~synthesis~

who is more afraid?

...the student, the parent, the teacher, the principal, the university admissions officer, the employer?

I guarantee that of these six, the one least afraid of anything is the student.

As we mature, two things become very important - change and control. We hate the first and love the second. This is true as individuals and as organizations. Take our education system - it began with apprenticeship, and the master’s need to create a successor. This is the most successful teaching model ever.

Over time, education has “evolved” into a hideous creature that cares not at all about children, creating successors, or even the idea of learning. Instead, it is about building a standardized machine whose mission is put bums in seats, and impose tests on those poor bums that measure nothing meaningful.

The public education system in America is the last place you should look to find evolved thinking or a genuine commitment to give our children the means to be successful as adults. Of course there are (rare) exceptions, some teachers and school leaders do try to give their kids more than our feckless system prescribes; they are heroes, and they are a small minority.

My very good friend Larry Rosenstock (CEO of High Tech High) and Rob Riordan (President of the HTH Graduate School of Education) just published a brilliant and inspired essay entitled Changing the Subject. It, much more eloquently than I could ever, sets out a vision for what learning should be, and what a school ought to look like if we adults genuinely cared about our children.

Less than a quarter of a millennium old, America has accomplished amazing things. But much of the credit for this country’s greatness comes from those of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The late 20th and early 21st century is a nadir - from the Baby Boomers to the Gen Xs, and now the Gen Ys, we have vilified change and embraced control. We have normalized and standardized and homogenized our way into insipidity.

There is a way to climb back up the mountain. Larry and Rob’s essay shows us how to build what our children deserve. It is time.

If we can learn from our children how not to fear fear, we just might have a hope of turning them into the adults we wish we could be.

mastering apprenticeship

I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo in Canada. It is a fantastic school (I might be biased), and it contributed greatly to preparing me for what awaited me in the years that followed.

In addition to the academics and the social, thanks to their Co-op Program, I graduated with excellent work experience, zero debt, and a firm job offer. Combining the practical with the learning is a critical success factor for any educational system.

I can’t count the number of candidates I’ve interviewed over the years with a solid academic pedigree, but no sense of the working world, how to navigate it, get things done, add value in a team setting, and even to be self-motivated and driven. We’d take a chance on some, but there’s no substitute for someone who can hit the ground running with both school and street smarts.

Many colleges and universities are embracing co-op or similar approaches to better prepare their graduates for employment (I’d like to think Waterloo is a pioneer!), as now are some forward-thinking high schools.

I was invited to speak to the faculty of such a high school a couple of weeks ago - Saint Martin de Porres in Cleveland. It was an eye-opening experience.

Saint Martin teaches low-income students and is noteworthy for many reasons, the greatest of which is that EVERY student graduates (vs. ~50% for the rest of Cleveland); and every graduate in the school’s history has been accepted to at least one college or university, all with a >30% higher college persistence rate than the national average. ...Wow!

From the founder to the school head to the faculty, everyone is committed to (in my words) the ideal that every child matters; that they must embrace and nurture each student; imbue drive, resourcefulness and perseverance; and teach them to embody integrity, respect, and grace.

Powerful stuff.

But there’s more - every student is required to work for a local company in a four-student job-sharing team, where together they cover a full work-week throughout the school year (1.25 days/week/student).

Over 100 companies in the Cleveland area are Corporate Work-Study Program partners, and this year alone, will invest more than $2.5 million towards funding the school! ...Wow!

Saint Martin takes this program very seriously - in fact, a teacher told me that they have a (very real world) zero-tolerance policy if students fail to take their job seriously; they are a bit more tolerant of in-school lapses, but work is work.

So... not only does every student receive an excellent education, they also graduate with work experience; are savvy about the workplace and how to thrive there; and they benefit from their very generous employers who provide mentorship and career guidance.

Blending theory and practice (master/apprentice) is at the heart of true learning and life-preparation, and has never been more critical than in this day and time, when students (and especially minorities) are disproportionately unemployed.

This alone is noteworthy, but there's also this:

The students’ academic proficiency is undisputed (100% acceptance of graduates to college/university), but they accomplish that with 25% less class time than other schools! Recall that each student spends five (5) school days every four weeks (ave 1.25 days/week) at work.

That’s “lost” teaching time -- or is it?? When you personally experience the application of learning outside school, your desire and capacity to learn in school grows, as does your engagement in class. In other words, they have improved the efficiency of teaching and learning by removing the kids from the classroom and putting them to work! How cool is that!

While almost every teacher I’ve ever met is worried about the volume of content that must be taught in a very limited time window, the faculty at Saint Martin has been able to literally teach more in less time ‘cause their students are steeped in context.

An important lesson for all school leaders and teachers.

Inner city students are the most disadvantaged among us, and it is important to learn from schools like Saint Martin de Porres, who are changing this by caring for their students, being innovative and creative in how they prepare their students to be kick-butt graduates, and by ensuring the sustainability of the school.

Bravo

essence

I’ve been pondering the role of technology in teaching, and what surveys say is the teacher's biggest challenge - student engagement.

Unpacking it:

What is engagement? Starting with an easy one :). It is when students crave learning, when they run to school, and dread leaving.

