Isn’t there anyone who knows what education is all about? December 17, 2010

A few nights ago I was watching holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.  This clip (one of my very favorites) stood out to me for a different reason this year:

As I watched Charlie Brown yell out in exasperation, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” I thought, educators around the world are crying out similarly.

“Isn’t there anyone who knows what education is all about?”

We hear all kinds of answers from politicians, union heads, educators, publishers, education companies, news anchors,  “experts”, and movie producers.

In the end, we know what education is all about.

Kids.

If the answers we are getting from the “experts” do not start there, they aren’t really experts after all.

Kids.

That is what education is all about Charlie Brown.

Neglecting Value September 8, 2010

Creative Commons Image from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahfelicity/153441419/

Recently I found a new non-educational blog that I am really enjoying called Be Deviant. The Blog author, Justin Wise, recently wrote a post called 3 Steps to Make People Feel Valued. In the post, Justin mentions a book called The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwarz. After reading Justin’s post, I was eager to read the book too. I am only a few chapters in, but haven’t been able to get Justin’s post out of my mind because it relates so closely to the other posts I have written recently on Dreams of Education. I hope Justin doesn’t mind that I piggy back on his thoughts as they relate to education.

The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working-Tony Schwartz

How we feel profoundly influences how we perform.  Feeling devalued pushes us into the Survival Zone-which increases our fear, distracts our attentions, drains our energy, and diminishes the value we’re capable of creating…Perhaps no human need is more neglected in the workplace than to feel valued.

Schwartz thoughts are geared toward the workplace here but how many of us could replace workplace with school environment?  There is a culture in most schools of devaluing students and educators.  That culture may not be overt but it is felt in subtle ways every time a students or teachers self-worth is based on a single standardized test.  It is felt when students aren’t treated as the individuals that they are, but are instead taught from scripted curriculum and moved from grade to grade because it is the next step and not necessarily because they are ready for it.  It is felt when politicians make asinine decisions like that schools make public whether teachers are doing enough to raise students’ test scores.  It is felt when merit pay is discussed as if the only reason schools are failing is because teachers don’t make enough money to do their job better.  It is felt when a student walks into a classroom and sees the utilitarian rows of desks and moulded plastic chairs that we ask them to sit in for 6 hours a day.  Schools neglect the human need to feel valued.  What results are schools that act out of places of fear, strapping teachers and students down even more so that they will perform on the test (forget learning).  It is no wonder that teachers are drained and may only last 3 years in the profession.  It is no wonder that students attentions are distracted and they do what they must to get by.  The value that students, teachers, and administrators are capable of creating wanes because they aren’t being valued.

In his post Justin offers three ways to value others, I’m using his three as a rough outline.

1.  Let people know what they bring to the table.

For students this means helping students find what Sir Ken Robinson terms The Element.  Tell your students what abilities you see in them.  Be specific.  I had a fifth grade teacher who told me once that I was a beautiful writer.  I never knew that about myself.  I didn’t generally enjoy writing at school because no one had ever appreciated it before.  As I came to learn, I quite like writing.  Don’t forget to let students tell you what they bring to the table.  The school day just doesn’t allow ample opportunities for us to discover all of our students gifts, so let them tell you about their passions, let them show you where they think their abilities lie.

For teachers and administrators this means recognizing what your colleagues do that is unique and valuable.  We may assume that our colleagues know what value they add to the school environment.  Tell them anyway.  Making someone feel valued means that we recognize that they are valuable and letting them know it.  If you aren’t telling your colleagues what you value about them they will start to believe that what they offer isn’t valuable.  Don’t let that happen.

2. Give Specific Feedback

For students this means that when you grade something they have spent time on, you take the time to let them know what specifically was good about it or needed work.  There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours working on something and then receiving a letter grade at the top.  What does that mean?  Giving specific feedback shows our students that we value the time they spent on an assignment or project.  It shows them that we value them enough to spend our time reflecting on what they have done.  When we do have to correct or offer a negative comment, it will be received from a much different place.  Instead of thinking “they have no idea how hard I worked on that and all they do is criticize me;” they may start to view the criticism for what it is, correction to help them grow.  Giving specific feedback makes you more than a teacher, it makes you a mentor and someone who disciples.  Discipleship is a lost art that needs to be reintroduced in the classroom.

