Learning Reimagined

I’ve always loved the sound of the word serendipity. It sounds so delightful and playful.

I had a most wonderful experience last Friday. Amy, Tom, and I have been meeting as a small book club for several months, happily reading our way through Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch. We would routinely meet for tea and discuss a part of the book. 

During one of our book club meetings, Amy mentioned George and it turns out that George and I taught together 20 years ago. George and his wife created Homewood Studios, “an artists’ workspace and gallery/meeting space…designed for local artists and their neighbors in the belief the visible presence of working artists contributes to the vitality, self-image, and coherence of our community.” Pretty cool! Amy made arrangements for all of us to meet at Homewood—Amy also said she invited “some other friends” as well.

I wondered what it would be like meeting George again after 20 years. I always felt like George and I were kindred spirits. Should I offer to shake his hand? On seeing him, we both spontaneously went for the long, tight hug—it was like where we left off and 20 years didn’t make a difference.

Well, to my happy surprise, the “other friends” that Amy brought were other friends I hadn’t seen in some years, Sharon and John—wow! Excited shrieks all round because Tom knew George and Sharon knew Tom. It’s probably hard to follow, but it was great.

It was delightful and playful. I’ve learned that George published a book of prose poems, Elfriede’s Cat: Notes of a High School Literature Teacher. While I’ve only perused the book, it looks wonderful—full of insight about teaching and kids. The book also raises deeper questions about learning, schools, and our society. But more about that next time.

Wishing you a serendipitous event in your life.

I was reading the newspaper this morning and I was struck by an article with the headline: Education reform could start with students written by Mitch Perlstein. I’ve thought for some time about how foolish we Americans are—how out of touch and insulated we are, how crazy our expectations, how wasteful we are of resources and human talent. And I’ve thought for some time that we’ve developed similarly foolish and wasteful ideas about learning, schooling, and education. The article prompted me to think about the student’s part in learning.

The notion that I as a teacher can be responsible for someone’s learning is absurd. Can I be responsible for another’s health, spiritual development or ethics? I think not. Kids do have a wonderful opportunity to learn, but they must crack the books, research on the internet or in the library, help one another with projects—in other words, the hard work of learning and mastering information and concepts.

This is not to say that teachers have no responsibility to practice the craft with firmness, intention, intelligence and creativity. Humor and encouragement is important as well. Yet, as a consuming society, we’ve made a commodity of learning—opining that we could “give” an education away like it was an apple. By taking the responsibility of the students (and families) away and putting responsibility on public schools and teachers, we’ve taken a fundamental element out of the learning equation. We now guarantee an education, accepting responsibility and accountability for what is not ours. What we are and should be responsible for is a place to learn that is comfortable, able adults to facilitate learning at every possible moment, and an information infrastructure to support learning.

Just as the price of the barrel of oil and the true cost of gasoline and food and transportation and medical care are jolting some pertinent questions, literally slapping us into reality,  it’s time to muster the courage to choose more realistic and respectful ideas about learning.

Janet and I spent the Fourth in Seattle. It was all too nice. While there, I was struck by an article in the Seattle Times by staff columnist Danny Westneat: “Just like the Founding Fathers, we’re out of sorts“. He writes that the institutional part of the Constitutional bargain with the people has gone sour. Calls it a “grand national funk”

As proof, he offers up statistics from Gallup’s latest poll asking how much trust we have in our institutions. It seems Gallup has been polling around this question for 35 years. Westneat called it stunning, how much faith we’ve lost in our public institutions. I’ll include the chart here that was published in the paper because it is not with the article at the Times site.

I’m saddened that since 1979 schools have lost 20 points of confidence. And at 33% we must be somewhere around where Bush’s popularity is. Put this next to all the other challenges–global warming, energy consumption, obesity, deteriorating infrastructure, pollution–and we Americans have our work cut out for us. I still can’t figure out why we’re not rolling up our sleeves, putting on our boots, and getting about the business of creating a place we’re proud to live in. 

With respect to schools, learning, teaching, etc., we simply are not using our wonderful imaginations to engage each other in conversations about learning and the future of schools. Where is our energy, playfulness, creativity, and spirit? We’re simply drifting along thinking that tomorrow will be a logical extension of today. We continue to pay a growing price for our laziness and reluctance–wasted opportunity and human capacity. I don’t think history will be kind to us.

And I wonder what effect all this cynicism will have on our institutions, our people, our children, our way of life. It is time to hope again–and get on with building the learning environments, courts, banks, and political systems that are responsive.

Imagination is so important to learning. I’m afraid that we’re all so busy with the press of the day that we haven’t time or opportunity to wonder or create. I’m so glad that someone in my neighborhood was creative and took the time to make an air conditioner interesting to this passerby. (I think the coolest part of the painting is the pigeon.)

