This morning, I read Get Off Your “But”; How to End Self-Sabotage and Stand Up for Yourself by Sean Stephenson. When it comes to self-help, there are a great many “feel good” books out there. This isn’t one of them!
Sean has faced life-changing adversity during his life. He is a speaker and psychotherapist, and is pursuing a PhD. I encourage you to check out his website and watch the videos. His message is very compelling, and my words can't do him justice.
I just finished reading an interesting book; “The Power of Pull, How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion”, by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison. As I’ve said, we are in a world of reset, and things will never be the same again.
This book begins on the premise that the world is changing, becoming more complex and is decidedly unpredictable. It delves into these changes from the perspective of the individual, the institution and the world at large:
Former President Bill Clinton sums it up; “The Power of Pull examines the how question – how can we effectively address our most pressing challenges in a rapidly changing and independent world? In the Power of pull, (the authors) highlight fascinating new ways in which passionate thinking, creative solutions, and committed action can – and will – make it possible for us to seize opportunities and remain in step with change.”
This book is deep, but definitely worth reading! Stop for a moment and think about the implications these perspectives have with relation to our school system(s).
As I said in my prior post, I’m nearly finished reading “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, by Diane Ravitch. From 1991 to 1993, Diane was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.
This book is excellent and definitely worth reading. I've had the opportunity to do a quick Q & A with Ms. Ravitch. Check it out;
1. What would you consider the single most pressing problem with No Child Left Behind?
The worst thing about No Child Left Behind is that it created a punitive attitude towards teachers and schools. If the school doesn't raise scores, heads must roll! Principals must be fired, teachers must be fired, and schools must close! We see this echoed now in President Obama's endorsement of the mass firing of teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. If anyone asked my advice about NCLB, I would tell them to remove all the federal sanctions, which have no basis in research or reality and will lead to devastation of communities, not to improvement.
2. Testing seems like an excellent tool to measure progress. NCLB focuses on testing, so where is the problem?
As I show in the book, the present generation of tests are not good enough to make high-stakes decisions. I do not oppose testing as such; I think testing is useful when used for informational and diagnostic purposes, to tell us how students are doing, how schools are doing, how districts and states are doing. But there should be no stakes attached to such tests. It is the misuse of test scores and accountability that has given NCLB a deservedly bad name.
3. Business models get results, and NCLB seems to have elements of a business model. Why do you think the business model hasn’t worked for education?
There are different business models. The one being applied now in education is based on incentives and sanctions, which produces competition for rewards and fear of punishment. This business model is sometimes associated with cheating, gaming the system, cooking the books to get the desired results. We saw that with the debacle at Enron, WorldComm, and other businesses that got the right numbers but ultimately defrauded their investors and collapsed.
A different business model emphasizes the value of trust, collaboration, and teamwork among those who do the work of the organization. We have seen this in many successful corporations, and we see it in team sports. Games are not won by a group of individuals trying to beat their teammates, but by players who harmonize their strengths with those of their fellow players.
Schools need business managers to buy supplies and to maintain the plant, but the work of schooling requires collaboration and trust, not competition among teachers and fear of sanctions. Teachers and schools should feel encouraged to share their successes, not to hide their trade secrets.
As many of you know, I am not a proponent of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB is punitive and mean-spirited, and it has little if any effect on student outcomes. NCLB forces schools to focus on math, reading and standardized testing while failing to address other subjects that students need to be successful in life. It is a failure and needs to be recognized as such! Unfortunately, President Obama is continuing on with an agenda of standards and testing. From and educational standpoint, President Obama is a disappointment.
I’m currently reading “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”, by Diane Ravitch. From 1991 to 1993, Diane was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. At one time, Ravitch was a proponent of NCLB. Her latest book talks about why her views about NCLB have changed dramatically.
