KEY READINGS and VIDEOS:
- Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
- Christina Wood: The Virtual Classroom Redefines Education
- Alvin Toff ler: Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up
- Diane Ravitch: The Myth of the Charter School
- Heidi Jacob-Hayes: Curriculum 21
GUIDING QUESTIONS:
Comments, points-of-view, and questions about any and all of the reading and viewing you are doing for this week—Curriculum 21 and all the other readings. Or respond specifically to one (or more) of the prompts below.
1. What are the curriculum possibilities that you are reading about that are so different from the “typical” curriculum?
“The Past” vs. “The Present”: It seems that American 21st century education is in court these days. American education is the defendant and everyone from business to government to academics and to social scientists and documentary film makers are the litigants and witnesses. At issue is the state of education in our country which was developed for an agri-industrialized society versus the possibilities in education through the emergence of technology. How can we continue to educate America’s youth using antiquated systems versus strong evidence that the current methods work fairly well for most kids. Do we modify what we have or throw out everything and start over? Embedded within the litigant’s arguments are the unfounded assumptions that public schools are full of failing students taught by loser teachers who only keep their jobs because of the evil influence of unionization. Can American schools remain globally competitive? Where will America end up if we continue utilizing a system largely built on the factory model of mass production at the lowest cost? Didn’t the economic Crash of 2008 teach us that unions have to be dismantled? Eg., as American auto makers come back from the brink of extinction, the cost of labor HAS to be cut and innovation HAS to be mastered.
The problem is that students aren’t cars and teachers aren’t just “labor”. Education is far more complex than that. I think this will be a topic that I will continuely develop over this semester, so I’m not going to get into it much now.
2. What are some current directions in K-12 education that you are seeing, reading, or hearing about…and what impact do they seem to be having on these schools?
Charter schools and virtual schools seem to be the wave of the future. They will use technology to drive their methods. As I read through all these wonderful ideas, one problem seems to keep popping up in my head–CHOICE. Students are choosing to enter these kinds of schools, so I assume there is a critical student quality that is lacking with many students we see in the public schools–MOTIVATION. The second issue that isn’t addressed is ABILITY. Since charter schools apparently have more applicants than seats, they can choose the cream of the crop when it comes to student MOTIVATION and ABILITY. That “sucking” sound you hear from all the nay-sayers against public education is the sound of all the best and brightest teachers and students being sucked away from the public schools. What we have left are schools, communities, students left behind saying “This school SUCKS!” “Public schools SUCK!”
As one of those “best and brightest” students, I can say that I would have loved to escape the public school “SUCKS”. As a public school teacher, I would love to teach motivated, able students. I do teach elective Spanish for that very reason. If a student doesn’t want to be in my class, s/he doesn’t have to be in my class. The sucking the cream off the top also works in communities. When the Millinocket mills laid off workers and eventually closed, the families with skill sets to obtain employment in greener pastures left. Frequently, the lower ability, lower educated, lower motivated families don’t have the option to relocate. It’s too expensive to start over on an $8/hr job in another city where the cost of living is even higher. The children of these underskilled, undereducated parents attend the public schools. For this reason, I really appreciated Diane Ravitch’s article. She says, ” 60 percent of achievement is explained by nonschool factors, such as family income.” The students I have left are not achievers, at least not academically, and with all my best ideas, no matter how hard I try, I’m just not going to help all of them. I spend more time trying to mitigate years of underachievement by teaching students how to be students, how to learn. My best students are, in reality, average students who look gifted besides their peers. My best students won’t get the chance to excel really because I have to teach to the middle and spend so much time supporting the below. I would love to see my best students have access to better opportunities and at the same time, I would be sad if they left. I depend on that one student every year to get 100’s on their assessments because I know I taught it despite the fact that it doesn’t stick with most.
I liked Arthur Clark’s statement in the Mitra video that “If students have interest, then education happens.” Putting those “holes in the wall” all over India was an awesome experiment. Seeing kids so motivated to learn that they taught themselves was inspiring. But what do we do with the kids who don’t want to learn anything? They live in the enabling culture of America which teaches, “If you don’t know how, then you’ll never have to.” What if the things children want to know about aren’t age appropriate. As I high school teacher, I know my adolescents are so curious about sex because biologically, that’s what’s happening to their insides. Do I want my kids learning from the Internet about sex? What if they choose pornography or a pedophile to learn from? Children have to be curious to learn, but they need teachers (family) to guide them and to push them. I agree that a “grandma cloud” of support is crucial and that for many of my students who come from low-educated families, they don’t get that support at home. Most of us will tend to settle on just enough to get by if we aren’t pushed and led a little. That’s what bell curves are all about–the tendency to be average.
3. What does all of this mean in terms of those things that are “driving you crazy” about your school? Would some of these ideas “fly” at your school? Should they?
Technology is what drives me the craziest at my schools. I’m not afraid to learn and use technology. In fact, I get all excited about the possibilities of creating meaningful content in my curriculum using technology. But I think, as of this year, I’ve become completely disenfranchised by any hope of teaching with technology. I’m in my 3rd year in a northern Maine school.
