EdTechTrek

I am going to flesh out this post a little later once folks have a chance to respond to this question that I posted on Twitter. If you are finding your way here, please go ahead and add your response.

This morning, I was reading this news story from NPR titled, ‘40 Years of Lessons on Sesame Street‘. The article is one of a many reflecting on the 4oth year anniversary of the popular children’s show. As I reflected on the lessons learned over those 40 years by the show and its producers and cast, I realized that many, if not all of these lessons, are relevant within our education spheres. Here are those lessons:

1. Children are adaptable.
2. G00d [muppets] take time to evolve.
3. Change is unavoidable.
4. “C” is for competition (not just cookie).
5. Freshen up.
6. Learn from your mistakes.
7. Keep it simple.
8. Push the envelope.

I am not going to make this a long narrative, but just simply want to quickly reflect on each of these lessons.

Children are adaptable: The certainly are. What comes to mind here though, is that children both adapt to good things in their environment as well as to not so good things. In schools, my concern is that children have adapted all too much to our didactic, passive, rote methods of teaching. I see this when they arrive at the college/university level. Many are struggling to battle this all-too familiar adaptation they have masterfully undergone for 12 or so years. Although, I must say many gladly rise to the challenge and move from the “feed me” “hoop jumping” and “minimum criteria” types of environments when relevant opportunities are placed before them, but it can be a struggle, nonetheless.

Good [muppets] take time to evolve: The evolutionary process can be indeed slow. Many of us get frustrated with the lack of evolutionary speed in schools. However, one key principle of evolution is that of natural selection. Wikipedia defines this as “is the process by which heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations.” So, what are those traits (often influenced by environment, not just heredity) in education that seem most dominant and lead to their survival, while others just don’t seem to gain a significant foothold? Why is it that the progressive vision for education conceptualized by the likes of John Dewey, Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, Jerome Bruner… and their contemporaries like Herb Kohl, Deborah Meier, Ted Sizer, and others… seem so hard to achieve?

Change is unavoidable: So why does education spend so much of its efforts on avoiding change, not the superficial window dressing kind of change, but substantial, revolutionary change? It seems that we are living the axiom, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Coming back to evolution, what are those most dominant traits that keep us from substantial change?

“C” is for competition: We have moved to this very competitive model of education over the past years. We are competing and ranking internationally on assessments like TIMSS. We rank and compete internally (NAEP)with one another for the top districts, top schools, top scores, quickest to meet AYP, top students,… We are competing for federal dollars that get dangled like carrots in front of hungry rabbits (Race to the Top, NCLB,…). (If you haven’t watched this lecture given by Yong Zhao, especially the first part of it, it is worth your time.) Competition often serves to make us better. But it is in defining “better” and “success” that we have become lost. As with Faust, have we make a bargain with the devil that has robbed us of what Dewey and other progressives understood as being most valuable?

“Jefferson told us where to look to see if a nation is a success. He did not say to look at test scores. Instead, he said to look at ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ ” (Keith Baker, 2007)

And then, Alfie Kohn and  Dean Shareski remind us all of the importance of joy in learning, both for teachers and students. Is that one of those traits that will selectively be extinguished if we let it?

Freshen Up: Who can argue with giving things a fresh look. However, too often we have giving things in education a “fresh look” in the name of meaningful change. Many folks see the addition of the interactive white board, for example, as a symbol of the 21st century classroom – a needed facelift to the aging chalkboard. They are nice and the technology is impressive. However, when major budget dollars are allocated to “fresh look” kinds of changes without any meaningful change or innovation ever happening, the result can often be no more than expensive window dressing. And then there are the schools that really need freshen up… paint, roof, air conditioning, pencil sharpeners that work, desks that aren’t broken, computers that run, physical education, art, and music equipment,… What are we doing?

