Look, We're on TV

While reading one of the links from Alison’s most recent post, I came across not one, but two links on the CNN article link bar that pertained to the field of education…sort of.  One story was about an honors student in Texas who was jailed for missing class due to the fact that she works a full time job and a part time job to make ends meet.  The other was a story about a tenured teacher in New York with frequent absences and accusations of sexual harassment that took three years to receive a year-long suspension; she still may return afterwards if she receives a positive psychiatric evaluation.  All in all, it was a pretty lousy day in the news for schools, or as we’ve been learning in class, just an average day in the news.

To be fair, the honors student story did make it clear that the local courts were responsible for the sentence, not the schools, and the tenured teacher story did acknowledge that this was a rare case, but the overall tone of both stories, a mere three spaces from one and other on the page, leaves one with the impression that schools don’t care about the needs of students.  It’s frustrating to see that in a society of rules and order, our own laws can fail in some pretty extreme cases to recognize that certain exceptional circumstances require different approaches.  Even more frustrating is that someone would go through all the work to become a teacher, and then seemingly go out of her way to discredit the profession.

To steer this post back to class topics, the one thing I wanted to see most, but didn’t, was some sort of teacher advocacy, or at the least a teacher response, to the two stories.  For the girl working two jobs and going to school, why wasn’t there any teacher standing up for her and volunteering to help with supplemental lessons and support; surely if the state can support completely at-home cyber schools, they could support a modified lesson plan to meet the extreme needs of the student.  And for the other story, I wondered why the teachers in Rochester, especially the ones who have filed sexual harassment claims against the accused teacher, weren’t advocating for changing tenure qualifications.  The union representative in the interview did acknowledge that these changes needed to be made and that poor teachers make the entire profession look bad, but it would be nicer if a week later CNN could come back and see teachers actually lobbying for these changes.  When we concede the problems with the system and then do nothing about it, it does feed into the narrative of schools not caring about children, something news organizations are all too happy to continue to portray because angry viewers are tuned-in viewers.

Setting the Right Climate

I’ve been reflecting a lot today on the interview we heard on Thursday.  Specifically I keep think about the segment where the interviewer put forth the ubiquitous idea of the cashier that can’t make change as proof for the failure of our country’s schools.  It’s certainly not a new idea; I’ve heard my parents and others level similar accusations all the time.  While it’s very possible that individuals such as this might have a learning disability or be tired from working all day or be completely apathetic, I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t another example of the misconceptions that are derailing quality education.

This generation is different than previous generations in that if you organize your life in a specific way, you don’t have to handle tangible money.  Debit cards, direct deposits, and automatic bill pays have made modern financial management a completely different experience.  When we talk about learning from life experiences, we have to realize that fewer and fewer students are going to be having the experiences of receiving change or saving coins in a jar.  Plus people make mistakes and get flustered all the time.  I’m not advocating that kids shouldn’t know how many dimes go into a dollar, but I think it’s important to realize that certain people’s knowledge-base is informed by more than their schooling, and that the idea of deceptively simple tasks is completely subjective.  

If we go back to my parents complaining about the cashier at the store, they see the next generation as severely behind.  But if they need help with anything involving computers, they automatically go to the youngest person in the room.  No matter how simple or intuitive some task might be, no matter how clear the instructions or how thorough the help functions, I know a lot of older people who just can never work a computer without assistance.  They might say that it’s because computers weren’t around when they were younger, but couldn’t I just come back and say that their educations weren’t good enough and that their generation has no motivation?

One of the problems with educating people is that they’re just as motivated (maybe more so) by embarrassment, shame, and fear.  Instead of helping the confused cashier, our society points at him for his deficiency, whereas the elder technophobe convinces himself that because he hasn’t acquired a skill, it is too complex or beyond learning.  High-stakes testing furthers this idea about learning; when a student fails, it’s not seen as a teachable moment or chance for growth—people just condemn them and blame them for everything wrong with the world.  If the climate of society were different…if there was less judgment and more patience, adults and students alike would be more open to school and learning.  For our culture to grow, we should make students safer from superiority, condescension, and humiliation.  Instead of just pointing and saying, “What’s wrong with you?” when people don't know things, wouldn’t it be more helpful to just try to fix the problem, making everybody better in the process.