What is teaching? I see it as an unwrapping and a wrapping. The unwrapping is the job of the teacher, enabled by the student, and the wrapping is the job of the student, enabled by the teacher.

Unwrapping, according to sculptor Fredrik K.B.: “There is life inside the stone. Just as with people, you have to lure it out with love. To force upon it a form you self [sic] have made up is to me the worst form of violence.”

Except for some indigenous societies, this concept is anathema to most Western parents and school systems. Our “evolved” goal: “an effective education leads to gainful employment and economic independence.”

To create employees, education identified common denominator skills across “all” jobs and requires all students to learn them in the same way. To be common, these skills (fractions, algebra, grammar, essay-writing, etc.) are abstracted, and thus difficult to connect to any “real” job, and for most students, impossible to visualize as something fun or interesting or even employment-like.

Skipping the unwrapping process altogether, our system aims to shellack every child with a veneer of “common” skills so that they are generically palatable to the greatest number of employers. In doing this, we admit that education’s “customer” is the employer, not the child; and that success is not fulfilling the child’s destiny, but rather creating faceless drones.

...Truly honorable work.

Ironically, employers are not looking for automatons, they are looking for inquisitive, motivated, creative, team-oriented, and energetic people who are compelled to achieve greatness.

Maybe a bit of a disconnect here...

What is technology? In this context, technology is any “tool” that comes into the classroom and disrupts the status quo. Much of the education community perceives it as a threat because it disrupts “control and order.”

I wrote about the 21st century imperative in 2008, talking about how technology has enhanced communication, and bypassed the teacher as a bottleneck to information; you will also see some awesome quotes on how the establishment decries these intruders in their midst.

But I missed something in my post - technology can be more than this. It, with the help of a teacher, can be the path to engagement, and through that, the unwrapping and wrapping of a student.

“Why?” is probably the most frequently-spoken word by young people everywhere. Instead of dismissing this “insolence,” why(!) not have the child figure out the answer themselves? Most children in the West already have the second most powerful research tool ever (the first being the brain) in their smartphone, let them use it!

Teachers will tell you that a smartphone is a distraction, with Facebook and YouTube and games, they need to ban it so that kids can focus on “learning.”

I don’t agree. If you are given a thing and not shown how “best” to use it, you will use it “randomly.” To compel a student, you must take what interests them already (be it baking or playing music or humor or how-things-work or fashion), and help them “get good at it.” Teachers can help them use the tools at hand to observe, reflect, document, and exhibit what compels them. This is learning!

Michelangelo said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” This is true of cooking, DJing, being funny, building a car, or creating amazing clothes. In fact, there is hard work and mathematics, grammar, communications, science, and much more in every one of these endeavors.

Education is not wrong to define subjects like mathematics, language arts, and science as “core” to almost everything that follows. Its failure is in being “well-intentioned, wise, experienced, and successful” adults who have forgotten the moments in their lives oh so long ago when they swore they’d never be the unfeeling jerks their parents were.

Education has the opportunity to help students use the tools they have and like in ways that lead to learning. It can help them unwrap the perfect statue(s) that exists within every child, and through that, make each one a unique and valued and shape changing contributor to our ever-stodgy adult world.

It just has to want to.

clarity

"You've got mail" was in the vernacular 15 years ago, there was even a movie that used this now quaint Aol phrase. Such was Aol's strength and place in the market that they were able to strike the largest business deal to-date in buying Time Warner in 2000 for $182 billion. Aol's core business was (and still is) dial-up Internet access. They peaked in 2003 with 26.7 million subscribers; today that number is 3.85 million, with earnings of $1.02 billion (and $1.28 billion from advertising) in their last fiscal year. Both were 26% lower than the prior year, despite averaging 112 million visitors/month. Revenues have fallen by 25% for the last three quarters of this fiscal.

With desperation come bad decisions. Aol recently bought TechCrunch for $25m and then Huffington Post for $315 million in the belief that content is the light at the end of their tunnel.

On the same day I learned of the Huffington purchase, I read this fascinating survey whose title says it all: "Executives Say They're Pulled in Too Many Directions and That Their Company's Capabilities Don't Support Their Strategy." My gut response to these executives is: "then you're clearly not worthy, do us a favor and quit."

64% of these "executives" complained that they have too many conflicting priorities; 52% don't feel their strategy will lead to success; and a whopping 66% admit their organization does not have the capability to be successful.

To run an organization, you must have a clear vision; be relentless (dare I say - single-minded) in pursuing it; and you must have the capacity to ensure success. If you can't do these things, you are not a leader - you're at best a mid-level bureaucrat who needs a manual to figure out where the toilet is (and perhaps what to do while there).

In my last post I talked about how team trumps the individual, how success requires a cohesive team focused on the end goal and not individual glory. Executives bent on personal accomplishment to "rise" above their peers create random strategies and priorities aimed only at making them look good.

In the end, these organizations are doomed to fail, they favor spurious action over well-thought-out plans, they jump on random bandwagons, and they don't create a community with a common purpose, where people are valued and team success is rewarded.

