When I talk about the education issue that I believe is the most critical, I almost expect to have a drumroll before and a cymbal crash after. But the words are anticlimactic, and I haven't come up with a phrase that matches, in a soundbite, the monumental nature of the change I want. I call it this: "Respect the wishes and needs of children." I also call it this: "Teach children what they most want to know." Or: "Seek the passions (gifts, strengths) of every child, then help him or her pursue them."
Since we've been parents, my husband and I have been fascinated by the issue of authority: what it is that bestows it on one person or a group of people, and how it is used. Adults have a position of natural authority over children, and that is appropriate. Adults are the guides and protectors of children. But why does authority sometimes morph to authoritarianism? What is the difference? We as adults come by our authority over children through our age and experience, and also through the love we have for them. Why turn that into the baseball bat of authoritarianism?
My father frequently quotes his own father, with great irony and derision, "Children should be seen and not heard." The natural authority of a parent can take a wrong turn to authoritarianism, but why? Because we fear losing it. Dictators have the same problem. We fear what will go wrong if you clear the way for those subordinate to you, open a path where they can roam freely.
But if you were not a dictator, why would your subjects rebel against you?
Allowing children to pursue their passions, exposing them to new things, providing a wonderful candy store of ideas and places and people and giving them everything they need to select what makes them happy: how is that giving up our authority? You don't lose anything when you respect the wishes and needs of children. You gain their returned respect. The great guru of attachment parenting, Dr. Sears, said it this way: "When you meet the primal needs of children, they will respect your authority, because they want to please you." Forgive the paraphrase. It's not a sentiment I've ever forgotten.
That is the first task of the educator. Once that two-way respect is established, you have something else, too: trust. The trusting relationship between those in authority and their subordinates makes that division nearly superfluous. Students will obey teachers out of respect. Teachers respect students for their own ideas, strengths and passions, and because the act of teaching nourishes them. It's a circle; without that respect and trust at every point, the circle gets broken and education stops.
But -- how can I say that? That is tantamount to claiming that no education takes place in our schools right now. Do I go so far as to say that teachers aren't teaching and kids aren't learning? Not completely. There is as much learning going on as can be under the despotic rule over what is taught, and how. We can see very clearly the various ways that an imposed curriculum fails to engage, and disengaged children fail to succeed.
We need schools where the quest to fulfill the passions of each child is the first task, the next task, and the last task. It may not fit on a bumper sticker, but it should be ready on our lips: above all else, respect the wishes and needs of children.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Guest blogger: A Student's Thoughts about Modern Education
by Francesca Davies
In a modern classroom, students are at their desks, most of the day. As a student myself I personally think that teachers are being “forced” to teach students too much. What I am saying might be completely nonsensical in every way, but this is what I think.
I don't know much about education (but I do know some since my mother is interested in this herself) but I do know what I have seen sitting in a classroom myself. I see that children are bored and want to do what they want to do. If what they want to learn about how a gun works, shouldn't they be able to? I have a wonderful teacher, and I go to a wonderful school, but I have had one not-so-good teacher in the past. It was not that she was a bad teacher as such, but she did everything exactly how the textbook said to teach it.
On the back of my report cards are all of the things that I “have” to learn this year. And I literally gasp in horror when I saw the list! Three-fourths of the things on that list we haven't even gone through yet, and it's halfway through the year! That means that we will not be able to learn half of that in this year unless we try to cram way to many things into one six hour school day! That means that going into next year 5th graders (my grade) will not be fully prepared for middle school next year because those teachers will probably be planning their lessons to what 5th graders where supposed to learn the year before! If this continues throughout high school then (most likely) there will be more drop-outs! And that means that less and less students will get a good college education and a good job after that. Well, to be honest, when I get to high school my mother will have probably changed the model, but until then what's going to happen?
I don't like it when a teacher says to a student, “You have to learn it!” because nobody has to learn anything, right? I don't really like science very much, so I don't really participate in science conversations. I think the reason I don't is because in another grade we did “textbook science” every day for at least 30 minutes. I didn't like that one bit. We never got outside and looked for things in nature, we never did experiments, we just sat at our tables and read. I'm more of a hands-on person, so I hated that. But I know some who loved doing that because you didn't have to do any real work! And some who liked reading the books and gathering up the facts, but not me.
All right, now you can go on to more researched, more professional writings, but when you're rearranging schools, please think about the things I've said here.
In a modern classroom, students are at their desks, most of the day. As a student myself I personally think that teachers are being “forced” to teach students too much. What I am saying might be completely nonsensical in every way, but this is what I think.
I don't know much about education (but I do know some since my mother is interested in this herself) but I do know what I have seen sitting in a classroom myself. I see that children are bored and want to do what they want to do. If what they want to learn about how a gun works, shouldn't they be able to? I have a wonderful teacher, and I go to a wonderful school, but I have had one not-so-good teacher in the past. It was not that she was a bad teacher as such, but she did everything exactly how the textbook said to teach it.
