for the love of learning

Before the computer could change School, School changed the computer

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Wed, 30 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

There is a lot of talk about how technology is disrupting education in ways that allows students to learn in different ways at any pace, any place and any time. Some elements of education reform has a lot of us pondering how technology will impact schools.

While it's true that School (with a capital S) has not changed very much over the years, we must be mindful of the reforms we impart on public education. After all, tradition for the sake of tradition is no better than change for the sake of change.

We owe it to our children to stop and seriously question whether technology and hyper-personalization should drive our education reforms.

I challenge you to watch the video below and ask yourself if this is the ideology we want dictating our education systems?

Firstly, you'll note that this video is from 1954 -- makes you wonder why we think talking about iPads is revolutionary.

Secondly, you'll notice that the video features B.F Skinner, the grand-daddy of behavioristic psychology. For those who understand that we learn by constructing our own understanding from the inside while interacting with our environment, this should be a serious red flag.

Those who suggest teachers should be replaced by a technology that can simply grade more efficiently are exposing their primitive understanding for what education is all about.

The dream of having learners intensely concentrate on using technology quickly becomes a nightmare when it is the technology that is using the learner. When children are mined for data, education becomes something done to them rather than by them.

Technology that is used to elicit correct behaviour (rather than encouraging children to construct their own understanding) is sold as a daring departure from the status quo when really it is a tactic taken from the same behaviourist strategies that have been strangling the life out of classrooms for decades.

Technology used in this way turns children into empty receptacles that simply require filling. This is a perfect way to achieve a Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Paulo Freire writes:

"The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity."

If technology is used as a way to correct students so as to help them always be certain about their learning, children will only know uncertainty. Alfie Kohn explains:

"When students are simply told the most efficient way of getting the answer, they get in the habit of looking to the adult, or the book, instead of thinking things through. They become less autonomous, more dependent. Stuck in the middle of a problem, they’re less likely to try to figure out what makes sense to do next and more likely to try to remember what they’re supposed to do next – that is, what behavioral response they’ve been taught to produce. Lots of practice can help some students get better at remembering the correct response, but not to get better at – or even accustomed to -- thinking."

Technology used this way merely perpetuates education as a spectator sport where the student is expected to play nothing more than a passive role.

There is a reason why Seymour Papert said, "Before the computer could change School, School changed the computer."

It's tempting to get suckered into talking about technology when the real debate is over how children learn. Some might say there is a war going on in schools between behaviourism and constructivism and the kids are losing; while others have written "One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward K. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost."

Dear homework: Family time is family time, so jog on!

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Imagine this:

A mother who has been sober for 6 months decides that she wants to dedicate herself to being a mom for her 8 year old daughter. Both have fetal alcohol syndrome and require a number of supports if they are to make a go at life together.

You can imagine the difficulties that could and would challenge both mother and daughter and their attempts to stay together as a family. While it's true that child welfare can play a supporting role, they are also there to intervene -- it would not be out of the realm of possibility to see these difficulties challenge this family to the extent where mother and daughter are no longer together.

Out of all the challenges that could place this family's unity in jeopardy, what if homework was at the top of the list? What if homework was causing so much friction between mother and daughter that their was talk amongst their child welfare workers that perhaps the daughter might need to be placed in foster care?

What would you suggest?

I know what I suggested. If homework is rupturing the relationship between mother and child to the point that their living together as a family is jeopardized, then perhaps we should seriously consider no longer assigning the homework.

I realize that this is an extreme example, but I think there's a lot to learn from this story.

Who the hell gave school the right to tell families how they will spend their evenings and weekends? Who the hell gave school the right to draft parents as supervisors and enforcers for the school's agenda?

Research has shown that 3 out 4 adults were at one time children. And when we were children, we experienced first hand how frustrating, exhausting and pointless homework often was. Even if it coud be proven that homework had non-academic value (which it doesn't) or academic value (which it doesn't), parents still have the moral high ground to reject homework all together for three reasons:

Teachers and parents need to respect some distinct lines of authority. Teachers would not appreciate having parents micro-manage how they do their jobs, and so teachers need to respect that parents are in charge of their family's evenings and weekends.
We all want our children to develop intellectually and academically, but we also want them to develop in other ways such as socially and physically. Homework by definition does not acknowledge or respect this -- homework trumps this balance.
Family time is family time. Period. Full stop.

Kids go to school for 6 hours or more, whatever the school needs the children to do can be done at school. The rest of their day and night should be spent pursuing other interests. No second shift is necessary.

Student made mashup video on Anorexia

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Here's a mashup video that a student of mine created on eating disorders.

Opt-out of homework

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Over the years, I've had many conversations with people who lament over how homework ruptures their relationships with their children.

My daughter Kayley is starting kindergarten next September and as her parent and first teacher I take my responsibility for nurturing her love for learning very seriously.

Here is an opt-out of homework letter that first appeared on Alfie Kohn's website here:

Dear [name of teacher],

First of all, I'd like to tell you how pleased I am that you're Sandy’s teacher this year. Sandy experiences you as very kind, which couldn't be more important to me.

