Education Perspectives

False Mastery

A while back, I watched this video by Dr. Tae, aka "Your skateboarding and physics professor".  This video is worth watching! 

Dr. Tae — Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning from Dr. Tae on Vimeo.

One idea he speaks about is how testing and grades can provide false certification or false mastery.  He emphasizes that getting an A in a science course isn't indicative of subject mastery.  Mastery of anything takes large amounts of time and work, and the ability to memorize and test well has nothing to do with subject mastery. 

I am disturbed by what follows here.  No Child Left Behind is very much centered around testing and when school districts do well on tests, we assume mastery.  We assume that the school is doing a good job educating our students.  That's false mastery nationwide!

Think about that......

Q & A with Diane Ravitch

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.

When in Doubt, Toss Them Out!

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 Love you More than my Dog"

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!

NCLB vs. the Real World

Interesting article in USA Today.  It centers around comments made by Patrick Bassett, President of the National Association of Independent Schools.  It also references Dan Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind".

I believe this quote by Mr. Bassett encapsulates the core idea; "What's troubling is that our system is obsessed with standardization at the very time when the future of our economy depends on the opposite."  In the US, we tend to obsess on single-minded, quick fix ideas.  No Child Left behind is a good example, because as a result of NCLB, our public school system is now completely focused on test results!  And our school systems will leave future graduates unprepared for the emerging world.

Again, the problems within our public schools are systemic.  It's impossible to fix a systemic problem with more rules and more standardization.  Check out my prior blog entry in which I featured a talk by Sir Ken Robinson.  Sometimes, less is indeed better.

A Beginner's Mind

"In the mind of a beginner there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few" - Shunryo Suzuki-Roshi

The beginner's mind is a Zen philosophy I embrace, and I believe it has deep implications for education. This philosophy is reflected in Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, in Ben Zander's book "The Art of Possibility", and by Garr Reynolds in his Presentation Zen blog, to name just a few. 

Do you remember how you viewed the world when you were a child?  Compare that to your thought processes as an adult.  When we are children, everything seems possible.  Then, through life and education, "possibility" becomes increasingly narrow.  The education system is designed to teach us the analytics of life...eliminating the impossible to get to the possible.  Many of us then begin to view everything in the world within that narrow thought process.  We forget what Ben Zander calls "the art of possibility".  We come to allow fear of error to consume our thinking.

What makes people successful isn't the fact that they did everything right.  For the most part, successful people have made mistakes, sometimes large ones, yet still went on to be successful.  Difference is that generally, successful people learned from their mistakes.  When fear of error consumes our thoughts, possibility becomes scarce!  That's something I struggle with, as do many of us.

In looking at local school test scores in this mornings local paper, it occured to me that our educational system is focused almost entirely on not making mistakes, on getting the right answer.  In fact, schools need to be the place where mistakes are not only tolerated, but celebrated.  Because mistakes create the possibility for learning.  Real creative thought involves asking the right questions.  Tom Chapin did a video "Not on the Test" which I posted on Fresh Perspectives.  It is a bit extreme, but illustrates the need for change. 

We are indeed short-changing our kids.  Less bureaucracy, less "No Child Left Behind", and less government interference is a good start.  Analytics are important, but fostering creative thinking is important as well.  American education is out of balance.