~synthesis~

the calling

If you were on a train about to cross a bridge, would you expect the engineers that designed the trestle to know how trains work? If you were about to go into surgery, would you expect that the doctors and nurses knew how the human body worked?

When you go into a school, do you trust that the teachers know how students learn?

Greg Noack a well-regarded educator tweeted: Why is it that, the more I learn and meditate on HOW kids learn, not what they learn. The less I have in common with other teachers. This prompted David Warlick to write a post that I read, and now here I go :-):

Greg's words scare me because they suggest a classic industrial age "I just work here" mentality that I didn't think was in teachers. I have to believe that no primary/secondary teacher went into this profession for the money or the work-life balance. They went because they were called. If teaching is/was a calling for me, I think I'd want/need to be as insightful as possible on the question Greg asked. I'd expect every teacher to be that way.

David and his commenters' takes are slightly different: when most teachers were students, there was a dearth of information, today there is overload; the world (comparatively) is moving much more quickly; teachers are preparing their students for a vastly different reality from the one they know and understand.

David (and team)'s words scare me - if they really believe this then they are not the great teachers I believe them to be.

Can you think of a generation that was less complicated than the one that preceded it? Think of each successive decade from say the 1950s (I presume most practicing teachers were born in or after 1950) - can you name three things that made each decade complicated, difficult and more fraught? How about (in no particular order) the Cold, Vietnam and Gulf Wars, the Swinging 60s, the Kennedy assassinations, women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, telephones, television to name but ten? Each of these was pretty socially cataclysmic, each foretold a future dramatically different from that present. Yet we survived, and thrived.

Every dissenter is going to use the "ya-but" defense, in most cases saying that this time it's different, but let's face it - life is change, life requires change, and life relishes change. If it were not so, we'd still be living in caves. 

David used these words: "We are recognizing that our students will be moving from their formal education into a world that we can hardly imagine." The future today is just as uncertain as it was yesterday; the only difference is that we know how yesterday turned out.

Sure we're all susceptible to bouts of doubt, but really, there has never been a time when teaching was not about learning, nor has there been a time when teachers knew exactly what the future held for their students.

This is the reason that we send our children to schools - to prepare them in the best way possible for whatever tomorrow comes their way. Our teachers have always done this and will need to always keep doing this. In every time there will be uncertainty - we have to prepare every child for their destinies in the best way we know how.

I think it's important to worry about whether we're up to the task for anything; but we don't make excuses, we don't just aspire to do it better, we actually work on doing it better. That's why it's a calling.

the time is now

This week, I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Deborah Ball (math teacher and Dean of UMichigan's School of Education) as she spoke to a group of math teachers (I crashed the party). She was there to talk about teaching math, but really, her presentation was about two issues that I think we ignore at our own peril - a national education approach vs. state/district, and that teaching is a professional discipline and not a just a job.

With respect to federalizing - IMO it is utterly moronic to have more than one school district in America. According to the 2002 census there are:

• 13,506 school district governments
• 178 state-dependent school systems
• 1,330 local-dependent school systems
• 1,196 education service agencies (agencies providing support services to public school systems)

That's 16,210 separate entities that govern this country's public school system! There's just no way a rational person can say that's a good thing. It turns out, neither the Constitution or any of the 27 Amendments ever mentions the word "education" - that's a mistake.

My thanks to Larry for the African proverb below - it is brilliant, has many messages, not the least of which is "sure if you had had a brain you would have done this ages ago, but since you didn't then, it's time to grow some and get it done now." President Obama and Secretary Duncan need to grow some (the Republicans will likely endorse this before the Democrats), argue that eliminating 16,210 agencies is a good thing, and that we need a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to mandate that public education be nationally funded and administered.

As Deborah pointed out, every country that does education well, does it as one - we can learn from that. Moreover it is morally abhorrent for the government to discriminate against a child's right to a great education just because of their zip code. <-- Where are our student-rights advocates?

The second (and best) part of Deborah's speech was about teaching as a profession, with specific skills, discipline and capabilities. Lay teachers (i.e. parents, etc.) do create learning experiences for their child, but they have nowhere near a professional approach, worse, they often do the wrong thing if their goal is to grasp the child's current understanding and help them learn more. (If the goal is to make the "teacher" feel good, then they're successful.)

Read at least the first 2-3 presentations on Deborah's website, and you will see that she talks at length about how a professional teacher is distinguished from a lay-teacher. She also answers the question "what persistently impedes progress?" by identifying five contributors:

1. Persisting with extinct arguments about skills versus conceptual understanding
2. Lack of a central or common curriculum
3. Persisting with outdated and refuted ideas about "teacher quality," especially with respect to content knowledge
4. Persisting with pendulum shifts from teacher-proofing to teachers, but rarely focusing on teachING
5. Persisting with approaches to teacher education that emphasize things other than practice (e.g. reflection, believes, propositional knowledge, experience)

We've talked about #2 already, the other four are all aspects of respecting teachers as professionals, treating them as such, measuring their ability to teach separately from domain knowledge, and providing them with the tools and mentorship and support to become more skilled teachers. During her lecture, she gave us all a bunch of tests that show how different it is to be a professional teacher vs. a lay-teacher. It was fantastic.

But do teachers really want to be professionals? Do they really want that obligation and expectation? I think they do, I think the bulk of teachers go into it because they are called to it. BUT - as Deborah points out, that doesn't mean they're going to be good at it. It's also not the case that teaching is more art than science. There are specific tools and techniques that effective teachers use that lay-teachers or ineffective teachers don't. This needs to change.

But achieving professionalism isn't just about the teacher, it's a systemic commitment. It must start with the school leaders and administrators providing an environment where teachING is valued and developed; it goes to teachers colleges who must focus on developing these skills from the outset and for accreditation; it goes to the unions who must support these initiatives to measure and compensate their members in terms of their professional ability vs. tenure. It goes to teachers who have to sign up to evolve their technique in order to improve their performance.

Note that I didn't say teachers should be accountable for student outcomes. I think that's the job of schools vs. individual teachers. BUT - teachers do need to be accountable for developing their craft. They need to be paid based on their ability (vs. tenure) in this regard.

If we are able to go from 16,210 to 1 and treat teachers as professionals and measure their proficiency accordingly, change will happen. Not planting the tree 20 years ago shouldn't stop us from planting it today.

inversions

There was an article in the NY Times recently about a research study that found that students who study online outperform those that study in the classroom. But according to an email Prof. Kathy Gill at U Washington sent to a listserv, the causative factor was not on/off line, but time on task

So it wasn't the medium, it wasn't the message, it was the participation level that made the difference. It makes sense doesn't it? You could be in the most beautiful place with the most beautiful people looking at the most beautiful things, but if you weren't engaged, it was all for naught.

One thing this study does show is that listening to lectures online does work - students can and do pay attention; insight is conveyed, and gained.

Have you heard of Professor Glenn Platt at Miami University? He along with Prof. Maureen Lage invented the concept of "The Inverted Classroom." This is Einstein-like (so simple and yet no-one's ever thought of it before) brilliance.

From the students' point of view (and let's face it, they're the customers!), the lecture is the least interactive part of a learning experience; the assignments/homework are the most interactive.

So why not flip things around and make the lectures homework, and the assignments class work? The teachers should actively facilitate the interactive experience, and expect the students to "attend" the static part out of class.