What does this have to do with Aol? First:

1. Dial-up - what market segments use dial-up today? I’m guessing it's people who have decided they're too old to change, can't afford to change, or have no interest in change because it's not worth it to them.
2. Advertising - the fact that Aol's ad revenue is falling at exactly the same pace as their subscriber revenue means that most of their traffic comes from their subscribers, and they're doing nothing to hold on to, or expand either.
3. TechCrunch/Huffington Post - including DMG from the link in #1 above (a must read), you might not need all the fingers on one hand to count the number of TechCrunch (nerds) and Huffington (liberals) readers who prefer and use dial-up.
4. I'm willing to bet that Arianna Huffington only sold the Post because she's been promised the CEO-ship of Aol in the next 12-18 months.

Second – one of the most interesting demographics for advertisers is older people; now that baby boomers are retiring by the thousands every day, there’s a lot of $$ available to companies that have access to these very lucrative audiences. Aol's 112 million visitors/month are probably closer to this segment than any other, but have minimal overlap with either the nerds or the liberals.

If Aol has a core competency, it is in provisioning dial-up access and advertising to their subscriber base. Why not buy a cheap broadband ISP that they can use to convert (and maybe even grow) their subscriber base, and focus on delivering (vs. acquiring) content that is meaningful to the customers they already serve?

Tim Armstrong, their CEO was President of Google Americas (US & Canadian ad sales) prior to Aol; there is no doubt that he knows the Internet ad business and how to run a sales organization. He will leave Aol soon, having added M&A to his portfolio.

But sales (and M&A) by its very nature is not a team sport - for you to win, others must lose. Is Tim forging a path for Aol's success or his own?

open accreditation services

Is learning is undergoing a transformation? From this article in the NY Times on the profusion of lectures available online, its implications on learning, and how that's changing the way students learn; to 21st Century Learning proponents, who claim that learning in this century is like no other, that students are actually different, and that institutions need to evolve their curriculum to match, you might think so.

I don't think the turn of a calendar's page changes the way the brain works, but what (if anything) is really different about education in this century?

It's not enough to say we have new technology today vs. yesterday, because yesterday they had new technology vs. the day before. It's not enough to say that we expect more from our students today than ever before (ibid).

What about this - could this be the century in which the business model of education changes? Is this the point where accreditation as we know it goes away? This isn't new in the history of learning, but it's something that hasn't happened in perhaps the last 150 years.

The mainstream public education system on this planet is authoritarian, discriminatory, built to make life easier for adults and regulators, and seemingly not even designed to make children great. The rules in most schools are all about what you CAN'T do. Oppression doesn't seem to be a good way to engage students and improve learning outcomes - does it?

How does the system become so authoritarian? Simple - they own the ticket to employment. I wrote recently about the tertiary education is becoming commoditized; I think things are getting even worse now. The most tangible benefit of staying in school and graduating is the piece of paper you get that says you attended, graduated, and are now employment-worthy.

If you have something hammer-like (the ticket), then it is easy to be lazy and use that hammer to assert power vs. truly engaging students - think of most country's border guards; they should be tourism advocates, but instead let their power get in the way. This is not universal, but it is pervasive.

Change in this case won't come from within. These days, more and more employers look beyond the accreditation to the person to assess whether they'd be a good hire. Ask any recruiter, hiring manager, employment consultant or counselor and they will confirm that where you went to school only helps if it's one of the top ten (or where the hiring manager went); otherwise it's more about the rest of you - who you are, what you've done, and how you did it that counts - take a look at your own resume - is education at the top or near the bottom?

Admittedly, most employers (today) won't let you in the door without the proper accreditation - that's still the first filter. But I believe this is changing. The number of "accreditation-free" people that get hired is growing rapidly, and the approach these hiring managers take and the quality of these hires will be the biggest determinant of the "value" of a formal education.

As these "alternate" candidates prove their worth in the market (likely at lower starting salaries as well), I think there will be a groundswell at both ends - hiring managers/recruiters becoming more open-minded, and students becoming more savvy.

Students are already skeptical about school; when the approach that these hiring managers use to select candidates becomes better known, it could begin to shape students' process for building a resume, the way they demonstrate knowledge, ability and experience, and the criticality of a diploma.

Imagine if you could describe your job-worthiness not in terms of a certificate, but as say a balanced scorecard, or as Seth put it, as your own quilt. It would not only be a huge help to hiring managers, but also allow much more of the candidate's broader value to be demonstrated.

Just as Open Education Resources (OER) is altering the nature of curriculum and teaching materials, I think we're about 10 years away from an Open Accreditation Service that enables students to score or quilt all of their achievements across the board.

The next revolution in learning then, is the outmoding of the existing business model. And as with the music, video, and print/TV advertising industries, education will try and hold on to the past, but at some point face reality, and focus on earning the opportunity to teach your child. I can't wait.

no why, no how

One of the cornerstones of "good business" is to create consistent, predictable outcomes. Customers value it, Wall Street values it, it's basic MBA theory, and most employees value it as well. As leaders grow and shape their companies towards this outcome, there is a natural excitement attenuation effect - 'mundane' is rewarded more frequently than 'exceptional'; and 'different' is just plain discouraged. Keep at it long enough and creativity turns into procedures, and breakthrough turns into incrementalism. The final step is commoditization, margin pressures and, with an ironic twist, eventual demise - all in the name of "good business."

Seth Godin wrote Why ask why? today - it struck me as an interesting variant on this theme, not just in the commercial world, but especially in education.

