The Dark Ages

The retired head of the Atlanta School District, Beverly Hall, has recently been indicted for cheating.

According to the New York Times, some teachers were browbeaten into changing student answers in erasure parties where wrong answers were switched to the right ones.

Thirty-five teachers and administrators have been indicted in the case.


"Every time I play those tapes, I get furious about the way Beverly Hall treated these people," [said Richard Hyde, Georgia state investigator who taped hours of teachers wearing wires.]

Some of the teachers, single parents who feared losing a job--Beverly Hall's unofficial motto was "low score, out the door"--felt unable to resist orders.  Without a doubt, the losers are students and parents who were unsuspecting pawns in the deception.

The Atlanta scandal is only the most egregious of other scandals under investigation across the country.   Some don't even attempt to fudge the numbers.  Lying about student success seems to be accepted practice when the figures don't add up.  The governor of Georgia was under great pressure from the business community to drop his investigation into the scandal.  Business leaders wanted to be able to attract more business to a state with a well-educated population---even if they weren't.

This is the state of education today which lumbers zombie-like on to more testing and accountability under the new Common Core (some estimate tests may take eight to ten hours...) in spite of good science (about what really helps kids, about how testing distorts instruction)  that is currently ignored.

History will mark this the new Dark Age.

In our national experiment on a whole generation of children, two social science truths are now playing out.

• If you want to motivate people to work harder in intellectual work they need more autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  When our motivation is unhinged from its purpose, we get what Daniel Pink calls "crap." We seem to be getting plenty of that.

• Secondly, when you use numbers to determine social decision-making, it leads to corruption and a distortion of the social process.  This is known as Campbell's Law.  Duh.  See above examples of how these narrow numerical definitions of success have completely distorted teaching and learning, probably our most social behavior.

I declare this particular education experiment over.

Let's get back to creating a strong, innovative teaching profession.  And stop diverting money into the pockets of test developers.


***Ironic, too, that it looks like we will be throwing teachers and administrators in prison for a failed education/business model while the real Masters of the Universe continue to run an economy over a cliff.

Money, metaphor, and worth

My students write daily in their Daybooks, a safe space for thinking and experimenting in writing.  The requirement is to do the writing.  Screwing up is good.  Succeeding is good.  Venting is good. Not venting is good.  Just write.

Later, they examine the writing for certain entries they are willing to share.  At one point they must locate an entry they describe as representative of "original thinking."

A frequently flagged entry is from a prompt inspired by Robert Pirsig, a composition instructor and author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  In the book he explains that  his students "write to a penny" for an hour.

Persig was frustrated with shallow, canned essays that did not excite the imagination or do more than rehash other's ideas. He wanted his students to discover and follow their own thinking.  Spending an hour writing leaves a writer with nothing but her thoughts.

My kids get a penny and seven minutes.  (For those who wish to repeat this activity, students write "to the penny," then pull a line that intrigues them, move the line to a new page and write some more.)

Still, even in that short space of time they are surprised to find they have something to say. What they say generally has them exploring the abstraction that money represents.

Me too.

I think about money a lot.  Especially as a tangible measure of an abstraction.  (Keep in mind that we made this whole construction up--money, that is--and we could change our minds about it any time we want.)

In America, our definition of money and worth falls along gender lines.

In the business world, money is a measure of worth.  Those who rise to the top are paid more, supposedly, because they have proven themselves as worth more.  And they are worth more because they have somehow managed to squeeze more profits out of their enterprise to divide among the shareholders.

And so you get CEO salaries that are stratospheric.  Timothy Cook of Apple, Inc., for instance, made $377,996,537 last year.  That's a salary. Per year.  Most don't make that much in a lifetime.

In the quarter century I've taught and participated in thousands upon thousands of evaluations of human beings from every ability level and walk of life, no one comes to mind who might rise to either this level of expertise or potential.  There just doesn't seem to be evidence for that extreme difference in ability.  My thinking is that Cook is more lucky than not.  Lucky to be in the right place and time among the many who are just as capable.