On the back of my report cards are all of the things that I “have” to learn this year. And I literally gasp in horror when I saw the list! Three-fourths of the things on that list we haven't even gone through yet, and it's halfway through the year! That means that we will not be able to learn half of that in this year unless we try to cram way to many things into one six hour school day! That means that going into next year 5th graders (my grade) will not be fully prepared for middle school next year because those teachers will probably be planning their lessons to what 5th graders where supposed to learn the year before! If this continues throughout high school then (most likely) there will be more drop-outs! And that means that less and less students will get a good college education and a good job after that. Well, to be honest, when I get to high school my mother will have probably changed the model, but until then what's going to happen?
I don't like it when a teacher says to a student, “You have to learn it!” because nobody has to learn anything, right? I don't really like science very much, so I don't really participate in science conversations. I think the reason I don't is because in another grade we did “textbook science” every day for at least 30 minutes. I didn't like that one bit. We never got outside and looked for things in nature, we never did experiments, we just sat at our tables and read. I'm more of a hands-on person, so I hated that. But I know some who loved doing that because you didn't have to do any real work! And some who liked reading the books and gathering up the facts, but not me.
All right, now you can go on to more researched, more professional writings, but when you're rearranging schools, please think about the things I've said here.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
We can fix public education
What is the "Industrial Model of Education?"
There are two reasons why the term Industrial Model of Education aptly describes what goes on in most American public schools. First, it implies that schools are factories, providing students with approved knowledge, during programmed time-periods, tested in standard ways. This regurgitation of knowledge will receive a grade, which will measure, individually and collectively, the factory's performance.
The second reason the expression works is that this model of education that so dominates our schools was created during a time when our society needed a broad base of people to do manual, blue-collar work, a smaller group for administrative work, and a tiny group that will run the world for us: the doctors, the lawyers, the business executives. In this model, those who could learn and succeed at verbal/logical/ mathematical areas rose to the top and went to college and beyond. Those who did not succeed in these areas — those whose strengths lay in other areas of human endeavor — learned what they could and got those blue-collar jobs, which were both plentiful and reasonably well-paid.
Our culture has idealized this system, especially for that small group at the top. We have come to think of their high-quality schooling as the "right" model for education. But, did it ever work for the majority of students? No. But, they graduated, found jobs, raised families. There was no strong social pressure to change the model, so it continued, and is now as firmly in place as if it was cast in stone.
If that idealized system ever did work, it does no longer. The world looks different. The future is uncertain. The jobs have disappeared. Survival after graduation (or after dropping out) is a huge question mark in the minds of today's students. They can no longer survive with an inadequate education.
Why does the industrial model produce so many kids who can barely read or do simple math, are unaware of history or geography and scientifically illiterate?
From deficits to strengths
I believe that in the industrial model, children are seen as little walking deficits. Needing what the schools have, they open their little baby bird mouths and teachers push knowledge in.
Except that unlike the little birds, children soon stop clamoring for it. They often become jaded about education. Their failure to succeed either becomes internalized in self-blame, or directed outward in hostility — emotions that are quietly felt as much as they are noisily expressed.
What would happen if we regarded children as little walking strengths, and our job as adults, teachers, friends of children, was to focus on the child and find out what his or her strengths are? What would public education look like, if that was where it began?
As long as we ignore the strengths, the desires, the wishes and the needs of children; as long as we regard children as incomplete people who can only be made complete by the pouring in of information, children will — to greater or lesser degree — give up on school. Why not? School gave up on them.
To all of us who grew up in the world of school defined by the industrial model, it might seem impossible that we could ever so radically change the focus of schools. In a class of 25 children, who has the time? How could we hire that many people? How could we satisfy the testing and other requirements that the school district has to fulfill? It sounds like pandemonium.
But the fact is that it can be done — and need not be nearly as expensive or difficult as most people think. The hard part is to shift the driving force of education from the adults to the children. The methods exist. The ways and means are being improved on, and tailored to individual schools, as we speak. All we have to do is make that change in our schools.
Motivation is critical.
Adults believe they know what children need to do, to learn, and to understand. Kids will readily admit that their teachers are more mature, and know more things. But do they believe those things are worth learning?
Students simply don't trust that they need the "stuff" that we tell them they should know (and often they are right — how often to we really question the curriculum?). This is where the institutional lack of regard for children's wishes and needs acts as a crowbar stuck in the gears. Find what children want to learn and they are all over it. They'll be guided by us when going in the direction they want to go; on the way, they'll be much more willing to take on what we need them to learn, and they will learn it well. To get respect, you have to give respect.
That means giving over of control of education from adults to children themselves. It requires us to take a leap of faith. If we set up a system of educational choices, respect the needs of kids to learn, to play, to experience, to work on what is most meaningful to them, they will ultimately learn the lessons we adults believe are important. At first glance this seems to be a frightfully big leap of faith, but it really isn't; it is the distance between the welding rod and the metal: set it up right and the arc will strike.