I respect you as my child's teacher, so I want to take the time to tell you why I'm going to pull Sandy out of the homework program this year. I know that homework is routine in first grade, but the more I've thought about the issue and watched the effects of homework on both of my own children, the more convinced I am that it isn't right for Sandy. . . .

I'm sensitive to your concern that learning be supported at home, and I intend to do this as best I can. I know that the easiest students to teach are the curious, interested, motivated ones, and examples of things we'll do at home to foster those qualities might include: finding a weird spider outside, looking up its scientific name and feeding habits and making a "home" for it in a Tupperware container or talking about why we should set it free; reading books every night before bed; planning and cooking a meal together; counting all the change in my pocket and then going out for ice cream; telling stories; writing letters to grandparents and friends; and taking pictures of all the critters we find in the ocean when we go to Mexico and sending them to class to share. Again, I'm interested in supporting Sandy’s learning. I'm just worried that homework provokes anxiety and often gets in the way of family activities and the kind of play (and downtime necessary to develop an internal life!) that help make Sandy such a cool, funny kid.

Please do let me know if there is an assignment such as interviewing a family member -something that simply couldn't be done at school but that is important to the things you're doing in class - and we'll be happy to work on that together. Please also let me know if you have any questions or concerns about my decision, or if you notice Sandy feeling "left out" when homework folders are pulled out - I'm sure we can figure out some way around that. I'm happy to talk - in person or by email if that is more convenient for you.

Have a great year!

Another Parent opts their daughter out of Alberta's Provincial Achievement Tests

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:01:00 +0000

This was written by Tracey Loewer, an Albertan and mother of five, who recently opted her grade 6 daughter out of Alberta's Provincial Achievement Tests.

by Tracy Loewer

Before I get into my recent experience with withdrawing my 6th grader from writing the Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs), here's a little background.

I am the mother of five children (ages 9-15), and we recently moved to Edmonton from a smaller community in Saskatchewan. Although I knew (and expected) that there would be quite an adjustment period for my kids, particularly since we moved after the school year was well under way, I was unprepared for the added pressure of some unknown thing called the PATs. Within the first week of school, I think I heard my kids mention it fifty times.

I will be honest in saying that I didn't take it too seriously at first. After all, moving is fraught with many challenges and it takes time to become familiar with new ways of doing things. I started to wonder about the PATs when my 6th grade began making comments like "My teacher says that I need to know 'this' or 'that' for the PATs," but I didn't really look into it until she began completely stressing out and bringing home an alarming number of booklets so she could study.

I won't go into all of my reasons for withdrawing my daughter from writing the PATs or I will run the risk of hijacking this blog with my own rant about the state of education in Alberta, high-stakes testing (for little children, no less!), and the tremendous waste of resources - I'll leave that for the experts to debate. After all, I'm a newbie to the system. Suffice it to say that upon notifying the school that my daughter would not be participating, we were both invited in for a conference with her teacher. Long story short, I didn't change my mind, and my daughter was asked (very nicely) to keep quiet so her friends wouldn't complain to their own parents about having to write the PATs. I was also asked to keep her at home for the entire day on testing days (even though they only spend part of the day writing them) - again, so her friends wouldn't suspect anything. This certainly wasn't ideal, but we agreed, simply because we were not trying to make a huge statement; we were only trying to do what was best for us.

When the day of the first PAT came, I got an email from her teacher relaying a message from the principal that my daughter would be given a mark of "not meeting grade level", and that it was a shame because she would have surely done so if she had written them. It honestly felt like a last-ditch attempt to guilt me into allowing her to write, which I did not appreciate. In truth, I was a little scared by the tone of this email (my first thought was 'Did I miss something when I was researching - oh my goodness, what have I done to her???'). While I understand that the principal is required to report on every student who doesn't write the PATs, I was definitely relieved to know that this will not have a lasting effect on her (although I do feel badly that this appears to reflect poorly on an excellent school).

In all, this has been kind of a baptism by fire for me and my family. I certainly hadn't planned to take this on when I moved here, but I am not one to keep quiet when I see something amiss, particularly when it comes to children who often do not have a voice of their own. I realize, of course, that teachers have a lot on their plate and are required to do what is mandated, and I certainly do not expect preferential treatment or anything along those lines, but if I don't speak up for my own children, then who will?

Many parents that I have spoken with are dissatisfied with the standardized testing in this province, but because it's been like this for a long time, I think that few know that it is within their power to do anything about it.

In the end, I know that I am much more interested in being a part of a solution, and I sincerely hope that the government will keep the dialogue open and that they will find more effective ways to evaluate the progress of the children. To the parents out there I would say: don't be afraid to stand up for your kids! The only way to bring about change is to speak up and let your voice be heard. I guarantee that you are not alone.

Tracy

(In the interest of full disclosure, I did allow my 9th grader to write his PATs, but mainly because he wasn't incredibly stressed out about it and his school doesn't have any other formal exam to factor into his final mark. We decided to look at it as a practice for writing finals in high school. It is interesting to note that either way, I had the full support of his principal in making this choice.)

