What Was Your Question?

February 12, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

Take a look at this painting:

It probably looks familiar. It’s titled “Washington Crossing the Delaware”, and shows up in any number of history textbooks.

It’s also pretty easy to criticize. First and foremost, why the heck is the General standing up in such a flimsy boat? If it’s the middle of the night, why is the sun coming up (or going down)? Why don’t the people in the boat look like they’re soldiers or at least colleagues? What’s up with the chunks of ice? And did they really put wild horses into tiny rowboats to get them across rivers?

Fair enough, except that those are the wrong questions – or at least… they’re inadequate, if the painting is to be understood.

For example, wondering why the General is standing sets aside the rather glaring reality that this isn’t a photograph or a historical film, it’s a painting. A better question might be why the artist chose to paint the future Father of our Country standing up, and in such a dramatic posture.

Why would the artist incorporate a sunrise (I assure you there are no sundowns where the American Revolution was concerned) in this scene? What statements might he be trying to make through the types of people he’s placed in the boat and their attire?

What message or point was the artist trying to make? It must have taken a long time to paint – surely he had some goal in mind.

Suddenly we have something pretty useful – entry points to understanding the message and value system behind this painting and the circumstances in which it was created. Our paradigm shifts from the frustrating analysis of bad history to the unfolding possibilities of good art. Instead of merely explaining away misinformation, we now have a dozen different directions we could take to learn more or speculate more deeply.

As a bonus, many of those questions lead to some pretty good history. (In case you were worried.)

We just needed to ask different questions.

It happens with stuff that looks far more concrete as well:

Who knew bicycling was so dangerous? How do you get hurt playing golf? What changed between 1991 and 1998 to make volleyball so much safer?

Nothing wrong with any of those questions, but I respectfully suggest a little effort might produce even more helpful queries:

What were the total numbers of people in the stipulated age range participating in these activities during these years? Why 1991 and 1998 specifically? If this is ‘Figure 1’, what’s in ‘Figure 2’? What were the severities of the most common injuries associated with each sport?

And always always always…

What message or point were the creators of this graphic trying to make?

That’s the thing about statistics, or paintings, or analogies, or talking points, or document excerpts, or laws – even when they’re ‘true’ (and they’re not always), they almost always reflect a point-of-view or purpose.

They exist. Therefore, someone brought them into existence. Often that someone made a plethora of choices along the way to do so – what to include, what to ignore, what to highlight, what to dismiss, how to frame or phrase or color or express, for clarity or obscurity.

What truth to tell.

A little healthy skepticism in the form of asking the right questions can also act as a filter for the loaded language and passionate diatribes of others, whether legislators or cult leaders. Nothing circumvents clear thinking like a sense of urgency or emergency.

While Captain Kirk was known for his emotional leadership and a daring, follow-your-gut style, a generation later Captain Picard managed to be a bad-ass without often taking the bait when drama was being flung about.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”524″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

As it turns out, Captain Maxwell had some valid concerns – those Cardassians were up to something. Stay tuned for Kim & Chloe Take the Gamma Quadrant.

But his solutions were flawed, largely because he wasn’t asking the right questions. His course of action was both self-destructive and counterproductive because he didn’t pause to analyze his assumptions.

Much of our current efforts to ‘reform education’ are based on a similar lack of analysis. Some are simply malicious, but I wonder if often they’re just not asking the right questions.

I respectfully suggest a few things we should be asking before we break Starfleet Protocol, sell our bicycle, or criticize art:

When we speak of ‘reform’, what do we mean? Do we mean to literally ‘re-create’ the entire system, or is it more like reformatting a hard drive? Is it trying to make things better for individuals, like the ‘reform movements’ of the past, or crack down on them, like when ‘bad kids’ were sent to ‘reform school’?

Do we mean ‘raise certain test scores’? ‘Produce happier children?’ ‘Graduate students better prepared for college or to hold real jobs?’

What are our goals, exactly?

In California and elsewhere, teacher tenure laws are being attacked and overturned because tenure protects ‘bad teachers’ and kids deserve ‘good teachers.’ Fair enough.

Why did teacher tenure exist in the first place? Is being ineffective in the classroom the most common reason teachers are punished or fired? Are kids not doing well primarily because they’re ‘trapped’ with these inadequate teachers? Where are the better teachers who we’d prefer take these jobs? Does knowing they can be fired at will make them better? If so, better at what?

