universal public education. We may not have always lived up to that ideal, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
Facebook?
Could one key to this problem be facebook?
I have in-laws that used to call when minor problems occurred with their kids computers. Lately, though, when one called, she had an elaborate explanation of the problem and had already done some pretty significant troubleshooting. What motivated this person to move from a computer infant to a self-motivated capable user? It seems to be the desire to use Facebook.
I wonder if there is some way to harness the power of this popular social networking site to somehow relate the power of new ideas in education to participating parents.
Great post.
That’s a good idea Kent to get a parent movement going in Facebook.
I think that just in the way that youth are leading educators in the digital learning revolution, they will lead by their learning choices also. These choices will become easier to make, as variety, accessibility,ubiquity and technology proliferate. Youth will leave mainstream education behind regardless of parental input, and they will self organise.
It’s a matter of timing and alignment of the necessary pieces.
I wonder…do we need to teach them to self-organize in effective ways, or will they really do that on their own? And the better question, what could they accomplish if we did teach them?
great post. . . I would agree that there is a certain leap of faith parents need to take. Maybe they don’t trust the educators who are promoting this move? There is something comforting and Norman Rockweller-ish about seeing the teacher standing in front of the kids teaching while the students nod and listen.
Learning what is really behind the education system can help – John Taylor Gatto is a good read, “Dumbing Us Down” and “Weapons of Mass Instruction”. And once your parents have read those, hand them, “College Without High School” by Blake Boles- start even earlier and skip the highschool blues altogther!
I got here from a twitter convo and glad I did. Just to add my $.02. The history of disruptive innovation makes it pretty clear that disruptive as opposed to additive innovations take root at the bottom of the pyramid in a previously un served population.
The problem at the top and middle of the pyramid is that the safe way thing to do is what was done before. It’s only natural. In the States the natural space for DIY U and others to grow to the strength needed to re invent education is probably at the HS dropout factories and the community colleges. It’s pretty clear that what they are doing is not working while the costs continue to grow.
The reality is that at the very, very top of the pyramid we find rigorous homeschooling, wonderful private schools and other ways to ensure that kids get just the right edu to live good lives. I think it’s fair to say that the top tier colleges also provide an pretty good environment.
The problem is the 85% of “higher Ed” that charges top tier prices while delivering little more than training for most of their students. An interesting vision of how this might play out is described by the National Association of Scholars at http://ilnk.me/NAS
The pontentially good news is that the Obama education policy seems to be focused precisely at the 5000 hs dropout factories and Community Colleges in the States
the kids teaching while the students nod and listen,will they really do that on their own?
they will lead by their learning choices alsothe class for questioning on a facebook site that had been established by a student of our school who titled the facebook group-Let’s get rid of student D and make her move to a new school!
I see eye to eye with you.Traditional schooling is a threat specially when it’s taken to extremes.Howevere,I believe that a more pacifist approach to handle the problem “traditional schooling” is to slowly instill in educators,parents,and students the idea that online leaarning or the integration of technology is “an opportunity” rather than “a threat”.Besides, proper orientation about the advantages of “networkted study” to both parents and students,and advocating the importance of the educator’s role as a facilitator would greatly help in rapidly and radically changing the educational stereotype of our society.
Rasha,
My thought is that “slowly instill in educators,parents,and students the idea that online leaarning or the integration of technology is “an opportunity†rather than “a threat— will take quite a long time at the middle of the pyramid.
The real threat is the unknown. I don’t think any words can mitigate that threat for parents who see that the present approach, with all of it’s problems, is the safest way to go.
The more plausible path, I think, is to focus at the bottom of the pyramid. For them the threat is crystal clear. At Bottom of the Pyramid dropout factories in the States, it can be literally a matter of life or prison.
Even if any particular kid doesn’t wind up dead or in jail the threat of the possiblity is real to every parent in those communities.
My point is that in the face of that threat and now with the new government focus at the BoP, the most likely place for Tipping Point growth is precisely in Detroit, Baltimore, Newark South Central Los Angeles, and the 5000 indentified drop out factories in the States.
Greetings from New Zealand!
Once again, I refer your readers to http://bit.ly/bMHHlV to read a quite thorough and thoughtful treatise on these issues originally published in 1996.
Interesting…..the world has changed so much in a relatively short period of time. Parents find comfort in what they know. What they know is the “traditional classroomâ€. This is a place where children sit in a classroom listening as the teacher stands in the front of the classroom lecturing. The unknown is scary for most…… There is so much gain once we do away with those fears.
All discussions of power eventually lead back to Michel Foucault. Foucault argues that discourse constructs the topic. It defines and produces the objects of our knowledge. It conditions the ways a topic can be discussed and reasoned. The discourse of “traditional” schooling IS schooling. To discuss alternative understandings of school means to invent new language, new historical memory.
Student A just held her return button down in the chat function which caused the repetition of her name,The pontentially good news is that the Obama education policy seems to be focused precisely at the 5000 hs dropout factories and Community Colleges in the States
I keep hearing this, but as a parent myself, and along with every single parent I know, absolutely none of us are content with traditional education.
I think there’s two key pieces that are being underrepresented.
1) Lots of parents would withdraw their kids from school if they had the money to do so. With primary education being a substitute for daycare for many, there is a great disincentive for parents to get out of the system.
2) The social aspect of school is, in my opinion, more important than the education delivered. Some home schooled children have a different way of working with others, mostly because they have been socialized in a different way. That’s not to say that all home schooled children are awkward socially, but for some this is an additional challenge. Now, with the web becoming much more social, I wonder if the web can support that? Or will it be different?
Jon K,
Just want to chime in with an Amen!
Especially “2) The social aspect of school is, in my opinion, more important than the education delivered.”
I think there exists much data that suggests that the marginal value add of education has always negligible for a mass market. The inability to recognize this inconvenient truth makes it very hard for educators to take a clear look at how to get to efficient delivery of education services.
My take is that the truly disruptive force is a new reality for what a “family” means. As it continues to be possible for women to earn their own incomes, this is a secular trend. As new forms of accommodation to this reality emerge education can move forward to a new value add – actually helping teaching masses of people to think.
It’s a new task that will require new forms of much more efficient staffing, and much less value created by the legacy physical plant. As the Vice President said about Health Care, it’s a BFD.