Here's the TEDtalk that TED doesn't want you to see

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Do rich people create jobs?

Nick Hanauer doesn't think so. Here's his TEDtalk that TED curator Chris Anderson believes is too political to release as a TEDtalk (but it can be found on YouTube)

Because every TEDtalk is political, I think Anderson is full of it.

TED and Anderson have plenty of talks that criticize Big Government and rethink politics, but the moment somebody challenges Big Money, Anderson gets nervous because it's "an election year".

TED's mantra of Ideas Worth Spreading may not be as open and honest as many would like to believe.

For more on the topic of income inequality, I suggest you check out Robert Reich's blog, and his new book Beyond Outrage where he writes:

The Great Recession (2008) was followed by an anemic recovery. Because so much income and wealth have gone to the top, America's vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going - not, at least, without going deeper and deeper into debt. But debt bubbles burst. The burst of 2008 ushered in a terrible recession - the worst economic calamity to hit the coutnry since the Great Depression of the 1930s - as middle-class consumers had to sharply reduce their spending and businesses, faced with declining sales, had to lay off millions. We bottomed out, but the so-called recovery has been one of the most anemic on record. That's because the middle class still lacks the purchasing power to keep the economy going and can no longer rely on borrowing.

As for TED, I suggest you take a look at Alex Pareene's article Don't mention income inequality please, we're entrepreneurs where he writes:

At this point TED is a massive, money-soaked orgy of self-congratulatory futurism, with multiple events worldwide, awards and grants to TED-certified high achievers, and a list of speakers that would cost a fortune if they didn’t agree to do it for free out of public-spiritedness...

...Hanauer’s talk was remarkably dry — and I am sure that was part of the reason for its burying, because TED truly values flash and surprise over substance — and not remotely mistakable for a pro-Democratic Party stump speech. But its central message was incompatible with the TED ethos: that TED People Are Good for the World.

Wreck this Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Due to the nature of my teaching position, I come across a lot of students with a fear of failure, a dysfunctional attraction to perfection and characteristics of obsessive compulsive disorder.

Some are middle/high school girls with depression, very low self-worth and an eating disorder, while others might be middle/high school boys with heightened anger and asperger/autistic characteristics. And some are any combination.

Every child comes with a complex case. There is no template.

I continue to develop a wide variety of projects that attempt to meet their very complex needs. Here is one of the projects I have had some success with for students who are paralyzed by their pursuit of perfection.

I purchase Keri Smith's Wreck this Journal for my students and encourage them to destroy it. While you might think all children would love to be given permission to decimate a book, you would be surprised how many children find this task to be at best tedious and at worst torture.

Here are some of things we talk about:

Perfection is not motivating. Perfection is paralyzing.
Some of the best things in life can't be planned. In fact, sometimes the best things in life are mistakes that we make the most of.
Mistakes are our friends.
If you're not making mistakes, you're not living.
Mistakes are not only ok, they are necessary if learning and success is to take place.
Society hides our mistakes and failures but flaunts successes. This can be deceiving.
The only way to make your journal unique is to wreck it.

Here is what one of my students had to say about her experience with this project:

I found the "Wreck This Journal" project incredibly challenging and difficult. To push myself to deface any sort of material (let alone a book) felt like a death wish. It was a tedious task at first; being told to tear out a page or doodle on the front cover.. but as the project moved forward I was able to let go and embrace the experience... I think spending time on this project has given me a new outlook on life, and made me realize that striving for perfection is an unrealistic and costly goal.

Stephen Krashen on Flunking the Test

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

This post was first published on Anthony Cody's blog here.

This was written by Dr. Stephen Krashen who is a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. He has written numerous books on his research into literacy and language acquisition. In recent years he has emerged as a persistent voice pointing towards the basic steps we should take to build literacy and strong academic skills for our students.

by Stephen Krashen

In "Flunking the Test," Paul Farhi concludes that the media has seriously under-reported the successes of American education and have taken the pronouncements of self-proclaimed "reformers" at face-value. Farhi backs up his argument with real data: American students' performance on international tests is much better than critics say it is, and college attendance has increased enormously.

Farhi cites Pedro Noguera, who in turn mentions a Dan Rather program that "explored the link between school performance and poverty, a subject often ignored or noted only in passing in many stories about academic achievement." As Farhi notes, research shows that poverty is "the single greatest variable in educational achievement."

Poverty is, in fact, the issue. While American students' scores on international tests are not as bad as critics say they are, they are even better when we control for the effects of poverty: Middle-class students in well-funded schools, in fact, score at or near the top of world. Our average scores are respectable but unspectacular because, as Farhi notes, we have such a high percentage of children living in poverty, the highest of all industrialized countries. Only four percent of children in high-scoring Finland, for example, live in poverty. Our rate of poverty is over 21%.

The implications of this fact are enormous: It means that the "problem" of American education is not ineffective teaching, not teachers' unions, not lack of national standards and tests, and not schools of education: It is poverty.