All children have an equal ability to grow intelligence.
With very few exceptions, we are all born with the same equipment for growing intelligence: a working brain. We hear this statement made a lot. Do we really believe it? If so, then our education system has to be grounded in the fact that all children are gifted, all have strengths, passions and deep abiding interests.
If we begin with the basic assumption that all children are gifted, then the mission of school is to find those gifts in all children, and do what needs to be done to develop it.
Celebrate the learning process.
Research tells us that the attainment of understanding and mastery comes in part from the struggle against the edges of our ability. This is when the brain works hardest to rewire the circuits that govern new skills and new understandings; it is why students sometimes learn faster in a class full of more advanced students. A spark of motivation, expert teaching and deliberate practice are the necessary components in the building of neural circuitry.
That means that struggle — and the attendant frustration — is a vital part of learning. Struggle is the essential component of smart; without it, smart cannot grow. However, frustration is very hard to manage in traditional classrooms, so the industrial model avoids it. A struggling student might be referred for tutoring, given more homework, become a discipline problem, or receive a failing grade -- when all that child was doing was learning. Children often simply do not believe that they are all equal in their ability to grow skills and talent! How many students feel frustration and conclude that they are not smart enough for the task at hand?
Struggle should not be equated with failure. Every person of awe-inspiring talent tells the same story of the thousands of hours spent working on their skills, often in the deliberate practice that builds both frustration and mastery. Children can come to understand what the brain does, how it works, and how the frustration can be managed. They can remind themselves of what they are able to do now that they weren't before, and can work to impress even themselves with their own abilities.
We need change our conception of school from a place where we demand right answers to a place where we learn to ask questions and take risks as we move toward discovery. This requires a shift in focus from the product of student work to the process undergone to produce it.
How do we do it?
In Sao Paulo, Brazil there is a small school where they engage in a model of teaching and learning called Lifelike Pedagogy. The basis for Lifelike Pedagogy is a respect for the wishes and needs of children that equals the respect that we, as adults, insist upon. The teachers there ask that we...
Through a democratic process, children in this school pick a topic, a theme to be explored. They figure out how to go about exploring it. They investigate, and pull together ideas for an activity that will build their understanding of the topic. Then they go about doing what needs to be done to accomplish the activity. If funds need to be raised for a field trip or a play, for example, they figure out a way to raise the funds. All the obstacles that exist in the world when trying to accomplish something become evident to the students, who do what they can to solve them
.
In order to make the field trip the best possible experience, they learn all they can about it before they embark -- read, research, work on skills, or share information. The teachers act as guides and facilitators, but the work itself is entirely done by children. The big day arrives and the excitement of the children to see the object of their hard work and study knows no bounds!
This is not a new method of teaching, and it isn’t unique. What’s striking about this model is the dedication with which it holds children’s needs and passions at its center. It could never be lost in the shuffle of day-to-day school administration because it is the foundation of the school’s work.
We know of this method by various names: project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, the Project Approach, the Reggio Emilia approach. Here in Maine, the King Middle School in Portland is an Expeditionary Learning school, another variation of project-based learning. The method centers on a real-life concept, situation, circumstance and the development of an essential question that the students will seek to answer over the course of the project. The work often results in a culminating event that involves the public. In all these methods, student choice of the topic of study and even their role in participating, is central.
In pursuing an investigation and encountering real-life problems to solve along the way, children are engaged in what they want most: study that has meaning to their lives. The breadth and depth of areas of information and problem-solving covered in the model depend on each project. Those of us raised in the industrial model might worry that critical areas of information are not “covered” in this model, but remember, real-life circumstances require that we read, write, do math, interpret, analyze, research, and propose solutions. The difference is that these areas of endeavor are connected to something that has meaning to the students.
When doing projects, children encounter areas where their skills are inadequate to grasp concepts or perform certain tasks. In the industrial model, this is when they would flunk, act out, or go to summer school. But now, their own interest in what they're trying to do makes skill-building worthwhile for them. In one new model, called Rocketship Education, there are blocks of time dedicated to Science/Math and Language Arts/Social Studies, where students are engaged in ongoing projects. Then there is a period of every day, 100 minutes long, called Learning Lab. This is where each child works on those skills needed in order to participate in projects. Online learning, independent reading, math skills, writing, and so on, are practiced in Learning Lab, with each child working on those activities he or she needs most.
The standards-based system.
Project-based learning is not the only key to improving schools. For it to work, we need to incorporate a flexibility in the classroom that cannot be done in a system that moves batches of 20 kids through the same information at the same time.
Curriculum standards are a system of concepts, facts or skills, organized so that the achievement of one standard leads to the next, more advanced standard. When a class works on a project together, they each take on the most challenging task for them (hence, a class full of kids working to the edges of their abilities.)