The lecture is information with some insight (students sit, listen, take notes). The homework and assignments are where you're meant to internalize the concepts, be able to extend them to related areas, and demonstrate your knowledge by submitting solutions to problems you've been assigned (student reviews, infers, works, and documents understanding).

Think back to when you were doing homework - did you collaborate with your peers to solve a particularly difficult problem? If so, you had to arrange for an "out of class" meeting, to connect and then brainstorm, argue, share, and hopefully solve. There are many studies that show that the best way to know is to teach - getting together with your mates was the first step in teaching (or co-teaching), and understanding.

Platt/Lage published this idea nine years ago (in 2000) - shocking that this hasn't been more broadly explored.

Why hasn't it taken hold? IMO - there are three reasons for this:

1. Ability to record and disseminate lectures - requires video recording tools, a portal with video streaming services, the disk space and bandwidth to assure a good experience. This is being done in many places today - my traditional favorite is MIT Open Courseware, but Curtis Wong at Microsoft Research has created a rather ground-breaking project called Tuva - well worth a visit, especially if you share my appreciation for Richard Feynman. I don't think this is as expensive as everyone makes it out to be. Plus there are many organizations that would happily lend assistance to school systems that wished to implement this.
2. Capacity for all students to receive and consume lectures at home - this is more contentious. Throwing out the trust issue (kids won't do the work), which I believe is spurious and can be overcome, this is also the expensive part. Every student will require their own device to access lectures (could be as simple as a mobile phone), and the bandwidth to download them. Again - this is not a complex problem, but merely a costly one. I've talked about an adult equivalent of this here, I think the opportunity and impact is even greater for children.
3. Incumbents' willingness to change - there are four players involved (besides the students) and each is a big hairy issue. Are teachers and administrators willing to change? Are their unions open to encouraging this type of approach? Will parents (voters) agree to this idea? Does anyone have the cojones to pilot this for a whole school system?

Does it affect pedagogy? Yes. Does it require a new set of teaching skills? Hopefully not - my presumption is that teachers sought this scenario when they chose the profession. Does curriculum need to change? It could - for example, rather than streaming full 50-minute lectures, try ~10 minute "lecturelets" that are aggregated into lessons. One advantage of the inverted model is that the teacher and the lecturer don't have to be the same person. If your state had a standard curriculum, you could record the 4-5 best lecturers in your state, and then have that "best of the best" set of lectures be your streaming library; this library could be updated every two or three years to keep it fresh. The in-class teachers' role becomes more guide on the side.

The other advantage of this lecture/lecturelet model is that students can replay them to clarify understanding and review prior to exams. It allows them to learn in a much more self-directed way.

The issue with this model - will all students actually watch the lectures? No. But how is this different from today? I have observed a number of primary and secondary school classes, and can say with certainty that despite physically being in the room, not every student was really in the room. Moreover, not every student actually did their homework. Bet you're surprised to read that!

One other thing - when surveyed most teachers say that keeping students engaged while in the class is difficult. That doesn't surprise me given that most of the time is spent lecturing. This approach changes that - it puts the teacher in the role of actually working with the students to together internalize, understand and demonstrate the material. And I bet engaged students are more likely to watch lectures at home too.

I would change the approach to assignments - it's not about kids being head's down, answering questions, but rather about a discussion with problem solving, team exercises, lab work, etc. I'm not sure if assessments would need to change (they might), but I think the grading breakdown should - class participation and activity must now be at least 50% of the student's grade.

The data shows that time-on-task helps performance, that it is possible to learn from steaming lectures, and that keeping students engaged is a challenge for teachers. Inverted classrooms could be an answer.

I would really like to see a sizable school district or maybe a whole State give inverted classrooms a try. I think it has incredible potential, and might actually transform learning in a way we've never seen before. Perhaps this is what President Obama and Secretary Duncan should provoke with their Race to the Top program.

commodity U

In the words of Wayne Gretzky the best hockey player ever, "a good player skates to where the puck is, a great player skates to where the puck will be."

Reading Seth Godin's recent post about abundance and scarcity, there is no doubt that winning is about altering the model, redefining the game so that it favors your "home-field advantage" vs. anyone else's. History is littered with examples of things that were once special, expensive and sought after, but are now commodity. From air travel to televisions to mobile phones to personal computers, value diminishes as innovation takes over or as Seth put it, we move from scarcity to abundance.

The mark of a great organization is its ability to anticipate the next disruption (where the puck will be) and either be the authors of it, or redesign to obviate a competitive threat altogether. Organizations that sustain preeminence do so because they understand that being entrenched in their past successes is the surest path to future failure. It's not easy; they face phrases like "old school" or "back in the old days" or "we've done it that way forever" and have to overcome that tendency to stay in the past where it's comfortable.

The communication revolution has felled many seemingly iconic "incumbent" organizations and even entire industries. Perhaps they failed to grasp the implications of the democratization of publish, access, and more critically, connect. Sadly, some also fail to realize that the "hold" they might have on a market is wavering as the demand for their unique "thing" dissipates.

There is one industry that for the longest time has managed to subvert the forces of change, and stay true to the old ways - higher education. They've historically prioritized faculty over the students or rarely paid attention to teaching quality (how many professors did you have that had any training or any skill as teachers?). As long as they were the accreditation gatekeeper, and were able to attract funding from public and private sources, the students were secondary, if not tertiary (sorry). The recent economic times have changed things - most universities are now realizing that student "satisfaction" is critical, but only because their cash flow is now so significantly dependent on undergrad tuition - most of the other sources are diminishing.

But this isn't all, conventional universities are facing competition from three other sources:

1. Just like universities complain that high school students aren't prepared when they graduate, employers must also train graduates before they're ready to contribute - they don't all hit the ground running. Sure they want a trained candidate, but one who has proven skills delivering business value (not academic value). Candidates' other experiences (work, creative, community, teaming, etc.) are sometimes better indicators of work effectiveness. This puts less pressure on student to have to go to a branded school, and more focus on demonstrating their ability to be a valued employee.
2. Online players like  University of Phoenix or Kaplan University are really traditional educators in a new medium, but they're growing by leaps and bounds. They have a more streamlined economic model than traditional schools (less buildings, more bandwidth). Their professors also have to be better teachers given the online medium. Their diplomas are also respected by employers.
3. Have you ever heard of StraighterLine or P2PU? The former is a $99/month all-you-can-eat lectures to earn college credits, and the latter a community/peer learning facility by subject/class. These two organizations may not succeed right away, but IMO there's a "there" there. Sure it'll take another decade to gain a foothold, but I think StraighterLine or Peer2PeerU or similar entities will be the University of Phoenix of the 2010s.

Adding this up, universities are facing funding shortfalls, skeptical students (customers), disruptive business models, and a product that's been devalued in the marketplace. That sounds very much like they're being commoditized. Nobody believed the University of Phoenix would survive, but it has thrived - so much so that others (Kaplan) are copying its model. You even have institutions like Florida Virtual School, which is a very successful Kindergarten-Gr12 school. Once again we see scarcity shifting to abundance; those that try and hold on to the old ways may well be doomed, and those that adapt will survive.