This conclusion is supported by additional evidence: High poverty means, among other things, lack of food and lack of quality food, lack of health care, and lack of access to books. There is massive evidence documenting the pernicious effect of hunger, illness and limited reading material have on school performance. The best teaching in the world has limited effects when children are hungry, sick and have little to read.

This analysis pulls the rug out from under the current standards movement, a movement that includes not only detailed and "rigorous" standards, but also an astonishing amount of testing, far more than currently required under No Child Left Behind. The standards/national tests movement is based on the unsupported assumptions that our schools are doing poorly (not true), that ineffective teaching is the major problem, and that standards and tests are necessary to insure a more rigorous curriculum, as well as frequent and precise evaluations of student progress and teacher effectiveness.

Ironically, the cure proposed for the non-existent crisis will prevent schools from improving: The money we are spending on national standards and starting to spend on national tests, could be used to provide better nutrition, improved health care, and libraries for children of poverty. In other words, we can protect children of poverty from at least some of the effects of poverty. This will not only raise overall test scores, it will lead to a better life for millions of American children.

What do you think? Are we wasting billions on tests that would be better spent elsewhere? Is poverty the real problem here?

References and sources:
Farhi, P. 2012. Flunking the Test. American Journalism Review.
American students in well-funded schools ...
Berliner, D. The Context for Interpreting PISA Results in the USA: Negativism,
Chauvinism, Misunderstanding, and the Potential to Distort the Educational Systems of Nations. In Pereyra, M., Kottoff, H-G., & Cowan, R. (Eds.). PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changing schools. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers. In press.
Bracey, G. 2009. Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality. Educational Research Service
Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics
achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13.
Poverty and hunger, health and access to books:
Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit.
Coles, G. 2008/2009. Hunger, academic success, and the hard bigotry of indifference. Rethinking Schools 23 (2);
Krashen, S. 1997. Bridging inequity with books. Educational Leadership 55(4): 18-22.
Krashen, S. 2011. Protecting students against the effects of poverty: Libraries. New England Reading Association Journal 46 (2): 17-21.
Rothstein, R. 2010. How to fix our schools. Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief #286.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Sun, 20 May 2012 22:10:00 +0000

From Grassroots Education Movement:

One year ago, The Grassroots Education Movement premiered a new documentary, written and directed by New York City public school teachers and parents, created in response to Davis Guggenheim’s highly misleading film. Waiting for "Superman" would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great public schools.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For "Superman" highlights the real-life experiences of public school parents, students and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting public education. The film discusses the kinds of real reform – inside schools and in our society as a whole – that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

If you want to know the truth that lurks behind test-based accountability, standardized testing, choice, vouchers, and charter schools then you'll want to take a look at this documentary.

Collaborative Problem Solving in the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Here's how I used Ross Greene's Collaborative Problem Solving (Plan B) with a student.

Dylan is a very active grade 2 boy who was reading The Lorax on the iPad. Dylan can't read independently yet and that's ok. He's very young. The good news is that he sometimes still gets excited about reading with an adult. The iPad works well because it allows him some autonomy while it reads to him. Plus it's interactive which is great because it keeps Dylan engaged. (Please note that the iPad does not replace reading with an adult -- it merely supplements)

After he finished the book, I showed him how to take screen shots of his favorite parts of the book. He placed them in Keynote and, with some assistance, he wrote a couple sentences that explained what was happening in the picture.

After three pictures and three text boxes, Dylan made it clear that he was ready for a break, so I sent him for a walk down the hall. When he came back I had him choose a little journal for him to keep. I asked him to write down his name, the date and something about what he did this morning.

All of a sudden, Dylan crossed his arms, knitted his brow, hung his head and huffed. It took me all of a half second to see something was wrong. It's at this point that too many adults engage in Plan A. Plan A is where the adult places an expectation on the child and when the child doesn't comply, the adult imposes their will to make them comply.

In Dylan's case, my problem was that I wanted him to write in his journal but he wouldn't. Plan A might take any number of forms including threats, bribes, punishments, consequences and other forms of manipulation and coercion.

Plan A solves the problem, right?

Well, sort of but mostly no.

Plan A does solve a problem. Plan A is the best way to solve the adult's problem while almost always completely ignoring the child's problem. Because Plan A never bothers to engage the child, the best it can ever gain us is short-term compliance. We gain expediency and efficiency at the cost of sustainability.

This is as unacceptable as it is ineffective.

Plan B is where we engage collaboratively with the child to solve problems. Here are the steps:

1. Identify the lagging skill and unsolved problem.

2. Engage the child in an empathetic conversation in an attempt to gather information about their perspective of the problem.

3. Identify both problems (yours and theirs).

4. Invite them to come up with solutions and agree on one that is mutually satisfactory and durable.

Here's what Plan B looks like for Dylan:

After I resisted Plan A, I quickly identified Dylan's lagging skill: he has difficulty handling transitions and shifting from one task to another. The unsolved problem here is that Dylan is having difficulty starting his journal writing after reading on the iPad.

Here's how I started the conversation:

Hey Dylan, I've noticed your having difficulty starting your journal writing, what's up?