What exactly are these students not doing well? Is it test scores, or one of those other things asked above?

In Oklahoma and many other states, legislators are tying teacher evaluations to student performance on standardized tests. OK, let’s run with that.

What will we do with the ‘bad’ teachers? Are they going to be ‘reprogrammed’? Re-educated? By who? Why didn’t we have the people with the good ideas train them the first time?

Are these teachers stupid, or just not trying hard enough?

Given the number of unfilled positions and the state’s determination to continue cutting taxes, what’s the plan when we’ve fired all of the ‘bad teachers’?

If teachers are accountable for how their students perform, should the same be true of building principals? District superintendents?

What about state legislators?

If these tests are so important, why aren’t more adult professionals taking them? Did they have an inadequate public school education, and that’s why they’re trying so hard to fix it now? If so, should we should make sure they get a better one before letting them do more damage? Isn’t that the whole premise of accountability?

If they DID get a good education, why won’t they take these same tests to demonstrate what a reasonable expectation it is? How important those things are to know, even years later?

No, seriously – why? Are they worried there’s not actually much correlation between their scores and their current credibility? Are they worried maybe there is?

What questions are THEY asking about public education? What’s their goal or purpose in what they say and do?

Obviously I have some ideas regarding possible answers to some of these, but others I really don’t. I’m also sure I’m not asking all the right questions myself – that’s the problem with being limited to our own paradigms. That’s why we should always be open to re-examining our assumptions – and to better questions.

What else should we be asking? I welcome your contributions below.

Unintended Consequences

February 9, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

In 1850, as part of a collection of legislation intended to once again defer civil war, the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) was passed. It had always been technically true that escape by a slave to a ‘free state’ did not mean they were legally free, but in practice, reaching Ohio or New York dramatically reduced the chance they’d ever be forced back into bondage.

The FSA mandated some pretty serious fines for anyone in law enforcement who didn’t demonstrate sufficient commitment to capturing and returning this peculiar contraband. It even required private citizens to respond when called upon to act as a sort of ‘posse’ in these efforts. The goal was to force northerners to be a bit more cooperative when southern ‘property’ was at large.

If asked, most northerners would have condemned the system of slavery, and there were of course some rather vocal abolitionists. But most folks were simply leading their daily lives, uninvolved one way or the other. Much like today, there was a substantial gap between popular opinion and overt action. People have things to do – it’s not personal.

Hey, Swamp People is on!

The FSA had a result quite different than intended. When forced to partake one way or the other, most Northerners chose to assist runaways, directly or indirectly. Whether this was Christian charity or a collective middle finger to the South was irrelevant to the couple sleeping in their barn and accepting that leftover ham. The FSA ended up galvanizing into action the formerly uninvolved – but not in the way intended.

This is what we in the history business call “unintended consequences.” Examples are plentiful.

Several years ago, my district implemented a policy against giving extra credit for ‘stuff’ – no points for tissues, colored pencils, novels used in class, etc. They argued it was wrong to reward some students with points inaccessible to those with fewer resources.

Fair enough.

The new policy led to several unanticipated consequences. Many of us simply quit reading as many novels or doing as many artsy-fartsy projects. There are other ways to acquire resources, but few have the patience or wherewithal to perpetually write grants and fill out RQs for stuff they might not get anyway.

Besides, hours of tedious paperwork and bureaucratic hoop-jumping without assured benefit to students? That’s what VAM and TLE are for.

Most teachers were already maxed out on what they could buy themselves, so some instituted modest but uniform ‘supply lists’ required of all students. Those unable to comply were dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

These were the same kids who didn’t have to worry before about coming up with colored pencils or poster board because we always had a stash in the back which had been donated for extra credit. That was, in fact, why we’d done it that way.

This is what my friends in ELA would call ‘ironic’ – and not in a fun way.

‘Extra credit,’ properly dispersed, rarely makes a dramatic difference in a kid’s total grade. It may nudge, but the overall impact is negligible in an ocean of numerization which is largely subjective to begin with. The effort to eliminate it, however well-intentioned, had negative impact on those it claimed to protect.

The introduction of the horse to Plains Amerindians. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s, or of drugs today. Pretty much anything involving the internet. There are exceptions, but it often seems the greater the good we’re trying to mandate, the more ‘unintended consequences’ prove quite the spoilers.

One last example…

In the early 1970’s, employers began running into trouble with the ‘aptitude tests’ they used to assess applicants’ qualifications – or at least their potential – for available positions. As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related legislation grew in scope and impact, these tests became suspect – minorities didn’t always score as high as whites.

