More than ten years ago I wrote a newspaper column criticizing writers who attribute motives to others. I am going to violate my own critique here.

When educators say, “We should do what is best for the child,” these words contribute nothing to the decision making process, which leaves the significance of the utterance in the speaker’s motive. Evidently, the speaker wants others to re-set their consciences to what is best for the student, putting aside whatever selfish motives they probably have.

But the reason educators struggle to do what is best for the student is not that they don’t want “what is best for the student.” It is that they don’t know what is best. There is never a sign saying:

→ This path takes you → to what is best for the student →

In fact, the opposite is true. “Best for the student” raises numerous issues:

• “Best” in the long-term or short-term?
• What if “best” for one student sets an unacceptable precedent?
• What if “best” for one student disadvantages others?

The questions go on and on.

Saying you want what is best for the student might make you feel good, but it contributes nothing to the decision making process. Self-righteousness is not a strategy. I love irony.

Guest blog by Carrie Sprouse Norris

Pisgah Forest Elementary School

Transylvania County, NC

Teachers understand that the six virtues make our students into the human beings our world needs. With schools trying to pack in more academics, however, early grade teachers are abandoning or shortening community building activities during morning class meetings.

Sadly, I have sometimes been that teacher. Some days I don’t take time for morning circle compliments because we have to get into our RTI groups. And I have stopped doing buddy reading with older students because we have to complete Progress Monitoring.

Sometimes, however, I “sneak” in a virtue lesson. It can be a few seconds to compliment a student on pushing everyone’s chair in without being asked. Or it can be complimenting students on the way they lined up for lunch. Or I acknowledge the courage of a student who recites a poem in front of class.

There was one particular time at recess about a month ago when I thought, “Forget my math lesson. It can wait.”

“Rob” suffers from seizures throughout the day. This makes his movements clumsy and causes him to drool. He is different, but he yearns to have friendships like the other children. My class knows I am on the lookout for kids who may be alone, and I take notes on who chooses to include others. Rob was often included, but it was usually a game of tag, where he ended up being the “tagger” the entire time.

While watching this one day last month I had seen enough. I called over two boys who were throwing the football. I asked them if they would ask Rob to play. The boys agreed. They called him over and began tossing the ball back and forth. Within just a few passes, Rob was catching the ball. He was so excited. I was on the grass cheering him on, and pretty soon a few girls were doing cheers.

I called everyone over to make teams. Rob was on a team with 3 other boys. During the first few minutes, Rob just ran around. He never touched the ball. I didn’t say anything and just watched.

Eventually, I saw the teams huddle up to plan their play. The next thing I knew, a pass was thrown to Rob, who caught it and ran for the touchdown. The crowd (teachers and cheerleaders) erupted into applause, as the team ran to high-five Rob. I have never seen a child smile so big. We went into the school building a few minutes later still talking about Rob’s touchdown. The entire class was happy for him.

I later thanked the student who included Rob in the game. He simply stated, “I wanted him to be happy.”

My students did not learn about measurement that day, but they learned what it feels like to make someone else happy. Since that day my students have displayed generosity and understanding at recess. Rob continues to play football, and he is often the first one chosen.

Guest blog by Elizabeth Humphries

Grade 4 Teacher, Elizabeth Cashwell Elementary

Fayetteville, NC

I listen to the news on my way to school every morning. Reports are usually about crime and politics. One day this fall the reporter said a man raped, attacked, and maimed a woman while her two children tried to defend her. Utterly disgusted, I pulled into work and tried to forget this terrible news.

About an hour after I got to work I was shocked to discover that this incident involved my student and her mother.  One of my precious children had defended her mother while she was brutally attacked. Tears filled my eyes and sickness hit my stomach.

I was surprised when my student came to school the next day. She fell into my arms as she entered my room. We cried together. She explained her bravery, and she said she could overcome what had happened.

Since then, this girl has found the courage to move on. She has been placed in another home and she attends counseling. Throughout the whole ordeal she never stopped smiling. When I asked her how I could be brave, like her, she said: “Have teachers like you.”

This situation raised our awareness about students’ home circumstances. Their home lives can be difficult in many ways; so we have to provide a safe, caring environment at school. Being a teacher is not only about planning and presenting math and language lessons. It is also about building classroom communities and being the role models our children need.

Data-driven decision making is the latest silly idea in the education improvement cycle, which goes like this:

1. Education entrepreneurs, researchers and policy makers come up with a silly idea.

2. Teachers resist it.

3. Teachers are blamed for resisting change.

4. Education does not improve, so everything goes back to Step #1.

At this very moment, someone is saying teachers and schools should be data-driven.