Occasionally a group at the same level might work together regardless of age; when doing a different task, the group might look entirely different. Great opportunities for students open up when introducing this level of flexibility. Kids can have the chance to work with more advanced kids; he or she can also have the opportunity to be the one at a more advanced level, able to help teach.
When a child runs into difficulties with a concept or skill, the class doesn’t move on, leaving him behind. In a skill-building block such as the Learning Lab described above, or with a group of kids at a similar level, a child can have the time needed to struggle through the process of learning. Success is built upon success. The level at which he or she learns is respected.
In a world where the teacher no longer holds a monopoly on information, we need to teach kids to cast a critical eye on what they see, hear or read. With this system, students learn both a broad spectrum of concepts, skills or information in a variety of disciplines, and a depth of understanding in the things that interest them most. We we can produce kids who are able to sort through and distinguish between truth and fiction, sense and nonsense.
The time is now.
We are far from that idealized world where schools seemed to give us all we needed to succeed in life. Our children will face more difficulties than we can readily identify. Whether they leave our schools to change the world, or simply to raise a family and be good community members, they need to have a entrepreneurial spirit: an ability to look about them and find, from whatever opportunities they see or can create for themselves, a way to survive, or even thrive.
The failure of the industrial model of education is painfully obvious. While the system itself is no longer useful, that is not true of those individuals who work with our students. Those who devote their time, their skills and their caring to the education of our children deserve a system that allows them to succeed. Our communities are full of people who are dedicated and energetic. Let us use the resources we have to create schools that are cared for by our communities and loved by every one of our children.
There are two reasons why the term Industrial Model of Education aptly describes what goes on in most American public schools. First, it implies that schools are factories, providing students with approved knowledge, during programmed time-periods, tested in standard ways. This regurgitation of knowledge will receive a grade, which will measure, individually and collectively, the factory's performance.
The second reason the expression works is that this model of education that so dominates our schools was created during a time when our society needed a broad base of people to do manual, blue-collar work, a smaller group for administrative work, and a tiny group that will run the world for us: the doctors, the lawyers, the business executives. In this model, those who could learn and succeed at verbal/logical/ mathematical areas rose to the top and went to college and beyond. Those who did not succeed in these areas — those whose strengths lay in other areas of human endeavor — learned what they could and got those blue-collar jobs, which were both plentiful and reasonably well-paid.
Our culture has idealized this system, especially for that small group at the top. We have come to think of their high-quality schooling as the "right" model for education. But, did it ever work for the majority of students? No. But, they graduated, found jobs, raised families. There was no strong social pressure to change the model, so it continued, and is now as firmly in place as if it was cast in stone.
If that idealized system ever did work, it does no longer. The world looks different. The future is uncertain. The jobs have disappeared. Survival after graduation (or after dropping out) is a huge question mark in the minds of today's students. They can no longer survive with an inadequate education.
Why does the industrial model produce so many kids who can barely read or do simple math, are unaware of history or geography and scientifically illiterate?
From deficits to strengths
I believe that in the industrial model, children are seen as little walking deficits. Needing what the schools have, they open their little baby bird mouths and teachers push knowledge in.
Except that unlike the little birds, children soon stop clamoring for it. They often become jaded about education. Their failure to succeed either becomes internalized in self-blame, or directed outward in hostility — emotions that are quietly felt as much as they are noisily expressed.
What would happen if we regarded children as little walking strengths, and our job as adults, teachers, friends of children, was to focus on the child and find out what his or her strengths are? What would public education look like, if that was where it began?
As long as we ignore the strengths, the desires, the wishes and the needs of children; as long as we regard children as incomplete people who can only be made complete by the pouring in of information, children will — to greater or lesser degree — give up on school. Why not? School gave up on them.
To all of us who grew up in the world of school defined by the industrial model, it might seem impossible that we could ever so radically change the focus of schools. In a class of 25 children, who has the time? How could we hire that many people? How could we satisfy the testing and other requirements that the school district has to fulfill? It sounds like pandemonium.
But the fact is that it can be done — and need not be nearly as expensive or difficult as most people think. The hard part is to shift the driving force of education from the adults to the children. The methods exist. The ways and means are being improved on, and tailored to individual schools, as we speak. All we have to do is make that change in our schools.
Motivation is critical.
Adults believe they know what children need to do, to learn, and to understand. Kids will readily admit that their teachers are more mature, and know more things. But do they believe those things are worth learning?
Students simply don't trust that they need the "stuff" that we tell them they should know (and often they are right — how often to we really question the curriculum?). This is where the institutional lack of regard for children's wishes and needs acts as a crowbar stuck in the gears. Find what children want to learn and they are all over it. They'll be guided by us when going in the direction they want to go; on the way, they'll be much more willing to take on what we need them to learn, and they will learn it well. To get respect, you have to give respect.