'Progress' demanded the same "consistent, predictable outcomes" of education as it did of business. The Industrial Age needed a massive influx of skilled workers and education was scaled up to respond. In the interests of standardization, they distilled curriculum into 'core' knowledge, and in the interests of efficiency, all teachers focused teaching 'core,' to the exclusion of almost everything else. One result is the suppression of students' ability to ask "why?"

A few years ago, the "new" idea of 21st Century Learning became vogue - a lot of .orgs were formed, a lot of companies intent on social responsibility set up programs to support it, and a lot of edu-cognizanti heralded 21st Century Learning as the basis for education reform. IMO, there is no difference in the essence of learning in the 18th century versus the 21st century; content, method and tools may change, but the fundamentals remain the same. Ironically, while these proponents all think that inquiry and creativity are new skills, most want to mechanize their teaching.

I am reminded of this quote (my emphasis) when students did ask "why?":

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. - John Keating from the film Dead Poets Society.

Seth argued that not being able to ask "why?" prevents improvement; I think not being able to ask "why?" also leads to the suppression of our essential poeticism - the very thing for which we stay alive. When you walk into a great school, there is a vibrancy that sparks a need to channel Thoreau (with my emphasis and also from the same movie): "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." It's why as adults we wish we were that young again, to have that passion, and be immersed in that place.

Even in Dead Poets Society, Keating was forced to succumb to the school authorities, and extract the passion and marrow out of his class in favor of consistent, predictable and conventional outcomes.

I am convinced that size does matter, that overemphasizing predictability leads to the starvation of passion and excitement, and when the original wave of innovation dissipates, we are left with emptiness. The bigger a company or a school gets, the more likely it is to lose its mojo - there are exceptions - High Tech High comes to mind, but I can't think of many others.

Business has the luxury of bankruptcy and acquisition and start-ups and venture capital to achieve renewal - education doesn't. When education goes under, it takes futures with it.

While there are many federal and state programs in America aimed at investing in education, the one common denominator is consistent and predictable outcomes. I'm not saying this is not required, it absolutely is; but today it seems that the winners of the grants and prizes and awards have to be mechanical right from the get-go, and there goes our mojo.

As I've written before, I think it's absolutely appropriate for schools to be funded federally, but that the feds don't get to tell schools how to teach, theirs is to define the outcomes they expect for their investment. 

The schools in turn must treat their students as customers, respect them, and create an environment that allows them to wildly exceed the federally-designated outcomes, and most critically, experience the joy of learning.

Creating Greatness

I have quoted Wayne Gretzky many times over the last few months - I think his comment that good players skate to where the puck is, and great ones skate to where the puck will be is brilliant. Upon reflection though, I think he was being too humble.

Great players not only know where the puck will be, they know how to get there, and they know what to do when they meet the puck there. What's more, they're great no matter the rink, the ice conditions, or any other issues that pose challenges to mere mortal players. One more thing - they create winning.

I attended a roundtable recently that was aimed at improving STEM performance in a state school system. One of the conclusions that the "adults" in the room drew is that they need to be reaching students via Facebook and MySpace because that's where the kids are, and learning needs to reach them.

Given how our school systems work, it'll take years for this to take effect. Additionally, any solution like this will have to live for many years to be deemed worthwhile.

First, if adults know about it and use it, how soon will it be before kids abandon Facebook/MySpace due to severe lack of coolness? Second, even if it was still cool now, how likely is it that it will be cool then? Finally - just today Scott Herhold wrote about what could well be the beginning of the end for Facebook anyway.

The point? Simple - learning isn't about Facebook or an exam or an essay. It's about preparing every child for greatness. That means something different for each child. Greatness isn't about one path it's about any path. It's not about one discipline, and it's not only about any discipline, it's about the capacity to embrace disciplines as needed because the foundation is so strong.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, we need to teach timeless skills. But to do that well, we can't be tied to any approach, no matter how much that approach is heralded today as a panacea.

Our education system needs to be implicitly flexible, and teachers need to be taught that curriculum is an organic thing, just as their students are organic things. Assessments, measurements and incentives need to align to this. We must teach that which gives our children the capacity to know where the puck will be, the ability to get there, and the insight to know what to do when they reach it.

These principles should be foremost in the design of every educational system.

What's so 21st Century About it?

21st Century Learning/Skills are all the rage. But what's the 21st-centuryness of it all?

It seems that the only 21st century aspect (if you could even call it that) is the recognition that ICT is more present now than in say the 19th century. Well, dah... But so what? How many schools can really claim to educate a young person in this world about ICT? They might be able to teach them computer science (but that's not the same thing).

The most pervasive technology for younger people is mobile devices; but most schools' policies ban these devices! How are they going to claim any 21st centuryness if they ban technology usage in schools??

The skills required to find information and filter it; create insight based on knowledge gathered/gained; and then persuasively communicate these insights and point of view to others is a core set of skills common to any century. I wrote about this a while back, and coined a name that I think has legs - the Edutanic when talking about our current education system.

The late 20th and 21st century have, I think posed a greater challenge to educators and policy-makers. The Internet has taken away one source of power educators had (as historic gatekeepers to information); and modern communications has taken away any shelter the policy-makers had from vested parents. But for the students, its business as usual - why? Because they've grown up with it.

