Radical thoughts…

I have been thinking lately about more radical ideas in teaching. I look at the way the current system is set up (and this includes both public and private schools as they are not fundamentally different), and I think that despite all our rhetoric about teaching kids to become lifelong learners and creative thinkers, the reality is that when this does happen it is usually in spite of what we do rather than because of it!

Why? Because from day one in school we teach our children that conformity and meeting the teachers expectations are paramount to anything else. If a child’s mind chooses to be creative and interested in something at a moment that does not fit into the teachers schedule, they are told they need to wait. If they can’t they are labeled disruptive. The ones who get the good ‘effort grades’ are often the ones who listened to the teachers the most and followed directions! I’m not suggesting that following directions is bad – but it should not be the primary goal of education. But it is!!!

Look at any students day and realize that there is only time for creative thinking once the day is over. They need to get up and be to school by a certain time. They have to navigate a schedule that compels them to be ready to do math at a certain point, ready to do English at another, and so on. God forbid they were ready to do English before math!

Then clubs and sports (all to pad that college resume!) and then homework. Often mindnumbingly dull homework. In all of their work to follow the schedule we set for them, they don’t have time to be creative – because you can’t schedule creativity!

Something has to be done.

Product of Education

I see too many students who are focused solely on the grade they will receive. I’m sure there are other schools out there where the opposite seems true (but I would speculate that even there the kids care, they have just been beaten down so much by the grades they have received that the only way it won’t hurt anymore is to at least pretend not to care). Every teacher I know of says that they want there students to be motivated to learn for the pure joy of learning – to be self-motivated – to want to know because they are naturally curious.

The problem is, we create a situation where what we do (as opposed to what we say) demonstrates the exact opposite! Grades are an all-important fact in our classes. We get upset when students ask “Will this be on the test?” but the only things that ‘count’ in our class are the tests and homeworks. Instead of letting kids explore new ideas, we panic when they go ‘off-topic’ because we have too much to cover. We tell the kids not to overschedule themselves – and then collectively assign two or three hours of homework to be done after their sports and other activities.

It’s all about the grade. When parents complain that little Susie or little Johnny needs to earn an A, we try to tell them that the grade is not the important thing – the learning is. Yet when we make placement decisions for honors vs. regular, AP vs. honors, the first thing we look at is the grade. In fact, too many times I have heard a teacher say that they thought a student had everything that it took to be in a higher class – but would not, or could not, put them into it because they “did not have the grade.” My answer has now become, “then there is something wrong with the way you are grading them.” Needless to say I’m not popular with that response.

We teach kids that the end product is the important thing. The grade they receive. That’s what matters most. We may tell them learning is a process, but they are judged and evaluated on their products. Cynics will say that this is the way our society is, we need to get them ready for what they will face in the real world. But this emphasis on product over process is bound to produce people whose philosophy in life is that the end justifies the means. It’s not how you get there – it’s where you end up. Why else do we see, over and over again, the scandals among corporations – like Enron and Ken Lay – where the people in charge do not seem to care how they get to the top of the heap.

Fortunately some people do learn – but not in school – that it’s not the end that matters. I was heartened by the story of the ’secret santa’ in Kansas City, MO (Click Here for the story). But these stories are few and far between.

We in education have a responsibility to teach our students to think for themselves, to value the trip as much as the destination, to take care of themselves and others. These lessons are far more important than anything we can teach them about math, English, science, history, or anything else.

Think for yourself.

It’s all about choice…

Everything in our life is about making choices. We cannot control every event that occurs, but we can always decide how we will respond to it. Even when the situation is bleak and we feel that life is being done to us, we still have the ability to choose our response to it.

I think the mistake comes in thinking we should have the ability to control all aspects of our life at all times. This is unrealistic at best, and dangerous at worst. This focuses too much on what we get to do, and not on what responsibilities are inherent in what we do. Consider if we got to decide everything about all aspects of our life. If that were true, then when one of our decisions leads to an effect we did not anticipate or did not like, our ability to control our life should also allow us to easily change that effect into something we like… which could then result in another unintended consequence… and so on.

Our whole life would become one big reaction to the decisions we made we did not like – and in reality we would no longer have control. We would just be responding to the situation we created. In discussions on other blogs I have run across people whose argument pretty much runs along the lines “government is bad” and therefore the only good government is no government. In and of itself this may not necessarily be false, and I do not want to comment on this particular argument. What I want to say is that the people who tend to promote this view do so from the perspective that government controls too much of our lives and they want complete control over their lives. Complete control is a figment at best.

So if it is not about complete control, what is it about? While I am not a christian any longer, the Serenity prayer articulates the basic premise (I edited the first word out since I do not believe in god):

“… grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

The second notion about changing the things we can is only part of our ability to choose. The first notion is often lost; “accept the things I cannot change.” This too is a choice. Every minute of every day we are engaged in the making of choices. Many we do at such a subconscious level we are not even aware of it. Will I turn left or go straight at the next light? Will I take a sip of coffee before the light turns green or after I start driving? Will I turn the radio station right now because I only half like the song on or will I wait until I hear the next one? Will I stand here and listen to my boss chew me out because I need this job or will I tell him I quit? Everything we do is a choice.

But with each choice comes a consequence. If I turn left maybe I’ll be early to work and if I go straight I will end up in a car accident that leaves me paralyzed. If I sip coffee before the green light maybe I won’t change the channel and hear that the road ahead is closed. If I listen to my boss and hear his concerns maybe I will act on it and earn a better position in the company, or I quit and find no work leaving me homeless and divorced because my wife leaves me. Admittedly these are probably gross exaggerations of our many subtle decisions, but the truth is… we don’t know. Once we have made a choice, we must accept the consequence and decide how we choose to respond to it. We cannot go back and have a “do over” to see how else it would turn out.

That is where the last part of the Serenity prayer comes in. Wisdom to know the difference. I would add that wisdom includes recognizing that with each and every choice comes a responsibility to accept the consequence(s). We can choose not to accept the consequence (why else would someone sue a fast food restaurant for providing hot coffee that then spilled on them when they were driving), but that will lead to other consequences. What separates us from lower beings in my mind is the ability to step aside and look at the situation and not merely react – which is just a subconscious choice. I can choose to flip off the driver who just cut me off, or I can think to myself that I have probably done the same on occasion, and I may have felt my reasons were justified at the time. Maybe flipping them off would make me feel better – or maybe they are on the thin line before road rage sets in and seeing that middle finger shuts down all higher thinking skills and they try to run me off the road. Who knows?

This philosophy does not mean that I do not act when I feel something is wrong. It does not make me a whipping boy who only takes what is fed to me. It just means that I think before I make a choice, and I am willing to take responsibility for what I ultimately choose.

 

How do we learn?

I have been trading comments with someone on another blog that I read, and I typically find that regardless of the position I take, they find something in what I have written to insist that I actually believe the opposite. However, most of what I write about when I am commenting on that blog reflects semi- or unformed ideas that I have not completely figured out yet.

To what degree does what we say reflect what we really mean? I am not advocating throwing caution to the wind and saying whatever we want, and then hide behind the phrase, “but that’s not what I meant!” However, for someone who is seeking to learn and develop what they know they must have the opportunity to mis-speak – hear back what it sounded like – and then move towards more accurately saying what they meant.

I see the same disturbing trend in the approach to teaching in too many classes. Students are expected to raise their hand when they have the “right” answer. If they do not have the right one, then the teacher quickly moves on to the next person so that the flow of their lesson continues. The message to the first student, though, is don’t speak up until you can say what you mean – and say it correctly.

I have met a few students in my years as a teacher who seemed to have the “correct” answer nearly every time they were called upon, but they are few and far between. In fact when these students were invariably called upon and did not have the right answer often seemed as much as a “deer in the headlights” as the students who rarely had the right answer. Why? Just because they often “got it” did not give them the skills or confidence to press forward when they did not “get it.”

We need to make mistakes. It’s like learning how to throw and catch a ball. No one lectures a child for an hour (or more!) before putting the ball in their hand. Nor do they give the child one chance and after, inevitably, it is either not caught or poorly thrown just sit down and tell the child “sorry, you didn’t get it right, we’re done.” Why is learning math, history, English, etc. any different?