That means giving over of control of education from adults to children themselves. It requires us to take a leap of faith. If we set up a system of educational choices, respect the needs of kids to learn, to play, to experience, to work on what is most meaningful to them, they will ultimately learn the lessons we adults believe are important. At first glance this seems to be a frightfully big leap of faith, but it really isn't; it is the distance between the welding rod and the metal: set it up right and the arc will strike.
All children have an equal ability to grow intelligence.
With very few exceptions, we are all born with the same equipment for growing intelligence: a working brain. We hear this statement made a lot. Do we really believe it? If so, then our education system has to be grounded in the fact that all children are gifted, all have strengths, passions and deep abiding interests.
If we begin with the basic assumption that all children are gifted, then the mission of school is to find those gifts in all children, and do what needs to be done to develop it.
Celebrate the learning process.
Research tells us that the attainment of understanding and mastery comes in part from the struggle against the edges of our ability. This is when the brain works hardest to rewire the circuits that govern new skills and new understandings; it is why students sometimes learn faster in a class full of more advanced students. A spark of motivation, expert teaching and deliberate practice are the necessary components in the building of neural circuitry.
That means that struggle — and the attendant frustration — is a vital part of learning. Struggle is the essential component of smart; without it, smart cannot grow. However, frustration is very hard to manage in traditional classrooms, so the industrial model avoids it. A struggling student might be referred for tutoring, given more homework, become a discipline problem, or receive a failing grade -- when all that child was doing was learning. Children often simply do not believe that they are all equal in their ability to grow skills and talent! How many students feel frustration and conclude that they are not smart enough for the task at hand?
Struggle should not be equated with failure. Every person of awe-inspiring talent tells the same story of the thousands of hours spent working on their skills, often in the deliberate practice that builds both frustration and mastery. Children can come to understand what the brain does, how it works, and how the frustration can be managed. They can remind themselves of what they are able to do now that they weren't before, and can work to impress even themselves with their own abilities.
We need change our conception of school from a place where we demand right answers to a place where we learn to ask questions and take risks as we move toward discovery. This requires a shift in focus from the product of student work to the process undergone to produce it.
How do we do it?
In Sao Paulo, Brazil there is a small school where they engage in a model of teaching and learning called Lifelike Pedagogy. The basis for Lifelike Pedagogy is a respect for the wishes and needs of children that equals the respect that we, as adults, insist upon. The teachers there ask that we...
think as a child. What are your interests? The child needs to laugh, to dream, to fool around, to test the adults, to construct, to deconstruct, to investigate… The child needs all this and also the respect from parents and teachers for his feelings and actions.
Through a democratic process, children in this school pick a topic, a theme to be explored. They figure out how to go about exploring it. They investigate, and pull together ideas for an activity that will build their understanding of the topic. Then they go about doing what needs to be done to accomplish the activity. If funds need to be raised for a field trip or a play, for example, they figure out a way to raise the funds. All the obstacles that exist in the world when trying to accomplish something become evident to the students, who do what they can to solve them
.
In order to make the field trip the best possible experience, they learn all they can about it before they embark -- read, research, work on skills, or share information. The teachers act as guides and facilitators, but the work itself is entirely done by children. The big day arrives and the excitement of the children to see the object of their hard work and study knows no bounds!
This is not a new method of teaching, and it isn’t unique. What’s striking about this model is the dedication with which it holds children’s needs and passions at its center. It could never be lost in the shuffle of day-to-day school administration because it is the foundation of the school’s work.
We know of this method by various names: project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, the Project Approach, the Reggio Emilia approach. Here in Maine, the King Middle School in Portland is an Expeditionary Learning school, another variation of project-based learning. The method centers on a real-life concept, situation, circumstance and the development of an essential question that the students will seek to answer over the course of the project. The work often results in a culminating event that involves the public. In all these methods, student choice of the topic of study and even their role in participating, is central.
In pursuing an investigation and encountering real-life problems to solve along the way, children are engaged in what they want most: study that has meaning to their lives. The breadth and depth of areas of information and problem-solving covered in the model depend on each project. Those of us raised in the industrial model might worry that critical areas of information are not “covered” in this model, but remember, real-life circumstances require that we read, write, do math, interpret, analyze, research, and propose solutions. The difference is that these areas of endeavor are connected to something that has meaning to the students.
When doing projects, children encounter areas where their skills are inadequate to grasp concepts or perform certain tasks. In the industrial model, this is when they would flunk, act out, or go to summer school. But now, their own interest in what they're trying to do makes skill-building worthwhile for them. In one new model, called Rocketship Education, there are blocks of time dedicated to Science/Math and Language Arts/Social Studies, where students are engaged in ongoing projects. Then there is a period of every day, 100 minutes long, called Learning Lab. This is where each child works on those skills needed in order to participate in projects. Online learning, independent reading, math skills, writing, and so on, are practiced in Learning Lab, with each child working on those activities he or she needs most.
The standards-based system.
Project-based learning is not the only key to improving schools. For it to work, we need to incorporate a flexibility in the classroom that cannot be done in a system that moves batches of 20 kids through the same information at the same time.