I read a very interesting article I’d like to share with you related to the use of our imaginations. George Siemens over at elearnspace.org sends out an interesting weekly newsletter. It seems that he was asked to edit Innovate: Journal of Online Education. In the issue, Daniel W. Rasmus wrote a terrific piece, “Scenario Planning and the Future of Education“. Rasmus described Microsoft’s effort at scenario planning, a strategic planning method used by some organizations to get a sense (not an exact prediction) of what the future looks like in multiple scenarios. Microsoft used the process to think about what the future of work could look like and, seeing education or schooling as a kind of work, what learning experiences will look like in the future. It is exactly this kind of imagineering that educators, policy makers, students, parents, community leaders, and business people need to be involved in.

I say that for a few reasons. During the process, there is lots of spirited conversations around an important question:

Scenario planning begins with uncertainties about the question at hand, in this case, “What will work look like at the end of the next decade?”

And the conversations will be richest if people from different sub-groups get a chance to talk to other from different sub-groups. Not only will they be exposed to different world views, they’ll also be engaged in building relationships as a community.

Another reason such a process looks compelling is that enables groups to think about the future in a proactive way, rather than a reactive way. And with the four scenarios that get developed, a team or group would be able to have a way of gauging whether a particular decision made today will move them along a path toward a particular chosen scenario.

The final reason the scenario planning process is so important is that it spurs people to think in different ways. Educators in general have a rather insular view of the world. School seems unconnected to world events and the context in which we live. It’s impossible to stay insular if you begin thinking more widely about the world, learning’s place in it, and our tasks as educators. What kind of an institution must we create to get to our chosen scenario?

Read the article, examine the exhibits, look at the implications and let me know what you think.

Bill Farren over at Education for Well-being posts what I believe is the heart of the matter about all this talk about reform: the power to ask the right questions.

Are we asking students to wonder? To question? Or are we just asking them to tell us what was said? Are we asking them to consider the Big Questions, the ones that don’t come from textbooks?

I think that we’re not asking ourselves as citizens or educators the right questions. Do we wonder what kind of learning environments we can create? Do we question why so many students and new professionals leave school? Are we asking Big Questions about sustainability, or how to put more joy in learning, or make room for the soul to show up in our schools? 

I think the answer is clearly no. Yet we continually do the same things, teach the same mandated and irrelevant curricula, ring the bells every 50 minutes, and quit learning from June to September. What insanity! And we’re the adults, the “professionals”.

Maybe it would be good to start next year—the very first day—with this poem as a reminder of how important our listening, relationships and explorations will be this year.

Two news articles grabbed me by the collar and got in my face. The first one, “How to cheat, courtesy of YouTube“, discusses common ways students “cheat” on tests, some featured on YouTube. At one point in the article a guidance counselor from Ohio asks, “What is that saying about our students and our society?” Here’s what I think. It’s saying that school is a game and that some of the students have found a way to “game” the system with some success. I don’t think it cheating any more than cramming irrelevant stuff into a kids head is. And that’s the pity—so much time wasted in foolishness. Doug Johnson over at The Blue Skunk Blog muses in “Ruminate” about finding time to think deeply and has some good suggestions. Thinking about Doug’s blog and the article about “cheating” I wonder how we can make time in schools for quiet, reflective, deep thinking for ourselves and the students. It may be impossible given their structure, culture and history.

Tom Friedman’s May 21st opinion piece in the New York Times really roughed me up as well. Let me explain. Scott McLeod also posted a very interesting question that day: So what if schools don’t prepare kids for the 21st century? The discussion that followed was rich and insightful. I’ve been chewing on both pieces for over a week now. Friedman writes about the huge transfer of wealth underway to the “petro-authoritarian states”. The implications are chilling. He ends with a quote from David Rothkopf, author of Superclass: ”“Call it the triple deficit. A fiscal deficit that will soon have us choosing between rationed health care, sufficient education, adequate infrastructure and traditional levels of defense spending, a trade deficit that has us borrowing from our rivals to the point of real vulnerability, and a geopolitical deficit that is a legacy of Iraq, which may result in hesitancy to take strong stands where we must.”

I think these two posts are inextricably intertwined. Learning in this society needs to be first class for ALL students. There needs to be many kinds of “schools”—not the one model we have now. It’s all hands on deck—we need all the talent and creativity we can find to face the reality of the swiftly and fundamentally changing world. But it is way easier to drift along thinking we’re the best, the strongest, the richest and that’s the way it’s intended to be. Wake up and don’t go back to sleep!

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. 

                                                                                    Don’t go back to sleep. 

You must ask for what you really want. 

                                                                                    Don’t go back to sleep. 

People are going back and forth across the doorsill 

                                                                                    where the two worlds touch. 

The door is round and open. 

                                                   Don’t go back to sleep

  — Jelaluddin Rumi 

So much has been written about the necessity of changing schools. There have been myriad books, articles, commissions, special studies and yet schools remain essentially the same as when my father went to school in the early part of the 20th century. For my part, I’ve indicated in previous posts that the institution is impervious to change—it is tightly locked in place. And no amount of energy, no concentration of good and persuasive ideas, no research or no insightful, no cosmetic structural changes, and well-meaning leader is going to change the institution.

Educators seem powerless to change things, except for a few shining examples, too few in a nation of about 14,000 school districts. For many staff and students, schools remain spirit killers of the highest order. In my view, there is so much creative energy being wasted in the system we cannot possibly realize widespread success preparing our kids for the 21st century. And we’re not outraged, we’re not angry (even a little)—we are resigned. And so the tragedy continues unabated.

There is a wonderful example posted over at Dangerously Irrelevant about kids having the energy, gumption, and courage to stand together as a group to make a statement. The story involves kids who handed in blank test papers as a protest. A telling quote in the story by Johnny Cruz captures just one aspect of the school tragedy: “They don’t think we have brains of our own, like we’re robots.” Just follow the instructions and don’t ask questions no matter how meaningless and inane the experience is.

While reading Clay Shirkey’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, I began to wonder why educators—smart, well-read, articulate, techno-savvy—don’t act more like the kids who handed in blank test papers. Why aren’t we using the new smart tools like flash mobs and meet-ups to begin the hard part of turning all the books, articles, etc into a wave of change? Why don’t educators flash mob a school board or a PTO meeting? Why don’t the kids flash mob faculty meetings? Where are the meet-ups of citizens, educators, business people, and students reading, discussing, and developing the case and specifics for reforms? All of these can contribute to getting glimpses of what the future holds.

Too radical? What if a school planned a year-long dialogue with parents, community leaders, educators and others about how drastically “school” needs to change? Readings could be posted ahead of time on the school website (or linked from there) and real “fierce conversations” could ensue.

And what if other topics were discussed, openly. Suppose the school could be the center of a discussion about getting others in the community involved with quality and excellence in learning. Or how do we deal with doing more with fewer monetary resources?

I simply think it is time to go on the offensive, on the ground, and quit being so damned passive. If conversations are king, we clearly need to get going and engage the community!

We can’t even keep the kids in school. A third of them drop out. Half of those who remain go on to graduate without the skills for college or a decent job. Someone please tell me how this is a good thing.

Herbert goes on the quote a passage from “Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation” by Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education:

“International comparisons rank the United States a stunningly unimpressive eighteenth for high school graduation rates, a lackluster ranking of fifteenth for high school reading assessments among 15-year-olds in developed countries, and an embarrassing 25th for high school math.”

And Wise believes that ”… America’s high schools are for the most part obsolete, inherently ill equipped to meet the needs of 21st-century students. The system needs to be remade, reinvented.” (Italics mine to emphasize that if the institution if obsolete, there is no reform, only creating something new. It may be a colossal waste of energy to “reform” rather than “create”.)

I’m flummoxed! I simply can’t understand (or accept) our unwillingness to engage in the excitement of creating a wonderful new learning environment. We’ve got an astonishing array of new, powerful learning tools right in front of us, making learning easier and more available and convenient than ever.  I guess Deming is right: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” What do you think?

Next post: see how Pat Dolan accurately analyzes the old “system”.

I was struck today by 3 separate pieces in the ASCD SmartBrief related to my last two posts and the front page of the site. School systems vigorously resist change despite the energy of well-intentioned people. These articles represent the same old pap we’ve done for such a long time—chase our tails (or run on the hamster wheel) wasting time (a scarce and unrenewable resource for educators), creativity, and hope on such insolence.  Take, for example, Research questions the value of graduation tests. I doubt that this is the first first time this has been researched and I doubt that it will be the last. AND WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? We are losing tons of kids and staff and our world-class learning and we damn well better get beyond this idiocy and begin thinking beyond the school and the system. The problem with reform is that we are working on a dead model that will not change (as evidenced by these articles) so we need to forget reform and invent something brand new based on new assumptions. 

My god almighty I think this question has been studied ad infinitum (et nauseam) for at least the 40 or so years I’ve been around education: Are social promotions the best answer for struggling students?. Aren’t there any new, more profound questions we can ask instead of this thread-bare question? How about this one: how can we make schools hospitable for learners? Or this one: how could we take the money that supports the “education system” now and channel it differently? How about this: what is it we want to create that brings joy, excitement, and life into learning?

I know I haven’t summarized Dolan’s work yet as I said I would, but one of the points he makes is that the education system as it now is is unable to learn from itself. So this appears and I think isn’t this what happened to the various merit pay schemes? And in how many other districts is this an issue?  S.C. district ends bonuses for nationally certified teachers. So much for rewarding professionals or for providing an incentive for board certification and the system helping build a profession. 

Finally, the sad truth about how the society supports (not) schools and learning. Minnesota district to shorten school week to make ends meet. This, too, is a perennial problem that we have chosen to ignore. What kind of a system could we create to keep schools from this kind of drought? How could we insulate schools more from the mountains and valleys that we experience every year?  How can you build any enterprise if it always in crisis?

I am amazed continually by our lack of courage, inventiveness, and the good ol’ American spirit with regard to doing what we know is in our national interest: preparing intelligent, articulate citizens for our democratic society. 

Tomorrow: Dolan and a look at the system.