I think this is a good thing; competitive spirits will surface, academia will raise it's head to try and figure out where the puck is going, and everyone (especially the students) will benefit.

dropstop

Eli Broad has put a ton of philanthropic energy and money into education; his foundation's site has some interesting statistics:

1. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year, 44% of dropouts under 24 are jobless
2. Dropouts pay less taxes (costing the Feds potential revenue), and 65% of US convicts are dropouts
3. It costs $12,956 more per year to house an inmate ($22,600) than educate a student ($9,644)

Assuming dropouts only spend two years in jail over their adult lives, then each dropout costs the government $45,200 + $? in arrest/court costs + $? in lost tax revenue = $100k (guessing $5,000 in arrest/court + $50k in lost taxes). I think the actual costs are much higher, but let's be conservative and say it's just $100,000 per dropout over their lifetime.

This means every year, the American government (American taxpayer actually) takes on an increased burden of $78 billion dollars just from the 65% of dropouts who will become convicts. Just for the dropouts since the year 2000, this burden over their lives is over $700 billion. To put that in context, the annual operating budget for education is $450 billion, which serves almost 50 million students. [See update below.] I couldn't find the data I wanted, but still believe that the burden on society is significant enough to warrant the investment below. 

Why do students drop out of high school? The three most frequently-cited reasons are: family issues ~25% (pregnancy or becoming a parent), employment ~32% (couldn't combine school and work, or needed to get a job), and motivation ~69% (didn't care, no-one pushed them). How about this: two thirds said that they would have tried harder if more was expected from them (i.e. someone cared).

The National Dropout Prevention Center proposes fifteen strategies for improving graduation rates (about twelve too many); if I were to pick three, besides the obvious ones (centralization and teacher improvement), my third pick would be mentorship, or as I proposed, "minternships."

I recall hearing about a Big Brothers Big Sisters study that said effective mentorship requires a minimum 18 month commitment; less can actually do more harm than good. The quality of the mentor is of course also a critical factor. But if you're good and you stick around, the results are strong and positive - the mentee is more likely to complete and graduate school, etc.

Is there a common thread among the three main reasons kids drop out? They're not being counseled well about family planning, birth control, safe sex, etc.; there are no clear options for financial support for children in high school; there's no-one who believes in them, encourages them, and provides them with a model of how to achieve gainful employment. There doesn't seem to be one, but I think we can create it :-).

Let's build a formalized mentorship program (using the Teach for America concept, we could call it "Reach for Americans") where students are able to receive not just counseling and support, but also a stipend (for community service or internships that pays enough to prevent the need to get a job). The mentorship must focus on both family planning/sex ed and of course motivation, support and inspiration to stay in school, graduate and succeed. Let's not make Reach for Americans (or whatever it'd be called) a .org - let's instead make it a .gov, that way it's not beholden to fund-raising, and students can count on the counselors being there always.

The program should begin early - say at age 8, and continue through high school graduation - this would get expensive (but I bet we'd not only improve graduation rates, but also student performance, and hopefully in a generation be able to claim that families were elevating themselves out of poverty because their children were graduating high school (potentially going on to community college or university), and earning a family wage. This organization might also become a student advocacy group, and argue for student rights across the board, but particularly in low-income communities.

The business case is clear, the outcomes could be significant - I think we should pick a state and give it a try.

UPDATE - I realize (thank you everyone for your emails and comments!) that I made a false assumption above - 65% of criminals are dropouts, not 65% of dropouts are criminals. I will correct this this evening.

Resourceful, Fearless, Passionate

Education in America is one of the most maligned institutions around. Everyone believes they have the silver bullet that will fix education once and for all. Off the top of my head and in no particular order, here are ten panaceas (by the way - how can "panacea" have a plural form??):

1. Class size
2. 21st century skills
3. STEM
4. Constructivism
5. Desegregation
6. Standards
7. Instructivism
8. Integrated curriculum
9. 1:1 laptops
10. Increased budgets

The thing Edu-America has done most consistently in the last century is wholeheartedly embrace fads - but like diet cures, with a dismal success rate. I couldn't come up with one example of when any of these has worked over time (sustained success) and at scale. Can you? As with diets, there is no miracle pill that takes no effort, has no side effects and maintains ideal and guilt-free health and fitness.

Ideas like "21st Century learning" freak me out. The nature of life is that things change - today's internet is yesterday's library or bookstore; today's cell phone is yesterday's letter (the kind you mail); today's podcast is yesterday's correspondence course... The only truth is that tomorrow will not be like yesterday. What "21st century" skill would not have been useful in the 18th century when this country was formed?

Mainstream schools today seem like the worst kind of sweatshops. If anyone in the education system needed a union, it's the students. When you find a school whose leadership is the strongest advocate for the students, you find a pretty good place to learn. They don't come at it with isms - that's not the path to greatness.

So what should a student be? How can school contribute to the graduate being more than the freshman?

If I had a child there are three things I'd want them to be - resourceful (find things, learn things, get things done), fearless (never let someone else's lack of imagination or inhibition stop you), and passionate (care about things, and share your ideas). Above these three, I'd want them to be filled with joy.

Shouldn't a school be able to contribute to this, be the place where creativity and exploration happen? Don't you want to be these three things as well?

Deciding what change a school system needs doesn't IMHO begin with standards or curricula or tests (and certainly not isms) - it begins by first describing what we want ourselves to be - making that our mission statement and building something that manifests that destiny. If you start with, say "we need more nerds," you're destined to fail as we've proven time and time again.

forests and trees

If you're in a position of power, chances are you want to hang on to it. If you're in a position of power and you don't have to do a lot stay there, you like it even more; and if you've had it this way for years, complacency has set in as well. What's your natural reaction if someone or something challenges that power? Do you welcome change or do you hunker down, decry it, and marshal your resources to defend because you believe the status quo is righteous and "they" are just plain wrong? 

Despite all resistance, there are things beyond your control - some examples that come to mind include Open Source to Microsoft; bad carbs and saturated fats to fast food restaurants; cell phones in children's hands to teachers, etc. In the first case, the company still rails against their competition but now demonstrates interoperability and even distributes open source software of its own. In the second case, most fast food companies have seen the future and shifted to healthier options.

In the third case, most schools, teachers and unions continue to passionately resist change; they are adamant about the "right" way to learn, closing the door to Google, Wikipedia, the Internet, cell phones, etc.

Dean Shareski wrote a great blog calling out schools that on the one hand ask for technology in the classroom, but then prevent students from bringing their own tech to school because it would erode "the traditional education model." David Warlick wrote teacher shock about students who aren't being taught about the world around them.  Chris Lehmann also wrote a great post about a presentation to the FCC on the role of teachers in the new world of teaching.

A couple of months ago, I wrote that teachers and schools are the gatekeepers to information and accreditation, but it is changing rapidly - their hold on information is all but gone, and the value of their accreditation is diminishing as quality and relevance wane. Despite this, the incumbents remain vigilant in their fight to "control" the classroom in the name of true learning and status quo.

Dean, David and Chris are heroically pushing their fellow educators to shirk the past and embrace technology as an opportunity to transform education from the inside vs. resist and be done unto by external forces. In the business world, an apt metaphor is: "if someone's going to eat your lunch, it may as well be you, even if you have to cannibalize an existing revenue stream to do it."

The "Resistance" has powerful weapons - tenure, the political power of unions, a massive and highly distributed bureaucracy, and low self-esteem resulting from being at siege for so long. Aikido masters teach their students to blend with their opponents' motion and redirect the force to a more advantageous outcome. I think the Education community can do the same.