The disparity had nothing to do with IQ or potential and everything to do with socio-economic realities only one short century after the Civil War. The head of racism had perhaps been crushed, but its fangs remained firmly clamped into our collective heel.

Business owners had no desire to end up on the wrong end of socio-legal revolution. Their solution was simple – no more aptitude tests. Instead, applicants now needed a college degree – in some cases, pretty much ANY college degree. Let the universities deal with any disparities – and hey, look at our over-qualified workforce!

Demand for post-secondary degrees swelled, and the cost of college rose commensurately. Many minorities who would have done just fine on the various aptitude tests – or could have, given some basic training – were effectively washed out of the job pool by a financial and academic bar they weren’t prepared to clear.

Many good jobs in the 1970’s didn’t really require that level of education in order to be successful. For many, a college degree was complete overkill. Nevertheless, those from families who’d shared the benefits of preferential status for generations could often make the necessary adjustments fiscally and academically, while those still fighting for their place at the table often could not.

Frightened employers trying to cover their pale behinds sought refuge in ‘higher standards’. They couldn’t be held accountable for racial or economic fallout as long as they clung to requirements both lofty and universal. That it centered around ‘education’ made it even easier to blame the victim.

So… bonus.

You see where I’m going with this now, don’t you?

When we try to mass-mandate solutions in ways that ignore or deny the underlying sources of the problems, there will be unintended consequences. In the 1970’s the primary issue was race, and its impact on access to education or employment. That hasn’t gone away, but we’ve expanded the problem by insisting that every new life must be immediately assimilated into our ‘college and career’ ideals. We intone ‘all children can learn’ as we practice ‘all your identity are belong to us’.

We want so badly for ‘higher standards’ and ‘college ready’ to become unilateral solutions to complex problems, and to provide us with moral and legal cover as we marginalize and blame those not born into pre-existing privilege. We choose not just the height of the expectation, but its very nature. We rarely stop to ask if our concept of ‘mastery’ reflects anyone’s worldview but our own.

In practice, ‘high expectations’ has become a new poll tax or grandfather clause – fair and reasonable on the surface, but inequitable and perhaps even malicious just below the gilding. It’s a job description tailored to the person on the inside they’ve already decided to hire, labeling all others ‘unqualified’.

It doesn’t have to be purposeful to be destructive (hence ‘unintended’), but I’m not always certain it’s not. Our conflation of ‘high standards’, ‘success’, and ‘compliance with my old white guy paradigm’ is simply too persistent to dismiss intent altogether. Real learning and its ‘measurement’ must vary with circumstances and goals. It must accommodate real students and teachers working through their messy, non-standardized worlds.

That this is cloyingly unsatisfying makes it no less true. Until we grasp that, we’ll just keep trying to pound the wonderful variety of pegs entrusted to us into the same damn little round holes. Not only will we keep failing to make them all fit, but we’ll break far too many along the way.

Their destruction will be an unintentional consequence of our most noble rhetoric. The grades will go on their report cards, but the failure? That’s ours.

RELATED POST: #EdReform is NOT that Difficult

RELATED POST: If I Were A Conspiracy Guy

40 Credits & A Mule, Part VII – Sleeping Giants

January 26, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I gotta say, this blogging stuff was so much easier when Dr. Barresi was saying crazy stuff to local news stations for me to excerpt and mock. Of course, the #WTF? stuff is always more fun than the #WhatNow? parts – just ask any Middle Eastern country on the long side of revolution in the past decade.

It’s taken me awhile to get to the dramatic conclusion of this epic, so let’s review – “Previously, on Blue Cereal Education Dot Com…”

Part I – I made the case that land ownership was central to citizenship, suffrage, and participation as a ‘full American’. This seemed reasonable, and by the standards of the day was a huge expansion of democracy and the ability of the ‘common man’ to claim a voice in his government. It did not, however, include everyone we would consider appropriate today – it was a white man’s game.

Part II – Land ownership carried mythical benefits alongside the practical. In addition to being a source of opportunity, income, and republican (small ‘r’) participation, it promoted an agricultural lifestyle – hard work, responsibility, patience, and fortitude. I’d include ‘grit’, but I’d need a ‘trigger warning’ – people are touchy about that one for some reason…

Part III – The combination of practical needs, terrestrial benefits, and supernatural calling led an expanding ‘Merica to treat the Native populations and Mexico as obstacles to overcome rather than peoples to be engaged. The grand ‘us’ and ‘them’ of human history continued.