Curriculum standards are a system of concepts, facts or skills, organized so that the achievement of one standard leads to the next, more advanced standard. When a class works on a project together, they each take on the most challenging task for them (hence, a class full of kids working to the edges of their abilities.)
Occasionally a group at the same level might work together regardless of age; when doing a different task, the group might look entirely different. Great opportunities for students open up when introducing this level of flexibility. Kids can have the chance to work with more advanced kids; he or she can also have the opportunity to be the one at a more advanced level, able to help teach.
When a child runs into difficulties with a concept or skill, the class doesn’t move on, leaving him behind. In a skill-building block such as the Learning Lab described above, or with a group of kids at a similar level, a child can have the time needed to struggle through the process of learning. Success is built upon success. The level at which he or she learns is respected.
In a world where the teacher no longer holds a monopoly on information, we need to teach kids to cast a critical eye on what they see, hear or read. With this system, students learn both a broad spectrum of concepts, skills or information in a variety of disciplines, and a depth of understanding in the things that interest them most. We we can produce kids who are able to sort through and distinguish between truth and fiction, sense and nonsense.
The time is now.
We are far from that idealized world where schools seemed to give us all we needed to succeed in life. Our children will face more difficulties than we can readily identify. Whether they leave our schools to change the world, or simply to raise a family and be good community members, they need to have a entrepreneurial spirit: an ability to look about them and find, from whatever opportunities they see or can create for themselves, a way to survive, or even thrive.
The failure of the industrial model of education is painfully obvious. While the system itself is no longer useful, that is not true of those individuals who work with our students. Those who devote their time, their skills and their caring to the education of our children deserve a system that allows them to succeed. Our communities are full of people who are dedicated and energetic. Let us use the resources we have to create schools that are cared for by our communities and loved by every one of our children.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
My proposal to the board and community
Tonight the BOD meets to commence the process of determining of we should close a school. What follows is a handout I have prepared, followed by some remarks I will make.
The "Third Option"
from Lisa Cooley, MSAD 3 Board Member from Jackson
Tonight's meeting is being held begin the discussion of something that is unpleasant to all here: the possibility that MSAD 3 will have to close a school. We all know that schools are the heart of any community; it can never be agreeable do to such a thing. Financial constraints have dictated that we must have this discussion.
I would like to propose that we change the debate from, "Should we reconfigure our elementary schools?" to "how can we change the education we offer to something that is both more efficient and more effective?" If we have a building that is being underused and therefore bears a per-pupil cost that is becoming unsustainable, let's create something that uses our money more productively.
Traditional schooling has been handed down to us from educational philosophies many decades old. The world we are sending our kids into is very different. While our ideas on education have changed with the times, the basic school model is the same. It is not possible to be as effective as we can be in responding to the new needs of our children in the traditional model. So let's change it.
The world of education innovation has been generating school models that are exciting, have proven themselves to be effective in terms of an increase in student engagement and a high level of achievement, and are thoroughly attainable here in MSAD 3.
Let's decide not to close a school. Let's decide to open a pilot school that draws students from the whole district, created from one of these new models. Central to the school's structure would be the authentic learning experiences made possible through project-based learning. Also embedded in the structure could be online learning opportunities; "standards-based" measures of achievement; opportunities for a collaborative and rewarding environment for teachers; and based on a thorough respect for the needs and wishes of children.
In addition, a couple of the promising models I have researched have incorporated cost-savings into their structure, by utilizing flexible (and very imaginative) scheduling and incorporating online learning into the individualized learning plans for all students. (Online learning is effective, even at the elementary school level, not only in preparing kids for the online world, but making available many different forms of learning and new ways of exploring subject matter.)
All I ask tonight is that we consider this option as we move forward.
There are as many obstacles to doing this as there are reasons to take the plunge, but I believe in the collective intelligence and ability to innovate and create solutions that we have here in this district. I hope this will be the start of many discussions, arguments, collective chair-throwing.
and group hugs.
Thanks for coming tonight.
Further remarks:
The fact is that none of us in this room know the true costs of educating the students of MSAD 3. We do know that for the amount of money the state and our towns are pouring into it, this traditional model of schooling is yielding far greater failures than we should be comfortable with. I also believe that there are few school districts willing to face this head-on.
Here is the concept I'd like us all to consider: that by responding to the needs of today's kids by overlaying new educational necessities on top of this old, outmoded model, we are not only failing to serve our kids, but it is very likely that we are spending too much money.
I've been a student of the PBL model for almost ten years, and I'm a little mystified at how we can do PBL in an environment where the day is still divided into 42-minute periods segregated by content area. But we have to; we acknowledge the efficacy of PBL in engaging students and providing a rigorous learning experience, so we squeeze it into our model. The current model was designed for a teacher standing in front of the class delivering content to children like a mama bird feeds chicks -- disgorging her stored food and poking it into the anxious mouths of her babies. Certainly this is not true of some of our classrooms now, but that is the mode of education for which the traditional model was designed.