As I wrote in the Edutanic, when asked what made a hockey player great, Wayne Greztky said - "a good player skates to where the puck is, a great player skates to where the puck will be."

Our children should be taught within a system where that six-year-olds are entering, knows where the puck will be when they're 18, and teaches them those things that will be relevant at that time. That's our challenge. But it's very hard to successfully predict that, and building the dynamic teacher professional development machine it would take to teach our teachers appears impossible.  

So why not focus instead on preparing our children for any future and every future? It is these core fundamentals that will prevail in any time.

Let's replace 21st century skills with Timeless Skills. Imagine knowing that your children are going to school to develop themselves into adults that will be able to handle anything that comes their way. How would you feel about the world literally being their oyster?

Proposed inauguration speech - Education Section

Our nation has so many challenges ahead of it, but there is one thing that will do more to shape America’s future than anything else.

It is not a clean-energy policy, or universal health care, or safe and secure neighborhoods, though all of these are critical.

It is education.

Today our policy views education from a perspective that hasn’t changed since the Industrial Revolution.

I’m not opposed to tried and true, but I am FUNDAMENTALLY opposed to tried and failed, and tried again and failed again, and costing even more.

This is not the right way. This is not our way. And this is absolutely not the American way. 

We have to do the hard work required to reshape education for the 21st century.

But this will take more than just policy. Much more.

It will take the active participation of every parent, teacher, administrator and politician. It will require the commitment of every parent, teacher, administrator and politician. And it will require that every parent, teacher, administrator and politician open their minds to the idea that the past should not be repeated, just because it worked once.

I stand before you today as proof that we can’t think that way anymore.

Tomorrow we will not measure learning through standardized testing.

Tomorrow we will not disrespect and ignore the heroes of our education system – our teachers.

Tomorrow we will not make investing in our schools an afterthought that is the first line cut in a budget.

We can and we must change. Together we will change. Our destiny demands it.

The American way speaks of intention, it speaks of commitment, it speaks of passion, and it speaks of integrity. It also speaks of a future built on hard work, tough choices, and a tenacity that ensures success.

I ask all Americans to stand with me, resolved that we will prepare our children to face the wonder and blessing that is our future with the capacity to learn, the ability to judge, the insight to persuade, and the desire to reach.

Together we will fulfill this destiny.

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.

Change and Insomnia

OK so I've succumbed to a bit of late-night-itis as a result of sleeping until noon today. I was reading an interesting article on Sarah Palin (and yes - this is a whole lot like not being able to ignore the traffic accident) by Katha Pollitt and found a very interesting blog entry by Laila Lalami. 

She writes that perhaps maybe we should temper our enthusiasm for change because President Obama will only be able to do so much while in power, despite his incredible mandate.
 
I disagree with Laila. The audacity of hope is a powerful idea. Its time has come. While it won't be here in minutes, it comes through education. If Obama is able to do one thing that will be lasting, it would be to invest in building the best possible education system for this country.  I will write more on this later, but I wanted Laila to know that change is possible.

Immediate change requires cataclysmic events combined with fear-driven leadership <-- can you say September 11, 2001 + President Cheney/Bush? But let's face it, the electorate finally got its head out of the sand and decided not to be driven by fear.

Sustained change on the other hand requires the opening of minds and the creation of hope. That's something President Obama can do. Make 21st Century Learning real - give our children the capacity to think, the imagination to create, and a global perspective to understand.

The Worldwide Innovative Teachers' Forum

UPDATE #2:

Here are pointers to video recordings of some of the teachers' showcases.  Here are three that I was inspired by, and finally the link to all of the videos that I found.

1. Sarietjie Musgrave - South Africa
2. Nathan Kerr - New Zealand
3. Tom Fitzsimmons & Ciaran McLaren - Northern Ireland

To see all the videos click on any of the above videos and below the video you will see a link "WWITF" that will take you to the rest.

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UPDATE:

To learn more about the incredible work the teachers did, and to join, click Innovative Teachers Forum.  Once signed in, go to the Communities page, and join the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum 2008 - Teacher community.

Enjoy:)

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I'm in Asia this week attending a most fantastic conference - the 4th Annual Worldwide Innovative Teachers' Forum in Hong Kong. 
This evening (in about 45 mins actually) marks the end of an absolutely AWESOME week - we are about to leave the hotel for the gala dinner, where (per the link above) we will celebrate the accomplishments of the wonderful and inspiring educators that participate in the Innovative Teachers' Network, and recognize the winners of the best exemplars of Collaboration, Community and Content.  There's a fourth category, Educators' Choice as well.

We also witnessed the election of the new President of the United States this week (not sure if anyone noticed that:)), and it was so wonderful to see the global interest and heartfelt support for the new President-Elect. Knowing that Education and Educators is one of Barak Obama's top five priorities as he takes over is wonderful news.

My first experience with this amazing community of educators (they number more than 1.5 million (yes, million!) from over 100 countries) was around this time last year in Helsinki, which is where the previous event was held, and I hope I have the opportunity to be wherever the next Forum is held.

These wonderful people are my heroes.  They prove to me in no uncertain terms that the single most critical element to ensuring that present and future generations of students are well cared for and prepared for their destinies is educators.

