Tag: teachers

Thirty universes

You’re an astronomer whose job it is to observe celestial bodies, galaxies, black holes–in short, everything that can be perceived in the universe. It goes without saying this is a complicated task. There’s so much to study, and there’s so much we don’t know. A scientist could spend his or her lifetime observing the universe and not even begin to exhaust its complexities.

Imagine if there were thirty universes with completely different laws. 

You’re a physician who deals with various bodily afflictions. Of course, every person’s health is different, but fortunately you have a strong understanding of the human body: bones, veins, blood, lungs… the body is complicated, but it’s measurable and possible to study.

Imagine if there were thirty alien bodies with completely different physical structures. 

You’re a top athlete who’s mastered how to play basketball. You’re a pro at dunks, assists, three-pointers, and free throws. You just helped your team beat an opponent.

Imagine tomorrow night you have to play with a different sized ball every thirty seconds. Would this affect your shooting and ball handling? 

…

Teachers deal with approximately thirty students. That’s thirty different universes. Thirty different bodies. Thirty different basketballs. Each one different. Each one with his or her own learning modality.

What does schooling do? It treats each universe the same. It says that these standards are good enough for everyone. It says that this test is sufficient for assessing mastery. It says that bell schedules, five-day weeks, grades, and compliance are one-size-fits-all constructions. Educators do the best they can to teach children who have:

  1. Different backgrounds

  2. Different experiences

  3. Different cognitive developments

  4. Different values

  5. Different interests

  6. Different learning modalities

  7. Different desires

  8. Different emotions

  9. Different abilities

  10. Different ways they started the day

Thirty universes whose complexities are impossible to comprehend, let alone study sufficiently. It’s impossible to learn how each student best learns in 9.5 months. As soon as a teacher gets an inkling of how individual students can learn successfully, the kids have summer break before staring over with new teachers.

Imagine the skin in the game if teachers had students for multiple years. What would happen if we understood the thirty intricate universes just a little better? 

It’s safe to say that Dumbing Us Down has me thinking.

Dumbing Us Down

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. –Mark Twain

John Taylor Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down is a lit match in a dry thicket. It’s a feverish dream before the beginning of a long school year. It’s a wet blanket draped over the positive ideas to which you may cling concerning the effectiveness of Systems. It’s every reservation you’ve held about public education, packaged in an economical 94 pages.

The interesting thing about books is the nature of their relevance. Sometimes a book catches like wildfire and then gradually loses its power. In other instances, a book is released to crickets only later to scorch the world with its ideas.

John Taylor Gatto’s book is a slow and steady burn tailor-made for thoughtful educators concerned with the effectiveness of the public school system. Dumbing us Down was originally published in 1992, and although it isn’t the most widely read book on education out there, it definitely has a strong following. I read another book of Gatto’s years ago entitled Weapons of Mass Instruction, and it posits a truth about public education I’d never fully realized. Dumbing us Down has accomplished the same feat.

I recommend you stop reading this post, open another tab in your web browser, go to Amazon, and purchase the book right now. If you’re not ready to add another book to your Amazon Cart, or you’d like more information about Dumbing Us Down, feel free to venture forward.

The main idea sewn throughout the book is that tinkering with schools to make them better is a lost cause–we have to re-imagine what school should be. Public education was an invention of industrialism, and the main subject schools have concerned themselves with is compliance. To this end, schooling has been extremely successful. Gatto even goes so far as to divide the first chapter into seven sections that represent what he taught as a New York public school teacher for 30 years:

  1. Confusion

  2. Class Position

  3. Indifference

  4. Emotional Dependency

  5. Intellectual Dependency

  6. Provisional Self-Esteem

  7. One Can’t Hide

You’ll have to read the book to find out how these items are taught. If you do so, you’ll either be cheering for Gatto’s gumption or think he’s crazy. There’s not much middle ground in Dumbing Us Down. In fact, on page 12 and again on 61, he makes a statement with which you may or may not agree:

…the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about one hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn (Gatto 12).

He goes on to say that each content area can be easily self-taught; all it takes is the right timing, and if there’s one thing public school does not concern itself with, it’s timing.

Gatto paints a beautiful picture, but don’t let the romantic ideas fool you: Putting his thoughts into action would drastically change society. Consider the following excerpt:

Is it any wonder Socrates was outraged at the accusation he took money to teach? Even then, philosophers saw clearly the inevitable direction the professionalization of teaching would take, that of preempting the teaching function, which, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone (Gatto 16).