Blend

I'd argue for consistency and consolidation of administration across the country. Imagine how much money and energy it would save if there was one education standard mapped to one set of curriculum? The lesson plans should be at the discretion of schools and teachers, but should incorporate the use of advanced concepts like computers, calculators and cell phones - this is their biggest compromise, but look what they get in return (one standard, one curriculum).

Redirect

Take all the savings from the rationalization and invest it in increased pay and benefits for teachers.

Gain Advantageous Outcome

Improve and equalize the education service provided to every student in the country, grow teacher pay, hopefully improve student outcomes, do it without increasing the budget for education in the country, look like heroes, and get paid.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I doubt it - this is a classic case where the Resistance is stuck in the trees and can't see the forest.

nerd-up!

There's a conversation happening between luminaries in American industry, major players in the American philanthropic scene, leaders in the American education system, and some very senior and "in-the-know" people in the state and federal governments to figure out ways to grow the number of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-skilled graduates in the United States. Specifically, there aren't enough students in elementary and high school with an interest in STEM and there aren't enough university graduates in STEM to fill current and future open positions.

Let me start by saying that I don't believe in isolating any one (or one set of) disciplines - good learning must be holistic and serve the complete child. I can't learn science well and sacrifice communications skills (reading, writing, speaking, etc.); I can't learn engineering well and sacrifice creativity (music, sculpting, painting, etc.); I can't learn any STEM discipline without a good (really good) sense of art and crafts (carpentry, etc.).

Making this about one and not the other creates a bifurcation of the education system that is wrong and unfair. My good friend Larry has decided he'll focus his schools on STEAM for this very reason (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) - I could agree more + I love the idea of steAm:-)!!!

How about this:

Overarching goal: every student must achieve their greatest academic potential.

STEM-focused goal: America will double the number of American-educated, successful STEM employees by 2020.

Situation:

• The forecast for STEM jobs in ten years is almost double the current population of STEM employees (i.e. at least 80% growth in jobs in 10 years)
• American junior and high school students drop out of STEM disciplines at alarming rates
• Graduates in general are weak in STEM basics irrespective of major
• Students are daunted by the sciences, and aren't captivated by how interesting (and well-paid) jobs in the sciences can be; it's also noteworthy that students normally decide (explicitly or implicitly) an interest in STEM before they reach grade 7
• Employers have done an abysmal job of engaging students and compelling them with opportunities in their organizations
• Philanthropy alone cannot sustain any major social (or other) change (it's incredible at sparking things, but it's not forever)
• In the rest of the world, families and institutions value STEM graduates tremendously; students are encouraged by their peers, families, employers, etc. to get in that game, and get some of that coin; and the results in these countries (like Korea for example) are outstanding, and at a lower cost-per-student than America

Truths:

• Employers are motivated by the following: making money, hiring the best talent, looking good (image) - let's not waste time on any other incentives - help them with these three and you win, everything else is crap
• Students are motivated by the following: getting laid, making money, looking good - let's not waste time on any other incentives - help them with these three and you win - everything else is crap
• Parents are motivated by the following: getting the kids gainfully-employed, becoming burden-free empty-nesters, being financially solvent - ibid
• Teachers & Administrators are motivated by the following: being employed, teaching students, preserving status quo - ibid
• Governments are motivated by the following: getting elected, being perceived as doing good, getting re-elected - ibid

If we want all schools to improve their curriculum and performance, the most sustainable way to do this, is to get the parents (voters) to demand it and expect it. If you want scale and sustainability, this is the ONLY way to do it. If you can achieve this, the governing bodies who seek reelection will find a way to make it happen, and I argue, make it happen without additional funds.

This is a marketing problem - if the demand is created, and elected stakeholders start feeling it from their constituents, outcomes will occur.

Some might think this trivializes the problem, but I've never heard of organized ingenuity (seems like an oxymoron), or broad, sustained, grassroots change (outside of declarations of war or the like) happening just because one person (irrespective of how charismatic, powerful or visible they are) said it should.

The real goal is to make STEM sexy (dare I say: "STEAMy" = Science + Technology + Engineering + Art + Math = yeah baby!).

Sustained, societal change requires a broad from the bottom-up movement that changes culture and expectations.

Solution:

I think we need to create a whole new concept and movement in America - I'm calling it "MInternship" - a combination of mentoring and internships.

Today, most American STEM firms get R&D tax credits for doing all that nerd stuff. I want to change the rule for getting the tax credits. From now on (beginning with the 2010 tax year), in order to qualify for any R&D tax credits, 100% of your R&D staff must mentor a student in grades 6-12. Each mentee must also intern in your organization for at least one week during the school year (not in one go, plus it counts as community service for the student), and optionally for an additional two weeks during the summer break - paid experience.

But please let's not make this exclusive to STEM - why not open this up to all industries - if you want your R&D or operating tax credits, this is the new cost of doing business - involve the future in the present.

It is an amazing opportunity for employers to reach out, identify and nurture stars, eventually hire them, and of course get those tax credits. It's huge for students because they get to be engaged in reality, identify with people who are doing great work, learn, and realize that this could be their vocation.

We marry this with a marketing campaign where we showcase and applaud nerds (Iron Man and Hulk are two pretty cool nerds, and both got laid (well Hulk almost did)!), with creative uses of media - targeting both parents and students. This campaign is a myth-busters campaign - we want everyone to know that nerd-smarts are absolutely attainable irrespective of gender, demographics, whatever; and we especially want everyone to know that nerds get paid really well, and better on average than other professions.

This marketing campaign has to show parents how important it is for them to focus on their children's academic time as an investment in independence, and how a great education is the key to being a successful empty-nester.

Result:

It will take some time - say 5-6 years, but if done right, this is a sustained and totally scalable approach to growing the American nerd (and otherwise) population - by creating a desire in the American ethos for a better education that is more closely connected to employment. We are also addressing the needs of each of the audiences identified above.

The problem with it is that it doesn't fit well with bureaucrats and politicians because it doesn't demonstrate direct and substantive results in the first year. (Though I'd challenge you to name five government programs that have.) But the key is to find answers that will be pervasive and live for a long time.

It will also be daunting because it's whacky, there were no committees formed, we didn't hire expensive consultants, and there were no 500-page PowerPoint presentations developed that demonstrated blah, blah, blah.

Let's hope that that group of people above will come to a dramatic and divergent conclusion, rather than live up to a most primo nerd (Einstein)'s definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

tinkering

My good friend Larry pointed me to a fantastic presentation by John Seely Brown on tinkering. The ten minutes you invest in listening to John is well worth it.

Where to begin. First - I think back to times I'd spend with my father, fixing his car, or an appliance, or building something (he is a tinkerer:-)), and how I osmotically learned about machinery or design, and most importantly, how I learned to decompose a problem and then solve it bit by bit until it was complete.

This approach also taught me to be bold. I can't overstate this - when you are working on a problem beside someone whom you trust and who knows more, you are more likely to try things because you know s/he is there to help/rescue/fix you if something goes wrong. When you're learning alone or in a typical classroom setting this type of "support" might not be available for two reasons - creativity and exploration is generally discouraged (a crime IMO), and often the teacher or tutor is dealing with too many students to actually be there at the precise time the one child is at the point of trying something.