If every educator in the world (irrespective of wealth, urban, rural, social, political circumstances) is like the 100+ people I had the privilege to meet this week, our children and their children are in the best hands.

It is a crime that our society (with few exceptions around the world) cares so little for the men and women that put their blood, toil, tears and sweat into becoming teachers. We must do more, they deserve recognition, reward, and reassurance of our support and commitment to them and their work.

Who are we really protecting?

Roy Romer wrote today about Andres Alonso, CEO of the Baltimore City Public School District, and the challenges he's facing in not wanting to obfuscate the fact that today his schools are not turning out graduates who are ready for the next step in life (higher-education or the workforce).

This chart shows the gap in test scores for the Baltimore schools vs. the rest of Maryland (thanks to Trulia.com).  So let's set aside the question of whether standardized tests are the best approach to this, I wrote about this here. 

According to the Washington Post, Blair Ewing of the school board wishes to delay successfully passing the tests as a criterion for graduation by a year to give students a chance.  This despite the fact that the school system, parents and students have known about this requirement for many years now.

This is just wrong. Why?

First - knowingly graduating students who do not have the skills to move to the next stage in their lives is a HUGE disservice to the students. They will not be able to get meaningful employment or move to tertiary education simply because they are not ready, and will be rejected.  How does that help?  Moreover, because they are establishing the reputation of the Baltimore City School District, they're actually making it much harder for students that follow to get a fair shake, even if those students are at or above the required proficiency!

Second - isn't the whole point of a school to educate its students? If so, then how do you turn them out into the world without having done your job? 

Third - what of the teachers, curriculum and assessments that have contributed to this? Will any of that change in the year to come? It doesn't appear that Blair advocates doing anything about that.

Fourth - where is the accountability of the board to the parents and students?

Blair doesn't believe the students were exposed to the teaching required to have passed the tests, so let's just graduate them anyway!  Unbelievable!  Reading this we all know that the only thing Blair wants to do is protect himself, and his reputation.  He cares not at all about the students. For shame!

If I were a resident of the city of Baltimore, I'd demand his termination and removal from the board, and maybe even tar and feather him <-- actually that pleasure should go to the students that he is attempting to betray.

Kudos to Andres Alonso for his integrity, as evidenced by this quote: "The notion that it is worse to hold them back rather than pushing them through unprepared is criminal."

We can only hope that under his leadership the District begins to face its problems head-on, take accountability, and attempt to fix things vs. impale their heads in the sand.

You are what you measure

Does America really care about education? On the face of it, we seem to. We spend more money on it than anyone, it's in every candidate's platform, and parents for the most part seem to care as well.

But the results don't bear this out.  American students are nowhere near the top of the global rankings. So what's not working? 

There's this universal truth - you are what you measure.

And how does America measure education?  Standardized tests.

And here is where that's gotten us: 20% high school drop out rates, 1.3 million (yes, million) high school graduates in remedial classes to bring them up to the bare minimum readiness for university, 93% of American teachers with little or no science training, the list goes on. 

According to the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), Massachusetts ranks #1 in academic performance in the United States, and yet only 75% of her students graduate from high school.

If you're interested in how NAEP tests our children - give it a go - the tests are embarrassingly easy, seeming almost to be "rigged" to increase the passing rates, and yet we still suck.

So what have I/we learned?

1. Despite the appearance of being "designed" to maximize pass rates, we still fail 
2. These tests do nothing to improve two core measures - dropout rates and readiness for the next evolution (university or the workforce)
3. By measuring teachers on their students' ability to pass a test, we are making the teachers teach to the test and only to the test, and we can't even seem to do that well

What can we do?

1. Define more pragmatic and relevant measures of success (suggestions below)
2. Pay for performance
3. Recognize that resistance to #2 is likely to come from the institutions as well as the unions that represent interested parties
4. Get the next President to care and make one of his top 3 priorities
5. Participate - all of us must be pushy and demanding
   

Suggested measures of success:

1. Reduction in dropout rates: every (100%) student in this country must graduate high school by 2025
2. Replace SAT and other standardized tests with performance-based assessments: every tertiary (post high school) school (university, college, community college, etc.) should be required (starting with the Sept 2008 incoming class) to report on student performance in their school based on the high school where they graduated:
   • Ranking #1 - each high school is ranked based on the percentage of students that require remediation (ex. if 20 out of 100 students needed remediation, that school's ranking is 80%); the goal is to be at 100%
   • Ranking #2 - each high school is measured on their students' performance vs. the all-up average student performance in that year (if there are 500 students in the freshman class, 10 from your high school, and your first year grades (as a group of 10) were 5% better than average, then your high school's ranking is 105%; the goal is to get as big a number as possible
   • Ranking #3 - the last four years' rankings are published to demonstrate the school's sustained performance ~over the trailing Gr 9-12 period<-- this is for high school, we can do the same for elementary and middle school
     
3. We will invest to bring, and incent to keep every school up to a "university-ready" standard, and give bonuses to schools that improve beyond that based on the performance of their graduating students at the end of their freshman year
4. Rather than create a teacher-based performance/incentive model, I prefer an institution-based one, to foster a sense of team + reflect the fact that the student learns from the whole school
5. There can be teacher-based incentives at the local level, just not at the national level
   

This is just 30 minutes' work to jot this down.  I imagine there are many people much smarter and more knowledgeable that could come up with a SIMPLE and CLEAR way to measure school performance, and then a simple and effective way to incent the desired behavior.