For teachers and administrators this means offering thoughtful advice and encouragement.  ”Good job” just doesn’t cut it.  Unless you are limited to 140 characters, specific feedback will always make people feel more valuable.  Being specific lets others know that you were actively attending to what you observed and that you appreciated it enough to elaborate beyond the “atta boy”.  If you are an administrator that is in the position of observing teachers, make sure that you offer initial feedback as well as specific follow-up feedback.  As a teacher, there is nothing worse than being observed by your boss only to have them leave without saying anything and offering an “it was a really good lesson” a few weeks later.  Give me immediate feedback with your initial reactions and then follow it up with more specific feedback.  Because I feel valued, I am more likely to take any advice you have to heart and work on implementing it.

3.  Celebrate the people around you.

We don’t celebrate our students enough.  We don’t let them know how much we are rooting for them, how much we want the very best for them.  Do something extraordinary and unexpected for your students.  In my classroom this meant giving them a “free day” where they could show me what neat technology they were using and act as the teacher.  Extraordinary doesn’t have to be expensive, it just needs to demonstrate that we value our students.  I had an exceptional third grade teacher.  Every once in a while she would hold a classroom celebration where we got to eat lunch with her IN the classroom.  She made this a really big deal, fun music, special games, and ice cream sandwiches at the end.  When we asked her why we were celebrating she would let us know how proud she was of the way we were growing and learning, so much so that she wanted to celebrate it.  This is the same teacher who would leave us special notes of encouragement in our desk (on purchased funny Hallmark cards), sent me a birthday card for two years after she was my teacher, and encouraged our parents to write us notes throughout the year.  She knew how to make us feel celebrated.  It doesn’t have to cost money, it just needs to be demonstrative.

For teachers and administrators this means going out of your way to celebrate them.  If you are an administrator, gift your teachers with an extra hour of planning throughout the year, stop in the classroom and take over so they can go to the bathroom, bring them a cup of their favorite coffee.  If you are a teacher let other teachers know they are celebrated, leave them a note of encouragement, slip a handful of chocolate on a long day, leave them flowers for no reason.  Celebrate every accomplishment of every teacher.  If someone has started a blog, that is cause for celebration, did someone try a new project or tech tool in the classroom? That is cause for celebration!

This is where Justin finished his list but I have to add one more.

4. Change the environment.

Environment can make us feel valued, for my complete thoughts on why, read my post Beauty Matters.

Ask your students what they would like the classroom to look like, and then let them help you make it special for them.  Classroom furniture is SO impersonal and factory feeling.  Think about how the arrangement of your classroom can change the feel. In high school I had a teacher who lined his walls with desks, they were not to be used as desks but as surfaces to display student work and achievements.  The rest of the room was completely open.  Many times we would sit in a circle of chairs, but he let us work the way we wanted to.  By the end of the year students had donated couches, bean bag chairs, and lamps to make the room feel more comfortable.  Everyone looked forward to that class because it was such a welcome break from the rows in every other classroom.

If you are a teacher or administrator, create a place that is just for relaxing.  Teachers lounge 2.0.  Decorate it with art, add a CD player, offer magazines and “real” chairs.  Make it comfortable and aesthetically appealing.  We all need a place to escape to sometimes, give teachers that place.  Let teachers have ownership in how the space looks.  Beauty matters, it is important and it sends the message that people are valued.

As it turns out, showing people they are valued isn’t hard, it just takes a conscious effort.  Let’s transform our schools into places where everyone who walks in the building feels valued.

Apple Does it Right September 4, 2010

From Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_han/623205062/

I just finished reading and commenting on “Why I’d Rather Have a ‘Limited’ iPod/iPad in My Classroom Than a Netbook” over at Mr. Keenan’s blog, Mobile Devices in Education.  The past few posts on Dreams of Education have been about making school a place where students and teachers know they are valued.  In “Teachers as Expendables” I talked about the way that students and teachers are treated in a school and why that matters.  Last night I wrote “Beauty Matters” and talked about how aesthetics in the school building can show students that they are valued and special and let them know that learning is important.  In Mr. Keenan’s post he talks about a new student who came to his class and was amazed that they were given an iPod to learn with.  He says, “Students come into my class and are amazed that they are given something they love to use, and taught how to use it effectively for learning. More than the novelty of it for them, is the fact that educators are starting to understand that we can fit learning into their world, instead of forcing them to conform to our ‘educators paradigm’.”  While I agree with Mr. Keenan’s assessment of the use of the iDevices in the classroom, I think there is more going on here.