As I've gotten older, I'm emboldened (because I learned how to "fix on the fly") to the point where I can now explore, experiment and create, and actually enjoy it! This is how we will build the leaders of tomorrow, by giving them the ability and confidence to do things, to try things, and to seek the joy of learning, and sharing.

"Playing with Knowledge"

I love this phrase. The idea of create, reflect and share is very familiar. About a month ago, this same "Larry" and I had breakfast together and talked about many things, including the failure of standards in learning. During that conversation, he described his view of learning - observation, reflection, documentation, exhibition. I know that Larry and John are two peas in a pod on this:)! The share/exhibition aspect can't be overlooked, whether it is in a gallery, a school hallway, or teaching another student (as John suggests), learning is cemented during this process - yet, the education system today rarely offers students this opportunity, favoring regurgitation instead (another crime IMO).

This process of continuous learning and teaching is crucial. When Einstein (thanks Larry:)) spoke these words, he was talking about discovery, which I see as implicit and tied into the learning process above, and brought to life through exhibition.

Exhibition has another aspect - it requires creation - often physical and tangible creation. The creation process enables us to evolve to not just a way of learning and teaching, but also a way of improving. When work in progress is shared (as my father did with me), we were both able to improve it, I as the observer might have had an idea that my father as constructor didn't and after some discussion and experimentation, who knows, maybe together, we created something better, just because we shared.

But we did more than share, we critiqued each others efforts as well, not maliciously or judgmentally, but productively. Building the skill to do that and having the strength to accept it is so fundamental in school, because let's face it, it's certainly there (positive and negative) in real life.

I wish our public school system were bold enough to embrace this approach. The possibilities for its graduates would be limitless.

This blog is one way in which I tinker - it results from my observations of the world; how I reflect (and synthesize) what I see; an articulation; and then my favorite part - the exhibition, where when shared, I have the pleasure of learning from others (you) through their (your) willingness to share.

Thank you.

co-creating futures

Like David Warlick, I had not read this wonderful Chinese quote before:

If you are thinking a year ahead - plant seeds;
If you are thinking 10 years ahead - plant a tree;
If you are thinking 100 years ahead - educate the people

In the next breath I read Dean Sharesky's latest posting about how the book destroyed the community. Then I remembered Scott McLeod's recent post on what students want in an e-textbook - see the graphic on the right.

Together, these three are a most powerful argument. The first sets the context - it speaks of the power of education and its impact on the destiny of a people. The second refers to a predisposition (perhaps a desire to live in the past) that the way they learned something or did something is superior to what's available now or what happens now. The third speaks to what the current student generation wants in order to successfully shape its destiny and create the best tomorrow (and today) possible.

Dean has built a persuasive "business case" to rethink the nature and role of traditional paper books, and their real implications. I must admit I had never thought of books as an anti-community catalyst, though it's hard to argue the point given Dean's post. Moreover it also opens up the question of whether a traditional book is even the best way to read.

I love books and read as much as I can, but surely there are better ways to enrich the conversation? There is an argument that a book sparks the imagination and helps create a more vivid experience and impression of the author's story. I would normally agree, but then I look at how my good friend Clyde Ford has incorporated an enriched geo-spatial dimension in the e-experience of his latest book Precious Cargo; and now believe that this is actually a much better, more vivid, and imagination-sparking approach to reading.

There is a tendency to view technology as an anti-social medium. But in talking with Clyde, I know his vision is for adults and children alike to interact with his book. To learn virtually first-hand about the places his characters traveled, visualize, annotate, share their impressions and experiences, and ideally be inspired to show off their own world (both real and imagined) using similar (or what the heck, altogether different!) tools and techniques. He believes that this is a way to spark a broader embracing of literariness, literature and self-expression. I agree.

I also think it's a way to evolve the mainstream definition of literature and expression, and maybe even learning. If mashups were one starting point for this journey, why not expand the idea and open books up to the same capability? Might that inspire more people to read and express? Might it inspire deeper learning and understanding? If greater learning occurs through the process of teaching, then I think so.

Talking of self-expression, Scott has pointed us to a fantastic analysis that shows what students want in order to become better learners.

Participation creates vestedness - if students participate in the design and potentially creation of their texts, then don't we get better results? If people in general are able to participate in the consumption (and creation) of content, don't we get improved appreciation of that content?

Isn't that the ideal outcome?

fallacious panacea

The world of education is complex, nuanced, fraught with incumbency, and a worst-case scenario for its stakeholders because unlike say astrophysics, everyone feels justified in claiming domain expertise because they went to school or have kids who are now in school.

So when new ideas are proffered, it's very easy to jump on the bandwagon with conviction; be dismissive with conviction; or find effective ways to impede change with conviction. Sadly the last has the most "authority" and most resonant effect - the first two are just words.

I came across three readables this morning. First - Andrew Rotherham's pointer to the Moskowitz-Weingarten debate on Harlem charter schools vs. the AFT. Second, David Warlick's post on a response to this May 2007 article in the New York Times on the failure of 1:1 school laptop initiatives. Third - Mike Hourahine's post on how IT leaders can be an inhibitor to technology usage in education.

The debate was interesting, at issue is how a top-down union negotiating approach can lead to slow-downs at the school or class level, and provide a shield for teachers to be less accountable and have room to "just say no" to change. The union prefers the status quo, but did offer the olive branch of creating a special contract for charter schools, which I think might be really interesting, and a potential camel's nose under the tent opportunity.

The NY Times article damns 1:1 laptop initiatives in schools because they're seen to be ineffective (no differentiated learning outcomes), too expensive (initial and ongoing costs), and result only in bandwidth availability problems (excessive porn surfing). Jeff Utecht's response to this is a great read and enumerates some of the things that also occurred to me as I read the NY Times article.

Mike Hourahine (presently the CIO for Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario) advocates that trust and freedom don't result in widespread anarchy and prolific porn surfing in schools, and that CIOs should instead be much more open to change, know what their schools really need, and what teachers and students are really doing, vs. being the perpetual naysayer.

When something new is proposed for education, everyone has an opinion, most have a visceral reaction, and everyone feels compelled express themselves. But to Jeff's point, few if any take a strategic view, and in my view, apply discipline to the questions of what, why and how:

• What is our overarching mission? Achieve quantum improvement in learning outcomes for all students.
• Why will this help us get there sooner? It can allow broader access, and deeper and richer understanding and application of the concepts.
• How will we ensure success? By integrating this within learning, adapting the pedagogy, curriculum and assessments to account for this change, ensuring adequate teacher professional development and preparation time to make the change worthwhile, and adjusting our benchmarks accordingly.

The what/why/how is not specific to laptops, it is about any change (it could be new text books, a new cafeteria menu, new crossing guard uniforms, whatever). But if the system and its people are bent on preserving the status quo (which is why "why" is so critical), then no matter how great the potential is, any success is purely accidental.

Out of the gate, 1:1 laptops were burdened with high expectations and very little preparation. Given this, the best case outcome was simple mechanization (from slate to blackboard to whiteboard to PowerPoint), no change to learning, just a slight improvement in process. There was no alteration of curriculum, teaching or assessments to account for the laptops, it was just thrown into the schools.