I waited.

Dylan avoided eye contact.

I waited some more.

Dylan still looked away.

I waited even more.

Then Dylan shifted in his seat and dropped his crossed arms. He wasn't avoiding me. He was thinking. It was really important that I say nothing so that he could think. Dylan then said something that made me go aha!

I'm hungry.

This aha! moment made sense. It was 20 minutes to twelve and even I was getting hungry.

There is only one person in this world who could provide me with this invaluable piece of information, and that person is Dylan. If I don't take the time and effort to engage in a conversation with him, then I guess I could hypothesize and theorize why he's having difficulty (he hates writing or me) -- or I could skip all the speculation and just ask Dylan for what's up (he's hungry).

Quick sidebar: If I speculate about what Dylan's problem is, I'm likely to unilaterally impose a solution which will likely solve my problem while ignoring his which will likely lead to more unsolved problems, leading me to impose more unilateral consequences. In other words, Plan A begets Plan A.

Once I had my aha! moment, I asked Dylan:

I wonder if there is a way for you to write in your journal without being hungry.

I waited.

He said nothing.

I waited longer.

After I watched him think in silence, Dylan said:

I can wait until lunch.

Sometimes kids are great at telling us what we want to hear. Sometimes this is true because they have grown accustomed to having their needs trumped by adults. Keeping this in mind, I decided that Dylan's suggestion was neither mutually satisfactory (I don't think he really believed he could wait) nor sustainable (I didn't really believe he could wait) so I said:

That's an idea, but are you sure you can wait? What if you got a super quick snack now and then came back and wrote in your journal?

His smile told me all I needed to know about whether this solution was mutually satisfactory. And it was proven durable when three minutes later he returned from his snack and went straight to his journal.

For those who say this sounds like too much work, I'll say this: while it's true that learning how to do Plan B takes a long time, this post took me longer to write than my actual interaction with Dylan.

Standardized testing is like tobacco

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Paul Thomas writes some remarkable posts for the Daily Kos. In his his post The Education Games: Reform as Doublespeak, he writes about how we should frame the debate around standardized testing.

High-stakes standardized tests. The doublespeak around high-stakes standardized testing is one of the most powerful weapons used today by Duncan. The Obama administration has produced mountains of evidence that claiming to reject and decrease testing is a cloak for the inevitability of more testing and more corrosive accountability for teachers. But that debate is masking a deeper problem with confronting high-stakes standardized tests: Many educators are quick to reject the high-stakes element while adding that standardized testing is being misused. And here is where educators are failing the debate.

The high-stakes problem is the secondary problem with standardized testing. Yes, high-stakes create inexcusable outcomes related to testing: teaching to the test, reducing all course content to what-is-tested-is-what-is-taught, reducing teacher quality to test scores, reducing student learning to test scores, and cheating. But rejecting or even calling for removing the high-stakes ignores that standardized tests are flawed themselves. Standardized tests remain primarily linked to the race, social class, and gender of students; standardized tests label and sort children overwhelmingly based on the coincidence of those children's homes.

The standardized testing debate is the cigarette debate, not the alcohol debate. Alcohol can be consumed safely and even with health benefits; thus, the alcohol debate is about the use of alcohol, not alcohol itself. Cigarettes are another story; there is no healthy consumption of cigarettes so that debate is about the inherent danger of tobacco.

Educators must expose the double-speak calling for less testing while increasing the testing and the stakes for students and teachers, but we must not allow that charge to trump the need to identify standardized testing as cancerous, to state clearly there is no safe level of standardized testing.

Self-worth

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I came across this from a friend who saw it circulating on Facebook. I use this with my students to discuss the idea of self-worth. Many of the children I come across in the hospital setting have a very little self-worth and self-esteem. The paradox here is that while many of these kids can't see any value in themselves, they are able to see value in others.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill. He then asked, "Who still wants it...?" Still the hands went up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE. You are special-Don't EVER forget it." Consider passing this on as you may never know the lives it touches, the hurting hearts it speaks to, or the hope that it may bring.

School should not feel like this

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

The best and worst curriculums

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

The best teachers understand that curriculum is not something that some distant authority publishes and mails to the school so that the teacher may merely deliver it to the students.

Instead, the best teachers understand that the best curriculums are co-created with students so that they may construct an understanding for themselves from the inside while interacting with their environment.

This is precisely why curriculum guides should be exactly that -- a guide. Never doubt that a thoughtful teacher and an engaged student can learn together; indeed, it's the only way real learning has ever really happened.

Jeb Bush and Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:05:00 +0000

Will Richardson shared this video and called it required viewing for every parent and educator who wants a better picture of the global education reform movement (GERM), and I agree.

If I can find the time, effort and patience, I really want to go through this video and offer some line by line critique.

Mike Thayer left this comment on Will Richardson's post. I think it speaks volumes:

The bottom line to me is, this is a talk about tactics; the fundamental strategy of the new educational reform movement is left unsaid.