Part IV – Land ownership becomes a condition as much as an accomplishment. Because not everyone can ‘have’, those who do come to see themselves not as the most fortunate but as the most deserving. Those unable to procure land due to race (or gender, or whatever) were already categorized as ‘less than’ (hence their ineligibility), and this lack of opportunity became circular. Chickens and eggs – which came first, the unworthiness to be a full American or the lack of opportunity to fully participate in the republic?

Part V – Education is the new land. We advocate universal access. We extol it as the key to all things – fiscal opportunity, social advancement, moral purity, personal fulfillment. As with land, lack of access becomes lack of worthiness. Inequity leads to inequality leads to rejection leads to judgment – ‘us vs. them’ with a side of ‘what the hell is wrong with you people?’

Part VI – I suggested we’re doing with students and education what we spent a century and a half doing with various demographics and land ownership and a voice in the republic. I argue that we’ve conflated ability, opportunity, and values with personal worth and potential – to the harm of a substantial percentage of our kids.

I closed with a vague promise to resolve that in this final post.

But I can’t.

It’s just too big. Too many cultural, psychological, logistical, fiscal, emotional, and historical factors out of our control – some completely, others merely mostly.

I can shine some light on the nature of the problem. We may even find some consensus about what’s WRONG. The hard part is in the fixin’ – what we do INSTEAD. That’s the problem with revolutions – you may get enough people to agree about what to tear down, you just can’t get enough people to agree what to build in its place.

I have some more great analogies – one in which we demand coaches train their athletes in a wide variety of sporting events but we only measure races with hurdles, and we keep raising the hurdles for the kids who can’t jump them or who refuse to stay on our track. That’s a good one. There’s another in which some stuffy doctors present research showing the richest and healthiest people in the world eat mostly vegetables and pâté, so they push through legislation mandating a vegetable and pâté diet (without providing the funding to properly prepare either). That was fun, too – and it had the cutest clip-art.

The point of the first, of course, was that hurdles are an inadequate measure of all possible athletic ability, and that not everyone has the same athleticism or interest – for a wide variety of reasons. The second was about correlation and causation – the rich and healthy eat pâté; pâté doesn’t make you rich and healthy. Successful students pass stupid tests; stupid tests don’t create successful students. Like I said, I was pretty amused by them.

But I’ve already laid out six posts of historical analogies involving land and culture and race. These not only make it sound like I’m smarter than I actually am, but they correlate in a very real way with actual problems in education today.

It’s time to fix it.

Are the schools going to be a part of that? They’d have to, I’d think. But they’re not enough.

We need to change the way we think about race and poverty and culture and American values. I’m a big fan of our founding documents and ideals – heck, I even still like capitalism. But we’ve managed to maintain an ugly leavening of racism, elitism, and outright social Darwinism through too many eras to believe it’s not deeply entrenched in the problems we face today.

We need to ask ourselves why so many kids from so many backgrounds find so little of value in the curriculums we push, or the values we demand they share. At best, much of what we prioritize seems pointless to them; at worse, it contradicts who they believe they are and the things they value. Ask your best students their honest opinions about what they’re learning in school – some find parts they really like, but I’m horrified how many confess they’re just doing what they’ve been told to do. They endure, and they get the grades, but that’s all.

It’s like being at the dentist for 13 years straight.

If we can look in the mirror and tell ourselves with conviction they’ll thank us someday because we know what’s good for them and they don’t, OK. Maybe so. But what did YOU carry away from High School that changed your life? Improved your world? Gave meaning to some part of your existence? If you CAN think of something, was it in the curriculum, or did it come from somewhere else?

It seems like most of what we do in school serves only to prepare students to do more of it in more school. That’s not just pointless – it’s unethical and abusive.

And stupid.

The title “40 Credits & A Mule” was inspired by several blog posts by P.L. Thomas about our American myth that students from poor families – especially students of color – who do well in school can overcome their background to the extent they’ll end up economically and socially on par with white peers. They don’t. Their circumstances improve, but you’re better off being a white high school dropout than black with a few years of college in terms of lifetime earnings.

The promise is there, you see – but it’s not substantiated by reality.

I don’t know how we fix it, but I think it begins when we refuse to perpetuate the lie. We refuse to give the tests that rank our kids by ZIP Code while claiming to rank them by accomplishments.