Technology has the potential to cost-effectively allow more people access to compelling content in a form that is best suited to their learning style. I think those who push it away are doing it for the wrong reasons, just as those that advocate it without a plan are doing it for the wrong reasons.

But the big failure was even more critical - the addition of computers came with no specific expectation of improved performance for the school, teachers or students. We all know that we are what we measure, if you don't expect improvement and raise the bar, you will not see better results. If instead they said - "we are investing $X in equipment and process change, which is Y% of our school budget, and we expect Z% improvement in learning outcomes." Even if Z was a small number, people would have rallied around it and tried to achieve or exceed expectations.

We must involve students (the customer), learn how they interact with their world today, understand how they learn, what they like, and incorporate that in the teaching process. We should recognize that no tool is a panacea, that open-minded, passionate and creative teachers will trump any technology, and that no technology will overcome a closed, uncaring, and tired teacher. Finally, we should be prepared to adapt to new tools as students evolve, 'cause they will, and we should be prepared.

ability, trust and chemistry

Dean Shareski wrote a fantastic open letter to his students - I'm convinced the majority of teachers would wholeheartedly agree with him - it, plus the comments are worth a quick read.

I bet that most teachers would LOVE to embrace the ideas that Dean espoused, flaunt the arbitrary grading requirement, and bemoan the fact that graduating today proves only that you were able to successfully navigate the school system during your twelve year journey.

I also had this recent conversation with Tony Wagner where we talked about his book and the survival skills students should be developing through school. Again, there was violent agreement about the rightness of this, and like Dean's post, there was virtual unanimity that this is precisely the stuff our children should be learning in school - grades be damned - we want our children to be equipped for the real world!

Finally, David Warlick reacted to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's view that to compete with India & China, we should teach school six days/week, eleven months/year by suggesting that we just put them all in jail. Judging from the flurry of comments on David's blog, there's even more violent agreement here:)!

So - what's really harshing on our collective mellow??? I think it has nothing to do with what happens in school, but everything to do with the the world outside school.

Here are some hurdles students must overcome to call their learning a success:

• Parents - who at the end of the day still focus on the grade/GPA and relative performance of their child(ren) - parents it seems are more competitive than students
• Universities/colleges - who still filter students largely based on grades or SAT
• Employers - who still prefer students that went to the "right" schools, ranked higher or achieved better grades

Until these three alter their behavior, there is really no way for the public primary/secondary school system to move away from what Dean, Tony and David railed against. The measure of a child's performance during school should be much more about their best outcome and less about arbitrary standardized assessments or grades.

It is rare that academic achievement is the only determinant of workplace success - there are so many other factors that go into it. I wonder whether the hiring managers of tomorrow will get sucked into the same morass that prevails today, or whether they will be able to rise above it and realize that looking at the whole person (attitude, team spirit, integrity, ability, passion, tenacity, intellect, academic proficiency) and their complete portfolio of "work" is so much more critical to the hiring process.

During informational interviews for prospective employees who might be working for me, I review the three things I look for - ability (can you get the job done?), trust (will you trust us, can we trust you?), and chemistry (will you be a part of our family and make us better?). Of these the first is how you get through the door and into the interview process in the first place - it is the easiest to judge. The second and third are what our team will evaluate when we meet with you, these are incredibly difficult to discern, but I trust our team's judgment and instincts.

It is really critical for us to get it right, and when we do, the team/family is better, and our ability to achieve greatness is strengthened. I've never cared whether a candidate went to a "good" school, and have never checked their grades.

But if it's the right person for our team, we are destined for success.

the target audience

Most rapid successes in the commercial world come from people who built something that they themselves would use, knowing (or hoping) that there were many others out there like them who would be similarly compelled. Their second advantage came from knowing themselves, and knowing where they'd go to shop for something like this, and how much they'd be willing to spend on it - thus was formed their marketing strategy.

But then the plague of success hits - they get bigger, hire more people, get an MBA intern. and fall into the trap of PowerPoint, market evaluation, quantitative and qualitative analyses, projections, focus groups, etc., and all of a sudden ideation and marketing become a process-laden mechanism that has its own definition of success and failure, which may or may not correlate to actual business success.

At this point, it's hard to identify that original company, its original passion and commitment to the audience, etc. At this point, things like Seth Godin's sugar-coated corporate speak emerge. Why? Because MBAs and lawyers and HR people get involved, and marketing becomes data-driven, lawsuit-proof, politically-correct "customer engagement tool" vs. the process of authentically and creatively driving demand to capacity.

This organization must get out of its strategic entrenchment and sense, respond and adapt. It must focus on what matters most, their knowledge and intimate understanding of their audience, its needs, its passions, and what the customer will pay for. They can do this by recapturing that which started them off on a path to success in the first place.

What if you didn't have that first-hand knowledge? Pete Reilly spoke of the need for new paradigms this week, specifically about why "shared pencil" and "many watching one" models for learning are not very effective, and proposes a new paradigm of "ubiquitous access" based on cloud computing and virtualization. Just two days before this, Scott McLeod wrote about the efficacy of netbooks in schools.

I admire both these gentlemen immensely - they are passionate, proven and respected educators (I am not); and while I wholeheartedly agree with their premise (that a paradigm shift is needed, as is better technology for learning), I worry that they might be missing a critical element.

The target audience.

Students are not adults. They have (as both Pete and Scott have spoken about many times) an absolute affinity with technology. The adult frame of reference is different, and the adult's filter is different, adults are not children.

The customer of a school system is the student. Like Google's advertising model, the students don't pay for the service, but if they aren't achieving the right outcomes, the funding/ads will dry up. Proof that the education system hasn't internalized this - "no child left behind," "education reform," abysmal graduation rates, etc.

What do students want? A friend was telling me recently that he bought his 14-year-old son an iPod Touch and an Acer Ferrari 1100 laptop. The former costs roughly a tenth of the latter. One day he walked in on his son doing homework with his Touch while the Ferrari sat, closed and untouched. Dad asked Son why he wasn't using the laptop (bigger screen, keyboard, faster, etc.), and Son said he was fine as-is. Dad then asked Son if he'd be good without the laptop altogether, and after a pause to think about it, Son said "yes." Dad took the laptop away Son hasn't yet asked for it.

I think Pete and Scott ought to reflect on the real needs of the customer. "Ubiquitous access" today is about mobile devices that the students already have or can get easily and cheaply. It's about schools and educators opening their minds to the idea that the customer and hence the target audience is not people like them. Students' use of technology is dramatically different from adults. Tomorrow it will change again.

The paradigm of teaching will need to adapt to the requirements and expectations of its customers, and engage them in their context. Most project-based learning schools already do this. What's more, in this new world, schools may have to re-think certain concepts - preventing text messaging (and the use of mobile phones) because it looks like "cheating" might be replaced with encouraging the use of text/mobile because it is teamwork. But as an adult, I'm sure this is already so last year...

elemental learning

I received an email from Steven Volk a few days ago - he's a professor of education at Northeastern Illinois University who wrote an article entitled Why Go To School? In it, he speaks first on how today's schools treat students like widgets in a factory and are totally devoid of joy. Steven goes on to enumerate and describe the eleven elements that he believes are necessary for schools to do justice to their students:

1. Self; caring and empathy; peace and nonviolence; money, family, food, and happiness
2. Social responsibility; global awareness; environmental literacy; multicultural community; media literacy
3. A love for learning; creativity and imagination

This (with my ordering of his elements) makes for an interesting framing of what schools should teach. Makes a lot of sense.