Cut the Crap

Yes, we have more data than ever before.  And yes, this is a good thing — if we understand the limitations of that data. But the phrase “data-driven decision making” signals the failure to understand those limitations. Education decisions are driven by judgment. Good decisions come from good judgments. Bad decisions come from bad judgments.

Researchers, test companies, and publishing houses promote the data-driven idea so they can sell data, data collecting and data analysis tools to schools. And educational administrators and policy makers are so unimaginative they fall for it, proving once again that poor decisions are driven by poor judgment, not poor data.

No matter how much data are collected and analyzed, schools improve when teachers and administrators use good judgment.  They can start by rejecting “data-driven decision making.”

When New Jersey high school basketball coach Bob Hurley was featured on a nightly news broadcast last year, they showed him roaming the court during a shooting drill. Over and over, he said, “Eyes on the basket. Head up. Look at the target.”

I never heard basketball coaches tell shooters to look at the basket, but I often heard baseball coaches tell batters to “keep your eye on the ball.” Of course, looking at the basket is just as basic to becoming a good shooter as “keeping your eye on the ball” is to becoming a good hitter. Coach Hurley was teaching his players to develop the habit that is common to all good shooters. Without that habit, no matter what else players do, they will not become good shooters.

Similarly, The Six Virtues of the Educated Person explains that a person is not educated, no matter what knowledge and skills they have, if they don’t have understanding, imagination, strength, courage, humility and generosity — the fundamentals of “educated.”

As a parent of teenagers, I eventually realized it was futile to want them to act like 25-year-olds. I now remind middle and high school teachers that their students can’t be 25, when they are 15. Furthermore, I remind myself that my graduate students can’t be 55, when they are 35.

Fifty-year-old teachers have a perspective that 35-year-olds don’t. In these blogs I answer a grandson’s questions about older teachers. (Although I am not a grandfather, I play one on the internet.)

“Ask a Curmudgeon” to get a perspective you can’t get from young teachers. Two examples follow.

Concerning ways to help students succeed in school, Benedict Carey, (NY Times, 9/6/2010) wrote:

Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. . .

And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach? Or the school’s philosophy? . . .

Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.

The last sentence applies to all psychological and educational research.  Their findings can’t predict what will happen in any real world situation.

Cut the Crap

Concerning how we learn academic material, Carey put it this way: “The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.”

It is simple — just model and teach the six virtues, the third of which is strong character — the topic of this article.  Those who know the six virtues of the educated person don’t need to read it.

You can be a good teacher without the right answers, but not without the right questions.

I became a professor at Western Carolina University (near Asheville, NC) in fall, 1989. My wife and two children stayed in Lodi, Wisconsin, to sell the house. During a phone call home, my wife said I should show my college class The Wonder Years episode she and the kids watched that week.  I silently scoffed, thinking, “Professors have more important things to do than show situation comedies.”

The next summer I overheard my children watching a Wonder Years re-run. Within seconds I realized it was the episode my wife thought I should show my students.  Once again, she was right.

The next morning I called the Asheville ABC affiliate to request a videotape of the program. The man told me I had to  request it from producer Ken Topolsky in California.  He gave me the telephone number.

Continue reading →

Today’s newsflash from the Education Week newsletter:

Lack of Knowledge Stymies Efforts to Stop Bullying
School bullying is drawing attention across the country, but experts at the Education Department’s first national summit on bullying say more research is needed to pinpoint effective anti-bullying practices.

This conclusion astounds me in one way, but makes perfect sense in another. It astounds me because supposed “experts” don’t know how to prevent bullying. In my mind, those who do not know how to prevent bullying aren’t education “experts.”

But this conclusion also makes perfect sense. Given our definition of “educated” as scoring high on standardized tests, bully prevention is not included in our core mission. Instead, it is one more of those things teachers should be “effective” at, like (1) grouping students, (2) questioning them, (3) assessing them, (4) monitoring them, (5) challenging them, (6) encouraging them, (7) motivating them, etc. To determine “effectiveness” among the infinite number of things outside our core mission, we conduct social scientific studies. So it makes perfect sense that these “experts” look to more research to determine how teachers can “effectively” prevent bullying.

Unfortunately, education “experts” have adopted the wrong paradigm for improving education. All the research in the world won’t prevent bullying because research findings describe “effective” bully prevention in all situations in which all other things are equal to those in the study. In the real world all other things are never equal to those in the study.

We don’t need more research to tell us how to prevent bullying. We need more astute (educated) school personnel. That brings me back to teachers who were pretty good at preventing bullying. None of these “experts” in the Education Department would have been hired at St. Joseph Grade School in Appleton, WI, in the 1960s. Would you hire them at your school? If not, what are they “expert” at?

If you attended the national summit on bullying (or even if you didn’t), explain that to me. Please comment and submit.