We refuse to follow the outdated factory structure mandated by our states and our expectations.

We refuse to continue forcing so many kids into a choice only between rejecting our system and everything it stands for OR accepting themselves as failures – unworthy players in the only game in town.

We refuse to turn our best and brightest into cynical rule-followers forced to seek ways to escape the reality of their daily grinds rather than embrace the many wonderful ways life can be lived productively and meaningfully.

We make them fire us and justify it. We make them cut our funding and explain it. We let them try to find someone to replace one of us, ten of us, a hundred of us, because we won’t do this to our kids anymore.

Let the State tell the papers why our entire graduating class doesn’t get diplomas. Let the universities explain why they won’t admit any of the thousands of young adults whose value we refuse to measure with a single number between 0 and 4 any longer.

I think I’m advocating revolution. Starting with you, and me, and like, one other guy who’s already pretty weird and we may not actually want on our team. If we were to win, I have no idea what we put up in place of what we’re doing now, but I know this has to stop.

That will probably be a non-issue for us, anyway. We’ll be early casualties, not heroes or leaders. And when we go down, I’m not sure anyone else is picking up this flag. Still… could be fun, don’t you think?

Wanna get in trouble with me?

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”450″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”453″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”451″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”255″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_small”,”fid”:”452″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]

Related Post: 40 Credits & A Mule, Part I – This Land

Related Post: I See The Difference In Educational Privilege Every Day… (From the Washington Post / Daily Kos)

#EdReform is NOT that Difficult

January 22, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes we just make things too complicated.

How do we this? How do we that? How can we overhaul our public education system without changing anything about it? How do we reach diverse students from inequitable backgrounds and make them all the same person by 3rd grade? How do we recruit and retain higher quality teachers without increasing fiscal incentives, but while stomping out every last vestige of the things that used to make it a fulfilling career?

How do we patch up old wineskins to endure new wine without bursting?

Simple – we don’t.

But that’s OK, because the old wineskins have outlived their usefulness. And just between you and me, new wineskins needn’t be all that complex or much more expensive than the old – and they might just lead to much better varieties of wine.

My Five New Wineskins of Public Education – none of which are all that crazy or even particularly expensive compared to what we spend on, say, testing vendors.

New Wineskin #1: A few key districts simply refuse to administer any state standardized tests. It would be better if there was PTSA buy-in, and the younger the age group, the better. It would be more effective if there were 3 or 4 districts of some size, at least one of which is generally very successful at such things and another of which is not. Unite, refuse, then see what happens – it’s on the state to make the next move.

Upside: Everything’s better with numbers, and a little diversity refutes any suggestion this is about who’s ‘winning’ or ‘losing’, or who has ‘high standards’ and who doesn’t. The state could, of course, refuse to issue diplomas to hundreds or thousands of children. They could defund entire districts, maybe even seek legal action. But that’s some pretty harsh PR, going up against educators and parents ‘standing up for the children’.

Downside: Requires a lot of people to agree to take a huge risk all at once, trust one another to hold the line, and possibly all lose our jobs. So, that would suck. Then again, we all talk a good game about standing up for what we believe. I’ve read your motivational posters and sig files, so… will you?

New Wineskin #2: Districts start offering different types of diplomas. Students planning on going full legit university take full legit academic classes. They AP, they IB, they read and write and inquire and think – they can even Common Core if you wish. Those thinking they’d prefer something more practical or vocational will still be exposed to basic science and math and such, but we don’t need to drag them kicking and screaming through a complex thesis sentence or Algebra II before cosmetology school. Our cultish obsession with ‘core subjects’ can be replaced with something useful – not coldly utilitarian, but based on where students are going and what they want to do.

Upside: Dialing back our obsession with the full Enlightenment Era / factory model “core curriculum” would allow us to teach useful math through shop or repair classes, practical reading alongside a touch of ‘real’ literature, or otherwise manifest our idealism in more balanced fashion. We could offer curriculums students might not hate and find absolutely pointless all day every day. Students strong in traditional subjects could do more than endure hours of mediocre instruction as their teachers struggle to manage and cajole the kids who simply do NOT want or need to be there.

Downside: Tracking has a poor history, rife with unintended negative consequences. Schools would have to figure out logistics of such variety, and perhaps cooperate with neighboring districts. We’ll all be accused of giving up on kids and not caring about high standards because we’re no longer requiring our kids to do a bunch of stuff none of the people making the laws can do either.