School must provide a child with the ability to develop and build the atoms they will need to shape the molecules that will comprise their life. There are two kinds of atoms - basic and nuanced. The basics I've talked about before: the capacity to find information and sift through it; the ability to distill it into insight (which requires an understanding of the basics); and the skill to persuasively communicate new ideas. And the nuanced: we must help students know and embrace who they are; know and embrace the people and world around them as their own; and seek and desire the joy of learning and the pleasure of creating.

Let's say we make progress, and our high schools are able to graduate students with anything remotely resembling these atoms, what do we think will happen next? I ask because I also read this amazing article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In a nutshell, it says that the advent of the Internet led (albeit with a longer fuse than anticipated) directly to the demise of newspapers. It goes on to say that universities may well suffer the same fate, quoting one of my heroes:

Thirty years from now, the big university campuses will be relics. ... Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Peter Drucker, 1997

I totally agree. Tuition fees have risen dramatically, there is little oversight or cost control in the system (compared to a typical corporation), many professors are reluctant teachers, and in a model that celebrates anarchy (aka academic freedom), the concept of customer-centricity is largely foreign (exceptions include University of Phoenix, and it's peers). But this isn't their real problem.

Their real problem is that students entering high schools today are completely comfortable learning via iTunes U, or listening to Professor Walter Lewin's brilliant lectures at MIT Open Courseware. They may not all need formal university lectures to learn. Already university students increasingly attend electronic lectures. And when these students graduate, they will not look askance at students whose lecture bias was more electronic than personal. So the real problem will be compounded by the fact that employers a decade from now may be less interested in the academic accreditation when presented with a prospective candidate's e-portfolio, which so eloquently and persuasively demonstrates her work to-date.

It is then that the elements of learning will have reconstituted themselves. If the K-12 school system does its job well, and its graduates have been prepared with the atoms they need to create the molecules they will be, universities may end up holding a very different role in our society than they do now.

Perhaps this won't take a mere decade, and of course many universities will remain strong, but I believe the premise that is their undergrad cash cow will change dramatically. The elements of learning tomorrow will be very different from today. It's time to start preparing for this. University leaders should begin the retooling process now, or some may follow in the path of many of today's newspapers.

It's time to begin (re)creating the elements of higher learning.

Drawing the line

I subscribe to eSchool News, and find most of their issues have something of interest, but I never expected to see this subject line: eSN Today: Porn charges for 'sexting' stir debate in my inbox!

Sexting is where teenagers use their cell phones to take and distribute nude pictures of themselves. And because there are laws governing the distribution of obscene materials, prosecutors are charging teenagers for both sending and receiving these materials. The charges can include felony obscenity or child pornography, and might result adding "sex offender" to the person's hopefully confidential juvenile record.

First, based on this search, I had no idea this was such a big thing (375k results). Second, it never occurred to me that a minor distributing pictures of themselves could constitute child pornography, though it does make sense (separating the two acts - taking the picture, and distributing it). Third, how does a kid get arrested for receiving a text message?  Finally, it got me thinking about the approach that officials have taken to discourage it, and how well similar approaches have worked for other "bad acts."

It has generally been difficult for the adults to effectively police the kids, or find the right deterrent. More often than not, the attention given to the act (and the adults' negative views) results in more frequent occurrences that are more effectively hidden from older eyes. The risk only adds to the allure.

Where to draw the line? It is illegal for minors to drink, smoke, drive, and I'm sure many other things. It is also illegal for minors to have consensual sex.

How effective have these laws been? Do you think that the laws have resulted in deterring these behaviors? Did they stop you?

What's next? Will the police start arresting minors who masturbate and charge them with statutory rape? Will there be a harsher penalty for repeat "offenders"?? Will there be any minors left to roam the malls? What will they do to while away the days in their jail cells? What will all those poor child-molesting priests do? [OK - that last one was in bad taste - apologies.]

Is there a better way? What if we erased the line altogether?

I'm thinking about countries I've visited where there isn't a child drinking problem. In France and Italy for example, adults don't seem to share America's angst. Their minors drink wine at the dining table with the family, and have for generations. Their open-mindedness towards this has not only resulted in this not being an issue, but because children are taught "how to drink" at a young age, and don't view it as a novelty or illicit in any way, there are dramatically less incidents of alcohol abuse in children in these countries vs. the USA.

Let's look at Finland, where most friends and families routinely sauna together. In their culture, it is a faux pas to wear clothing in a sauna. So the naked body has no novelty value for children in Finland - they see it all the time. I'm guessing that sexting is not a problem in Finland.

Now let's look at the potentially horrific societal effects of having a glass of wine with dinner in Italy or France, or sitting naked in a sauna with people of either gender in Finland - wait a minute, there aren't any! The French and Italians do not have higher alcoholism or liver problem rates than Americans. And the Finns don't have higher child pornography or child abuse rates than America!

Maybe it's time for America to erase the lines, before all our teenagers are arrested for felony masturbation.

Insanity Defined

According to Einstein, it's doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Is the American Education system insane?

According to Lou Gerstner's editorial in the Wall Street Journal, it would seem so.  He suggests very dramatic change. I don't agree with everything he wrote, but I also don't think he went far enough; more about that in a minute.

But many don't agree with him at all. Joanne Jacobs feels that it's "nationalization," which hasn't succeeded. Case in point: Hawaii, with a single, state-wide school board that has apparently not done well. Deborah Meier at Bridging Differences suggests that we can't trust the federal government to raise our children, that Gerstner's approach would eliminate the parents from the equation, and they MUST be involved. Many others (including those who commented in Joanne and Deb's blogs) oppose Lou's proposal, some of these people have pretty solid educational backgrounds, so their views should be heard and considered credible.

I'm not an educator, but I'm not talking about learning. I'm writing about education systems - that's something very few educators have experience with - they're great in the classroom, no doubt; but how many have successfully created or run large-scale systems?

Going back to the definition of insanity - we've been attempting to reform this system for decades to no avail. In fact, the performance of the American education system is declining. I wrote about this here and here. What's more, there is a huge disparity in the performance of the states in educating their students. Unless we believe in the absurd notion that students are dumber in one state vs. another, the disparity is due to the poor performance of the education systems in that state, which means that there is no equality of education in this country. Why persist in repeating our failures? Change, dramatic change is needed. 

Some suggest we need to include the parents in this process - why? What qualifies them to operate an educational system? (Please don't get me wrong, I totally believe that schools exist to educate, and parents exist to raise their children.) But that has nothing to do with building the best possible education system for the country's children.

The current system is based on an Industrial Revolution mentality, where students are widgets (all the same) and the system's job is to turn them into widgets that can pass an exam <-- this can't be right? The beacon of the Industrial Revolution, the American automobile industry is failing, in large part because it persists in being tied to it's legacy (people, process and management), and attempting to build a product that is 25 years behind the times. It is being eclipsed by automobile manufacturing systems from other countries that have evolved and don't have these problems at all, they're successful.

Does this sound familiar?

Why would anyone in their right mind want to help our education system follow the path of the US automobile industry? This is what all the status-quo people are saying. I say no. We must also jettison current views of assessment, teacher tenure, old curriculum, arcane administrative machines, NCLB, etc.