How it should be:  http://xkcd.com/1053/

Information Hegemony

Recently in the news, it has come to light that the U.S. has spent considerable sums of money to control information in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating propaganda to (ineffectively) sway the hearts and minds of the native people.  Also recently the reporters from USA Today who wrote about this “information operations” spending have had false websites and message board posts created using their identities.  Whether or not these attacks were the work of officials in the government, this example does illustrate how malicious the discourse of ideas in America has gotten.  Of course reading these articles drew strong flashbacks to the DOE e-mails and their opinion of Diane Ravitch.  It’s saddening because in all these examples we can see representatives of our government acting in the exact opposite manner as a democracy should.  They are using information to discredit, slander, or control people instead of empowering them and acknowledging their right to think for themselves. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s a conspiracy; to me it’s more reflective of a type eat-or-be-eaten corporate mentality that (strongly) discourages thinking outside the box.  These kinds of behaviors erode the very principals of democracy, singling out people for different beliefs and making them victims for those beliefs, all in the name of the bottom line.

The DOE e-mails were particularly frustrating because of the outright dismissal of ideas contrary to what were presented as the better answer.  Granted, these electronic interactions were only a fraction of the overall conversation that was going on, but it would be nice to see some self-evaluation and reflection on the part of the reformers.  We talked in class about how good teachers self-evaluate, questioning if students got a question wrong because they didn’t study enough or because the question was presented poorly.  Here there didn’t seem to be a lot of reflection going on to me.  Which is a shame because in the middle of the disparaging remarks about teachers’ unions and the promotion of hard-line testing, there were hints of really great ideas, such as tracking and supporting students after graduation and giving teachers and principals more autonomy.  There seems to be a climate within political dialogue today of constant blame and fear…fear of being wrong.   School is supposed to inspire people to always strive for improvement, to try to be better.  I understand the need to show a united front for national confidence and morale, but it is troubling that policy makers and corporate reformers seem to feel they have all the answers when they are but a small fraction of the people invested in making schools better.

Links to the articles mentioned above: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-02-29/afghanistan-iraq-military-information-operations-usa-today-investigation/53295472/1 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-04-19/vanden-brook-locker-propaganda/54419654/1 

Something for Everyone

I do not envy politicians.  The people they serve have a lot of demands and a lot of blame to go around.  Everyone wants change, but they don’t want it to change anything that affects them.  I would gladly embrace the idea of national common core standards if I thought they encompassed what I believed was a sound foundation for development of open-minded, socially aware and introspective citizens.  The problem of course is that we appear to be a long ways away from that.  More or less I agree with the articles we’ve been reading: high-stakes accountability testing and scripted literacy programs seem to be par for the course of what lawmakers think will foster learning and improve student achievement.  Alfie Kohn brought up a good point about needing a workforce with a diversity of skills and knowledge, and I can see where fears could arise from a more regimented organization of teaching.  Depending on how you look at it, the common core can look like a pathway to help guide teachers and students or a cage that is too small for them to move in.

It’s difficult to say what kids will need a decade from now.  I can understand the desire to simplify things and make them universal, but I don’t think a set of national standards could address all of the problems plaguing education today.  Aside from the diversity of students, there are thousands of teachers out there with as many styles of teaching.  And I think that is part of what makes public schooling so great.  Not every teacher may be your favorite, but I think that just feeds into the whole idea of the hidden curriculum—learning to work with people and managers that you may disagree with or who may have different expectations of you is good practice for the real world.  In an ideal school, this breeds a wealth of interactions and experiences for students to develop intellectually, analytically, and socially.  But every class…every student is at a different place in his or her education; if you’re pushing the class towards a goal that is far away, that’s admirable, but if a couple of kids fall off the train, you have to stop until they catch up.