But business is, by and large, a man's game. Racking up points and its testosterone inducing chest thumping is what is really going on here.  It is a score.  The one with the highest score wins, right?

Conversely, money takes on a different character when attached to activities that do not result in measurable, money-based profits.  That is, occupations (largely dominated by women) that are centered on helping people better themselves.  There are many ways we profit from these enterprises, including making it possible for some to rise to the level of a CEO.  They just don't show up immediately on a ledger sheet.

In this context, money is dirty.  To speak of it as a measure of worth "cheapens" the activity.  We can't pay a mother to stay at home and nurture her children through the important early years.  That would be like paying for love.  Better that the mother drop out of the workforce and express her love for her children through a difficult old age where the loss in lifetime earnings makes a huge difference in how she might finish out her life.

In teaching, we are repeatedly told you didn't get into this for the money.  This particular rhetorical construct makes it extremely difficult to even ask for more pay.   Implied is that teaching is missionary or spiritual work and to ask for an increase denies or negates your intentions.  Apparently, the expectation of a decent salary reflecting a level of skill and knowledge gained in working with people is some form of prostitution.  Those in the ministry, whose salaries are historically low, are caught in the same trap.  Recall that we are asking the families of those who improve our society to sacrifice as well.  Perhaps the proper response is "I didn't get into this for the poverty either."

Money for help = bad.  Money for more money = good.

Our current system of compensation is pretty medieval.  Worth is equated with goodness (i.e. highly paid CEOs are the best thinkers, doers, providers) but the very best among us (selfless nurses, teachers, ministers, police, firefighters, service men and women) should expect to be among the poorest.

And yet, the argument turns on us in other ways.  When you earn less you must have done -- or not done-- something to deserve it.  (Teachers are victim to this reverse trap.  The "you didn't get into this for the money" becomes an accusation:  What did you think you were getting into?  You can't complain now.  If you were smarter, you would have made a better choice.)

Without a doubt, the current media conversation has established that salaries and earnings are way out of whack.  It is time to swing the pendulum the other direction.

When we change the conversation can we please stop talking about money as if it were unclean in any context?

The assignation of compensation is a moral question.  When we answer with compensation, we are answering these questions:

• Who should and should not be able to adequately provide for their own children?
• Who should and should not be able to live without anxiety?  
• Who should and should not expect to end a life in relative ease? 

Teachers may not have gotten into the occupation for the money, but they get out of it all the time for just that reason.

Be Nice, Work Hard

There are a lot of rules centered on behavior in schools.  For years, I've had nagging doubts about whether we should be creating rules to manage and anticipate every instance of student misbehavior.

The inclination has always seemed out of step with the education mission.

Today I read an article on humanism in the Guardian by A. C. Grayling, and two sentences seemed to express that nagging voice.

Though the topic is religion, the last two sentences are what caught my eye.

Religious moralities assume that there is one great truth and one right way to live for everyone.  Another great flaw with religious morality is that it says if you do not obey, you will be punished.  The threat of punishment is not a logically adequate ground for moral behavior, even if it is prudent to avoid punishment by behaving as ordered. Unless one's moral outlook comes from being thought-out and chosen for oneself, it is at best an imitation of morality, at worst a subversion of it.

I'm a practical person, so I know that some rules are indisputable, especially where children are concerned. (You simply MUST leave the building when the fire alarm goes off.  We can't tolerate violence against another person.  Listening to adults in a time of crisis is non-negotiable.)

But there are other areas where teaching the child to think through an issue, choose for oneself, and make a moral choice is the slower, but ultimately better way to develop thoughtful, good human beings.  Growing people is what we are about, so a continuing conversation about choices should figure into the curriculum.

Threatening our way to good behavior puts a lot of pressure on the threatener and none on the miscreant.  Certainly there is something inherently good about making the right choice that could be shown, unfortunately sometimes only through trial and error.  It's the errors we continually prepare for in our phalanx of rules.

Students, especially good ones, grow preoccupied by the extrinsic rewards celebrated in a school--and that includes the awarding of grades--and can miss the larger purpose of education: to improve the self. Taking short cuts to get the rewards seems like a logical, if immoral, response to the game in play.