Does this mean he would do away with credentialed teachers altogether? It’s difficult to say. What is explicit throughout the text is his insistence that school has replaced more important community institutions such as family and church. Gatto makes a clear delineation between communities and networks. Essentially, communities are groups in which people give and receive empathy. The members have skin in the game, which leads to a healthy sense of love, perseverance, and self-reliance. Networks, on the other hand, are places of sympathy. They have no skin in the game. Even though people may feel badly for one another in a network, there’s no sustaining bond.

According to Gatto, schools are networks–soulless places that make students obey a bell (under all circumstances) and force them to another teacher every year (in most circumstances). If you’re a teacher, I challenge you to calculate the percentage of former students who hold meaningful places in your life. It’s low, right? It’s because we’re all a small part of the System.

Dumbing Us Down was written in the early ’90s, so (web based) social networks weren’t yet created. I’d really like to know what Gatto thinks about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al. It seems to me social networks exemplify the same traits Gatto gives to “traditional” networks in the book. Facebook provides a feeling that we’re surrounded by people who have skin in the game, but we know this is false. Empathetic relationships are forged within community via closeness of proximity and investment of time–things which social media cannot replace. I think Gatto would lump schools into the same category as social media, which is to say that school is well meaning infrastructure that produces an illusion of belonging.

Twitter, the network of choice for teachers, has spread great teaching ideas while at the same time disseminated educational junk and empty platitudes. It has also propagated the idea of the importance of a PLN, which for most teachers is nothing but smoke and mirrors on Twitter. Consider the following:

When the integration of life that comes from being part of a family in a community is unattainable, the only alternative, apart from accepting a life in isolation, is to search for an artificial integration into one of the many expressions of network currently available. But it’s a bad trade! Artificial integration within the realm of human association–think of those college dorms or fraternities–appears strong but is actually quite weak; seems close-knit but in reality has only loose bonds; suggests durability but is usually transient. And it is most often badly adjusted to what people need although it masquerades as being exactly what they need (65 and 66–emphasis mine).

Am I wrong in saying this describes the false sense of “community” we’re experiencing online?

If you read Dumbing us Down, you’ll have to choose for yourself whether you agree with the following beliefs: 1) School is causing addictive and dependent personalities. 2) School is promoting a life of “accumulation as a philosophy”. 3) “Only self-teaching has lasting value” (31). 4) The theory of teaching isn’t ever discussed in classrooms and lounges. 5) “…we shouldn’t be thinking of more school, but of less.” (47).

Conclusion

Gatto argues that less school, not more, is a move in the right direction. It’s a bold statement and totally antithetical to what’s tossed about in the media, district offices, and school sites. Nevertheless, it’s a discussion worth having, and reading Dumbing Us Down is the perfect place to start. The book is remarkably quotable. I’ve actually had to restrain from posting a lot of excerpts, but I’d like to leave you with some last words written by Gatto:

Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important: how to live life and how to die (67 and 68).

Be like Jon Stewart

As educational technology continues its evolution across the world, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: Building people’s capacity is an important–maybe the most important–professional task.

For too long the field of education has been a lonely place in which to work. Classrooms have traditionally been islands, and districts rarely partner with neighboring districts. Fortunately, the tides have begun to turn regarding this traditional lack of communication and support. I’ve seen more teacher to teacher and district to district collaboration this year than I have in the last ten years. Part of this is because technology makes communication easier (ex: Google Hangouts, Skype, LMSs, etc.). A potentially bigger reason is that the only way to learn all the new technology being developed is to band together and use collective expertise to thrive.

This is why building the capacity of others is so important. We’ve always lived in a world where people develop certain skills, and those skills benefited the whole community. Farmer, blacksmith, merchant, cobbler, seamstress, doctor… individual skills have always been valuable for the good of the whole.

Today you need a lot of skills in order to bring value. A teacher needs to understand not just his or her subject area, instructional practices, and curriculum, but also must possess a myriad of tech skills. This also goes for administrators. That’s why it’s so important to focus on making others better at what they do. Too often we’re focused on how “I” can get better, and we forget about ensuring the advancement of those around us. An educational community in which everyone is helping others (not just students) will reap better results.

Enter Jon Stewart–current host of The Daily Show. Stewart is a talented individual when it comes to comedy, but he’s also been adept at nurturing the talent in others. Stephen Colbert. Steve Carell. Ed Helms. John Oliver. Noah Trevor. All of these people have honed their crafts at The Daily Show. When Stewart took a hiatus from the show to direct a film, he allowed John Oliver to take the helm, which eventually led to a gig for Oliver at HBO. Many stars wouldn’t have given Oliver this opportunity–or they would have done it begrudgingly. Stewart saw it as a win-win situation: Oliver gets some exposure, and I get to make my movie.