Weak metaphors aside, I’m also reminded of the chapter of Ravitch’s book where she talks about her favorite teacher.  That teacher was strict and uncompromising, but she set goals that made students feel accomplished through their work.  That’s not to say that a core curriculum would remove those moments from the classroom, but it does highlight what competent teachers can do without the need for government intervention.  Ideally a teacher will set goals that are challenging, yet obtainable—incrementally growing student knowledge and confidence.  I just can’t see any piece of legislation with enough contingencies to anticipate all students’ needs.  Most students don’t even know what they want or where they want to go, and national standards seem like they’d rigidly direct students on a path or outcome they might not want.  People are rightfully calling out for the same quality of education for everyone, but I don’t think that means having the identical education for everyone. 

Reforming Reform

Diane Ravitch’s book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education is a book that coerces introspection on the part of both the author and the reader.  While Ravitch goes into to detail about her positions on education and how her beliefs have slowly evolved, one can’t help but reflect on his or her own experiences in public education.  After all, the book asks us to think about what kind of people we want students to become, even if it is more about the way in which we get there.  And in asking that, the readers must look at whether they can consider themselves and those around them successes, and how much of that can be attributed to public schooling itself.

In Death and Life, Ravitch reveals the dozens of agendas that are impeding and ruining modern education today for teachers and students alike.  She brings up the millions of dollars being fought for by testing companies and charter organizations.  Readers are also exposed to billionaire philanthropists looking to influence education policy and incidentally weakening social relations within communities by breaking up schools.  We are shown politicians that can’t even come to a consensus about questions on a national history exam because they project their own political attitudes and biases onto them.  Even teachers and administrators are shown to be affected by taking part in grade inflation and outright cheating to secure their own jobs.  Throughout the book, Ravitch creates a picture of schools that are failing because people are caught up in their own motivations—oversimplifying, and in some cases outright ignoring what is best for students.

Ravitch’s book points blame at a lot of sources for abusing their power in the name money, power, and pride, but indirectly it casts blame on American society as a whole.  Perhaps the real failure of schools is not that we are lower in test scores than other countries, but that our society is so apathetic and uninformed to the lies and inequities present today.  The fact is that the people who ignore the hard data that shows that test scores have no correlation with complex critical thinking and reasoning; the ones that are always looking for a quick fix—all of these people are products of the American school system.  I was distraught in class to hear that the critics of the book feel it is wanting for not offering a concrete solution to this current crisis because it is a sign of this same attitude.  It feels like people want to be able to just Google the answers to all their questions and problems instead of taking them apart and logically to examining them to discover that solution.  There is a motivation problem in this country, and as Ravitch points out, an infrastructure based on do-or-die testing with extreme consequences is not the way to get people more re-engaged with learning and thinking.

Most disturbing of all is the plan the author presents to systematically break down the institution of public schooling by closing schools, undermining educational professionals, and channeling money away from districts through harsh sanctions that do nothing to improve the education system whatsoever.  Right now education reform is creating solutions that are only successful if one looks at appearances at the surface at the surface level.  Test scores and graduation rates may go up in some charter schools, but that’s only because many exclude poorer students through lotteries and suspensions.  Scripted literacy programs may create better understanding about how to read, but they’re doing nothing to inspire students to utilize reading for any means other than passing school. 

Death and Life isn’t the book to solve the problems of school reform, but it is a book to start readers and educators on the reflection process.  In highlighting the blows struck to public schools in the last decade, Ravitch’s book asks us not just to feel pity for those affected the most, but to realize that education policy is an ever-changing entity.  The solution to it will lie in examination, collaboration, and compromise.  The events touched upon in this book show that schools, and perhaps other institutions within society, need to produce citizens more willing to analyze, and more importantly participate.  As an initial supporter of school reform Ravitch admits that, like with most innovations, she focused on the potential benefits of these policies without thinking about the consequences.  Whether these consequences could be foreseen is difficult to say.  However, all education is rooted in the idea that to learn, students first need to try new things.  Then, when they mess up they have to reflect on why and try again.  That’s where learning occurs.  If schools are ever to improve, we have to use the same process as educators; otherwise we come off as hypocrites to every student we’ve told to keep trying and not give up.  By making these mistakes clearer and articulating their effects so precisely, Diane Ravitch has taken the first step in helping to come up with the solution.  She emphasizes in the book that there is no such thing as a quick fix or silver bullet, so that in turn means that schools can be saved, but it will be quite a struggle that we need to prepare for.

