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Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles

January 4th, 2011

Confession: as a student, I usually hate group work. I know, I know. Having students work in groups reaps a bounty of benefits, including boosting students’ social skills and upping the number of “happy campers” in the classroom. Such findings filter through my thinking when I’m preparing to teach, so I do use group interaction, hoping that the promises from its advocates will be realized. Occasionally they are; often they are not.

I recently attended a conference session featuring Keith Sawyer. In addition to being a jazz pianist (a musical collaborator), Sawyer is an expert on the effectiveness of group efforts. His presentation focused on what has been and potentially can be accomplished through collaboration, but he hinted that just getting people into groups is not the answer.

This piqued my curiosity, so I bought his book Group Genius. In it I’ve begun to find some answers to my questions: When are groups effective as means of learning? What tasks are better accomplished collaboratively than individually? How do you structure groups for optimal effectiveness and results?

Though his focus is on creativity, I think Sawyer’s insights apply to our use of groups to foster learning. Here are ten principles I’ve picked up:

  1. Flow matters. Flow is a term used to describe a state of high engagement in which thoughts run freely and progress occurs, often without group members being conscious of it. However, flow is like intrinsic motivation; it can’t be created on demand. The best we can do as teachers is provide a classroom environment that fosters flow.
  2. Conversation is key. Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: “Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity.” When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization.
  3. Set a clear but open-ended goal. Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group’s final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point.
  4. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a “motivator” that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to “keep one eye on the clock,” the group’s focus can be fully given to the task.
  5. Do not appoint a group “leader.” In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group’s thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction.
  6. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective.
  7. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks—tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another—research suggests that better results develop when individual thinking precedes the pooling of ideas in a group setting. Researchers also suggest that alternating between individual and group work helps keep the work focused but not fixated—i.e., not limited to one aspect or detail of an idea or issue. (By the way, this weaving of individual and group interaction may be reason why technological or “electronic brainstorming” is often effective.)
  8. “Divide and conquer” ≠ collaboration. When groups assign members to specificresponsibilities for completing a task they undermine the thinking that collaboration can produce. Sawyer talks about creativity via collaboration as being “exponential,” meaning that it is constructed via conversation. One individual’s thought may inspire another group member’s insight, which in turn sparks new concepts for another. It is this emergent thinking that enables collaboration to accomplish what individual effort cannot.
  9. Think threefold. Group tasks that produce the best results often have three defining characteristics: 1) they are novel, something students have not done before, 2) they feature a visual component, something that can be represented in nonverbal forms, and 3) they are relational, meaning they require the combining of ideas or components to be accomplished.
  10. Be complementary. The best groups are composed of members who have enough familiarity with one another to be comfortable but who possess varied backgrounds and experiences. Again, because of how we typically use groups in classrooms, we tend to form groups around ability—if there is at least one “good student” in the group, we think something will get done. However, Sawyer suggests ability should be less of a consideration than diversity in experience. This can be challenging to accomplish but it’s worth considering when groupingstudents for collaborative tasks.

These insights have me rethinking groups, not whether or not to use them, but when and how to use them effectively. As with every aspect of teaching, using groups effectively requires mindful

planning and attention to more than who works with whom. As Sawyer summarizes, “Putting people into groups isn’t a magical dust that makes everyone more creative. It has to be the right kind of group, and the group has to match the task.”2

References

  1. Sawyer, K., Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 43.
  2. Ibid., 73.

Images

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Student Grades, Test Scores, and Rankings

November 4th, 2010

originally posted at Huffington Post

Some want to tie teacher evaluation to student performance on external tests. They may advocate a value-added methodology, which in theory should allow us to rank teachers by how much their students improve. While there are methodological issues about whether we can truly isolate what the teachers have actually contributed to the student performance, I found myself asking, if the way some propose to evaluate teachers is by how much the students improve, why are we not similarly evaluating students? Why do we insist upon artificial levels of performance, determined by percentage scores and weights, as if in converting things to a 100 point number scale, we therefore communicate something meaningful about that student — s/he performed at an A level, or got a 93 percent overall. Is that really meaningful? Who has done more, the student who begins at a very low performance and then achieves at what we would classify as a C level, or the student who begins with a high A and stays there?

Here, I think of a class many moons ago. There were 27 students in a “Talented and Gifted” class, all 9th graders. 23 finished with final grades of A. Consider several students from that class whose names have been changed to protect their identity.

Natalie was early on getting 94s on my tests and written assignments when no one else was over a 90. I pulled her aside and told her that if she did not improve what she was doing, she would be wasting both my time and hers. She raised one eyebrow, then dedicated herself to her work. Her final overall average would have been around 98 — and I am not considered an easy grader (an issue to which I will return).

Natalie finished her high school career as our salutatorian, never having a quarter grade other than A. She took 13 Advanced Placement Courses, which gave additional points for the difficulty of the course. She scored 5 (the top possible score) on all 13 AP exams.

Her high school record was “perfect.” She was not valedictorian because someone else completed 14 Advanced Placement courses, and thus had a marginally higher Grade Point Average because of the additional weighted grade.

Both students were outstanding. Why do we have to distinguish between them?

We have since had twins finish first and second twice. We ranked one over the other. What is gained thereby?

That long-ago class had some incredibly gifted kids. The one whose performance I most admire was one of the four NOT finishing with an A. John was somewhat outmatched. He was not especially verbal, and his writing was atrocious. His first quarter grade was a D — an “average” in the 60s. His final grade was a B. But for the second-half of the year, he had done A work, averaging over 90 percent for quarters three and four. His record of D-C-A-A averaged out to a final B.

That is not a fair reflection of what he had accomplished. For half-the-year, he performed at an A level, often higher than students whose final grades were A, but because of his early struggles, the grade on his transcript was that final B, and his overall GPA was affected accordingly. Did we punish him because he took on a more challenging course, and even though he rose to the expectations of the course, saw his grade affected by his early struggles. Does that send a message not to take on courses that might stretch one because of the impact upon grades?

I am a tough grader. Whatever my students can do when they arrive in my class, I expect them to be able to do far more at the end of the year. I wonder if those who had me might have felt disadvantaged because other teachers of such classes were not so rigorous in their demands? Might some attempt to “equalize” different levels of rigor by insisting upon absolutely uniformity in grading? Would that really solve the problem of adequately communicating what a student has accomplished?

I think back to that class. It challenged me as much as any I have taught in my 16 years in a public school classroom. I was prepared to let one student take over the class after two weeks. She is now, after several years of employment, a first-year student at one of the most prestigious professional schools in the nation. I know she will do well, not because of her grades, but because of her willingness to take on challenges, and the experience of rising to meet whatever confronts her. Lisa is one of my favorites, not because of her superb academic record, but because of how much she grew — and how much she challenged me — during the year I was her teacher. Similarly, Natalie and John both grew. He grew most of all because he started with less-developed skills.

His grade does not fairly represent what he accomplished. Natalie, being ranked second in her class, is at least on the surface, somewhat unfair. Even Lisa’s superb academic performance does not indicate how much she grew as a student and person in her years at our high school. I was delighted to write her recommendations for her college applications because I could thereby explain some of that. I wonder why we cannot have similar narratives for all our students as a part of their record, for each course.