The news about the firing of all teachers in a school in Central Falls, Rhode Island has made recent headlines. This action was taken as a result of low test scores and a high drop-out rate, and many people believe those responsible are “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids." Even President Obama agrees. What isn’t publicized is the fact that this school is one of the poorest in the state, and it has a high population of non-English speaking students. This reckless action demonstrates exactly what I mean by punitive and mean-spirited! It relays that teachers are always at fault. It ignores societal factors like language and poverty level. It ignores the fact that schools can’t be operated like businesses. Is this today’s version of educational reform? To me, it is nothing more than a blame game; all brawn and no brains.
Diane Ravitch wrote a nice article on this subject in the Huffington Post. I couldn’t have said it better!
I recently read a book that compelled some thoughts about how our educational system could soar! The book is “I Love You More Than my Dog; Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad” by Jeanne Bliss.
Based on her experiences in what she calls “beloved companies”, Jeanne outlines the culture of very successful companies, and she explores how decisions made by those companies build a culture of customer loyalty. She explores the human side of business in a way that drills to the core of every organization; an approach that truly values people; an approach where employees and customers have value; an approach devoid of bureaucracy.
I’d like to take Jeanne’s 5 decisions and talk about parallels to education.
Decision 1 – “Beloved companies decide to believe…they believe their employees and their customers. And they practice this by suspending cynicism.” Imagine what might happen if schools were free to decide to believe in their teachers and their students! What if schools could place the stringent rules in the background and actually believe in and support teachers? What if teachers were encouraged to believe in their students? I submit that our current system of education discourages that culture. Although many teachers do embrace that idea, the system hinders and discourages a fertile learning culture.
Decision 2 – “Beloved companies decide with clarity and purpose…(they) take the time to be clear about what their unique promise is for their customers lives.” All schools have a mission statement, but how many public schools actually decide to create an experience for their students? How many decisions in a school system are about policy, procedure, rules and expectations; and how many decisions directly address creating an engaging culture for student learning? Having worked in a school for over 30 years, I can tell you that the decision scale is tipped toward bureaucracy.
Decision 3 – “Beloved companies decide to be real…(they) shed their fancy packaging and break down barriers between big company, little customer.” Good teachers know how to create a collaborative classroom, and good teachers know that in order to connect with their students, the need to operate at a student level. Good teachers know how to be friendly with their students while maintaining a good teacher/student decorum. Yet the system emphasizes rules and encourages teachers to create a “big teacher/little student” environment. Imagine if teachers could be free to work within a culture where collaboration is encouraged!
Decision 4 – “Beloved companies decide to be there…for customers in ways that are important to them…(they) gladly do the hard work.” Many teachers work hard and are there for students, being sure students understand, not just memorize. But the system promotes strict union rules which can create an atmosphere where such teachers might be ridiculed and admonished because they go the extra mile for students. And teacher unions are NOT to blame! The system creates a culture which places the bureaucracy ahead of the student, and it is the bureaucracy that creates the need for union rules.
Decision 5 – “Beloved companies decide to say sorry…(they) accept accountability when the chips are down.” The American school system equates accountability to test scores! Test scores drive funding and stigmatize schools. This system has very little regard for what students are actually learning and understanding. When we are reminded of the sad state of American schools, we make more rules and enforce more “accountability”. It is time to scrap or completely revise No Child Left Behind; NCLB does not work! It creates more focus on test scores and less focus on learning. Stop and think about how a student might feel when the newspaper publishes school rankings, and their school ranks last!
Check out Matt May’s blog article about schools in Finland. Best schools in the world, yet they have the least amount of rules. Finland takes a human approach to learning, and it works!
Jeanne Bliss’s book compelled some thoughts, and it is worthwhile reading for anyone. Sure, the ideas make sense for companies and schools. But really, Jeanne’s book succinctly relates the GOLDEN RULE. It puts people first. And that message is universal!
Matt May is the author of “In Pursuit of Elegance; Why the Best Ideas have Something Missing”. He also authors a blog by the same name. As Matt puts it, “…the full power of elegance is achieved when the maximum impact is exacted with the minimum input.” Matt steps further into elegance using 4 words…Symmetry, Seduction, Subtraction and Sustainability. I believe his approach has deep implications for education. I recently asked Matt to weigh in.