My first year teaching here, I eagerly learned and developed a class WIKI to publish student work, to lead students to Internet resources, and to keep students parents and their families posted on assignments and projects. The first quarter, I had all my classes design a PowerPoint book (or they could opt for a paper version). The first semester in Spanish is usually about telling about yourself, your friends, and your family. Vocabulary and grammar are developed around asking and answering questions such as “What’s your name?”, “What’s your age?”, “What do you like or not like?” “What are you and others like?” To draw all these elements together, I use “¿Quién Soy Yo?” as the overarching curriculum question. Students use short sentences and vocabulary, incorporate photos, and create a 12 – 15 slide/page photo album about themselves. I used the WIKI space to publish the grading rubric and then later to publish the students’ finished presentations.
Here’s what in the end sabotaged my goals:
- Not enough working computers. Computers are available through the library on a C.O.W (Computers On Wheels) which must be signed out for each class. There are 2 C.O.W.s available for 21-25 teachers. So I might get the students started one day and then have to come back to it in the next week because I didn’t have any computers. The majority of my students do not have computers at home, so they can’t take their work home. I learned that most of them had come from a non-homework culture middle school program, so they wouldn’t work on them at home even if they did have them.
- ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY and other rules governing computer usage. In concept, students access to photos of themselves and their families should have been super easy. Almost every student has Facebook or Myspace where all these photos are published. The issue was that, in school, we didn’t have access to these sites. Furthermore, most e-mail is also blocked by the MLTI project. Students with computers at home couldn’t send themselves photos through their emails and upload them at school. USB drives could have worked but that seemed to be something students couldn’t afford. I went to the Tech Coordinator and asked him to unblock Myspace and Facebook for my classes. He responded that he had to have authorization from the principal to do that. I went to the principal and explained my project (which he completely supported in theory). He gave me 1 day to use these websites. Kids that knew how to use the technology worked quickly, but I had at least half of my kids who needed my help. The ones who needed my help the most typically were the low ability kids without computers or motivation to learn on their computers at home. 1 day was not enough to upload all the photos every kid needed.
- CLASS TIME FEELS WASTED: If I’m teaching “this” I’m not teaching “that”. Isn’t that the basic curriculum development premise? I teach in a block schedule which should be ideal for doing projects like this. I could introduce vocabulary and grammar in the beginning of class, describe how to do the homework for extended practice, and still have 45 minutes to work on the computers. In reality, I discovered that if I got the C.O.W. I needed to have the kids use the entire block to work on the computers because I didn’t know when I’d get a chance again. My slower students wasted a lot of class time waiting for me to get around to helping them. That meant I had to use up to 5 blocks of time (or 2-3 weeks of the 9 week quarter) to finish the projects. Some of them were beautiful and we eagerly published them to the WIKI. Most of them were piss poor jobs that I had to give poor grades to in the end (I like to make students work up to the standard rather than let them turn in half the job, but I ran out of time, patience, and other resources). I just didn’t have any more class time to push them to higher standards. Of course, they weren’t thrilled about publishing their crappy projects for all to see, but doing so was worth points on the rubric.
- No access to color printing. Finally, there was a parent OPEN HOUSE NIGHT scheduled, and I envisioned printing off the PPT books and laying them out neatly on a table in the hall to show off. Photos and PPT look best when printed in color, but the school doesn’t supply color printing. There is a color printer in the library and some teachers have color printers in the classrooms, but they don’t like to share with other teachers (and I don’t blame them) because they don’t have enough money in their budgets for more ink.
I haven’t tried this project again. I did modify and simplify it for my 8th graders who have me for a 13 week trimester. I print off blackline masters from EnchantedLearning.com (which is for elementary students) and have them work on an “About Me” book as we go through the trimester. They do have MLTI laptops. When they need a photo of themselves, they can use the MAC and create and print a photo on the spot. I also use the computers for their textbook. I have them work through several vocabulary sets on StudySpanish.com. They hear the words pronounced, are given a couple of games to practice learning, and then some “quizzes” which I count as classwork.
4. What one change would you make if you could change anything about your school…that would influence the curriculum?
I would like a more “tech friendly” school, but we just don’t have the money. I have so many cool tools I can use, eg., with an LCD projector to help connect culture, vision, sound. The LCD projector is just like the C.O.W. I have to go to the library and check it out. That means, I don’t have it everyday for a quick PPT or game of Jeopardy to review the words, etc. In my second year of teaching, I asked for a 32-inch flat screen TV with a computer connection. I went to Best Buy and worked with a salesman to get all that I needed for under $400 (much cheaper than an LCD or WhiteBoard). There just wasn’t enough money. Later that year, the school received a $10,000 grant that teachers were told could only be used for instructional purposes. The principal OK’d the purchase of my TV and I went back to Best Buy to get a current estimate. I put through all the paperwork and then waited. The TV never came. With state and local budget shortfalls predicted, lay-offs coming, and so many hard priorities to answer, I was told that the grant was put aside for the following year just to buy the usual purchases.
If I could change anything in my school, I would want to have money for technology in my classroom and permission to use the social media tools that we communicate with in the 21st century.