If our tests are supposed to measure what a student really knows and can do, why are they heavily multiple choice? Why are they timed, thereby giving an advantage to those who can think quickly, even if no better than those who want to reflect? Do the results accurately reflect what a student can do in the real world?

Why do we insist upon comparing students to one another? Should not our challenge be to have each student rise as high as s/he can, to perform as well as s/he can?

Why do we not simply have two grades — needs improvement and meets the requirements? Why should students not be allowed to learn from their mistakes and gain credit for self-correction?

I wrestle with these issues. Our school keeps score. We rank. Do my students suffer because my standards are high?

There are many things we should rethink about our public schools. Should issues like those I raise be part of the discussion? How much does how we assess, grade, and rank our students do them a disservice?

Natalie, Lisa, and John. I can still remember them as individual students, not merely as the grades they achieved. Cannot we rethink what we are doing so that we will truly know what our students have learned and can do, and be able to describe them accurately as more than scores on tests or cumulative GPAs? Is not each child entitled to something more than that?

I hope so.

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Our Only Charter Should Be Radical Invention

October 16th, 2010

Seth Godin writes about the power of the tribe “just waiting to turn into a movement.” We educators who write on October 17 have the potential to become a tribal movement to form, not “reform”, a positive learning future for our young people. To become a movement, we’ve hard work to do. We have to stop acting like a crowd without leadership. We must invest ourselves in forward motion towards DARPA-like radical invention of education’s future learning spaces rather than incremental change in reaction to our past. The past is over. America’s factories have all moved elsewhere. It’s time for our school factories to disappear as well.

We, who write today, know we face significant challenges to realize Godin’s view of a viable movement. Nevertheless, we step forward to “tell our stories about who we are and the future we’re trying to build.” Tomorrow, we must build on the connections we make today to become a different kind of tribe- one from which grassroots leadership, rather than a singular leader, emerges. Then, we must create momentum within our tribe so our writing transcends this one event.

Over the last two decades at the expense of our workforce, politicians and corporate heads blew up our old manufacturing factory economy by outsourcing America’s work anywhere in the world where they could realize increased profits. They sent 2.3 million jobs to just China alone between 2001 and 2008. However, they seem to have forgotten a key step- building a new economy to replace the old one.

It’s now apparent to just about everyone that our country can’t survive these profit-making decisions unless we hyper-change into a “new economy” workforce that’s both “knowledge- and creativity-able”, regardless of the job or sector. Now, some of the same politicians and corporate heads that outsourced our workforce want to do the same with public education. I propose we invest differently in our economic future, national security, and our democratic way of life. My dream strategies speak to the need for changes in the very marrow of what we consider as public education:

  1. In-source educational invention to our educators and set them loose on a DARPA-like mission in which “their only charter is radical invention.”
  2. Close down our factory schools and simultaneously form new learning spaces for America’s children.
  3. Implement the National Educational Technology Plan as a model 21st century learning blueprint for ESEA reauthorization. It’s the best work ever from the USDOE.

New learning spaces demand a quality of teaching never before experienced in our schools; contemporary teaching that intersects pedagogical, technological, and knowledge expertise so that learning is accelerated, not remediated, for all young people. This new learning world must provide every student with the tools they need to access the most in-depth, creative and critical knowledge work possible. This world represents implementation of the innovative National Educational Technology Plan. This world looks like DARPA for education with an end in mind as wildly out of the box as the inventions of the Internet, GPS, and speech translation. This world looks like schools that are as different from what we call classrooms today as the telephone is from the Internet.

So, we tell our stories today in a symphony of voices; passionate educators who chose this profession for reasons that are incomprehensible to many professional peers in other fields. We aren’t here for fame or fortune. We are here for one simple reason- to provide young people with the best we have to offer. That’s why we’re educators. We teach America’s future.

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This teacher reacts to seeing “Waiting for Superman”

October 15th, 2010

crossposted from Daily Kos for which it was first written

Friday schools across Maryland were closed, so I went to the first show at Noon.

On the way home I thought long and hard about what I would say.

No matter how I parse it, my reaction has two key points.

1. Davis Guggenheim feels guilty about not sending his kids to public schools, and the result is a film which basically trashes public schools, public school teachers, teachers unions, while unjustly glorifying Geoffrey Canada, Michelle Rhee, charters, Kipp, and union busting.

2. The film is intellectually dishonest, so much so it is laughable.

I will explain my reactions.

Guggenheim admits his sense of guilt. He talks about his admiration for teachers. He reminds us of his 1999 film “First Year” about dedicated teachers. He shows us video of driving past four public schools to take his child to a PRIVATE school (note, NOT a charter school). But we never are given any specifics. We are not even told if any of those is the public school his child would have attended. He uses his skill with films to have us infer that none of the four does a decent job of instructing kids, and that his child would have to attend one of them. But we are given NO data to support such an inference.

The film focuses on children trying to get into charter schools via lotteries. Yet at the end, in the text after all the emotion has been wrung out of the viewing audience, Guggenheim is at least honest enough to tell us that lotteries are not the answer. If they are not, why not show us schools that are? Why is not a single successful public school shown? Might that undermine the propaganda that is being put out to manipulate the viewer in a particular direction? Might that make the viewer less likely to text in support of the agenda that Guggenheim puts forth?

I said the film is intellectually dishonest. I will not go through all the examples I could cite: I do come to this “review” late, and many others have dissected the various problems with the film.

Let me cite several. Jay Mathews advocates for KIPP on the basis of the raise in the percentiles on reading scores. Yet that ignores a chunk of data. First, those being tested do not include all those who entered KIPP schools – at least a portion of KIPP schools have an unfortunate tendency to “counsel out” students who would not score well. Second, it is not yet clear that the gains in test scores that are reported persist further up the educational ladder when the students leave KIPP. Finally, the independent study (by Mathematica) that Kipp likes to cite says only 10% of KIPP schools perform better than the public schools from which they draw. That is actually a worse percentage than charter schools as a whole, as was seen in the CREDO study, where 17% of charter schools performed better but 37% performed worse.

From Canada we constantly heard that the system was broken, and on the whole we were intended to draw the conclusion that public schools are not working. Yet even Eric Hanushek is quoted in the film as saying something quite different: that if we could replace the worst performing 5 to 10 % of teachers, our schools would be performing at the same level as Finland, the highest scoring nation in the world. Finland, however, has a far lower rate of children in poverty than does the US, and that difference accounts for much of the difference in performance. But Finland also has a 100% unionized teaching force, which seems relevant to mention if Finland is supposed to be the standard by which we judge our performance, especially when we are constantly bombarded with “facts” about how unions are the problem.

Consider – we are given comparative statistics for lifting of licenses for doctors and lawyers versus only 1 in 2,500 Illinois teachers losing their teaching certificates. But that totally ignores the large number of teachers who leave before they get tenure, many of whom are low performers. Why go to the expense of legally lifting a certificate when the person is no longer teaching? We lose almost half of teachers in the first 5 years. If only 1/2 of those are substandard teachers, then the rate of substandard teachers leaving is higher than the 5-10% Hanushek says is necessary to replace, and not only 1 in 2,500. And by the way, Hanushek never gives any evidence that the replacements would be any better.