Q. In general, how well do you believe the American school system fosters elegant thinking?
A. I’m not sure I know enough to answer that question thoroughly. But I am a customer, having been through the system myself through the graduate level, and with three children who are products of the American public school system. In general, our schools are mostly about the acquisition of knowledge, not the creation of new knowledge. In other words, it’s all about getting the right answer to a predetermined question, or meeting a completion standard. It’s not about learning how to deepen what we’re born with, by which I mean a natural curiosity, and to focus more on asking the right questions. Based on what I’ve experienced in to the modern business organization, the American school system has missed the boat on creative thinking skills in general, in favor of knowledge acquisition skills. More homework, more assignments, more rote.
Q. What do you mean by symmetry, and how might it apply to education?
A. Most people think about symmetry in terms of a mirror reflection, which is a visual left-right balance. But that’s just one example of a kind of symmetry, of which there are many. In fact, most of the natural world is symmetrical, characterized by infinitely repeating patterns. So the best way to think about symmetry is the way Hermann Weyl defined it in his 1952 book, Symmetry: “A thing is symmetrical if there is something you can do it so that after you have finished doing it, it looks the same as before.” Symmetry is about dynamic properties of ordering, organizing, and operating. And the real lesson of symmetry is this: a few simple, non-negotiable rules or agreements are all that are needed in order to create a beautiful, self-organized behavior.
Most U.S. schools have pages, if not complete handbooks, of rules and regulations — compliance issues along with consequences. Compare that, say, to the approach taken in Finland. Finnish teens rank among the smartest on the planet, placing first in science and near the top in math and reading on the international test administered to nearly half a million students around the world by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) which is funded by 30 countries. The U.S. Is barely middle of the pack. Guess what the only rules are in Finnish schools? No hats, no iPods, no cell phones. There are no tardy bells. There's no Internet filter in the school library. You can kick off our shoes in class and walk around in socks. You might even find a math student napping during class, undisturbed by the fully aware teacher. You can pick out your own lunch,
which, contrary to the cliché, is free.
Q. In your book, you talk about how ideas need to be seductive in order to be elegant. How might that apply to education?
A. Seduction is about information overload. Limiting information creates engagement and curiosity, which I’ve said I think is missing in the school system. In the Finnish schools, there’s little standardized testing. You don't start school until you're 7. You get a half hour of homework at most...in high school. Teachers are not chained to scripted curricula; rather, they are free to customize to the needs and talents of each individual student, and as they see fit to meet national standards. That alone makes Finnish teachers more creative and innovative, more like educational entrepreneurs. They are effectively identifying areas of natural interest and proclivity in children, making them aware of knowledge gaps in their respective areas of interest, and providing the path to deepen that that learning. Rather than pushing information onto the kids, they are creating a “pull’ by increasing curiosity.
Q. Do you believe subtraction can and/or should be applied to education? After all, the world is a complex place. Wouldn’t subtraction short-change the students?
A. Subtraction means refraining from adding non value-adding things, and removing what doesn’t matter to leave room for more of what does. Looked at that way, there are a lot extraneous things, just from a teaching standpoint, that can be subtracted. I read not too long ago about a study that examined teacher activity, versus student learning time. Out of a typical 6 hour classroom time period, only about 35% was spent in productive learning. The rest was spent performing incidental work enabling that learning time: prep time, admin time, explaining assignments, handing things out, etc.
Q. Given our large dropout rate, how do you think American students could be better motivated? Do you have an example you could share?
A. High school dropout rate in Finland is about 4%. In the United States: 25%. So you’re right. And I do think we miss the boat by focusing on extrinsic motivation, rather than intrinsic. By that I mean we reward the wrong things in the wrong way. And that touches on the concept of sustainability. One of my favorite parables is the story of an old woman who lived alone on a street where boys played noisily every afternoon. One day, the din became too much, and she called the boys into her house. She told them she liked to listen to them play, but her hearing was failing and she could no longer hear their games. She asked them to come around each day and play noisily in front of her house. If they did, she would give them each a quarter. The youngsters raced back the following day, and they made a tremendous racket playing happily in front of the house. The old woman paid and asked them to
return the next day. Again they played and made noise, and again she paid them for it. But this time she gave each boy only 20 cents, explaining that she was running out of money. On the following day, they got only 15 cents each. Furthermore, the old woman told them she would have to reduce the fee to a nickel on the fourth day. The boys then became angry and said they would not be back. It was not worth the effort, they said, to play for only a nickel a day. Sound familiar? The old woman’s scheme effectively stole from the boys the very thing they loved most to do, what they were in fact doing for free.