According to Gov. Bush, the tactics for the new reformers are pretty simple. Tactically, the strategic goals will be achieved if the "reformers" are able to:

1) Create the perception that "higher, better" standards will help solve the problems of education.
2) Create the perception that (public, only public) schools are failing.
3) Create the perception that there just need to be great teachers in every classroom, and all will be well.
4) Create the perception that technology will be the panacea.

Here's the great part: For no particularly good reason, I actually believe that Gov. Bush believes each of these (that is, remove the words "create the perception" from each of the items above). And he has the conviction of the true believer. Anyway...

The strategic goals are, as far as I can tell:

1) To privatize education completely, or at least to corporatize it to the point that the contrast between public vs. private/charter/whatever schools would be a distinction without a difference.
2) To treat education as a field that could become a source of major profits for large corporations.
3) To make students who view knowledge as purely pragmatic, rather than providing them with means to be more critical or holistic thinkers. Having future consumers with a very simplified view of the world is good for business.
4) Etc.

I think if we care about the ideal of truly public education, we need to develop strategies and tactics of our own. We are way behind the other side on this one, in my view.

I would also add Alfie Kohn's article Beware of School "Reformers" as required reading. With chilling accuracy, Kohn identifies the ingredients to be a school "reformer":

* a heavy reliance on fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests to evaluate students and schools, generally in place of more authentic forms of assessment;

* the imposition of prescriptive, top-down teaching standards and curriculum mandates;

* a disproportionate emphasis on rote learning—memorizing facts and practicing skills—particularly for poor kids;

* a behaviorist model of motivation in which rewards (notably money) and punishments are used on teachers and students to compel compliance or raise test scores;

* a corporate sensibility and an economic rationale for schooling, the point being to prepare children to “compete” as future employees; and

* charter schools, many of which are run by for-profit companies.

Digital Native myth

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

The idea that children are digital natives is at best inaccurate and at worst a lie.

It's weird how the glitz and glamour of technology can hypnotize even the sharpest people into believing silly ideas. If someone came out and tried to sell the idea that some children are literacy natives, we would scoff at them because we know that the ability to read and write, like all learning, is constructed from the inside out while interacting with our environment.

And yet, as soon as we start talking about smart phones, tablets, texting and other technologies, we get bamboozled into thinking that digital natives exist.

Children who have access to technology and are encouraged to use it in a playful and informal manner grow up to be adults who feel comfortable and competent around technology.

Children who have little to no access to technology and are discouraged from using it (usually out of fear and ignorance on behalf of the adults) grow up to be adults who feel uncomfortable and incompetent around technology.

All this has nothing to do with their DNA and everything to do with opportunity and affluence.

Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:32:00 +0000

I spent the day in Ross Greene's Collaborative Problem Solving event. We talked a lot about how children will be successful when they can and it is our job to first identify the lagging skills and unsolved problems that are causing difficulty.

One of the tools the Collaborative Problem Solving approach uses is the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems. Using this tool, I wrote a sample case formulation or what could be an Individual Program Plan based on Ross Greene's Collaborative Problem Solving.

Sample Case Formulation

Individual Program Plan

A summary of some key lagging skills, perhaps those that are contributing to challenging behaviour most often or maybe those on which caregivers can most easily agree:

Nolan has difficulty managing his emotions in response to frustration so as to think rationally... isn't very good at appreciating how his behaviour is affecting others and recognizing how he's coming across... and difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person's perspective or point of view.

Emphasize that these lagging skills are especially problematic in the conditions (unsolved problems) in which they are demanded by the environment. Specify some of these conditions:

Nolan tends to run into difficulty when these lagging skills are demanded. So he has a lot of trouble shifting from computer time during language arts to putting the computer away and going to physical education. It's very hard for him to learn cooperatively with his classmates... he often has difficulty compromising on ideas with others without pushing his ideas on others and getting very frustrated. And then he can't figure out why others are mad at him. When playing floor hockey, Nolan has difficulty negotiating the interpretation of the rules with his peers such as offsides, goals and high sticking. Has difficulty coping and forgiving others for wronging or hurting him by accident without getting very angry.

Underscore that challenging behaviours occur in response to these unsolved problems, that the manner in which the adults are presently going about trying to solve them is making things worse and solving no problems durably, and that the unsolved problems are highly predictable:

These unsolved problems cause Nolan to become quite frustrated, and that's when he is likely to exhibit challenging behaviours, like crying, hitting, isolating himself from others and swearing. When we remind Nolan of how we expect him to act - or reprimand or punish him for not meeting those expectations - it only makes things worse... and doesn't help Nolan solve any of the problems over which he's becoming upset. Fortunately, since his unsolved problems are highly predictable, we don't need to try solving them in the heat of the moment.

Check to ensure that there is a consensus and that the case formulation (or Individual Program Plan) accurately summarizes the deliberations of the group:

Does this sound like a good summary of what we've been saying about Nolan?