Disagreeing to Agree

During today’s discussion of Jack Hassard’s article portraying overseers of Common Standards as authoritarian opponents to individuality, I was forced to reevaluate my initial impressions on the piece.  I do agree with the author that national test scores are an arbitrary method for measuring a country’s stability and economic growth, and the neglect of input from actual educators is quite alarming.  Not to mention the overall blow to the teaching profession’s morale and productivity over the last few years.  It is a shame that so many bright scholars have to continue to focus their energies on explaining the difference between test taking and genuine learning. Hassard comments on how teachers have been made out as enemies that need to be sought out and eliminated.  I’ve always struggled with this idea of just getting rid of bad teachers.  After all, if we do identify bad teachers, shouldn’t we be able to teach them to improve?  Isn’t the basis of the practice and profession of education that people who are ignorant or deficient in some area can be taught to be better?

But while I agree with the rationale and the sentiment behind the paper, I still struggle with the narrative presented in the paper.  We discussed the dichotomy in class, but what I still have a problem with is the presentation of public schools as functioning perfectly if not for the shadow of Common Standards looming over them and ruining everything.  Hasard quotes award-winning teacher Karen Borders who said that her students “are not passive learners, they are scientists” and they “embrace the idea that they are empowered to own their learning.” This feels to me like an exaggerated and unrealistic view of what students, even succeeding students, get out of school.  To me this kind of overstatement is just as dangerous as the leaps of logic in A Nation at Risk.

This part is going to be hard for me to articulate without sounding like a huge cynic or a bad teacher, but I’m still going to try.  Don’t get me wrong, I got into the profession to inspire; to make kids appreciate books and writing, to become more confident in presenting their own ideas.  In Altoona I had lots of students express gratitude for helping them, or smile when they did well.  But if I think back to my own priorities when I was in high school, they primarily revolved around continuing whatever video game I was playing when I got home or trying to get girls to talk to me. From what I’ve seen, things haven’t changed all that much in nine years.

Now I’m not trying to say that students can't like school, just that it is unlikely to instigate the same amount of enthusiasm as the professionals that are teaching; the professionals chose to be there.  Whether students are presented with the common standards or the most progressive differentiated real-world curriculum possible, they are still forced to be there. And while great teachers (of which I hope to be one eventually) can engage, challenge, and push students to reach their potential, those students still will groan every time you pass out homework or hand out a test.  Teachers are hardworking and passionate people, but most students I've met want to find their own passions, not have their teachers' passions projected onto them.  This is another reason why basing public school success on standardized tests is a farce, because students have an abundance of interests and priorities; it shouldn’t be their responsibility to ensure teachers’ jobs or validate a school’s existence.  My issue with remarks throughout the piece, such as Borders' remarks, are not that her students enjoy learning or that she pushes them towards deeper forms of thinking.  It's just that the comment make it sound like her agenda is being projected onto the students. 

The Standards Movement is all about expectations on both sides.  Everyone is hung up on how to determine if teachers and schools are “working” when what we really need to do is take a break from that debate and focus how to get students more interested in learning.  Highlighting the problems in Common Standards is fine, but even if all national standards were thrown out tomorrow, that still wouldn’t solve the problem of  low motivation or declining interest in reading nationwide.  I still find it difficult to believe that in this huge debate, the student voice is nonexistent.  

Bonus: here's a video about some of the topics that were brought up in class today outside of the realm of education.