Apple products are different because they evoke emotions, they make you feel privileged, special even.  When you use an Apple device you immediately understand the incredible thought and design that went into the product.  You get the sense that it was created especially for you, the way you work and think.  While netbooks are handy because of what they do, they are utilitarian.  There is nothing that feels overly unique or special about them.  You just don’t get the same feeling when you use a netbook.  Apple products don’t feel as if they got rushed through production and a factory line, with little thought given to design, to get set on a shelf in Walmart.  Apple knows that good design is worth the extra time and energy, when you use a device you get this sense.

I believe that Apple devices are ideal for education, not just because of what they allow students to do and create, but also because of the way they make them feel.  When you give students something that is beautiful and well designed they are going to feel special and valued.  They are going to know that the device chosen for them was done from a thoughtful place.  They will have the perception that their education is valued because we didn’t skimp on the device we gave them to save a few dollars.  Fans of Apple love the product for more than what it does, we love what it represents, we love the thoughtfulness that went into them.  When I had a Dell, I thought nothing of selling it and trading up a year later when it had started to cause more problems than it was worth.  It is different with my Apple devices.  From the moment you open the box it feels like an experience.  Even the packaging is well designed and thought out.  There is an immediate recognition that attention was given to the product.  The device doesn’t come with owners manuals and instructions on use, it doesn’t need them because it is waiting, ready to be used the way that you would expect.  When you turn the device on you aren’t bombarded with advertisements for other products, you get right in and you use the device. So, when the next magical device comes out, there is a hesitation to let the old iDevice go. Whether students are cognizant of all of these emotions or not, they are there.  It may be subconscious but when a student is given an iDevice, they feel gifted and worthy.

Steve Jobs gets criticized for his assertion that his devices are “magical”, but when you see a student gather around an iPad, you too begin to appreciate that there is something magical there.  When I first brought my iPad to school and set it on my desk, students immediately flocked around, asking questions and wanting to interact with it.  A few weeks earlier I was testing out some new netbooks and had 3 lined up, not one student stopped to look at them or ask what they were for.

I’ll leave you with one last thought, have you ever had a friend loan you something that instantly made you feel trusted, special, and worthy?  Maybe you needed to borrow a car and instead of handing you the keys to their teenagers Dodge Neon they gave you the keys to their new BMW.   Don’t you instantly feel valued?  Maybe you dropped in to see a friend and instead of offering you a glass of water they took the time to mix up a special drink or open an expensive bottle of wine.  Apple devices do this, they let kids know that they are worthy and they make them feel like what they do in the classroom matters.

Redefining Cheating August 4, 2010

Today’s early #edchat on Twitter was about the use of mobile technologies in the classroom.  During the course of discussion, someone mentioned that they worried about the rise of cheating with the use of mobile technologies in the classroom.  I mentioned that maybe we needed to redefine cheating.  In my mind, if a student is using the resources they have available to find an answer, and they are successful at it, we shouldn’t call it cheating…it’s smart!  It made me think about “cheating” in general and why it happens.  In my experience, cheating occurs when a student doesn’t feel successful in their learning.  They may not have mastered the concept, or more commonly, they aren’t good at memorizing.  Cheating on a test or a homework assignment reveals more about the classroom model than anything else.  Cheating reveals a shallow test/quiz/ homework assignment that asks students to memorize and regurgitate facts.   This isn’t learning.   I would argue that if a student used their mobile device to find the answer, they are much more likely to remember and understand than if they had memorized the answer.  We need to rethink the way the classroom is structured.  We need classrooms that aren’t so focused on memorization and instead require deep, meaningful interactions with learning.  When a child cheats, there is a lot that leads up to the decision.  The child doesn’t feel adequately prepared and yet they want to succeed.   How have we helped them to get prepared?  What deeper learning has been made possible? What connections have we helped them make in their learning?

You know what cheating tells me?  It tells me that my assignment or test was inadequate, it tells me that I didn’t adequately prepare the “cheater”, and that the “cheater” is more innovative and creative than a grade may reflect.  It takes creativity to cheat, students have to put a lot of thinking into how to do it without getting caught.  Students who cheat are thinking outside the box.  They may not be good a memorization, but they are excellent thinkers.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning cheating.  There are some character and value issues that must be worked through with a student who cheats.  I just don’t think that the type of behavior we consider “cheating” is actually cheating. I think using resources to find an answer should be encouraged for every student.   Kids who cheat are trying to survive a broken system.  The kids who aren’t good at memorizing are stuck in the same system that prizes kids who memorize well.  As a way of surviving and making it through school, the student believes their only option is to cheat the system.   This shows us that the child cares about succeeding, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t cheat, they would drop out.

