I know not everybody is excited about these sorts of things. "Why give these guys a platform?" Well, first of all, these guys already have access to huger (and friendlier) platforms than this blog. Second, I'm a big believer that pretty much anything can be discussed-- after all, listening to words does not oblige one to either agree with or act in harmony with those words. But as long as someone is willing to have a conversation in good faith, I'm willing to have that conversation (I define good faith as saying what you actually mean, hearing what the other person is actually trying to say, and trying to understand rather than score points). At a minimum, you can gain a better understanding of what it is the other person sees (I take it as axiomic that people mostly don't do things, even terrible things, because they are stupid and evil. Mostly.) and at a maximum you may find some points of agreement.
I'll follow the standard back and forth approach here, letting each of us take our turn. Beyond that, there isn't much of a plan. We've agreed to start out with the general question of what a good/better/best school would look like. If you're unfamiliar with Melhorn, he's as reformy as they come on the nominally-left-leaning side of things (and he's got a book to plug). And if you're only familiar with him from twitter-- well, that medium does not exactly bring out his charming and diplomatic side. You're welcome to get your two cents in in the comments section; I will get mine in in the next post, and we will see if there are any points on which a hard-driving reformster and a c-list public ed supporting blogger can agree.
The Public School Every Parent Should Know About
“Your son will have to repeat this grade"
For my mom, as for any parent, those words were scary. My kindergarten teacher explained further that I needed to repeat the grade because I had failed the subject of “chair sitting.”
Although my mom was a public school teacher herself, she decided I needed something different than the neighborhood elementary school. My parents scraped together the money for three years of tuition at a private Montessori school. Montessori was better suited to my needs at the time: upon my return to public schools, I was a full grade ahead of my chronological peers rather than a full grade behind. In other words, the three years I spent at Montessori made a difference of two full grade levels upon my return to public school.
My school days were not so unusual
This scholarship helps explain parental behavior. Parents want children to have amazing opportunities, which is why taxpayers spend roughly $600 billion per year on K-12 public schools. Those who can afford to, however, also spend billions out of their own pockets for tutors, afterschool activities, summer camps, and sometimes even private schools. For parents who live near high-performing public schools, sending their child to private school means walking away from tens of thousands of dollars per year that they have already paid in taxes – yet it happens frequently. Even in prosperous suburbs with high-performing traditional public schools, parents worry about rote learning, inapt content, unhealthy food, and uneven teacher quality. In less prosperous areas, for families with fewer financial resources, or for parents whose children have special needs, the system can feel like a brutal and hostile bureaucracy.
The new public schools: tailored to the needs of all children
That is why all parents should know about a new kind of public school. At these public schools, the technology, curriculum, and pedagogy differ from what we saw when we were students. Even the cafeteria is different: students eat whole foods instead of mass-produced tater tots stuffed with sugars and trans fats. Tablet computers deliver customized content, such as books and multi-player games, automatically adapted to each child’s level and their style of learning. These tablets automatically measure student progress. With this ongoing monitoring, the kids never have to stop to take standardized tests; instead, the kids’ growth is constantly measured and communicated with both teachers and parents. These measurements serve as mere inputs to sophisticated assessment systems that adapt to each student and classroom and provide actionable feedback for both students and teachers. Computers also handle paperwork for the class, freeing teachers to focus on synthesis, mentoring, and individual engagement. Kids of vastly different backgrounds and abilities work together developing their full potential. The most effective teachers engage across many classrooms, communicating via technology to thousands of children.
Just as fascinating as the classroom innovations are the economics. The school costs the same as any other public school (nationally, the average cost per pupil was $12,401 for the 2011-2012 school year). Their purchasing agents resist the lobbying of textbook, computer, and agribusiness lobbyists. They obtain nearly free content from the public domain. They use bulk purchasing and their public mission to obtain steep discounts for hardware and supplies. The find that they can purchase healthy food, often locally grown, within existing budgets. Additionally, mobile computing allows classrooms to go outside. Students spend so much time outdoors that they use real estate only occasionally – for athletics, performances, and certain kinds of hands-on learning. Overhead costs have plummeted, much as middle management costs were cut in the private sector decades ago. All of these cost savings are re-invested in recruiting, training, and compensating teachers, helping attract and retain amazing talent.
Where you can find these new public schools
The biggest reason parents should know about these new public schools is that they don’t exist yet—at least, not entirely. In a chapter of the book Educational Entrepreneurship Today, released this month by Harvard Education Press, I describe how innovation has been blocked in traditional public schools, but how that is starting to change. Along with several other authors, the book goes into considerable detail about how venture capitalists, venture philanthropists, teacher leaders, and public officials can achieve amazing public schools of the type I just described.
We are already seeing the early stages of this kind of change. My Progressive Policy Institute colleague David Osborne has recently described how teacher-led schools have innovated to better meet student needs. In San Jose, California, the teachers union worked with the local district leadership to combine rigorous standards with student-specific safety nets; the result raised college attendance rates despite demographic challenges. More broadly, the teachers’ unions have started to invest in seed ideas that might lead to big changes. These efforts are not limited to cities and suburbs; for instance, a rural high school in Indiana has started to embrace “blended learning” that combines great teaching and digital empowerment. The private sector is also playing a key role. Businesses are sprouting up to empower teachers: a former New York City public school teacher built a marketplace for lesson plans called TeachersPayTeachers, which has paid millions of dollars to teachers who have come up with outstanding ideas. More broadly, “teacherpreneurs” are finding ways to lead broad changes in the profession without leaving the classroom.