New Wineskin #3: Universities should stop requiring high school diplomas and businesses should stop requiring degrees. Let’s be honest – that stuff is mostly a convenience for the institutions rather than real requirements for what students or employees will be doing. We’re always hearing universities complain the freshmen all require remediation anyway, and it seems few companies hire based on WHICH degrees you have – they’re just happy you have… something. Institutions and industries can come up with more appropriate entrance expectations or preparatory training.

Upside: Doesn’t require legal changes or universal buy-in. A generation ago, many organizations had their own competency tests based on the actual job. Problem was, there were racial disparities in the results, leading to civil rights issues. So… new system – require college degrees! It was overkill in most cases, but also shifted the ‘qualifications’ burden to the universities (without actually resolving the disparities). It’s a new age in terms of how companies deal with diversity – let’s ditch this unnecessary complication.

Downside: Might threaten current socio-economic caste system.

New Wineskin #4: Allow teachers to teach the subjects they want and students to choose what they want from those offerings. Like colleges do when trying to garner all that scholarship money by wooing new students with those colorful course descriptions, let high schools offer shorter, more interesting options from which to choose. Some should be close enough to ‘core subjects’ to expose students to the fundamental tenets of each, but generally the framework should be flexible enough that everyone involved doesn’t hate themselves for being there. You take 3 or 4 weeks, then you sign up for new selections. Some may build on one another; most could stand alone.

Traditional cores would still be offered for those so inclined, or for students unwilling or unable to flourish either academically or behaviorally in more interesting classes. Don’t get your panties in a wad about this creating a ‘caste system’ or ‘tracking’ – that’s pretty much what ‘on-level’ classes are now. We’d just be allowing anyone who wishes to escape that limitation and actually learn stuff without requiring the rigor of AP or IB to do so.

Sorry if it chafes to let ‘normal’ kids have an enriching classroom environment also.

Upside: Much higher interest and engagement, by both teachers and students. Core ideas and skills can still be taught, but as they arise naturally and in context. Stronger students can discover the ‘fulfilling’ aspect of more challenging classes when actual choices are involved, and weaker students who gravitate towards something less rigorous will still be exposed to ideas and skills they’d not be encountering otherwise.

The focus would be on learning, and on moving forward from where you are rather than dying in the ditch of ‘where we wish you were’.

Downside: Unless other factors are addressed to improve teacher motivation and retention, there’s potential for ‘blow-off’ classes for both the teacher and the students – you know, unlike currently. The freedom to have excellent classes also means the potential to increase inequity. One advantage to forcing every student in a given state to endure the same outdated, tedious, pointless curriculum is that no one school or any one teacher can be all THAT interesting or successful; there’s a certain ‘unity of mediocrity’. Removing the rusty anchor of ‘standardization’ allows some classrooms to be amazing, meaning others are less so by comparison.

New Wineskin #5: Put me in charge. Unlimited legislative and judicial authority, and extensive resources. Perhaps a concubine or three.

Upside: T-shirts for everyone.

Downside: Oh, please.

The Colored Chalk Learning Revolution

December 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The challenge of incorporating technology in the classroom has always been finding ways to utilize it effectively. It’s tempting to begin planning around what the technology can DO, building the lesson from that rather than the reverse.

Got a screen that responds to touch? Let’s make lessons that involve kids running up and smacking the big expensive screen we don’t have a repair budget for! Look at them whacking at that screen! How very interactive! And this thing over here has a camera? OMG – no more writing! When we cover Populism and bimetallism, instead of explanations I’ll assign a PHOTO ESSAY! No words, just… truth of the soul.

The opposite error is far more common, however – that of merely taking existing lessons and activities and throwing them onto some high-dollar tech in hopes they are now modern.

1980: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy w/ pockets of index cards – but now it’s on the Overhead Projector!

1990: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy on the Overhead Projector – but now it’s on the Dry Erase Board!

2000: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy on the Dry Erase Board – but now it’s on the Smart Board!

2010: Hey kids! Handheld personal interactive devices! Instead of SAYING your answers, you poke the tiny expensive screen we don’t have a repair budget for and your answers appear on the big screen! TECHNOLOGY! INTER-F***ING-ACTIVE!