The 21st Century Imperative

Scott McLeod has a very interesting conversation going about a 21st century learning system.  One person asked a great question - why all of a sudden is it different?  How are this century's children different from any other century's and why does learning have to change?  Since innovation has occurred in every century, why is this one different?

All great questions. So why is this century different and why does it require a special and new system? I recently saw a great presentation by Martin Beanof Microsoft, where he talked about some interesting perceptions over the ages:

• From a teacher's conference in 1703: "Students today can't prepare bark to calculate their problems. They depend on slates which are more expensive. What will they do when slate is dropped and breaks? They will be unable to write!"
• From a principal's publication in 1815: "Students today depend on paper too much. They don't know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can't clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?"
• From the National Association of Teachers Journal 1907: "Students today depend too much upon ink. They don't know how to use a pen knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil."
• From the Rural American Teacher 1928: "Students today depend upon store-bought ink. They don't know how to make their own. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write words or ciphers until their next trip to the settlement. This is a sad commentary on modern education."
• From the PTA Gazette 1941: "Students today depend on these expensive fountain pens. They can no longer write with a straight pen and nib. We parents must not allow them to wallow in such luxury to the detriment of learning how to cope in the real business world which is not so extravagant."
• From Federal Teachers 1950: "Ball point pens will be the ruin of education in our country. Students use these devices and throw them away. The American values of thrift and frugality are being discarded. Businesses and banks will not allow such luxuries."

:)  Interesting that in every case, the institution was skeptical about a better enabler of communication. Today, the skepticism is about a better enabler of access to communication, and more specifically, how communication enables profound access to information.
 
This is where the game changed. Historically, teachers/academia/libraries held exclusive domain on knowledge. They chose to impart it on their terms, and the system (pedagogy, assessment, curriculum design, etc.) were all based on this bottleneck.
 
But now, anyone and everyone has access to information, lectures, assignments, tests, etc. And it's pretty much unfiltered (and indeed un-vetted).  This was exacerbated by the current No Child Left Behindpolicy, which bases academic accomplishment solely on arcane testing. How sad.
 
So - where is the teacher's power today? Where is the institution's power? Other than the mere ability to bestow diplomas, it's all in the hands of the teacher, whose ability to control information has been eliminated. Those teachers that can't cope, those teachers that can't engage students, those teachers that can't be the inspiration for their students, to help them:

1. Learn how to effectively find what's relevant from all sources.
2. Understand principles and basic concepts.
3. Learn how to combine all of this and turn it into analysis and then insight.
4. Effectively and persuasively communicate their insights.

I guess the real essence of 21st century learning is not in the hands of the students or the institution, but the educators. It will be their ability to capture, motivate, inspire, compel that will rule the day. In this sense, it's not that different from any other century.
 
The only difference is how obvious poor educators will be. Let's hope more than less have the sense to retool or retire.

To boldly go where we MUST...

According to this article, fully 25% (yes, one in four!) high school students in America drop out.  I had no idea the situation was this grave.

President Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) blueprint was intended to reform education.  But I can't imagine they'd call this success. In addition to a 25% dropout rate, from a quick very informal survey (of teachers and administrators), the implementation of NCLB doesn’t seem to be working on the ground. In fact, according to these teachers, it’s making the education worse.

What’s more, according to this, colleges are spending more than $2 billion a year to prepare incoming freshmen (one was actually an “A” student in English!) with remedial classes to bring them up to a basic college standard!!!

Can we do better than this?

Well, there's this other president who made an amazingly bold statement that became the mission of this nation. In 1962, John F. Kennedy said these words at Rice University:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things -- not because they are easy; but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept; one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win -- and the others, too.

Wow. This passage from earlier in the speech is rather wonderful as well: 

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength. And we stand in need of all three.

For we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear; in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases the greater our ignorance unfolds.

It seems to me, that both of these quotes apply almost exactly to our conversation. Change “go to the moon” to “educate and prepare our children for the 21st century”, and you have a mandate for the decade to come.

Why is this not possible?  I don’t believe anyone (of any party, social, racial, economic or intellectual status) would argue that the single greatest contributor to the future success of any community/country is the ability of its people to have the passion and capacity to be great.

How would we measure this?  How about this:

1. We must double the number of qualified tertiary (university and community college) students in this country by 2025.

2. We must therefore double the number of tertiary slots available to students, in both under and post-graduate.
3. We must eliminate tertiary freshmen remediation. 
4. High schools should be funded based on the grades of their graduates at the end of their freshman and sophomore years in university or college.

There’s a lot more to say here, but this is at least one hour’s thinking on this – here’s hoping this becomes a flagship mandate for whichever candidate wins the presidency.

Policy and Innovation

MSNBC/NYT wrote recently about how the two presidential candidates view innovation and the role of government therein. 

One candidate believes in market forces and trusts the capitalistic system to focus on and do the right thing. The other candidate wishes to hedge that bet with a more deterministic approach to have the government lay the groundwork and build the foundation.