Point out that the goal of intervention is to solve these problems collaboratively so they no longer precipitate challenging behaviour and so that lagging skills are taught, at least indirectly:

Our goal is to begin solving some of these problems with Nolan's help, so that he's involved in helping us understand what's getting in the way for him and he's also involved in coming up with solutions that will work for him and for us. Once the problems are solved, they won't set in motion challenging behaviour any more. And if we solve the problems collaboratively, then Nolan will start to learn some of the skills he's lacking.

***

I see all this as an important shift in mindset. It is so tempting to focus on a child's behaviour and to theorize, hypothesize and develop stories around why those behaviours are occurring, but none of this is helpful in supporting the child develop the skills they need to better navigate their day. Instead, we are far better off using our limited time, effort and resources to identify the skills children lag along with the situations and unsolved problems that are demanding these lagging skills.

Once we identify the lagging skills and unsolved problems, we jump into Collaborative Problem Solving.

Shit Creek, Paddle Stores and Schools

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

When government maintains all the authority over teachers via prescriptive curriculums and standardized tests while placing all the responsibility for student achievement squarely on schools and teachers, it feels like this.

Mental Health Day is inconvenient

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Imagine this: you are a grade 12 student who is at the tail end of English and Chemistry 30 that travels through too much curriculum at break-neck speeds with a Diploma exam that is worth half of your entire course's credit. And then imagine having intrusive thoughts where you can't stop thinking about killing yourself, you can't sleep and your anxiety is so high that you have a hard time going out in public.

Imagine this: you are a grade 10 girl who is fixated on chasing perfection which translates into an acute fear of failure. In order to attain your goal of 90 lbs., you starve yourself by only smelling food, imagining the calories entering your body through your nose. And when you do eat, you lock yourself in the bathroom, making yourself throw up followed quickly with 500 sit ups. You cut your arms from bicep to wrists with your dad's razor blade because its the only time you can really feel something. You can see the value in others but can't see why anyone would waste their time caring for you because deep down you know that you are a piece of shit that doesn't deserve to live.

Imagine this: you are a grade 3 boy who has been placed in isolation at school for weeks on end because the adults see you as a threat to yourself and others. You've been told over and over again how bad you are and you are starting to believe it. Relationships are built on coercion and manipulation. Rewards and punishments, threats and bribes are the default. Every interaction with adults is a power struggle where you engage in a cost-benefit analysis. When someone asks you to do something, you ask "what will I get if I do?" and when they threaten you, you ask "what will happen to me if I don't?"

Imagine this: your foster parents go on vacation and while they are gone, they inform your social worker that they have decided not to have you in their home anymore. You bounce from foster home to foster home where strangers who call themselves "family" enter and exit your life faster than a fiddler's elbow. You grow bitter and angry. To salvage your dignity, you isolate yourself from others and focus entirely on ensuring your own needs are being met through control and aggression. To test the conditional nature of these strangers, you look for ways to test their caring by refusing even their most reasonable requests, and you fully expect everyone to fail. Over time, you fail to receive appropriate care and come to believe that deep down this all makes sense -- trust is a swear word, relationships are hurtful and life is by definition hateful. Fuck everyone. Fuck everything.

As a teacher on a children's inpatient psychiatric assessment unit, I have seen variations of each of these four children. Each one is as real as they are tragic.

Despite their complex needs, I have come to see May 9th as an inconvenient day for Mental Health Day.

This can be true for many reasons but the purpose of this post is to show how ignorant and hurtful the school system can be towards children's mental health.

Here are but a few examples I have experienced where the system has placed its own needs ahead of the child:

In about a month from now, many students will enter final exam season, and addressing Mental Health on May 9 is adversarial to the school system's needs. Upon hearing that a grade 12 student was admitted to the hospital, one teacher lamented, "I just wish the student was removed from my class list. I know what's going to happen. They are going to miss class and when they write their diploma, they are going to pull down my class average."

Upon having their student admitted to the hospital, I had a school's guidance councillor contact me to ask what I was going to do about the student's grades. The student was taking remedial English for the second time and still only had a grade of 24%.

Sometimes teachers and administrators send tests for me to "administer" so that the teacher can fill in their gradebook.

Because children do not come to an inpatient psychiatric assessment unit to get caught up on their homework, I often find myself advocating for children in a way that protects their mental health needs against the needs of the education system.

Look, if these children were healthy enough to attend school they would, but they aren't. It's like we are in a boat with a hole that we can't fix because we are too busy rowing. Our relentless race to nowhere is fueled by an insatiable fear of "falling behind" academically. Pushing children to win this race never ends well.

It's time we stop putting the system's needs ahead of children's needs. It's time we pull our heads out of the sand and acknowledge what is truly going on. Until good people open their eyes and stand up for children, Mental Health Day will remain nothing more than a day we can check off our calendar.

Teachers eat their young

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Teachers eat their young and education systems encourage them to do so.

Too often beginning teachers are assigned too many courses with too many students and provided too little support. As a first year teacher, I was assigned five language arts classes at three different grade levels. Each class had about 30 students which means I was responsible for teaching about 150 students every day. A teacher who is responsible for more than 100 students in a day isn't really teaching anymore -- they're doing crowd control. I also coached the junior boys volleyball team.