Learn from your mistakes: In education, and elsewhere, we love to report on mistakes, humiliate and criticize those who make mistakes, and grade mistakes as a form of punishment rather than constructive feedback. Many have learned to avoid taking risks for fear of the consequences of making mistakes. The fact is, we learn best through our mistakes when a grade is not the end of the learning cycle. Programers understand this. Debugging is a powerful and critical part of the programming process, as it is in the learning process. Seymour Papert, Gary Stager, and others have been and continue to be passionate proponents of children learning through programming, through meaningful projects, and learning by doing meaningful, relevant, and therefore engaging things. Somehow, with current educational policy, we are not learning from our mistakes. Instead, we seem to be making the same ones over and over again. This brings me back to evolution and natural selection. What’s driving this perpetuation of the same?

Keep it simple (stupid): Embrace and keep what works. There is no need to make things overly complicated. Some of the most effective pedagogies and learning principles are not all that complicated when it comes down to it. Often, it is the limiting structures, policies, roadblocks, and other expectations that over-complicate things.

Push the envelope: To me, this is my daily challenge when it comes to growth. I try to convey this to my students ad nauseum. The opposite of this is status quo. Don’t rock the boat. Do what’s familiar. Keep things comfortable… all the enemies of business… and education. It’s about growth – becoming and remaining a professional. I am so appreciative of the countless people in my personal learning network (PLN) that share evidence of this every day. One thing that my learning network has done for me is that it has broken down the walls of isolation and has connected me to educators and experts who are truly doing great things around the globe with their students. We do not have to feel (and be) limited by those within our physical circles of influence. Too often, teachers feel isolated and become tunnel-visioned, thinking that what they see and experience around them is indeed reality on a larger scale. I am thankful to say that it isn’t. My students are beginning to understand this – that they don’t have to limit their imagination – that they can connect with inspiring, passionate and excellent teachers and experts in so many ways never before possible – that they indeed have a voice that can make a difference.

As I conclude, what has struck me in writing this morning is that many of these lessons are interrelated, making meaningful and substantial change difficult. As such, I have certainly not done each justice in my narrative here. Are we really learning from these lessons? How do these lessons resonate with you? I’d love to hear what you think.

Who would your Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, or Snuffleupagus of education be?

Gary Stager talks about his hopes for school and schooling in the new documentary film, imagine it!² The Power of Imagination. On his blog, he describes it as being “about connecting imagination and creativity with science and engineering in education.” The vision that he recounts seems so foreign to much of what we currently see in education… so foreign to what my own students see in their local field placements… so foreign to what they learn about in many of their classes. I enjoy many of these same conversations with my students, yet realize that much work needs to be done in order for them to advocate for these types of powerful learning environments. Listen to Gary as he puts this into words. What’s your vision for school?


I’m curious as to what emotions and thoughts are stirred up in you as you watch this video. What progress have we made in this regard? Where are we yet struggling to see this realized? What remains impractical in public education? Why?

Imagine a national search for the very best teachers, Idol-syle… minus the media hype. This unique charter school’s founder, Zeke Vanderhoek, pared down over 600 applications and personally interviewed one hundred of them. He then visited the top 35 applicants and observed them teaching in their classrooms – whatever they happened to be. The Equity School will open with the final 8 faculty and 120 low academic performing fifth graders with plans to expand after that.

What were some of the attributes that got applicants hired?
- Passion
- Excitement & contagious enthusiasm
- Skillfulness
- Expertise
- Practice that matched the “golden résumé”

To cut costs, the school will have no deans, substitute teachers, assistants, and teachers will work longer hours, more days, as well as have more students. There will be no job security and teachers can be “fired at will”.

Teachers will be paid… wait for it … … $125,000/yr. – not to mention up to $25,000 in performance-based bonuses in the second year.

I love this quotation from one of the hired teachers though:

“This could be unsettling were it not for the excitement of working with a team of master teachers, all of whom are motivated to help every student succeed, with no excuses and no blame.”

So, would you want to work in such an environment where passion, enthusiasm, creativity, skillfulness, expertise, personal accountability, and a love of learning permeated everything that takes place?

It will be interesting to see what transpires here, but there are certainly some key ingredients here for a wonderful school. The salary is certainly eye-catching, but notice the money is not being spent on interactive white boards and other “high-tech” accoutrements… yet. The initial investment is in the teachers themselves.

I like that.