That raises another interesting point. By his own admission in the film, Geoffrey Canada was NOT even a satisfactory teacher his first two years. He said he didn’t begin to hit his stride until his 3rd year. Elsewhere, but not in the film, Michelle Rhee has acknowledged that she was a horrible teacher her first year and half. She came out of Teach for America. Both of these people, offered as models for what we should be doing about education, demonstrate something very well known – that as a nation we do a poor job of preparing our teachers and inducting them – bringing them into the classroom. Finland does so over several years with decreasing amounts of supervision and increasing levels of individual responsibility for the new teachers. Finland offers a model which works. Teach for America, by the words of Rhee and Canada, is not what we should depend upon. And if we were to summarily fire 5-10% of teachers only to replace them with additional novices, there is no evidence this will improve student performance.

Let me also note what I consider the most disturbing image in the film. It is used as a set-up to bash teachers. We see a teacher peeling back skulls and pouring knowledge into the heads of students. Later, as the words we hear are bashing unions and union rules, we again see the teacher pouring, only this time she – and it is a she – is pouring her “knowledge” onto the floor, somehow missing the open minds of the students.

This is a horrible model of education. It may work for drill and kill to raise test scores. It does not result in meaningful long-term learning or the development of an ability to continue learning independently. It may not be intellectually dishonest, but it is a distorted understanding of teaching and learning.

What is intellectually dishonest is what the film says about tenure. The film somewhat misrepresents the development of tenure in post-secondary institutions. It is totally wrong when it describes tenure for public school teachers as a life-time guarantee of a job. All tenure does is require due process according to contract rules mutually agreed to by unions and school boards. Note the two parts to this: due process, and mutually agreed to. The portion of the film with Jason Kamrad is used to imply that it is almost impossible to dismiss a tenured teacher. In fact it is not, rubber rooms not withstanding, if administrators follow the rules and document. This is no more difficult that convicting criminal wrongdoers in the justice system when the police and the prosecution follow the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Petty dictators and inexperienced leaders might not like following the rules. Michelle Rhee dismissed a batch of teachers ostensibly because the city could not afford them, but replaced some with people from Teach for America. When she got caught she talked about a handful who rightfully should have been dismissed (although that could easily have been done under proper procedures) while implying that all of the dismissed teachers had similar problems. That was not honest.

Her track record also is not as rosy as the film portrays, although on this I would refrain from accusing that portion of intellectual dishonesty, because the inconsistency of score performance became publicly apparent only after the film was in editing. Still, questions had been raised about the performance at the time Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Rhee were touting the scores as proof that their approach was working.

Perhaps the most intellectually dishonest portion of the film is the presentation of Geoffrey Canada. Let me be clear: I believe Canada is absolutely correct in providing what are known as wrap-around services, including medical and tutoring and family support. What the film implies is that Canada is obtaining better results applying the same or similar resources, and somehow if others would take his approach, which includes his insistence on no union and the ability to fire any teacher, all would be well.

Let’s try the reality. As it happens, on this the New York Times has a recent piece that is quite appropriate, about which many have now commented. Titled Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems, the piece appeared on October 12. In it we learn that the schools in Harlem Children’s Village have per pupil expenditures of $16,000 in the classroom and thousands more outside the classroom. The average class size in the Promise Academy High school is about 15, with two licensed teachers per class. Stop right there, and think about the image of most urban schools: how often do you see as few as 20 students per class? How rarely are there two adults to deal with what is often 30 or more students?

Despite that, Canada’s track record is spotty. In the film we hear about the commitment he makes to the parents, which in the Times piece is framed as “We start with children from birth and stay with them until they graduate.” Perhaps we should read about the first cohort of Promise Academy I, which opened in 2004:

The school, which opened in 2004 in a gleaming new building on 125th Street, should have had a senior class by now, but the batch of students that started then, as sixth graders, was dismissed by the board en masse before reaching the ninth grade after it judged the students’ performance too weak to found a high school on. Mr. Canada called the dismissal “a tragedy.”

Somehow dismissing an entire cohort does not bespeak a model that I would want to emulate. Nor does it demonstrate that Mr. Canada is the sparkling example the movie would have you believe. Allow me to quote what Walt Gardner posted about Promise Academy I in this blog at Education Week:

Even now, most of its seventh graders are still behind. Only 15 percent passed the state’s English test. Their failure to perform resulted in the firing of several teachers and the reassignment of others. Although 38 percent of children in third through sixth grade passed the English test under the state’s new guidelines, their performance placed them in the lower half of charter schools in the city and below the city’s overall passing rate of 42 percent.

As a piece of propaganda pushing a flawed vision of education, “Waiting for Superman” is brilliant – it manipulates emotions, it takes facts out of context, it misrepresents much of the data it uses and is less than accurate in its portrayal of key figures, most especially in its portrayal of Canada.

I have not yet cited the biggest example of its intellectual dishonesty. That would be what is NOT in the film. There is not a single example of a successful traditional public school, whether in troubled neighborhoods – and they do exist – or in places like suburbs where many of our schools perform at levels as high as in any place in the world. Instead it allows Canada to paint with a broad brush, saying “the system is broken” and implying that ALL of American education is failing.

It is not. Even by the flawed measure of test scores, the current administration wants to target 5% of American schools. Not all schools are dropout factories.

Too many are. They are for the reasons they have often been – they teach other people;’s children, the children of the poor, those of color, those who do not speak English at home.

It does not have to be this way.

The film is wrong when it wants you to believe this is a new phenomenon. There was no idyllic time in inner city schools, certainly not in the 1970s, which is again an impression the films wants to give you. After all, it was because children of the poor were being systematically deprived of the right to an education that Lyndon Johnson pushed for and signed the first version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the mid 1960s. That had not magically changed things within the next five to ten years.

At the end of the film the text that appears on the screen says we know what to do, then offers the usual bromides of so-called reformers of more accountability, more assessment, higher standards, and the like. This has been the pattern at least since the Reagan administration. If this were the correct path, why a quarter century after A Nation At Risk are we hearing the same things, only more so?

Let’s be clear. Raising the bar of ‘standards’ will do nothing to improve the educational performance of a child not achieving the current, apparently too-low standards. It may in fact merely increase the number of drop-outs.

If Geoffrey Canada can, with foundation money, provide all those wonderful trips for his students, plus teacher-student ratios in the classroom of better than 1-8, perhaps we might consider what we need to do to provide for the students in our regular public schools, who are often at a classroom ratio of better than 30-1, who do not have foundation and hedge-funds paying for their field trips. Canada has a spanking new building, modern, fully equipped. Many of our young people are in buildings more than half a century old, with leaking roofs, with no doors on bathroom stalls, sometimes with no toilet paper unless they bring it themselves. Just the difference in externals like this delivers a powerful message about which kids we really care about, and they know it.

If you knew nothing about American education except what you gleaned from watching “Waiting for Superman,” you would have a totally distorted understanding both of the status of American public education and of what really makes a difference for young people. That inevitably distorts the public discourse on this important national issue. Of course, the intent of propaganda is to drive discussion in a pre-decided direction, whether or not that direction is either necessary or justified by the real facts on the ground.