At least in these efforts, though, teachers are trying to be creative, to connect, to find ways to keep kids engaged. They avoid our deepest institutional loathing.The serious scorn is reserved for those of the Section Review – the users of Ancillaries, the givers of Worksheets, the dark perpetuators of… (please pardon my language):

BOOK WORK.

Hide your kids, hide your wife, they’re mimeographin’ everybody up in here.

There is no greater sin against pedagogical piety than sit-down, shut-up, paper-pushing. Follow any edu-spiring Twitter account or attend any PD of the past, oh… 200 years, and your cup will overflow with the essential role of student collaboration, interaction, teachers who build relationships, the individuality and quirks of each and every little darling. How dare you limit and categorize them with due dates! Grades! Assignments! Stop ruining the future, you maladaptive crony!

Facing such venom, the façade of technological revolution has had to settle for second place – runner-up status in the ranking of all things shameful.

Until now.

Introducing “Virtual Learning” – it’s misused technology AND worksheet learning!

Before you get your EduTech Panties in a wad, I realize there are teachers using technology in wonderful ways out there. For that matter, there’s a time and place for a little book work. But let’s be honest about what we’re doing the rest of the time, and why.

“Virtual Learning” is a flashy new euphemism for “book work and worksheets,” but online.

Students who for whatever reason fall short on credits, or can’t handle the rigors of participating in a regular class, are plopped in front of a computer and allowed to scan through some direct instruction, click some A B C or Ds, type out a few short answers for a real person to look over, and to keep clicking as often as necessary until they get enough correct to proceed to the next ‘module’ – what we used to call a ‘chapter’.

There’s no real interaction with the teacher, none at all with other students. There’s no discussion, participation, or any of the things the rest of us have been told we’re stupid (and quite likely dangerous) if we think students can learn without.

It’s everything teachers have been badgered and mocked for, in pop culture and required PD, minus the human interaction. While teachers are gathered in one part of the building being told for the hundredth time that “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” and that any lesson built around teacher-selected content or students working individually is outdated, ineffective, and grounds for dismissal, students are gathered in another part of the building (or on laptops at home in their sweats with Teen Mom blaring three feet away) working individually on teacher-selected content without a clue what their teacher even looks like, let alone “how much they care.”

This is known as “working at their own pace” through “adaptive software.” In other words, if you click too many wrong letters the first eight times, you get to click them again. If you haven’t clicked enough by the end of May, you fail. Hey, we gotta draw a line somewhere, kid.

Fallout: New Marzano this is not.

Don’t misunderstand me. There’s a place for this kind of thing if we’d just be a bit more honest with ourselves. The State in its wisdom has set forth requirements for garnering a diploma, and we know the statistics for kids who can’t or won’t meet them. Given the choice between holding fast to the importance of World History and English II for future cosmetologists and mechanics, or finding some way to check the box on the paperwork so the kid can get on with their lives employed and happy, I’ll check the box and ship them forward without guilt or regret. Besides, the State has required that we offer this option as part of their drive for, um… “higher standards.”

(In other news, irony is dead.)

It’s unfortunate we can’t have two flavors of high school diploma – one saying you made it through in some form and met minimum requirements, another to say that as best we can tell you’re as ready for college or other post-secondary pursuits as anyone can be at 18.

But we don’t.

So I get it – we need options for kids who are going to fail otherwise. Failing them helps no one – not them, not us, not the community, the economy, the world, no one. So we find ways to check the box and move them on.

I just wish we could do it without the rhetoric and euphemisms. I wish we could call it what it is – a safety net for kids who can’t or won’t join the class discussions, collaborate effectively with their peers, or inquire-base their own learning. It’s worksheets online – a few passages and questions from the Florida version of Wikipedia, a little extra work by some classroom teacher who’s never met this kid, and some flexibility regarding whether they fill in the blanks for an hour a day or simply cram it all in one weekend during the Simpsons marathon.

While we’re at it, maybe we could ease up a bit on the teachers doing similar things in class, just trying to get their kids through. Yes, they’ve photocopied a crossword puzzle for review. No, they won’t be winning any awards for creativity. But instead of condemning them, maybe we could notice the way they’re impacting their kids in other ways – taking those random one-on-one opportunities or dragging the whole group kicking and screaming into the light of basic knowledge.

Doing the things that 2007 Dell can’t, whatever its other impressive features.

Let’s keep all of our options open, but let’s call things what they are. It’s easier to make the best decisions with the tools at our disposal if we do.

Related Post: Hole in the Wall Education

Related Post: Pedagogical Time Loop Hell