On principle, I'm inclined to support the former (believing that governments generally don't do well thinking strategically), and allow vision and strategy to be set by those closer to the action and the opportunities, and more able to actually make change happen.

But there are two factors are making me question my view.

1. The mechanical/manufacturing nature of the education system.  It aspires to the lowest common denominator outcome, where success is based on the number of units (students) produced (graduated) with minimal view to the quality of the finished product or the quality of the production process. The talent pool coming into the work force is ever weaker...


2. The reality of instant information conveyance, which means that everyone (industry, commercial entities, schools, etc.) must focus on their image, perception and performance today vs. their efforts to create potential value that will only be seen in the future.

The result of these two forces is dastardly.  First - the machine is not producing effective raw materials for the commercial/industrial world.  Students need more remediation now when they leave any school system than ever before and obviously at much higher cost.  That cuts into the cost of doing business at every stage.

Second, with the obsession to make sure they look good now in front of the press and analysts that dictate their perception (and in large part their destiny), there is ever more pressure on the commercial world to produce now and to hell with the future.  Cynically I would imagine most of the leaders of the commercial world recognize that their half-life is so brief that the only success that matters is the quarter they're in and the one to come. 

In this type of world, it seems naive to put the future in the hands of organizations that simply don't have the luxury to conceive of a world beyond the next six months.  How will they ever trade off investments that we need to enable innovation for decades to come against tactics that create immediate impact??

But I'm still worried about whether the government has the ability and capacity to effectively accomplish this mission.  I wonder if this is the ideal opportunity to create a public-private-partnership (PPP) who is chartered with the goal of accomplishing this, and given the government's commitment that it (government) will adhere to the findings, recommendations, and investments that the PPP proposes?

The Edutanic

I just discovered the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and read their recent report on focused on Education and Competitiveness.

Wayne Gretzky - the greatest hockey player ever said something once that is most widely quoted in business strategy circles.  I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like: "a good player skates to where the puck is, a great player skates to where the puck will be."

Brilliant.

So what does that have to do with 21st Century Skills and Learning?  Simple.  This report seems obsessed with the current state of education in the United States, the current state of industry, and the current needs of businesses in the US.

There is no recognition of the truth that it takes decades for change to permeate a system as large and autocratic as this.  There is literally no way to turn the "Edutanic" on a dime or even a silver dollar.

So - why are we assuming that 21st century skills are only what we know now (only 8% of the way into this century)??

Why are we not positing the argument that says this is about learning not skills.  This about the capacity to adapt; the ability to persuade; the wisdom to evaluate; the insight to choose well.  These (and more) are all learnings that would take any of our children to wherever the puck will be.

Moreover, with whom should we be competing?  Surely not any other country in the world! Why not instead declare that our "competitor" if you could call it that is the future.  We want the best possible future for our children; their ability to thrive there is what we seek.  If we knew what that was going to be, we wouldn't be sitting around writing reports (or blogs for that matter).

The imperative then must be to build a system where every mind is opened, inspired, and made supremely able; the assessment must be such that these abilities are tested, not small things like rote memorization, or the ability to type on a keyboard, surf the Internet or program your (god help us) VCR.

We need educators, parents, schools, societies that are able to bring out these abilities in our children.  This is what the 21st Century Skills report should argue for.

The business case for learning

Very interesting post from Dangerously Irrelevant. One element that is missing is "why".  What's the business case for 21st century learning?

1. Why should a system (local, regional, federal) invest in such a thing?


2. What are the socio-economic impacts that will be realized - not just cost?


3. When will we see these results, and why should we do this now (vs. investing $ in health care, the homeless, or any other social priority)?

I don't believe the answers can be assumed because they're so obvious to those of us that care about education.  The reasons are equally obvious for a drug addict that would like the state to provide more rehab beds, or a homeless person seeking more shelter spaces, or a community seeking better roads, etc.  <-- And would you pick (for the short-term politician's mind) one of these, or 21st century education?

In addition to Dangerously Irrelevant's work above, we must create a model that demonstrates the net economic value of learning to society, and show that the value to society of investing in education is much higher than that of any other investment in the long run.

1. Evidence that students who have 21st century skills are more valued (and hence receive higher wages) by prospective employers, thus contributing to local economies. 


2. Related to this would be evidence that these individuals are in demand over and above lower-cost alternatives (i.e. lower risk of outsourcing because they are not a commodity asset).


3. Proof that it costs less over time (say 3 years) and across the whole system (schools, content, community centers, parents, etc.) to incorporate ICT (information/communication technology) to educate students than otherwise.


4. Show that with significant percentages of educators in K-12 retiring in the next five years (estimated at 40% of all teachers in Oregon for example), there is an opportunity to bring about change in Teachers' Colleges that will reach students for many years to come (potentially a very economical way to create scaled outcomes).


5. The impact and role of ICT in creating more globally-aware (through both knowledge and e-connections) community by building bridges between institutions, educators, classrooms and students.

These are just some elements that we'd need to incorporate in the business case.  To create a sustainable and defensible rationale for politicians to invest in Education, the numbers must be bulletproof and so profoundly compelling that EVERYONE agrees that the investment is mandatory.