The film is intellectually dishonest. Most of those who know about education, especially those who know the reality of what has worked and can be scaled up, have increasingly been speaking out and writing against the glorification of the film, and the vision it pushes, and those it attempts to lionize.

And Davis Guggenheim? He admits his sense of guilt. On that he is at least partially honest. What he has done in this film should not, however, allow him to feel as if he has expiated his sense of guilt, for this film has done real damage to the public discourse over education, and made it harder to get to the kinds of real reform necessary so that none of our children are left in failing schools. I long for such a day that all experience fully the right, the opportunity to learn. That will not happen by busting unions, propagating charters, all the while we ignore the increasing economic disparity, and the unfortunate reappearance of racism. Couple this with the attitude of some of an unwillingness to pay for public services for which they do not personally benefit and you will see an increase in the number of students who are not well served by our public schools – we will damage many that are currently working.

As bad as it may be now, things like “Waiting for Superman” merely make it harder to move towards the changes we truly need. I fear that will be its legacy, and that would truly be tragic.

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What Administrators Need: Part I (Pam Moran and Matt Haas)

October 8th, 2010

Cross-posted from Dangerously Irrelevant

Dear Scott,

I haven’t really answered your question, “What do administrators need from teachers?” Instead, I’ve deferred to a colleague who has a most unique perspective. I’d like to share some background about him- before you read his story and response to your question. By the way, I’ve always liked to color outside the lines of work so you are getting something you didn’t ask for- two blogs in one day!

Dr. Matt Haas currently serves as secondary director for Albemarle County Public Schools. Until two years ago, he led a high school of around 1700 students. This past spring Matt came into my office, sat down at my stained and worn country-kitchen worktable. Looking me in the eye, he said, “I need to ask you something.”

He looked a bit nervous, not a usual state for Matt, and my thoughts immediately turned to a concern that perhaps something was really not going well for him. Instead, the question he asked shocked me, compelled me, and indeed moved me.

I was forced to sit, silent for a moment, to contemplate a response to a question I had never been asked by a central office instructional leader. “May I teach a class in a high school next year?”

My first thought, I confess, was how would Matt ever be able to do his job as an administrator. Then, words floated back to me from my first administrative mentor, “Pam, if teachers come into your office with a new idea they want to try out, give them a chance. Even if you believe it won’t work, do NOT say no. Figure out how to make it work. As soon as you start saying no, you will close down the potential for growth and creativity forever more in your school.”

I took a deep breath, pushed away the list of Matt “to dos” for the next year, and said, “yes.” Then, I asked him, “why?” His response came without hesitation, “The last time I taught a class was in the 20th century.  I think I need to experience teaching in the 21st.”

This year, Matt holds down his day job as Secondary Director and teaches a heterogeneous group of 30 ninth grade English/Language Arts learners.  These two jobs now often keep him up after midnight. He writes in his journal about his experiences and I hope he’ll eventually blog for the education world. He’s tried out Poll Everywhere as a personal response system and found that almost all his students have cell phones. He’s using Edmodo with the class.

Tech learning curve? It’s been a bit of a problem, but he says his kids can teach him just about anything he wants to do with tech apps. He’s asked for a document camera so he can share printed work more easily to facilitate group conversations. He’s also shared his frustrations with me about the same tech challenges faced by colleagues in the classrooms around him- time to learn new skills, infrastructure, tech access, etc.

Most importantly, Matt’s found out what happens to kids in his class who don’t have dictionaries in their home- let alone tech devices and proximity to Internet access. Despite their learning struggles, he worries every day about these learners because he sees such potential in them. He shared that they take to tech-accelerated work like “ducks to water” and he knows he’s opening critical learning pathways for them.

He’s figuring out how to support them with extra access options at school and is securing devices they can check out for home use. However, he also experiences angst because these learners without Internet access can’t get 24/7 chances to collaborate and network with peers who have home devices. He worries about every one of his learners, but he’s especially concerned about those who are blocked from participating in the full range of learning options available to kids who simply are born into middle class homes with college-educated parents.  So, when he uses Poll Everywhere, he’s figured out how kids without cell phones can log responses from his phone. He shared with me recently that one such student took her own iPhoto and turned it into his phone wallpaper. He laughed about that. Then, our conversation turned poignant about this student who doesn’t have a cell phone and the constraints upon her learning.

I originally thought that Matt and I would co-write this piece drawing upon his experiences this year as he puts his feet simultaneously in the two worlds of teaching and administration. Then, when he sent me his initial draft, I felt I could add nothing to what he wrote- no questions, no pithy insights, no perspectives. I think he nailed it.  I’m learning from his experiences this year and believe I will be a better superintendent for saying “yes” to him. I’m learning what it means to be a lifelong learner from Matt. He looks for and finds learners’ strengths rather than dwelling on their deficits. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to make a difference.

My answer to you, Scott, is simple. What I need are more educators who commit, feel, care, think and problem-solve like Matt. Give our children schools full of “Matts” and I believe we can change the industrial hierarchical model of teaching, learning and administration.

Regards,

Pam

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What Administrators Need: Part II (Pam Moran and Matt Haas)

October 8th, 2010

Cross-posted from Dangerously Irrelevant

My cell phone rang from the passenger seat of my car as I crossed the last intersection before a two-mile stretch of Hydraulic Road leading to Albemarle High School, my high school. A clear blue May sky stretched out above the Blue Ridge Mountains. The time was 7:40 a.m., and I had just dropped off my seven-year-old at school; my thoughts were on the AP and Virginia Standards of Learning testing schedule ahead of us for the day. I reached for the phone, flipped it open, and lifted it to my ear. On the other line was a parent of one of our juniors and a friend of the family. Her voice was anxious.

“Matt, there’s been an accident where Ashland Drive crosses Route 29 North!” she said.“I think it’s a student. I think it’s all right. The traffic is backed up, though.”

I thanked her for the information and dialed our school resource officer to see if he had any information on the accident. The word forlorn comes to mind.

“Hi, Matt. I was just about to call you. There’s been a bad accident up here. A panel truck ran a red light and just – well – just t-boned her car.”

I pulled over to the side of the road, “Whose car?”

One of our students, on her way to take an AP exam that morning, was killed. It has been three years since that day, and I still haven’t reconciled. As any principal can tell us, losing a student is heartbreak, devastation with no reprieve.

Before calling in the crisis response team, I called my wife for strength. In the wake of our student’s death that morning, I followed all the steps we take in a crisis situation: notified central office, called an emergency staff meeting, and then waited for the AP testing session to finish before informing all the students in the session what had happened. They were her friends; they had to know first. Just prior to that, I found her brother and walked him to our school resource officer to be driven home. Her parents wanted to be the first to tell him what happened, but the fear in his eyes told me he was guessing hard. He must have read my face.

The day culminated with a live broadcast from our in-house TV production studio to the student body. I shared the story with them, simply confirming for some what happened. That evening the athletic director and I visited her parents at home. She was the third of our 1,700 student family to die tragically in the past four years. I know and feel that any child’s passing is a tragedy; some grip a whole school community.