Back to Gerstner, he is wrong about assessments - standardized testing is a proven failure, why use that as the basis for measuring performance? We need to go beyond this - the measures need to be about preparing our students for life beyond the given school and should be objectively measured on that basis. He's also wrong about creating 70 separate school districts. That's 69 too many. I think we need to create one K-12 Education System for this country that is measured in three ways:

1. 100% student success rate - every child must graduate.
2. The performance a school's graduates in tertiary (university, college, etc.) systems - this measure is relative to every other school. Since it is not controlled by the K-12 Education System, it is that much more objective.
3. The capacity (and reality) of a school's graduates that didn't choose tertiary education to earn a family wage within two years of graduation.

These are not measures the K-12 Education System can rig. Plus, these are also ways to measure each individual school's performance.

I don't argue for individual teacher-assessments, but rather aggregated school assessments. There's a lot of debate on how to reward the best teachers. That's a separate topic.

I do believe that the success of a student within the school is based on the overall quality of the school vs. any one teacher, and that's why I think there should be pressure on every teacher to help their peers be great so that the school as a whole is great.

I think we need one national system, it needs to focus solely on K-12, and it needs to be accountable as above. Further, it should embrace the brilliance and creativity of schools like Seattle Girls School, among others.

There is much more to be written on this.

Redefining Learning

I had coffee with a very interesting person on Wednesday, Bob Watt. He's been a player in the business of Education for many moons here in the Seattle area, across the State of Washington, and beyond.

It was obviously a great learning experience for me (considering I've only been in the education space since February), and I really appreciated Bob's time and willingness to share his insights and help educate me. Our conversation spanned many aspects of education, focused specifically on early childhood.  It was fascinating.

Bob introduced me to the work of I-LABS (Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences) at the University of Washington.  He has graciously arranged for me to tour their facilities - I can't wait!

One insight he shared, based on work at I-LABS: when you observe the brains of two sets of eight-month-old children (one in Taiwan and one in Seattle) as they are being spoken to in Mandarin, both sets of brains react the same way! Implying that both sets have the same capacity to learn a new or current language. Very interesting.

Part two. Same kids in Taipei, and the Seattle group divided in three, one control group, where each month for 12 months the kids and their parents came to I-LABS to play for 25 minutes; the second group had a Taiwanese person sit with them for the same 25 minutes and read stories and engage the children in Mandarin; the third group received the same treatment as the 2nd except that the person appeared before them via a plasma display vs. in person.

12 months later (when these children were 20 months old), they repeated the same brain scans while being spoken to in Mandarin.  The Taiwanese children in Taipei obviously reacted to Mandarin; the control group had zero reaction; the "live" group reacted just like the children in Taipei (wow!); and the "plasma TV" group reacted just like the control group (double wow!!).

Interpretation: in person, 25 minutes a month for 12 months was enough  to help  a young child gain an affinity for a new language! And remotely, it carried no value whatsoever.

Wow!  The conclusion that Bob drew for me is equally interesting and more than a bit provocative: for the first ten or so years, there is tremendous value in increasing the ratio of educators to children. After that, additional data shows that students are able to learn quite well with less touch and even with remote (or computer-based) touch.

So - here's Bob's idea: let us invest in very high student:teacher ratios (10:1 or lower) and 7am to 5pm schooling that provides the most high-touch and greatest educational foundation to our students. Then from age 10-18, let's shift to even as high as a 60:1 ratio with increased computer aided learning.

If the result of this approach is that our education system now creates great students, all of whom graduate from high school with an intellect worthy of the DNA our parents gave us, how can we not do this?

But what is the opportunity cost of doing this? At a national level, could it be less money spent on unemployment insurance, reduction in crime (because more graduates are more employable and able to legally earn a family wage), reduced unwanted pregnancies, a higher GDP, improved quality of life for everyone, happier citizens?

When do we start?

Student teaching?

Scott McLeod wrote recently about student-delivered professional development. Really insightful and right on regarding the use of technology and the students' proficiency therein.

I think there's a huge opportunity for students to participate (for credit - academic or community service) in training both educators and the community on the use of technology.

I would add Big Idea #6 to Scott's entry.  Why not also have students help with teaching content approaches and technique? I wrote earlier about how the students aren't learning as well as we'd like, and wonder if we're not involving them enough in the process?

One of my favorite examples of student-inspired learning is Pokemon (ok - so this isn't real learning - or is it??).

Most Pokemon aficionados that I know mastered the game in about six months. Mastery implies a full understanding of the Pokemon vocabulary, ecosystem, evolutionary paths, strengths and weaknesses of each character and appropriate strategies with which to select the right Pokemon and win battles, etc.

Moreover, each child also learns to interact with their peers, learn tricks and technique from each other, and of course battling to achieve supremacy in the game.

Finally, for particularly tough battles, students need to also do research online to uncover cheats that they can use to achieve status.

How did Nintendo build such an amazing learning environment? They started with a premise, built examples, tested it extensively with children, and then released the product. Each iteration of Pokemon is equally tested, children are involved in helping create scenarios, outcomes, etc., as well as providing insights on game play, use of vocabulary, etc.

It seems to me that Big Idea #6 should equally involve students, they should be co-creating the curriculum, participating even in defining learning outcomes, and then being active in refining the content to ensure that the learning outcomes are achieved. I recently met Marja Brandon, head of the Seattle Girls School. She is a visionary.  Among other things, the eight grade class at her school actually does this - the curriculum for that year is co-created with the students. 

Her students are out-performers (routinely excelling in AP classes once they move on from SGS), and equally importantly - don't just walk, but run to school because they love it so much. This is a wonderful school, and I hope to write much more about it in the days to come, but if you live in the Seattle area and have a daughter who is going into grade 5 or 6, this school MUST be on your list to evaluate, and I'm certain will be at the top of that list.

Education growing up...

I recently received my eSchoolNews newsletter and was reading this article about teachers informing publishers of their expectations for content.  In the same email, I also saw an article about how students are more tempted to cheat because of technology.

 

Here's one interpretation:  Better curriculum is not the problem (if it was, then every student would fail or lose interest).  I think there are two priorities.  Foremost is more involved, empowered and better trained teachers.  Second is the recognition that with pervasive access to information (mobile, Internet, computers, etc.), rote memory is IMO passé.  So - what to do?

 

The first priority has an easy answer, but is incredibly difficult to implement - let us recognize that the smarter we are, the safer we are, and shift half of Homeland Security's budget to the Ministry of Education - invest in more teachers, improve professional development and pay, and improve school infrastructure.

 

The second is harder to solve, but easier to implement.  We must better educate students in interpretation, analysis, critical thinking, and effective communication. Wouldn't this be a better way to harness the creativity they showed in the second article?  It appears that most cheating attempts to avoid memorization. Allowing students to have access to information means that testing is now focused on interpreting information, and persuasively articulating a point of view vs. just regurgitating facts.

 

Tomorrow's schools (and let's face it today's teachers as well) will not be able to keep up with the "information retrieval" tools that students will have.  Moreover, in the real world, the students' skill in "retrieval" will actually be valued over memorization.  Moreover moreover (!), assessment systems today are not geared to measure the types of skills and abilities that we discussed above.

 

So - if this makes sense, why aren't we moving this way?