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Schools Cannot Do It Alone Communitywide Book Study Session 2
http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/383?filename=EHBK(LEGAL).pdf
Preview of Increasing Burden on America's Public Schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKV8vrygcp0
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Using the video to drive discussion, choose 1 question from the question
stems below to evaluate or synthesize what you saw.
Who will gain and who will lose?
Can you see a possible solution to ___?
Would it be better if ___? Why/why not?
What fallacies, consistencies, inconsistencies appear?
Do you think ___ is a good or bad thing?
Propose an alternative.
If you had access to all resources, how would you deal with ___?
Hypothesize the reason for ___?
What solutions would you suggest for ___?
What would happen if ___?
“Here’s the deal our parents signed up for: Our world was filled with factories. Factories that make widgets and insurance and Web sites, factories that make movies and take care of sick people and answer the telephone. These factories need workers. If you learn how to be one of these workers, if you pay attention in school, follow instructions, show up on time, and try hard, we will take care of you. You won’t have to be brilliant or creative or take big risks. We will pay you a lot of money, give you health insurance, and offer you job security. We will cherish you, or at the very least, take care of you. It’s a pretty seductive bargain. So seductive that for a century, we embraced it. We set up our schools and our systems and our government to support the bargain. It was the American Dream. For a long time, it worked. But in the face of competition and technology, the bargain has fallen apart.” Seth Godin, Linchpin http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591844096
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI&feature=kp
Most white-collar workers wear white collars, but they’re still working in the factory. The white-collar job was supposed to save the middle class, because it was machine-proof. Of course, machines have replaced those workers. If we can measure it, we can do it faster. If we can put it in a manual, we can outsource it. If we can outsource it, we can get it cheaper.” Seth Godin, Linchpin
“A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Low-wage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working adults. Sure, there was some moral outrage about seven-year-olds losing fingers and being abused at work, but the economic rationale was paramount. Factory owners insisted that losing child workers would be catastrophic to their industries and fought hard to keep the kids at work—they said they couldn’t afford to hire adults. It wasn’t until 1918 that nationwide compulsory education was in place. Part of the rationale used to sell this major transformation to industrialists was the idea that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn’t a coincidence—it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child-labor wages for longer term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they’re told. Large-scale education was not developed to motivate kids or to create scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system. Scale was more important than quality, just as it was for most industrialists. Of course, it worked. Several generations of productive, fully employed workers followed. But now?” Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/stop-stealing-dreams6print.pdf
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“Factories didn’t happen because there were schools, schools happened because there were factories.” “School, no surprise, is focused on creating hourly workers, because that’s what the creators of school needed, in large numbers. Think about the fact that school relentlessly downplays group work. It breaks tasks into the smallest possible measurable units. It does nothing to coordinate teaching across subjects. It often isolates teachers into departments. And most of all, it measures, relentlessly, at the individual level, and re-processes those who don’t meet the minimum performance standards. Every one of those behaviors is a mirror of what happens in the factory of 1937. Of course, business in the U.S. evolved over time to be less draconian than it was seventy years ago. Companies adopted a social contract (usually unstated). Union movements and public outcry led to the notion that if you were obedient and hardworking, your hourly gig would continue, probably until you retired, and then your pension would keep you comfortable. In the last twenty years, though, under pressure from competition and shareholders, the hourly social contract has evaporated.” Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/stop-stealing-dreams6print.pdf
The system is the primary problem. It has been operating in America for
over two hundred years and its roots stretch back deeper in the past. Its
traditions run deep in our veins. It’s all we know. But unless this system is
changed, our schools, our communities, our nation will never successfully
meet the challenges of our time.
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One characterization describes a professional as someone with expertise
in a specialized field, an individual who not only has pursued advanced
training to enter the field, but who also is expected to remain current in
its evolving knowledge base. According to this definition, members of a
profession assume a personal responsibility to seek and implement the
best practices in their field. They are not expected to embrace every new
hypothesis or careen wildly from one fad or trend to the next. When,
however, the field evolves to the point that there is consensus regarding
best practice, the professionals within that field are expected to become
familiar with and to use that practice. In fact, to disregard best practice
would be considered a dereliction of their responsibilities, or
unprofessional.
For example, my sister decided 15 years ago to seek corrective eye
surgery to cure her myopia and eliminate her reliance on contact lenses.
Her doctor performed radial keratotomy on her left eye. While she was
under heavy anesthesia, he used a razor to cut tiny slits in that eye. He
then reshaped the cornea and placed a heavy bandage over the eye.
Medication kept her semiconscious for two days as an antidote to the
intense pain that resulted from the surgery. After several weeks, the
patch was removed. Over several months as the eye healed, her vision
improved, and after six months she was sufficiently recovered to repeat
the procedure with her right eye.
Three years ago, I decided to have corrective eye surgery to address my
own double-digit myopia that left me legally blind without corrective
lenses. The Lasik surgery took less than 10 minutes. The doctor advised
me to go home and sleep for the rest of the day. Within several days, I
had 20-20 vision in both eyes.
The field of eye surgery had evolved dramatically during the years that
separated our surgeries. The best practice of the 1980s had given way to
a far superior procedure by 2000. Now imagine that when I went to my
doctor, he opted to ignore the breakthroughs in his field and instead
performed the same radial keratotomy my sister endured years earlier.
He could have offered several reasons for refusing to learn and
implement the procedure that was now universally regarded as best
practice in his field. "Radial keratotomy has always worked for my
patients in the past." "I haven't had time to learn the new procedures
because I have been too busy slicing eyeballs." "I have invested heavily
in razor blades, and I don't want to waste them." I would not have
considered any of those explanations a compelling argument for
behavior that at best would be considered unprofessional, if not
malpractice.
See page 18/44 at http://learningforward.org/docs/default-
source/docs/leaders_webtools.pdf?sfvrsn=2 for more info.
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But the world has changed. And what it means to be educated "well
enough" has changed with it.
Our workers, once the envy of the world, are now challenged by an
increasingly literate global labor force comprised of people who are
hungry, eager, and willing to work for a fraction of the American wage.
Unless this system is changed, our schools, our communities, our nation
will never successfully meet the challenges of our time.
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results.
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[Vollmer] realized that the acceptance of the sick status quo was based
on three core beliefs
These three beliefs are key to understanding our predicament. If they are
grounded in fact, then the defenders of the status quo are right: the
system is sound. There is no need for major reform. If, on the other hand,
any of these core beliefs are groundless, then the selecting premise is
indefensible, and we face a system problem of enormous proportions. 61
Belief #1—Intelligence is genetic and immutable.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom expressed in Belief #1, intelligence
is not fixed or immutable. The brain is changing and organic. With the
right stimuli, the brain’s neural connections can grow both in number and
complexity. The brain can perfect its own circuits to it is better able to
learn. This phenomenon is known as “neural plasticity.” 63
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Belief #3 –The bell curve of human intelligence and the bell curve of
student achievement are, for all practical purposes, the same curve.
All children go to school the same number of hours and the same number
of days. This fact alone confirms that we are sorting children as opposed
to educating them to their highest levels of achievement. And every
parent and every teacher knows why: because some children take longer
to learn than others, for reasons that can have little to do with
intelligence.
In fact, there is no research that equates the speed at which someone
learns with his or her ability or capacity to learn. Some children just need
more time. For myriad reasons, human beings learn at different rates of
speed. 56
Day in and day out for nine months, the battle of the clock continues. The
students who make it to graduation day wind up distributed across a
classic bell curve—some excellence, some failure, and shades of average
in between. As long as we hold time constant, the selecting system will
product this distribution of student achievement. Every time. 57
Until we accept the fact that the core system is the primary problem, we
will never create schools that teach all children to high levels. 60
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And as long as we choose to hold time constant for teaching, learning,
and testing, we are sorting children not on the basis of their intelligence,
but on the basis of that speed. It's a race. Each year students, grouped
according to age, line up, and step into the starting blocks. The opening
bell rings. And they're off!
Belief #2—Intelligence is distributed across a bell curve.
[In regards to the bell curve, Vollmer was told,] “You’re thinking about it
the wrong way. You don’t have to abandon the sacred bell. Just think of it
in broader terms. Think of it as a real bell.” 65
Human intelligence is distributed across a curve, but the curve is not a
two-dimensional line. It is a three-dimensional bell comprised of as many
two-dimensional curves as there are individual profiles of intelligence. 66
Slice the bell along any axis, and each cross section will reveal a different
“traditional” two-dimensional bell cure with human beings distributed
from front to back. Where an individual sits on the curve may, and most
likely, will change depending upon the line that is exposed.
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A different group of scientists were challenging Belief #2: the nature,
even the existence, of the bell curve. The principal line of attack came
from the theory of multiple intelligences (MI).
MI theory holds that there are eight separate and distinct types of
intelligence distributed across eight separate curves.
Human beings possess a unique combination of some or all of these
distinct abilities. Each profile contains creativity and energy that can
propel an individual to solve problems and/or create products that are
valued by society. Each profile has something we need. 64
Free multiple intelligences assessments can be found online including the
following sites:
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment
http://www.businessballs.com/freematerialsinexcel/free_multiple_intelli
gences_test.xls
http://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html
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Which geniuses have we been identifying and rewarding?
Who have we been labeling and discarding as rubbish? 67
When it comes to educating America’s children, we are experiencing a
unique and auspicious convergence of what’s right and what’s necessary.
We must end the selecting process and redesign the system to unfold the
full creative potential of every child in all its forms. 70
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There are two transfer goals from today… 1) We can no longer operate a 19th Century system, using 20th Century accountability, and expecting 21st Century learners. See http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20121220-jeffrey-turner-staar-impedes-educating-future-ready-students.ece.
2) Schools cannot do it alone.
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