When I arrived early at school the next morning I was greeted at my office door by the school psychologist. Before he really had a chance to say anything, I started to rattle off actions for the day to take care of students, staff, and parents.

Patiently, he waited for me to finish. We found seats across from one another. Sunlight settled on us through the office windows. He gave pause, looked me in the eye to get my attention, and asked me what I needed. The guilt I felt for his asking me this was overwhelming.

“Well, I think I need to rewind about 24 hours and be up there at the intersection to stop that truck. Otherwise, I don’t need anything.”

He waited for what I said to sink into me and then let me know he was there to help me too, but I’ve never been very good at expressing my own needs. I have never met an educator who really can. We almost always express our needs in terms of student needs.

I challenge any teacher to ask and answer this question without naming something that is meant to help a child: “What do I need?” A teacher is a parent in every sense of the word. When passengers on an airliner, we are all trained to don the dropped, clear-plastic oxygen mask before putting it on our child, but we are all revolted by that thought.

Using a pyramid to represent hierarchy, we have long structured human needs from basic to the most profound as defined by Abraham Maslow. I think there is no coincidence that we have also structured school leadership as a hierarchy as well. I offer a Venn diagram and propose that three communities or sets of needs merge in a school: those of students, teachers (including support staff), and administrators. At the point of merger is the set containing our most vital need, the need to actualize. Each of us needs to become everything we are meant to become, and we need each other to do it.

In a school, needs become communal, and I believe, less hierarchical and more situational. People tend to rely on one another in order to realize their needs. I hesitate to say that we need from one another; rather, we need one another.

As these merging sets of needs grow and distend from lack of satisfaction and clarity of moral purpose, they can tend to squeeze and shrink our central merger of actualization. I think that many teachers today feel the pain of this state. I also think that students have felt this pain for a long time: the pain of deferred needs and dreams. Often, as I illustrated above, administrators are the last to even express a need, let alone a need from someone else at school.

So the question is, “What do administrators need from teachers?” The answer is that administrators need teachers and students. I have never felt that we need something from them. We need them. We need their relationships, their friendships, their dreams and achievements, and their acceptance. There is really no hierarchy with leadership; people construct a hierarchy to manage.

In turn and in merger, we all need each other as we work toward the moral purpose of learning. When we realize our overlapping needs, we lean toward problem solving rather than evils; we merge around creativity rather than fear; and we actualize individually and as a community. We can put ourselves first to save children, and we can put them first to save us. We synergize.

When I think in these terms, I can frame the relationship I had with my departed student: the child I watched running – long red hair trailing her like a comet’s tail – across the soccer field two weeks before her passing. I needed to be the one who shouldered her passing for the school, to console her parents, to honor her, and to be someone on whom the teachers and students could depend. I would give anything to change what happened; I was needed.

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THE BANALITY OF INDIFFERENCE

October 4th, 2010

On Sunday, October 17 and Monday, November 22, grassroots turnaround leaders – educators who lead from the classroom, the principal’s office, the superintendent’s chair, higher education places, and activists’ spaces- will come together to continue to tip the nation’s public education conversation in a different direction than its current state. Make a commitment to join with your educational community colleagues on those days to blog, tweet, and post your thoughts and stories of real new forms of educating- the changes we need to ensure the viability of public education now and into the future. Our nation’s democratic way of life and its economic future depend upon it.

A female executive from a global technology corporation recently shared a story with a group of American teenage girls about a small school in Kenya that serves the most-disadvantaged girls imaginable. The executive spoke softly and eloquently about the intense effort of the Kenyan girls to learn everything they could from print materials that would be quickly tossed aside as unusable in one of our American schools. She said to the American teenagers that they should count every day their good fortune to attend a school with all of its advantages here in America. I’m not sure the young women really understood the story. I’m not sure they can. Americans don’t seem to be hungry learners – not adults, not children.

I don’t think tough issues faced by America’s public schools can be attributed to a lack of heroes in our classrooms. These issues certainly don’t exist because our kids are less intelligent than those in Finland, China, Ireland, or South Korea. And while money is important, the lack of it probably isn’t a root cause of many critical concerns either. After looking at some recent data sources, I wonder if today’s citizens are simply indifferent to learning. After all, there’s a big difference between talking the talk of a personal value for education and walking that walk in how we live a life of learning, or not.

In allocating our paychecks to what’s important to us, we spend annually about half as much on alcoholic beverages (.9%) and not quite 3 times as much on entertainment (almost 5.5%) as we spend on education (1.9%.) We’ve never really used the television as a learning technology as have the UK and many other countries that invest significantly in national educational broadcasting services compared to the U.S. We are not a nation of readers either. In that same paycheck survey, we only spent about .2% of our income on books and 25% of Americans who were surveyed in 2007 reported they did not read a book at all that year. Not one. And, despite the digital devices at their fingertips, 27% of Americans under age 30 accessed no news “yesterday” according to a recent Pew Study. Zero news. Zip.



However, perhaps the most disturbing statistic brought to my attention recently is based on Brookings Institution research. For the first time, the youngest generation of adult citizens in America will attain less education than older generations. This comes at a time when we hear daily that we need more college graduates- knowledge workers- than ever in our history, and we are falling behind the rest of the world. We need to turn around the falling educational attainment rate and make sure all young people can access the highest levels of learning possible including post-secondary learning options. That’s a critical economic vitality problem, too. After all, the best job market for America’s new college graduates today is everywhere else in the world but here.

Strategic planners say that how you spend money and time reflects your core values; you put your money behind what you believe is important to you. We Americans put a lot of value on cars and television. We also put a lot of time into weight loss, despite spending more time than ever on the couch watching television.

 in 2008, Americans owned 2.28 cars per household
 In 2009, Nielson reported an average of 2.24 TVs per household.
 We spend about $42 billion annually on weight loss programs and products.

We also allocate less as a government on education, percentage-wise, than on the military or health care – even in comparison to our geographic neighbor, Mexico.

If public education eventually does fail in America, I am convinced it won’t happen because of children who can’t or won’t learn. It won’t be because of the many dedicated educators in classrooms who have given up lucrative careers they could have pursued in other professions. Instead, I think it will be because of the banality of indifference * among many of today’s citizens to the importance of education, to a value for lifelong learning, and to a commitment to ensuring that the resources necessary to bridge social and cognitive capital are in place for all. I hope we’ve not lost the drive to become educated, but it sure feels as if we’re on our way to becoming a nation that takes education for granted- along with our cars, cartoons, and couches.

Despite media hype to the contrary, I still believe we sustain one of the best public educational systems in the world but I am worried about its future. I fear we are spending a lot of time focused on problems that aren’t the root causes of a national indifference to learning. Why are learners indifferent in some classrooms across America, regardless of socio-economic class, color, or capability of school success? Why do we profess to care about education; yet put our money everyplace but? What can we do to turn around indifference? Do we have the will to do those things? I’m not sure we have what it takes. But, I’m pretty sure it won’t happen if we give away the dialogue to people who care more about material goods than material learning; in politicizing education more than educating young people; and in making money from public school budgets more than investing money in our young people’s future.

October 17. November 22. Be present. Make a difference.