Maybe we should encourage “cheating” (and by cheating I mean using resources) for all of our students.  If we are going to test students, let’s find out what they know and if they know how to hunt down what they don’t know.  Don’t we do that in the real world on a regular basis?

Let’s redefine cheating.  Cheating is when a child doesn’t contribute their strengths to a collaborative project.  Cheating is when a child puts the responsibility of their learning on someone else. Cheating is when a child acts dishonestly in a way that takes advantage of others. Searching for an answer to a test using a mobile device is not cheating, it is a creative solution to a problem.

Intelligence is bigger than a number July 15, 2010

I’m currently reading (and really enjoying) Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element.  If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it as a summer read.  It is full of insight and thought but is an easy summer read.  I want to share some pieces of the book that are standing out to me and share some of my thoughts and responses as I read it.   Blogging helps me internalize what I am reading and continues the conversation beyond my thoughts and the pages in the book.

• We have come to accept that intelligence comes with a number.  In the age of standardized tests, IQ numbers, and the “vanilla education” we have been lured to believe that intelligence is directly tied to a number.  Robinson points out just how wrong this is.  We have boiled education down to discovering how intelligent students are.  Instead of asking how intelligent are you?, a better question would be: how are you intelligent?

• Current education is born out of existentialism, the idea that knowledge is what can be proved through logical reasoning and evidence.  The problem with existentialism was the question of where to begin this process without taking anything for granted that might be logically questionable.   As a result, Descartes came to the conclusion that the only thing that he could take for granted was his own existence.  “I think, therefore I am.”  The Industrial Revolution was a natural outcome of this kind of enlightenment thinking.  Schooling as we know it was also established at this time, in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Schools were built on the idea that intelligence can be quantified.

• Robinson goes on to describe how the IQ test was created by Binet.  Binet didn’t create the test for the way it came to be used, he sought to help those with learning disabilities get the help they needed.  The use of the test changed in 1916 when Lewis Terman, of Stanford, took Binet’s test and developed the Stanford Binet Test.  Terman was part of the eugenics movement that sought to weed out entire sectors of the population, assuming that criminality, feeble-mindedness, and pauperism were genetic and possible to identify through intelligence testing.  The movement succeeded in lobbying for the passage of involuntary sterilization laws in 30 states.  If you were found to have a particularly low IQ, it was decided that you could not have children.  Obviously, these laws were eventually repealed.

• Carl Bringham is the creator of the SAT test we use as a college entrance exam today.  Bringham also claimed to be a part of the eugenics movement.  5 years after creating the test, Bringham disowned it rejecting eugenics along with it.  Bringham may have disowned the SAT, but colleges and universities didn’t follow suit.   The SAT focuses on two intelligences: linguistic and mathematical.  Elitism in education is still alive and well because we refuse to consider intelligence in a broader sense.  We insist on standardizing education and making it a game of have and have-nots.  We insist on defining it in a limited scope using numbers as our guidelines.  Intelligence isn’t as finite as we have been led to believe.

• Howard Gardner talks about our multiple intelligences.  These intelligences include: linguistic, mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intra-personal.  Currently in education we focus on two of these.  All aspects of human intelligence should be nurtured and celebrated.  To down-play intelligence outside of mathematical and linguistic is to do a disservice to the child and the world.  Everyone has different strengths and aptitudes to offer the world.  I wonder how many of these we are missing out on by forcing everyone to focus on developing only two intelligences?  We are missing out on a rich fabric of humanity.  When we work at out own abilities and nurture out individual strengths, the world becomes a more complete place to be.

• Teachers know that no child is a single intellectual score on a linear scale.  There are complexities there.  Yet we continue to use that score to determine the worth of a student, a teacher, a school.  Even children who score the same in standardized testing are vastly different and unique in their make-up.  They have their own passions, dreams, goals, and interests.  It makes me wonder if what separates the haves from the have-nots is not money at all.  Perhaps the biggest separating force is in the narrow definition of intelligence.  Maybe the difference in options has more to do with a series of tests that determines a child’s future than it does with money.

I am 3 chapters into The Element but I find myself stopping often and jotting down notes and digging deeper in an attempt to understand why education is in the place that it is.  What do you think? Am I jumping to conclusions too hastily?