Stewart didn’t care that the audience would laugh at Oliver instead of him, or even–heaven forbid–like Oliver better. As Stewart did before for other comedians, he wanted to help build Oliver’s capacity so he could leave The Daily Show and continue a thriving career elsewhere.

We can learn so much from this mentality. Unfortunately, many people hold their cards close to the vest. They provide little information, keep communication vague, and compartmentalize others within job titles. This is bureaucracy, and unfortunately education sometimes fits this mold. In the cases where it doesn’t–where teachers and administrators actively pursue the advancement of others’ knowledge–the transformation is inspiring. Students deserve adults in their lives who have everyone’s best intentions at heart.

Be like Jon.

Crowdsourcing in education

It’s not easy setting up a 1:1 environment across a whole school district–even if it’s a small school district. Some of the necessary steps include purchasing devices and carts, configuring devices, running cable, installing access points, constructing a system for damaged computers, troubleshooting, and much more.

The good thing about all these tasks is they result in outcomes that clearly show whether or not the objective was met. The devices are either purchased and configured or they’re not. The cable and access points are either installed or they’re not. Being able to pick up and fix damaged computers occurs or it doesn’t. The effects are tangible and easily quantified.

This isn’t the case when you want teachers to use devices in their classrooms. There’s no magic number of PD sessions necessary to win over a teacher’s affection for web based programs. There’s no special place or time in which PD sessions can be held that will foster the effects you’re seeking. One-size-fits-all approaches are obviously useless, and so are many of the consultants who promise to build ‘capacity’.

You can create a perfect technological infrastructure, but you can’t make people use it–this is true. So what do you do?

You find individuals who see value in the technological possibilities at each school site. You then pay those people as much as possible (even if it’s a measly stipend) to serve in two functions:

  1. Provide communication to each school regarding everything from device maintenance to instructional best practices.

  2. Teach teachers how to blend student learning.

Those are straightforward objectives and wonderful ways to start this portion of the deployment. Here’s something that’s very important to remember:

As these technology leaders perform their duties, they will naturally develop niches about which they’re passionate. Some will geek out over Google products. Others will become cliff divers and explore the new programs that are continually being created. Some will discover tricks and tools of which you’re not aware and begin sharing the information with colleagues. When this happens, your 1:1 deployment is finally getting started.

This is because no school or district can have one all-knowing sage who is an expert at every technological tool. Even one tech/instructional coach with no family who sleeps, eats, and breaths edtech can’t keep up and master every product out there. Because of this, it’s extremely important for the instructional leaders at each school site to build their niches and be the go-to person for that particular specialty. That way when teachers have questions, they can be guided to the answer by someone who has a depth of knowledge concerning the pertinent hardware or software.

Crowdsourcing is accomplished in many fields, and education is no different. If anything, crowdsourcing can be done most effectively when learning is the objective. The internet makes this possible, of course, but so does the disparate skill sets and interests all teachers possess.

Purchasing 1:1 devices is straightforward. Building up leaders isn’t, and that’s why people are the best investment.

The classroom as infrastructure

I recently finished a short and fun read by Elizabeth Wurtzel entitled Creatocracy: How the Constitution Invented Hollywood. The book focuses on the U.S. Constitution and how it gave rise to much of the creative and entrepreneurial success of America. One of my favorite sections discusses invention–specifically, how invention requires infrastructure. Wurtzel points out that Silicon Valley is necessary for the development of technology because there needs to be a place for techies to congregate, for collaboration to ensue, for VCs to locate prospects, etc. Likewise, Hollywood functions as the infrastructure for films to be made. Producers, scriptwriters, studio back lots, actors, and more are all on hand to contribute to the movie-making process.

Just as technology needs Silicon Valley and movies need Hollywood, so does learning need a classroom; it’s the infrastructure for acquiring knowledge. In a classroom, students develop social skills, collaborate, produce essays, solve problems, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes. The teacher is there too, of course, assessing students’ needs, providing direct instruction when necessary, and guiding students through project based learning and the use of technology.

The classroom is important infrastructure, and this is why students will never be able to most effectively learn at home while attending virtual schools. Of course, some young people may need to learn at home in front of a computer due to circumstances, but the majority of students require the classroom in order to navigate life in the 21st century.