*Hannah Arendt, political theorist, first coined the controversial phrase “banality of evil” in reference to her observations and analysis of Adolph Eichmann on trial.  I have used the phrase banality of indifference in this post after reflecting upon her perspectives.

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The problem with NBC’s Education Nation – where are the voices of parents and teachers?

September 18th, 2010

cross-posted from Daily Kos

Beginning Sunday, Sept. 26, NBC will be broadcasting a national “Summit” on education, which it has titled Education Nation. There will be panel discussions, an exhibit hall, and it will begin with an electronic town hall with Brian Williams, broadcast live at 12 Noon EDT (so much for people on the West Coast who might be attending religious services). NBC hopes to have several hundred thousand teachers signed up for that town hall.

In theory, one might think what NBC is doing is good – it is a focus on education as a national priority. In practice there are some serious concerns which have already been expressed publicly as well as in numerous communications to people responsible for organizing the event.

Perhaps the most significant concern is this – there are many voices being included, but the voices of parents and teachers are surprisingly not considered a significant part of setting the agenda.

Please keep reading for more details.

On September 13, NBC issued a press release in which it announced the confirmed speakers to date. Here is that list as presented:

• Maria Bartiromo: Anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo” and Anchor and Managing Editor of “Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo”
• Michael Bloomberg: Mayor, City of New York
• Cory Booker: Mayor, City of Newark, New Jersey
• Phil Bredesen: Governor, State of Tennessee
• Steven Brill: co-founder of Journalism Online, CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine and author of “The Rubber Room” In The New Yorke
• Tom Brokaw: NBC News Special Correspondent
• Geoffrey Canada: CEO & President of Harlem Children’s Zone Project
• David Coleman: Founder & CEO, Student Achievement Partners; Contributing Author of the Common Core Standards
• Ann Curry: News Anchor, “Today” and Anchor, “Dateline NBC”
• Arne Duncan: US Secretary of Education
• Byron Garrett: CEO of the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
• Allan Golston, President, US Program, The Gates Foundation
• Jennifer M. Granholm: Governor, State of Michigan
• David Gregory: Moderator, “Meet the Press”
• Reed Hastings: Founder & CEO of Netflix
• Lester Holt: Anchor, “NBC Nightly News,” Weekend Edition and Co-Host, “Today” Weekend Edition
• Walter Isaacson: President & CEO of the Aspen Institute
• Joel Klein: Chancellor of New York City Schools
• Wendy Kopp: CEO and Founder of Teach for America
• John Legend: Musician; Founder of the Show Me Campaign
• Jack Markell: Governor, State of Delawa
• Gregory McGinity: Managing Director of Policy, The Broad Education Foundation
• Andrea Mitchell: NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and Host, “Andrea Mitchell Reports”
• Janet Murguia: President & CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
• Michael Nutter: Mayor, City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Bill Pepicello, Ph.D.: President of University of Phoenix
• Sally Ride: First Female Astronaut; Vice-chair of Change the Equation
• Michelle Rhee: Chancellor, District of Columbia Public School System of Washington,D.C.
• Edward Rust: Chairman & CEO of State Farm Insurance Companies
• Gwen Samuel, CT delegate to Mom Congress
• Barry Schuler: Former CEO of AOL
• Sterling Speirn: CEO, Kellogg Foundation
• Margaret Spellings: Former US Secretary of Education
• Antonio Villaraigosa: Mayor, City of Los Angeles, California
• Randi Weingarten: President of American Federation of Teachers (AFT-CLO)
• Brian Williams: Anchor and Managing Editor “NBC Nightly News”

For many of us, that list was more than a little unbalanced, and illustrates much of what is wrong with discussions of education policy in this nation. There are many corporate executives, there are people from educational policy organizations, there are politicians, there are foundations. There are journalists. Many of these lack any real knowledge about education, or are well known for pushing a particular view of education to the exclusion of any other.

There are more than 30 names. Of these two are from parent organizations, and there is one representative from the smaller of the two national teachers unions.

Where are the voices of parents?

Where are the voices of those actually teaching?

I have been privy to an exchange of emails between some notable people who raised these concerns and those responsible for recruitment and outreach.

I know that there were strong urgings to reach out to teacher leaders. As far as I can tell, most of those whose names were suggested – and emails were provided – were NOT contacted from the side of NBC. I know, because mine was a name on that list.

I would not necessarily expect to be included on such a list. My one recent teaching award is probably not of a great enough significance to justify inviting me, and my feelings are not hurt.

But why is the first name we see the head of a for-profit university, yet we see no current classroom teachers?

Let’s take the presence of the University of Phoenix, and several of the other people on that list. Perhaps it can be explained in part by looking at the sponsors of the event. You can find the list on the website, but let me save you the time:

University of Phoenix
Members Project American Express
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation
W.K. Kellog Foundation
Marvell
BlackBerry
Microsoft
Raytheon
Scholastic
American Airlines

The commitment that NBC is making is notable. The corporate and foundation commitment might be commendable. But I cannot resist making some remarks about that list.

About the Members Project, they have funded two education initiatives this year, Donorschoose.org and Jumpstart for Young Children, based on the votes of those who have American Express Cards. They do not have a person among the speakers, which is probably appropriate.

University of Phoenix is a SPONSOR – and for this they get one of the speaking slots?

The foundations of Gates and Broad have been putting a lot of money into education. They have thereby become major players, able to shape many policy initiatives to their perspective. Some of the efforts might be positive, but there has been a tendency for that point of view to crowd any that might be critical of their efforts, which include things such as Teach for America (note the presence of Wendy Kopp among the speakers, and remember that Michelle Rhee is a TFA alumna) and New Leaders for New Schools. Diane Ravitch uses the term “Billionaire Boys Club” to question the influence of such foundations upon American educational policy.

Why is Stephen Brill one of about thirty speakers and no classroom teacher is?

Why do we not have the voice of say the immediate past National Teacher of the Year, Anthony Mullen, or even the current National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling? To be NTOY one is not only an excellent teacher, but expected to serve as spokesperson for the nation’s teachers. Surely one, or better both, of these fine teachers could have been included.

For those who are teachers and want to participate in the Town Hall, you can go to this link to learn more and to sign up.

I have not yet done so. I do not know if I will. I am unwilling to serve as passive wallpaper that can be used to claim support for an effort with which I have serious problems.

One can submit a question to be discussed. It is not clear to me how those questions will be screened. I worry that those that might challenge the underlying assumptions of the summit will be excluded.

I looked at the mission statement for Education Nation. It is appropriate to note our high dropout rate. As I have written before, I think the emphasis on international comparisons demonstrates a misunderstanding of what those comparisons represent. I find too great an emphasis on the economic purposes of education and a total lack of the role of education in preparing a person to be a citizen in a democratic republic. Given the importance of civic participation in a functioning democratic system, I immediately wondered why Sandra Day O’Connor was not an included speaker, given how hard she has worked to raise the issue of civic education?

It is nice that there is a president of a teachers union, albeit the smaller one. I know that the NEA president will be participating in one of the 11 announced panels. But teachers are not their unions. Some of us may even be union activists but feel that our unions do not address some of the real issues we believe need to be addressed. Having one union president and so many corporate types does not allow even for the raising of many of the concerns of teachers, which go far beyond issues of teacher pay and evaluation. I have read and heard that the presence of Randi may be to set her up as illustrative of teachers and their unions as obstructionist to real reform.