But who set up the false prize in the first place?

In the meantime, since I'm "all in" by now for this particular game, I compromise with two classroom rules poached from a colleague (who likely poached them from someone else).

They remind me of a description of the Torah I once read:  The Torah all boils down to: treat others as you would like to be treated.  Everything else is commentary.

Be Nice.  Work hard.

SIMBY: Sequester in My Back Yard

In a recent faculty meeting, we were told of the effects of the looming Sequester on our district if Congress does nothing by February 28. (What a great job!  Do nothing: cause seismic teutonic shifts in the lives of the little people.)

To our small district the sequestration means a loss of $135,000 annually.  This is federal funding that will cut services to only three subgroups: the poor, our second language learners, and the disabled. Losses will come in the form of losing key personnel and resources dedicated to these specific groups.

Nice.

Besides calculating how much time and labor has been expended as everyone--right down to the dogcatcher--has madly readjusted budget projections based on a non-action, we were treated to the image of pushing our most vulnerable children off the school bus, running over them, and then backing up and doing it again.

In our district, we know not only how many students will be affected, but also the faces and names of those, our neighbors, who will be condemned to fall even further behind.

Even if everyone does a do-over after this political temper tantrum, time lost to developing kids has large repercussions later.

In the giant pile of money which exists somewhere, $135,000 is not much. But amplify that cut across every school district and you get a picture of a nation divided into the haves and those who face losing what little they already have.  Of course the employees affected by the cuts will quickly be moving from one category to the other.

Oh, yes, some districts will be able to replace some monies from donations (a la 1,000 points of light?), but really, do we want to cast a safety net that has huge gaping holes?

How will the sequester affect your district?  Please share.

America: Cruise Ship on the Rocks

It was hard to keep from laughing while reading about the rescue of the Carnival Cruise ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, while toiling with the next generation working hard for their own opportunity to charge a cruise to their Discover cards, the media was covering this tragedy minute by minute.  Missing out on the breathless commentary must have immunized me to the pathos of the poor victims of the worst vay-cay ever.

It is probably an occupational hazard, but it's hard not to see metaphor, metaphor, metaphor in every aspect of the story--starting with the obvious: the fun on the cruise was only a power generator away from calamity, and the glitter and the glitz but a thin, tinselly veneer over the true human condition.

Zap.  All pretense wiped away and the teeming masses quickly sank into a floating sewage container of their own making.  The ongoing buffett of over indulgence dried up within hours and vacationers were forced to subsist on ketchup and buns.

Can't help it.  It makes me laugh.  A cosmic joke for sure.

The idea of going on a cruise has never appealed, particularly after a trip to the east coast of Mexico where I acknowledge my own culpability as an over-indulged nomad.

First, I witnessed the Very Angry, Very Important, Very Righteous, Very Wealthy man at the hotel desk who loudly berated the staff, as though they were recalcitrant servants, for spoiling one of his Very Precious Vacation Moments.  As the staff behaved deferentially, I searched for a piece of furniture to crawl under, so embarrassed by a fellow American demanding that his hosts speak a more standard English.  Ugh.

As a part of that trip, our group went scuba diving in the underwater natural park just off the coast.  A behemoth cruise ship was moored offshore.  These floating hotels dwarf any other man-made building within sight.  Unless you've seen one, it is hard to imagine how these bright white, floating playgrounds for nearly 4,000 people dominate the seascape.

The Dive Master was disgusted.  He called them floating environmental disasters, leaving in their wake mountains of garbage and destroyed coral forests.  Once again, we paint a lovely picture of excess and entitlement.

I felt my own excess when our drive through some real hard times ended in the manicured, opulent hotel where our drinking water was filtered.

But back to the cruise.  The late David Foster Wallace wrote about his experience in his essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."  He claims the experience transformed him into a self-described spoiled brat.

How much like a cruise is life in America?

