LearningReImagined » reform

Can we fundamentally reinvent schools or a school?

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:15:34 +0000

I listened to a podcast yesterday, part of a series called “4 Guys Talking”. I was drawn to it because I’ve been following Scott McLeod’s blog for some time and he’s got some interesting ideas. While he was reading The Game of School, for example, he posted thought-provoking quotes from the book. The “4 guys” talk about education, technology, K-12 schools, and higher education. The description is: “Four guys talking about education, technology, leadership, K-12 schools, and/or higher education. Drs. Scott McLeod (Iowa State U.), Jon Becker (Virginia Commonwealth U.), David Quinn (U. Florida), and Jayson Richardson (UNC-Wilmington).” What interested me was the question posed in the beginning by the host: Can we fundamentally reinvent schools or a school?

Interestingly, they seem to conclude that it ain’t gonna happen in any widespread way in current schools. They note that successful schools with new approaches tend to be charter schools, schools that started from the beginning with a focus (high tech school in Philly), public charter schools or magnet schools. The rest seem hopelessly locked into the old model.

They also observed that if leaders (boards, superintendents, principals, teacher leaders) don’t get it, it ain’t gonna happen. Additionally, teachers obviously have a choice to get on board or not, complicating and compromising rapid movement. If they choose not to, then principals have the task of getting them out of the way by helping them find different assignments—not an easy task. There are, after all, parents, teachers, and students that want worksheet schools and they should have them—just as we who want something more technological, problem-based, or project-based should have the freedom and encouragement to organize around what we see as important.

Their thinking has helped me conclude a little more firmly that change—necessary, quick, and fundamental—is not possible with current thinking. Many good and decent people have been at it a long time. Yet schools haven’t changed much. It looks easier to destroy the system and rebuild another more organic, loosely coupled, system of learning environments (formerly known as schools). And I’m increasingly ok with it, given the destruction to the human spirit that the current system causes.

You may want to check out the podcasts. The question upfront helps you decide if the broad cast is worthwhile, so it doesn’t have to be a time waster.

A Sense of Urgency is MIA

admin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:23:33 +0000

I went to a meeting this week about the future of a project that is about 8 years old. The project, working with teachers to organize staff and improve schools by introducing key readings, new protocols and practices, and networking with one another, is at the beginning stage of planning this year’s program. At the meeting were union people, policy people, some private sector folks and an assortment of others interested in bettering public education.

I’ve been thinking this over for some days now because I left somewhat dissatisfied. And here’s the crux of it for me. I’ve always liked the phrase, “Think globally, act locally.”. Here we were thinking of doing a program around the theme of learning communities when I said, “How the hell are we going to build learning communities if we lose 50% of new teachers in the first 5 years? And have you seen the figures on what losing teachers costs the districts in recruiting and other services to replace those departing teachers?”

We know that attrition can be reduced greatly with support. So, in every school there is a program to help new teachers acclimate, find resources, help with routines and listen—right? And the answer from my colleagues was a resounding “No! Such programs are the exception, not the rule.” It’s incomprehensible to me why this is the case. It borders on malfeasance or malpractice. If we did help new teachers and cut the rate of leaving teachers locally, wouldn’t we save money (to allocate to learning), cut the national rate of teachers giving up, and enable (at least possibly) the development of learning communities?

The answer to me is clear. And there are other answers that would accrue to the profession, learning experiences, finances, and morale if we began to think more forthrightly about schools and the context we’re in nationally and internationally.

I discovered in the process of thinking about this, however, a much more troubling attitude. And I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Special thanks to Bill and our conversation this morning for getting me going again.

In the meantime, let me know what you think. Why do we educators act so passively about problems we know how to solve?

Nameste.

More foolishness about schooliness

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:54:22 +0000

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.

40 miles of bad road ahead

admin — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:16:50 +0000

N.Y. Times OpEd columnist Bob Herbert published a dandy on Saturday entitled “Hard Roads Ahead” that echoes my own thoughts: be it ignorance, laziness, or a simple choice not to do the hard work in schools, we are failing a generation of kids. We are not adequately taking care of our future by solidly preparing students for the realities of the 21st century.

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”.