There are real issues in American education that need to be addressed. We can read about them in the mission statement. We can see that they are supposedly addressed in the panels.

Supposedly. But too many points of view are not included.

Why is there no representation from people who do Montessori work, which has been proven to be very effective?

Some of the organizations and individuals present have supported the work of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Why is there no representation from that organization. For example, why not invite Jolynn Tarwater, the current National Board Certified Teacher in Residence?

The National PTA organization should be included. It is good that Mom Congress has a representative. That is 2 there representing parents. Against that consider there are four mayors and three governors; and top executives of Netflix, the Aspen Institute, and State Farm Insurance, and the former CEO of AOL. Pray tell, why are these voices more important than those of parents?

Or perhaps we can look at those selected to represent the administrators of schools. We see Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee. They represent ONE viewpoint of how schools should be organized and run. And by the way, the data does not support that either has been all that successful, and in the case of Rhee her approach was just fairly strongly rejected in the primary defeat of her boss Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington. There have been superintendents with notable success who take a far different approach to educational reform. Where for example is the likes of Carl Cohn, who had notable success in Long Beach, CA?

I cannot tell people how to approach this effort by NBC. I only know that I am skeptical. I may watch the town hall with teachers, but as of now I do not plan to sign up. I am unwilling to provide that kind of validation for something I viewed as at a minimum flawed, and at worst destructive of really addressing the needs of our schools and teachers.

I’d like you to imagine the following. Suppose we are going to have a national summit on health care. Do you not suppose that a substantial number of the voices included would be from professionals in health care, including doctors and nurses? Would you have 3 people with just the head of the AMA to represent doctors?

Or how about legal reform – would not lawyers scream if such a conference were organized without a substantial portion of the main participants being members of the profession representing the range of opinions within the legal field?

Why then is it when it comes to education that people think it is appropriate to have major discussions about education without fair inclusion of the voices of those who bear the greatest burden for the education of our children, the parents and the teachers?

I hope that despite the flaws I see in the organization of this effort some good comes out of it. I fear that it is yet another example of driving educational policy while excluding voices that should be a major part of the discussion. Perhaps the town hall will at least provide some audience for the concerns of teachers, if the questions addressed represent the full range of views and concerns.

I hope I am wrong.

I fear that I may not be.

I worry that this event will yet again mean that teachers – and parents – are excluded from meaningful participation in the shaping of educational policy.

Starting next week, we will see.

And there is time for NBC to work to provide greater balance than what we have so far seen.

Peace.

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America’s Children

September 11th, 2010

My mother once made one of those off-handed parental comments that can either fly right over a child’s head or catch a child’s attention and result in a question. I think I was about twelve then and what my mother said made no sense to me. My question to her was simply, “why?” Why did she “hate” anything Japanese? Her answer reflected a lifetime of emotional memories of Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, and images of executions of young American servicemen held captive in the horrific conditions of the Pacific Theater. My mother’s life, like those of her peers in the “Greatest Generation,” was to a great extent defined by the crisis of America in World War II and what she saw as her contributions to winning that war. As with all of us, she’s also far from being perfect.

After Pearl Harbor, my mother, an orphan, joined the Navy at nineteen and became a member of an intelligence team that intercepted and monitored Japanese code. The place? Bainbridge Island. It’s significance? My mother remembers her workspace as a top-secret naval station and her work there as critical to saving the lives of thousands of American servicemen fighting for their lives on islands, flying combat missions, and manning ships in the Pacific Theater. Fumiko Hayashida, a Japanese-American farmer’s wife just a decade older than my mother, also remembers Bainbridge Island, but with vastly different feelings for what it meant to be American during that war. For her, Bainbridge Island was her beloved community- until she was ripped from her home with a babe in her arms, and transported to an internment camp in the Mohave Desert. There she was held along with her family and many others of Japanese descent for the duration of the war. For all we did that was honorable during World War II, the internment of American citizens stands as one of the worst stories of that time.

The stories of these two women, my mother and Mrs. Hayashida, represent tensions that America’s children have faced since “our” Revolution, tensions among us still playing out in post-9/11 America. We Americans, coming from tribes around the world, seem to find an appreciation for each other… until something bad happens. Then, in fear, we move back into our tribal lodges, whether governed by religion or by color, or language, or country of origin. In those lodges, we lose sight of our common bonds, struggles, loves, and values – and the very tenets of civil liberty that make us unique among nations. Around our campfires, we focus on our differences, finding superiority in our own tribe, seeing ourselves as protecting our “own,” and labeling those outside the lodge as the enemy. We’ve done it with Tories during and after the American Revolution, African-Americans during Nat Turner’s Rebellion, Irish Catholic immigrants in 19th century America, and Native Americans in 1890 at Wounded Knee. And today, we are doing it once again.

9/11, 2001 was set to be a perfect day at 5:30 a.m. By 9:00 a.m., I became a different person who better understood my mother’s perspectives from that long ago conversation about Pearl Harbor. That day redefined the perfection of a September wachet-blue sky for all of America. We stood in our cities and towns, in our parklands, and on our farms, gazing upward: the silent and the silenced. That day we began to move back into our lodges, turning away from those who might represent a tribal enemy, focusing on our differences. We began to go to war again- this time not with nations but with a militant band living in caves far away from 21st century America. That day, as America’s children, we began to question who belonged in our tribe and who did not

Today, I sit on my porch while the sky grays and I anticipate rain. The hum of a small jet heading to the local airport and the scream of a pileated woodpecker comfort me. I feel the losses and lives ripped apart nine years ago among families I didn’t know- and of one I know well. I think about the bottom that dropped out from under America; the fortune we’ve spent on two war fronts; the deaths and life-altering injuries of young and older military men and women now well exceeding civilian losses of 9/11/01; an economy that’s stalled, recovered, and stalled again; and, daily, media-facilitated, in-fighting among some Americans who bitterly disagree on political, social, and religious fronts. I wonder if that ugly, infamous day served to separate us to such an extent that we may not, this time, recover as we did when we walked away as winners of World War II? If so, the 9/11 terrorists will have accomplished their mission in ways even they may have not dreamed possible. However, I like to think that we will not let that happen and, despite our imperfections, that we are a better citizenry than that.

My mother doesn’t “hate” the Japanese today. She took a cue from former President Eisenhower and moved beyond an antipathy spawned by wars past. It’s interesting to me that the Brits and Canadians, many Tories still, are now our close friends. Navajo Code-talkers became heroes of World War II, serving in the very military that killed thousands of Native Americans. In 1960, an Irish Catholic became president and an African-American was voted into that same role in 2008.

America's Children

Over the centuries, we’ve been able to put our fear of differences behind us and, in doing so, to be better as a nation than we are as individuals. It’s this collective capability to see past our differences, to come back out of our lodges, and rejoin around common campfires that gives me hope for our future. I like to believe today’s nativists don’t represent the core of America and that we can see the difference between those who threaten us and those who, despite differences in ethnicity, religion, or color, also love what America still aspires to be: the world’s Statue of Liberty, welcoming those who come to our shores seeking freedom, opportunity, justice, and the civil liberties we hold dear.