Locked on a floating island with thousands of the continuously fed and catered to, encouraged to eschew the reviving sun and seaspray by sitting in darkened casinos dominated by ringing bells and flashing lights, entertained by crooners in spandex and sparkles.

Adventures ashore are highly programmed visits to shopping areas on impoverished Caribbean islands where the bubble of fun avoids any contact with the real lives of those whose memories we collect in native gee-gaws.  ("Don't look over there.  It's the face of poverty, and it will completely spoil your fun. And don't forget, we're having fun.  You deserve it.")  Friendships are arranged via assigned seating arrangements at the opulent meals.

Draw your own parallels.

And when the plug is pulled and the lights go out?  A real, stinky mess.

Huck Finn Takes a Standardized Test

I have a soft spot for the "bad" kids.

My definition of a "bad" kid is a creative disrupter.  These students refuse to follow rules simply because they are there and show their disdain for "stupid" ideas by acting independently, following their own logic.

I qualify these characters worthy of celebration.

Huck Finn lives.  Mark Twain's quintessential bad boy is the American spirit incarnate: He looks at the landscape and acts adventurously, getting off the beaten path and creating his own.

Where would we be if whole legions of Huck Finns had not asked us to reconsider "sivilization"?

So I was amused by the student response to the MAPS test required by the district in Seattle.

Some of the kids just would not play by the rules.

And sometimes they made errors that fit only into the category of kid logic, the delightful way a child's mind can shift adult paradigms. (My son at age three observed that a jet plane was "scratching the sky."  Yeah. Take a look at those jet trails some time.)

So here's what some kids did:

• When some kindergarteners were directed to put the mouse on the item, they lifted the mouse and placed it on the computer monitor. 
• When students figured out that a correct answer up-leveled the questions and made them harder, they deliberately answered questions incorrectly so the computer would serve up easier questions.
• When students were told it would not affect their grades, they rushed through the reading comprehension test without reading so they could get back to doing something they wanted to do.  (Have you ever read something you didn't want to read?  It's really hard to care about it.)

I would qualify all these errors as "good mistakes" a phrase I first heard from a tennis coach.  "That was a good mistake!" he exalted once when a ball went long.  Hitting balls short was a bad mistake--holding the racket incorrectly.  A long ball meant I was starting to get it: follow through and let it sail.

The qualification of an error as a good one was so empowering that I still use it, rewarding errors that show a new skill in the offing.    

I'd qualify all of the above actions as a good mistakes. In every one there is strong evidence of critical thinking.

To a mechanized standardized test, the answer is either right or wrong--no qualification.  It takes the observation of a human being to follow the logic of the error.  

Ironically, these mechanized tests are to be used to measure the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom.  To a teacher who has a led a career of watching and coaching kid's through their own kid logic, relying on mechanized scores feels like tying your hands behind your back while someone slaps you in the face.

So Huck Finn broke the rules.  

He could not ignore his own logic when deciding whether or not to steal Jim out of slavery and help him back to his family. He tears up the letter to Miss Watson that would have revealed Jim's whereabouts:

I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right then, I'll go to hell"--and tore it up.  It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said.  And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. 

Sometimes, when faced with injustice, the only choice is taking the road to hell.

As of four days ago the administration of Seattle was still sticking to its sivilized notion of holding teachers accountable.

Long live Huck Finn.

Not Just a Teacher - 2

In October I attempted to honor the work done on a daily basis by strong, passionate educators.  Be it remembered, that when you know what your purpose in life is, it is not hard to act with conviction.

From our values extends our purpose.  From our purpose extends our actions.

It is not hard to act when you know why you are here.

These teachers, like so many others, lived their values through their work. They nurtured children.

Rachel Davino, 29, Behavioral Therapist, Sandy Hook Elementary.

Dawn Hochsprung, 47, Principal, Sandy Hook Elementary.

Anne Marie Murphy, 52, Special Education Teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary.

Lauren Rousseau, 30, Substitute Teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary.

Mary Sherlack, 56, School Psychologist, Sandy Hook Elementary.

Victorio Soto, 27, First-grade teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary.