Entries Tagged 'Cut the Crap' ↓

Bill Gates Metaphor Crap

In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates presents three metaphors for teaching.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214593545938506.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Q: Do you think it is possible for school districts to build great teachers?

A: Absolutely. But the amount of research into what great teachers do has been so slow that you can’t make huge improvements in the average….Even professions like long-jump or tackling people on a football field or hitting a baseball, the average ability is so much higher today because there’s this great feedback system, measurement system.

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The previous blog described the belief that our definition of “educated” should always be open to democratic debate.  Where has that belief led us?  Here are examples from the Education Week article, “State Lawmakers Make Curricular Demands of Schools.”

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Veteran teachers know education swings like a pendulum.  The same ideas are expressed in new words that make them popular for a while, before they fade and go out of favor.

Educationese Crap

This month’s Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) publication, Education Update, explains that peer tutoring can increase student engagement and achievement.  It describes and defines (1) cross-age tutoring, (2) cross-ability tutoring, and (3) reciprocal tutoring.

Cut the Crap

The first strategy is when Grade Four, Five, or Six students work with students in Grades One, Two, or Three.  Remember that from grade school?

The second is when students who understand something right away help those who do not.  Remember that?

The third is when students take turns explaining material and challenging each other. Remember that?

For decades teachers have known these practices increase student engagement and achievement — when monitored properly and used in the right situations with the right students.  Instead of Education Update, it should be called, “Education Swings Back and Forth.”

In 2004 Beacon Press published a set of Alfie Kohn essays.  The book title is, What Does it Mean to be Well Educated? Naturally I was interested.

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Education Research Crap (or Duh!)

“Workplace Conditions That Matter to Teachers” is the theme of the January, 2011, Principal’s Research Review newsletter (from the National Association of Secondary School Principals). The following research findings appear on page 1:

Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.

(Hirsch & Church, 209, p. 1)

Research indicates that . . . effective teaching can be enabled or constrained by the school workplace and the supports it offers (or fails to offer).

(Johnson, 2006b, p. 1)

Teachers’ perceptions of their schools are their reality; therefore, teachers’ behavior and efficacy are a direct result of those views.

(Hirsch, Sioberg, & Germuth, 2010, p. 1)

Conditions that are created by the leadership of the principal matter.

(Leithwood, 2006, p. 47)

Cut the Crap (or Translation)

Evidently, now we know that:

1. Teachers and students work and study together in classrooms.
2. School and classroom environments affect student learning.
3. Teachers’ beliefs affect their behavior.
4. Teachers sometimes allow principals to influence their work.

As mentioned in an earlier blog (“Research-based” does more harm than good), education research should be valued for confirming what we already know. Four examples are listed above.

Translation: I did not need a single study to tell me any of this.

Policymakers and researchers believe teachers should apply research findings in schools. Investors now want to profit from this idea. An Education Week article by Sarah Sparks says investors want researchers to create highly effective methods/programs that can be scaled up for profit.

Applying research in schools crap:

Massive federal education competitions like the $650 million Investing in Innovation fund have heightened interest in practical education research, but even the most promising findings aimed at improving student learning face a long, uncertain path to become something more concrete and usable for the classroom.

Dear Ms.Sparks:
Evidently you think some education research is “practical,” which means you also think some is impractical. You deserve credit for getting the impractical part right.

Here is the link:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/01/27/19entrepreneur.h30.html?tkn=TSLFW%2B3X1spo9ge0I2RbLDfssrN7oeQPEBTY&cmp=clp-edweek

Cut the crap:

I know what it looks like to model and teach the six virtues of the educated person, but I don’t know what it looks like to apply research findings. When I read about it, or hear it described at in-service sessions, it sounds insulting to me because:

1. Saying teachers should know their content and use a range of instructional methods is not a new idea.
2. Asking teachers to be imaginative assumes they are not.

Philosophical teachers don’t leave in-services saying, “That’s great! I’ll do that in my classroom.” Only unimaginative, aphilosophical ones do.

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Dear Michelle:

According to the Associated Press, you are starting a school reform organization:

On Monday, she’ll announce the group’s agenda, focusing on three areas: the teaching profession, empowering families with information and choices; and developing more accountability.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iRmlnUHZBFjX5RQL84yNAuytxeuA?docId=fcbd0619c57d41978fc27c252dab431b

I am puzzled by a few things.

No — not that your goal is to raise 1 billion dollars. (You recently lost your job. So, of course, you want a job. And fame makes you different from us ordinary educators, who look for jobs in the 30 to 50 thousand range.)

And no — not that you will focus on accountability. (You always equated higher test scores with “student achievement” and the purpose of public education.)

1. I am puzzled that you are trying to reform and improve what you define in such a shallow way. Why so much investment and effort on such a shallow purpose (higher test scores)?

2. I am puzzled that you are now an educational philosopher, after years of being an educational administrator. You had neither the time, nor the experience to develop a deep philosophy of education. I know — I was once an educational administrator.

3. I am puzzled that you believe others should contribute to your shallow ideas.

But maybe you’re not a philosopher. Maybe you’re an entrepreneur. In that case, you might have the wrong enterprise. Improving/reforming public education simply requires Americans to be philosophical enough to define “educated” as modeling and teaching the six virtues.

That doesn’t cost a single dollar, but you want 1 billion? Explain that to me; or am I a fool to need explanation?

Is improving schools simple or complicated? According to an LA Times article, it’s complicated. Here is the headline: “In reforming schools, quality of teaching often overlooked.” Here is the link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers-turnaround-20101222,0,4340403.story?page=1

The article illustrates how the social science paradigm complicates educational improvement. It says turning around a failing school requires, among other things, hiring the right principal and teachers with the right value-added scores. Is it really that complicated? Let’s look at the article’s description of Edwin Markham Middle School (EMMS).
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Should K-12 educators teach the dispositions needed to be successful in college? Of course they should. Is this simple or complicated? According to an Education Week article, it’s complicated. Here is the headline: “Experts begin to identify nonacademic skills key to success.”

Here is the link:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/12/23/15aera.h30.html?tkn=MSNFLv2qkoQhwOKkkn1cdTQl9A0azUKZ%2F7h%2F&cmp=clp-edweek

Once again, the social science paradigm complicates what is simple.
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Gates Foundation Crap

Last week’s big news came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is investing $335 million to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A large portion of the Gates’s investment will finance research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.

Educators and researchers will analyze thousands of hours of videotaped lessons to identify attributes of good teaching and possible correlations between certain teaching practices and high student achievement, as measured by value-added scores, the New York Times reports. The effort aims not just to evaluate teachers on multiple measures of effectiveness (the NYT article lists value-added measures as a starting point), but also to help teachers improve by learning from talented colleagues.

Cut the Crap

Dear Bill,

I don’t need a single dollar, a single hour of videotape, or a single study of good teaching “to identify attributes of good teaching and possible correlations between certain teaching practices and high student achievement.”

All good teachers model and teach understanding, imagination, strong character, courage, humility and generosity. They always have and they always will. You don’t know this by now?

It’s a shame your Foundation has all this money and so little imagination about how to spend it. Your imagination was the key to making money, but it seems absent from your attempts to improve education. Do you like irony? (You must have some sense of this, don’t you? I believe you sense it every day.)

If you want to know what makes a good teacher, ask your wife. And then listen to her descriptions of how her best teachers modeled and taught imagination, courage, and humility, in addition to the understanding, strong character and generosity that others modeled and taught. Better yet, ask your children to describe their best teachers. Then maybe you won’t waste your money.

American schools teach that philosophy is not useful, so it is difficult for you to see that a deep useful definition of what it means to be educated holds the answer to all your questions about improving education. Do you like irony?

Sincerely,
Casey Hurley
More than 40 years as an educator in parochial and public schools.