Susan Sauer’s sister teaches in an Albemarle County school. Susan Sauer died on 9/11/01 working on corporate high in one of the twin towers. Susan’s last known written words to a co-worker on 9/8/01 inspire me this year to remember that she, and others like her, represent the best of America’s children, past, present, and future. She wrote:

“Do what you find you are most passionate about, Trust in yourself, Leave a place better than when you arrived, Love openly, and Have fun.”

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Do You Speak “Academia”?

September 5th, 2010

If our profession exists to enable understanding of new ideas, should we really have our own language?

Consider the following opening paragraph from a recent journal article:

“Education is an all-encompassing institution where schools can be found in each and every continent, culture, and society; their functional principles, organizational structure, and modus operandi are quite universal.”1

The paragraph, from an article with content I appreciate, illustrates several “rules” of academic writing. As a result, it violates several principles of good writing.

To begin, the opening main clause, “Education is an all-encompassing institution,” makes little sense, and the rest of the sentence fails to clarify its meaning. The use of “each and every” is redundant; if each continent and culture, then, by default, it is every continent and culture. After the semicolon, good verbs become weak adjectives: functional and organizational. The entire paragraph could be restructured as an easily understood sentence: In every society, schools organize, function, and operate similarly.

Lest I be guilty hypocrisy, here’s a sample of my own convoluted academic writing:

As a causal-comparative study, instructional time represents an uncontrolled factor. Teachers in each fifth grade classroom made decisions about instructional time based on the required time to complete activities dictated by the reading program in use. It is likely that instructional time varied between the classrooms, but the decisions about instructional time were based on the independent variable used to define the groups. Any variance developed, in part, because of the independent variable being examined.

Interpretation: The teachers in each fifth-grade classroom were not given minimum or maximum time limits. They determined how much time to spend on reading each day by considering their students’ needs and the activities recommended by their reading programs.

So what? Why pick on paragraphs pulled from their contexts? If you read (or try to read) educational journals, you’ll find that these examples are not isolated. They illustrate the “academic style” characterizing such periodicals. These periodicals, their supporters argue, provide the link between research and classroom practice. But the poor communication—the academic writing—requires the reader to add steps to the usually efficient cognition of comprehension. The reader is forced to pause and ask, “What does that mean in plain English?” It’s not that different from reading text in a second language, one in which the reader may be knowledgeable but not proficient.

Unfortunately, it’s not just our journals that speak their own language. This same gap often exists between students and their textbooks. Consider the following passage from an advanced high school biology text:

The technical aspects of life involve the complex chemical interactions that take place among the several thousand different kinds of molecules found in any living cell. Of these, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the master molecule in whose structure is encoded all of the information needed to create and direct the chemical machinery of life. Analysis of the flow and regulation of this genetic information among DNA, RNA (ribonucleic acid), and protein is the subject of molecular genetics.2

Rather than “A-ha!,” such writing often elicits, “Huh?,” as a recent study highlights:

Middle and high school students who read fluently in English class and on the Web may find that they cannot understand their science texts. And their science teachers may be ill prepared to guide them in reading the academic language in which science information is presented.3

This issue is so prevalent that some experts recommend we teach students “academic language.”

This additional distance between the writer and reader decreases the likelihood that the journals will actually be read. And if the journals are not read by teachers, the research will be slow to influence educational practice, if it does at all. With some research, a “translator” will eventually convert the findings into easily understood material for teachers. Research that does not attract the attention of such a translator may remain unknown and unused. We are spending time, effort, and sometimes money on research doomed to remain idle because it’s not communicated well. The poor writing prevents worthwhile application.

Similarly, our textbooks may alienate students and hinder learning. If understanding depends on translating the language, students who struggle with this prerequisite may lack the motivation or inertia to think beyond, or even through, the interpretation. We’re making understanding more difficult—a seeming antithesis to our role as educators.

Does academia serve its purpose by maintaining its own language? Why can’t “academic” journals and textbooks utilize common principles of good writing. Why do we insist on communication complexity when our goals would be better served by simple clarity?

Tradition? Are we trying to honor the past by continuing to insist on outdated standards? If so, then we should rethink our goals. Journals are not meant to influence the present but to carry on conventions of the past. Textbooks are not meant to inform but to complicate learning. If this is their purpose, teachers and students ignoring journal and textbook content should not be considered a problem.

Status? Are we insisting on “academic writing” because it separates journals from the “rags” intended for the masses or textbooks from the unlearned? If so, our goal must be to maintain some perceived elite readership—a readership probably not teaching or sitting in our classrooms. And thankfully so! Who wants children to be in a classroom where the teacher communicates with consistent complexity? ‘Children, today the teacher (the academic style outlaws use of the personal pronoun I!) will initiate a discussion of the upper atmosphere in post-sunset conditions.” In other words, “Today we’re going to talk about stars.” SImplicity produces clarity; complexity produces confusion.

Alignment? Do we think that our research and subject matter is complicated, therefore our communicating should also be complex? This is so contrary to logic and sound teaching that it’s an oxymoron. A basic principle of writing (and teaching) rebuts this argument: A complex topic requires simple writing, especially when the reader likely lacks the author’s background knowledge and experience. This is almost always the case when a researcher seeks to address individuals who were not part of the research team or involved in similar research themselves, or when experts in a field seek to articulate concepts for students.

As an example, consider the topic of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) previously discussed in the textbook example. Complex? Absolutely, yet note how beautifully and simply John Medina writes about it:

One of the most unexpected findings of recent years is that DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is not randomly jammed into the nucleus, as one might stuff cotton into a teddy bear. Rather, DNA is folded into the nucleus in a complex and tightly regulated manner. The reason for this molecular origami: cellular career options. Fold the DNA one way and the cell will become a contributing member of your liver. Fold it another way and the cell will become part of your busy bloodstream. Fold it a third way and you get a nerve cell—and the ability to read this sentence.4

Medina presents ideas simply and in ways known to foster learning. As the brain engages in elaboration, it overlays new data with known experiences, making connections that help construct understanding. Medina relates a new, complex topic to a familiar childhood activity—origami (even though he is not writing for children). By giving us a reference point for understanding DNA, he equips us with the tools needed to construct understanding. Isn’t this what we should be striving for, both in our textbooks and our journals?

Why, then, do we not insist that good, clear writing characterize our journals, the journals researchers want us to read and heed, and the textbooks we use in our classrooms? We’re educators. Let’s write like we want people to actually learn something.

  1. Chen, D., Schooling as a Knowledge System: Lessons from Cramim Experimental School, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2009.01078.x/pdf.
  2. Micklos, D. & Freyer, G.A., DNA Science: A First Course (Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2003) 4.
  3. Science Daily Staff, Academic Language Impedes Students’ Ability to Learn Science, Expert Argues, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100422153758.htm.
  4. Medina, J., Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Seattle: Pear Press, 2008), 53.

Images

‘…but there’s still so much left’ www.flickr.com/photos/8592577@N08/3186580567

‘Day #2: Back to the grind’ www.flickr.com/photos/45676611@N00/361121941

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