If teacher preparation colleges mentored and supported beginning teachers for their first year of teaching, beginning teachers would benefit from further support and the teacher colleges could remain relevant and connected with real classrooms and schools.

Local school boards, education departments, teachers' unions and teacher colleges need to collaborate in an effort to support and nurture beginning teachers.

Some people complain that we have a hard time getting rid of bad teachers. There's likely some truth to this, but it's a red herring. Getting rid of teachers is easy - we do a good job of ensuring that around half of all beginning teachers leave the teaching profession inside their first 5 years. Because there is a world-wide push to turn teachers into standardized testing technicians, it is likely that many of those who leave the teaching profession are very competent people who are unwilling to subject themselves to such soul killing drudgery.

Andy Hargreaves explains:

We know that one of the biggest impact factors on student learning achievement in the schools is the quality of teachers. However, at the moment we have too many demoralized teachers. The recent MetLife survey showed that there are clear levels of teacher dissatisfaction and that satisfaction is declining. We know that an inordinate amount of teachers are leaving teaching very, very early. The modal (most commonly occurring) number of years' experience in teaching, according to the National Staffing Survey is one. We have more teachers with one year of experience than with any number of years of experience, which is a new thing for American education.

If we went into hospitals and the most commonly occurring number of years of experience for doctors and nurses was one there would be public outrage. Too many schools are looking for young, inexpensive and flexible teachers with little experience and keeping them for a few years and moving them on long before they have reached the peak of their performance. That's a wasted investment.

We need to look at why teachers are not staying in the profession and one of the major reasons is too much testing. America is really the only country that tests all the children on almost everything, every year. It is the only country in the world that does this and it's not associated with high standards but it is associated with driving teachers out of the profession because their work is excessively prescribed, excessively standardized, constantly interfered with and lacking the judgment and discretion that all professions need.

If we focused on supporting teachers even half as much as we focus on sanctioning them, we might start to see some improvement.

Please read: Hargreaves, Kohn and Zhao

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:03:00 +0000

This is another post in a series that I wish to call Please Read. My purpose here is to randomly and inconsistently provide a handful of links on a certain topic that should be read.

I am thankful for the work of Andy Hargreaves, Alfie Kohn and Yong Zhao. After reading books by all three and hearing each of them speak, I've come to see them as shining lights in the dark that is education reform.

Alfie Kohn Interview: Will the Common Core Benefit Children?

Yong Zhao Interview: Will the Common Core Create World-Class Learners?

What is ailing American Schools? An Interview with Andy Hargreaves

5 ways to fix schools

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Susan Ohanian gives 5 ways to start fixing schools:

-Feed them. (and I'm not talking pink slime here. Hire Moms/Aunts/Grandmothers/Cousins to cook real food in the cafeteria.

-Fix their teeth.

-Guarantee their housing.

-Give them a lot of books. . . books they choose. . . books that come without interrogation.

-Read stories aloud to them. Wouldn't it be great if every teacher read aloud something (s)he found interesting/suspenseful/amusing/outrageous/inspiring? At least once a week.

Alfie Kohn is coming to Calgary

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

WHO: Alfie Kohn

WHAT: The Homework Myth

WHEN: Thursday, May 10. 7:00 pm

WHERE: Calgary, Alberta. Murray Fraser Hall (University of Calgary). Lecture Theater #162

WHY: Because too many kids get too much of a bad thing.

HOW: Tickets can be purchased for $35.00 here.

Here are all of my blog posts on why we need to rethink homework.

Here are a number articles by Kohn on Homework:

Rethinking Homework

Studies Support Rewards, Homework, and Traditional Teaching. Or Do They?

"But I Need to Assign Homework! Look at All I Have to Cover!"

Abusing Research: The Study of Homework and Other Examples

The Truth About Homework

Changing the Homework Default

Down with Homework

Kids may be right: Homework stinks

Interview with Alfie Kohn about homework

Ross Greene is coming to Calgary

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:42:00 +0000

Ross Green

WHO: Ross Greene

WHAT: Collaborative Problem Solving Advanced Training

WHEN: May 9-11

WHERE: Calgary, Alberta. Executive Royal Inn.

WHY: Because children will be successful when they can, we need to move away from "doing things to" children and move towards a "working with" approach.

HOW: For more information on registration check out this page.

Here are a couple posts I've written about Ross Greene's book Lost at School:

Collaborative Problem Solving

Ross Greene's Lost at School

Alfie Kohn's interview with Ross Greene

Here are all of my posts on rethinking discipline.

Gary Stager on Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Bower) — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Gary Stager unloads a masterful critique of technology in education:

I had an educator approach me at a conference recently to volunteer that “Our school is not ready for Google Docs.” Set aside whatever you happen to think about Google Docs; it’s a word processor in a Web browser, right? I told the tech director, “Congratulations, your school district has apparently managed to employ the last breathing mammals in the solar system incapable of using a word processor.” Isn’t it odd that technology directors are not held accountable for such failure over three decades? Could they possibly be enabling co-dependent behavior and helplessness in the teachers they are meant to lead?