The moral of the story is pretty clear. If we’re not careful, we can replace a natural motivation with a synthetic one. We can rob creative power from people by attaching a financial reward to ideas.
Teachers are notorious for the practice. They want students to read more books, so they reward the completion of books. Maybe with a homework exemption, or extra credit. Or even vouchers to the local Taco Bell. So the quick and easy books get read. The superficial books get read. Even the good readers, the ones who love to read, get swept up in the program. They stop reading the classics, turning to the quick reads to score points. Then the program is discontinued, because it simply can’t be sustained from a cost perspective. Guess what? Everyone stops reading. Even the best readers lose their love of books.
Here’s the end result: 40% of high school graduates never read a book again.
Q. It seems to me that the American school system is focused too much on information rather than creative uses of information. Do you agree, and where do you believe creativity should fit in to American schools?
A. Yes. It should be front and center, because applied creativity, aka innovation, is what we need now and in the future. Quick story: 19-year old Finnish senior Elina Lamponen had to repeat the year she spent in the U.S. at Colon High School in Colon, Michigan, when she returned home. She discovered that while Colon had strict rules, the students were disconnected and ambivalent about school. All the tests were multiple choice, versus essay as they are in Finland. Little in the way of creative thinking, or writing.
Q. Finally, could you sum up how your ideas fit into our educational system?
A. They don’t. I think we need an entirely new system.
Thank you, Matt! I refer to Matt's work frequently in this blog.
Matt May's book, In Pursuit of Elegance, Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, exemplifies the phrase "timing is everything". Because it nestles itself perfectly into our changing world. The idea of changing the American mindset to one of more creativity isn't a new concept. Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind and talks by Sir Ken Robinson give us a realistic view of this emerging new world. Matt May steps further into the problem and brilliantly scopes out a methodology of investigating this emergence. In his words...
"Because the most pressing challenges facing society are in urgent need of sustainable solutions-elegant ones...because we need to know how to make room for more of what matters by eliminating what doesn't'".
Think about the all the superfluous things in our society which reinforce our thinking that more is better! Sadly, that mindset is firmly entrenched in our bureaucratic educational system. More rules...more pay...more money...more information...more bureaucracy....more testing. We are attempting to fix education using the same methods that didn't work before.
We live in a time of information abundance. Yet our educational system remains more focused on information gathering than on forming solutions using information. I've heard some educators refer to this as the "memorization and regurgitation" method. Authentic teachers are being demotivated by the system! The bureaucracy of public education is indeed stifling an "elegant solution" to fixing education.
Elegance lies in dismantling this entrenched bureaucracy by using a subtractive mindset. Aligning teaching curricula at the college level to the emerging needs of society is a good start. We need facilitate a system where "authentic" teachers can flourish; then we need to let these teachers do their job unencumbered by single focused bureaucracy. The system needs to care more about preparing students for an emerging world and less about test scores. Indeed, none of the problems in education can be fixed by adding more superfluous rules.
Matt's book has indeed changed the way I look at the world. Its educational implications are enormous! And education is where it all starts.
In The Beginner's Mind, I talked about fear of mistakes as being an issue in American education. Richard St. John authored a book called 8 to be Great. It answers the simple question "What leads to success?" In the part of this video where he speaks of persistence, Richard says "All successful people fail."
Richard also spoke twice at TED. Here, he speaks of his own failures. Everyone interested in education should check out Richard St. John.
I'm not saying we should all strive to fail. But I do believe we all need to put failure into perspective.