Deannahouse's Blog 
RE: Shouldn’t we get at least halfway there first before completely destroying the old and building anew?
Technology sure is pulling us all along into the future whether we are willing or not. Before Christmas, I upgraded to an Android-powered cell phone. I spent quite a bit of time over the vacation “playing” with it to learn how to use it. To make it more exciting, I downloaded this course’s reading on Kindle which can be viewed from my cell phone. For the first time, I am learning to use my cell phone as my book. I love it. I just have to keep “playing” around with it until I figure it out. When I get stuck, I find someone who can show me how.
Unfortunately, in classrooms, we frequently don’t get the luxury of “playing” with our technology to learn how to use it. For one thing, most teachers would be pretty uncomfortable introducing a lesson that was going to require the use of technology without first knowing how to answer most of the questions the students were going to ask. Unless the teacher is comfortable working in ambiguity or has a class that is comfortable working in ambiguity, we’d be setting ourselves up for disaster.
Another reason that we don’t “play” with technology to learn how to use it is that schools are very averse to “play”. Learning is supposed to be something serious that you stay on task for. Students should play after school, right? Remember when computers first came out? They were always bundled with card games and that bomb game. Schools and employers took that off their computers so students and employees wouldn’t “waste” valuable time “playing” these games. But they were there to play and learn from. People who did play those games were learning how to use a mouse or a touch pad. Last week I had an incident with some 8th graders on their MLTI laptops. I try to give them reward time for completing their work by letting them “play” on their computers. I was concerned by the amount of “fun” they were having that they were watching something inappropriate. I kind of know when 3 eighth grade boys are laughing hysterically and glancing towards me that they’re up to something. They told me they were watching a SpongeBob video. I let it rest. Then I went to the middle school tech coordinator and asked if there was a way to check to see what they were up to. In her grumpiest, most condescending attitude she turned the entire issue onto me: “We don’t let the kids use the computers for anything that isn’t “school work”. They shouldn’t be watching cartoons or playing video games.” When teachers or students can just “play” around on the their computers, they are getting some of the best p.d. available. But like this teacher, I think the attitudes towards technology is that it has to be something official and dull. So unless there’s a professional development that “qualifies” you to use the technology, you shouldn’t use it, right?
Yesterday, I was laughing to myself so hard. A friend of my husband’s made the statement, “I guess I’m going to have to learn how to use e-mail and the computer.” He’s been one of those 50-something men who buried their heads in the sand, even when his entire family Facebooks and emails. The world is moving on without him. The people he wants to have a relationship with are using technology. He’ realizing that it’s not going to go back to the “good ol’ days” and that he better get on board or get left behind. Schools are finding the same thing. Teachers can resist integrating it into their lessons. School boards can acceptable-use-policy it right out of usefulness. But somewhere out there, the world is moving along without them, and eventually they are going to have to adapt or get left behind.
RE: Waiting For Superman
I haven’t seen the movie Waiting For Superman yet. I’ll need to download it off the Internet when it becomes available. I did download the book to my new Android phone. This is a big technological adaptation for me that I determined I would attempt this semester. I love books and would be sad to see the world of print medium disappear, but I’m afraid the hand-writing is on the wall. Like with so many technological changes that have happened through my generation, the mantra is either learn to adapt or be left behind.
I started reading the book and then I read the Diane Ravitch article. I’m much more aligned to Ravitch. The “what-if” possibilities of charter schools are realized through significant funding, student selectivity, and out-of-the-box thinking around all the factors that seem to pull public schools down. Ravitch correctly points out, that for the minimum in student gains actually witnessed in charter schools, those same “what-if” possibilities could have been made in public schools.
Public schools do a pretty good job of delivering an adequate education to the masses. Charter schools have the luxury of delivering a quality education to the elite or chosen. Rather than blame teachers for the ills of public school failures, what if we put a “grandma cloud” (as Sugatra suggests about students) around teachers, their classrooms, and their working environments? What if the answer to public schools failure to delivery individualized instruction to the masses was to expect the families to individualize their child’s world view according to their own family values and perspective? When my children were growing up, we took our kids on vacations to other places rather than leave them with Grandma. My value was that my children would understand there was a big world out there waiting for them. I took them to museums and historical sites and learned with them. I didn’t wait around for their schools to take them on a field trip. Other families may value outdoor recreational opportunities and commit family resources to buying snow sleds or skis or hunting equipment.
This article describes how the parents sacrifice to get their child into these charter schools. These parents are teaching their children the importance of the best education possible. Plenty of families, in return, have different values. Eg., in Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad/Poor Dad he shares how educated his father was and how uneducated his friend’s dad was. In the end, it was the poor dad who taught him to make money. Families who value wealth are able to share how to create wealth with their children.
People expect public schools to be the only source of education for children, but children are learning machines. They are learning in and out of the classroom. Education noble aspiration is to attempt to equalize the achievement of “Every Child”. We’re not going to always get it right. No matter how hard we try, the children of the affluent will always have opportunities and exposure to opportunities that the less affluent won’t have. The great thing about public education is that it opens the doors of possibilities for many children. If our schools had time, money, facilities thrown at them, it is likely that more children would also find their way.