The more we distort the old model with needed innovations and necessary alterations, the farther from we get from a true idea of how much the education of children costs.
The "Third Option"
from Lisa Cooley, MSAD 3 Board Member from Jackson
Tonight's meeting is being held begin the discussion of something that is unpleasant to all here: the possibility that MSAD 3 will have to close a school. We all know that schools are the heart of any community; it can never be agreeable do to such a thing. Financial constraints have dictated that we must have this discussion.
I would like to propose that we change the debate from, "Should we reconfigure our elementary schools?" to "how can we change the education we offer to something that is both more efficient and more effective?" If we have a building that is being underused and therefore bears a per-pupil cost that is becoming unsustainable, let's create something that uses our money more productively.
Traditional schooling has been handed down to us from educational philosophies many decades old. The world we are sending our kids into is very different. While our ideas on education have changed with the times, the basic school model is the same. It is not possible to be as effective as we can be in responding to the new needs of our children in the traditional model. So let's change it.
The world of education innovation has been generating school models that are exciting, have proven themselves to be effective in terms of an increase in student engagement and a high level of achievement, and are thoroughly attainable here in MSAD 3.
Let's decide not to close a school. Let's decide to open a pilot school that draws students from the whole district, created from one of these new models. Central to the school's structure would be the authentic learning experiences made possible through project-based learning. Also embedded in the structure could be online learning opportunities; "standards-based" measures of achievement; opportunities for a collaborative and rewarding environment for teachers; and based on a thorough respect for the needs and wishes of children.
In addition, a couple of the promising models I have researched have incorporated cost-savings into their structure, by utilizing flexible (and very imaginative) scheduling and incorporating online learning into the individualized learning plans for all students. (Online learning is effective, even at the elementary school level, not only in preparing kids for the online world, but making available many different forms of learning and new ways of exploring subject matter.)
All I ask tonight is that we consider this option as we move forward.
There are as many obstacles to doing this as there are reasons to take the plunge, but I believe in the collective intelligence and ability to innovate and create solutions that we have here in this district. I hope this will be the start of many discussions, arguments, collective chair-throwing.
and group hugs.
Thanks for coming tonight.
Further remarks:
The fact is that none of us in this room know the true costs of educating the students of MSAD 3. We do know that for the amount of money the state and our towns are pouring into it, this traditional model of schooling is yielding far greater failures than we should be comfortable with. I also believe that there are few school districts willing to face this head-on.
Here is the concept I'd like us all to consider: that by responding to the needs of today's kids by overlaying new educational necessities on top of this old, outmoded model, we are not only failing to serve our kids, but it is very likely that we are spending too much money.
I've been a student of the PBL model for almost ten years, and I'm a little mystified at how we can do PBL in an environment where the day is still divided into 42-minute periods segregated by content area. But we have to; we acknowledge the efficacy of PBL in engaging students and providing a rigorous learning experience, so we squeeze it into our model. The current model was designed for a teacher standing in front of the class delivering content to children like a mama bird feeds chicks -- disgorging her stored food and poking it into the anxious mouths of her babies. Certainly this is not true of some of our classrooms now, but that is the mode of education for which the traditional model was designed.
The more we distort the old model with needed innovations and necessary alterations, the farther from we get from a true idea of how much the education of children costs.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Middle school schedule
I haven't posted in awhile...I'll just note today that the MS has changed its schedule. The periods are now 40 minutes long -- slightly shorter than last year -- to make room for "pride time." I'm not sure what "pride time" is. It just seems ridiculous to me. What the schedule needs is not "pride time" at the expense of class time. Not that I'm so enamoured of how the classes are run that I regret the cutting of a couple of minutes, but "pride time?" You want kids to have pride in their school? Engage them. Give them a voice. Don't tell them to be proud -- make them proud of themselves and others through their own accomplishments.
In the movie Good Will Hunting, Will gazes at the fruits of traditional education -- a shelf full of scholarly books -- and says, "You people fucking baffle me."
In the movie Good Will Hunting, Will gazes at the fruits of traditional education -- a shelf full of scholarly books -- and says, "You people fucking baffle me."
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Brainology
Teach kids how the brain works and learns? What an idea! When I had my 13-year-old read Talent Code, he changed the way he practiced drums, and his teacher was impressed. I have thought since that if kids knew about how deep practice works, how the brain processes and remembers facts and skills, they'd function much better in school. If they weren't learning something, they could figure out why. If they really, really wanted to learn or master something, they could figure out how.
So I just found out about Brainology, a program available to schools by subscription that teaches just that. It was developed by Carol Dweck, an author whose name often comes up when looking into new brain research and pursuit of achievement, along with Daniel Coyle (Talent Code), Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) and Geoff Colvin (Talent Is Overrated).
I just viewed the sample section and found it cartooney and annoying...but then again, I'm an adult, so what do I know? If it effectively teaches and follows up on kids' application of the lessons, I will discount the annoyance factor.
I think it's a great idea. How can having a greater knowledge fail?
So I just found out about Brainology, a program available to schools by subscription that teaches just that. It was developed by Carol Dweck, an author whose name often comes up when looking into new brain research and pursuit of achievement, along with Daniel Coyle (Talent Code), Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) and Geoff Colvin (Talent Is Overrated).
I just viewed the sample section and found it cartooney and annoying...but then again, I'm an adult, so what do I know? If it effectively teaches and follows up on kids' application of the lessons, I will discount the annoyance factor.
I think it's a great idea. How can having a greater knowledge fail?
"Hybrid" education
I found a statement on a blog recently that sounded so ridiculously overblown that I set about looking into it. If it could be proved true, I'd be all over it. If it was just a bit of overstated hubris, then I'm back where I started, ready to find someone else making a similar statement, or think up the solution myself. Here was the statement, in my own words:
"If project-based learning is done school-wide, then it costs less than traditional education."
What?
I asked for clarification of the blogger, but didn't really receive any details. My own view has always been that if you teach kids what they want to know, it's more efficiently done. Project-based learning originally appealed to me, as described by observers of the Reggio Emilia model, to be a kind of group way of Unschooling. Give kids an environment rich in ideas, follow where their interest takes them, and skillfully hone projects, as it were, organically.
How could this be cheaper? Well, I don't know yet. But we're always seeing the word "efficiency" bandied about; if something could be done more efficiently, maybe it'd take fewer staff to do it. Something like that. At any rate, I got rather excited by the statement above, but it still stands as something that is unjustified.
The line of inquiry, however, led me to something else. "Hybrid" education; the amalgam of classroom activity and online learning. An organization called Rocketship Education has produced a elementary charter school model that claims to have saved a ton of money by making on 100-minute block each day a "Learning Lab" where kids use all manner of online or software interaction to personalize learning.
I like the idea of saving money, obviously, and I like the idea of personalizing learning, but the online model has heretofore escaped my understanding. Since then I've discussed it a lot with a friend who has been teaching online courses in a number of different models for years and is quite devoted to it. I hate the idea of losing the classroom as a civilization governed and dominated by children, but I have committed myself to learning more about it, even just because those organizations who I look to for leadership in PBL and the new classroom model have also championed online learning.
The thing that saves money in the Rocketship model is that the "Learning Lab" is not overseen by a certified teacher. There are two Literacy/Social Studies blocks, and one Science/Math block, which I imagine would accommodate PBL as well as individualized learning. But each child has an opportunity to address his or her particular challenges and goals in the Learning Lab.
I'm not sure how this can affect my school district, but I think it's worth looking into. What if we take one of the schools we need to close this year and turn it into a Rocketship model school? Could it be done? Would it really save money? Would it show, as it has in the two original charter schools in California, a marked increase in achievement by its students?
Stay tuned.
"If project-based learning is done school-wide, then it costs less than traditional education."
What?
I asked for clarification of the blogger, but didn't really receive any details. My own view has always been that if you teach kids what they want to know, it's more efficiently done. Project-based learning originally appealed to me, as described by observers of the Reggio Emilia model, to be a kind of group way of Unschooling. Give kids an environment rich in ideas, follow where their interest takes them, and skillfully hone projects, as it were, organically.
How could this be cheaper? Well, I don't know yet. But we're always seeing the word "efficiency" bandied about; if something could be done more efficiently, maybe it'd take fewer staff to do it. Something like that. At any rate, I got rather excited by the statement above, but it still stands as something that is unjustified.
The line of inquiry, however, led me to something else. "Hybrid" education; the amalgam of classroom activity and online learning. An organization called Rocketship Education has produced a elementary charter school model that claims to have saved a ton of money by making on 100-minute block each day a "Learning Lab" where kids use all manner of online or software interaction to personalize learning.
I like the idea of saving money, obviously, and I like the idea of personalizing learning, but the online model has heretofore escaped my understanding. Since then I've discussed it a lot with a friend who has been teaching online courses in a number of different models for years and is quite devoted to it. I hate the idea of losing the classroom as a civilization governed and dominated by children, but I have committed myself to learning more about it, even just because those organizations who I look to for leadership in PBL and the new classroom model have also championed online learning.
The thing that saves money in the Rocketship model is that the "Learning Lab" is not overseen by a certified teacher. There are two Literacy/Social Studies blocks, and one Science/Math block, which I imagine would accommodate PBL as well as individualized learning. But each child has an opportunity to address his or her particular challenges and goals in the Learning Lab.
I'm not sure how this can affect my school district, but I think it's worth looking into. What if we take one of the schools we need to close this year and turn it into a Rocketship model school? Could it be done? Would it really save money? Would it show, as it has in the two original charter schools in California, a marked increase in achievement by its students?
Stay tuned.
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