As with all public sector services, however, change requires public demand. Parents who want these innovative new schools must be full partners in supporting teachers and political leaders in innovation. They can do this by accepting risks, paying taxes, engaging thoughtfully, and setting high expectations. More and more, Americans are realizing that we have the tools, the resources, and the teachers to give our children the best school system in the world.
Dmitri Mehlhorn is one of the authors in Educational Entrepreneurship Today (Harvard Education Press, 2016). He is a Senior Fellow with the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy; a Senior Fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute; and a founding member of Hope Street Group. He writes frequently on public policy topics, including with platforms such as The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Education Post, The 74 Million, and Dropout Nation. He is a husband and father, and a seed-stage investor with the venture group Vidinovo (which has no current or historic investments in K-12 education or technology).
sounds like "the Hungar Games" or "The Giver"
ReplyDeleteIf Montessori was so good for you, wouldn't it be for other people too? Why don't you want to put Montessori in public schools?
ReplyDeleteRebecca, thank you for your note. I agree, Montessori would be good for many students. It should be offered in many more public school settings. The history of how Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher won the day, while thinkers like Maria Montessori and John Dewey basically lost, is a history of bureaucratic institutions that frustrates me and many other Americans today. The fact that Montessori schools were widely known and considered for decades, up until and including the 1960s, but still make up only a tiny fraction of early education in public schools, is the sort of fact that makes me a so-called "reformer."
DeleteI don't see that anything in your "new public schools" look anything like Montessori.
DeleteI'm in agreement with Rebecca: My experience with Montessori has been anything BUT what you're describing, while what you're outling is more MINO: Montessori in Name Only. :-)
DeleteSorry....I saw it after I hit "Publish:" "outlining," not "outling." #TooManyCloudyDays
DeleteHow does a top teacher advance learning 150% of a school year when the teachers are so constrained by a curriculum that is mostly grade-level material and when so much of the time is spent on reviews, test preparation, and testing? I don't get this.
ReplyDeleteMy 8th grade son is bored out of his mind right now because his classes have gone into EOG-mode in North Carolina. It is all grade-level test prep now. A complete waste of time for any student above grade level.
Also, he only read one book in is language studies this year. Common Core isn't working out well in North Carolina. I liked the old curriculum better. At least they read some books. I don't see how any teacher could advance learning in an accelerated fashion with this current middle school curriculum used in North Carolina public schools.
I think you would find that your son would be bored out of his mind in most of his classes if he is performing that far above grade level, with or without EOG mode. You might think about having him skip a grade (this will also have some costs, but they may be worth paying) and moving him on to college courses as quickly as possible. The college courses will be most important in mathematics and sciences, where the ability of a student to go beyond the prescribed grade level curriculum has always been severely limited.
DeleteEric, thanks for your note. The factory-style model of traditional public schools is frustrating to all kids who are either advanced or behind, as the content gets delivered to the middle. The techniques that individual teachers use to accelerate learning are poorly understood, but significant recent research has gone into it. The only thing we know for sure is that some teachers manage to accelerate the learning of all of their kids better than others. As for your child, I have no solutions -- I'm not a pedagogical expert or a curricular expert. I only study change management at the organizational level. Unfortunately, your complaint is a common one, which is one of the reasons why so many people want to change the structure of educational systems to make them more effective.
Delete"I'm not a pedagogical expert or a curricular expert. I only study change management at the organizational level."
DeleteAnd therein lies the problem.
I'm not saying your ideas are awful ideas. They look great in print. But in classrooms, with real live human children from a variety of family and socio-economic backgrounds, with a variety of abilities and disabilities and challenges and strengths, the fact is that your (IMO frankly kind of sterile) vision here isn't how it would most likely play out, nor what it necessarily the best kind of learning for most children.
I would be interested to see you take one school year, immerse yourself in a few different schools at different levels and serving different kinds of kids, and watch and learn. Learn how 5YO's REALLY learn best; see what REALLY makes wealthy, poor, and middle-class schools different from each other; watch middle-schoolers simultaneously trying to navigate puberty and higher-order learning and see if you can figure out why this stage is where so many kids permanently dis-engage from school & learning. Visit wealthy lily-white private schools, visit poor urban no-excuses charters serving only poor Black & brown kids. Spend no less than a half-day in each, and come back around to each school every couple of weeks, getting to know some of the teachers and kids and neighborhoods. Talk to teachers, talk to administrators. Talk to the tech folks at those schools, too, since your Ideal Vision relies so heavily on tech. It's no substitute for a Master's in Education, mind you, but I think it would be...eye-opening. It might help you to refine your vision, to make it more realistic - and less repugnant to those of us doing the grunt work down here on the ground.
Dmitri,
DeleteThanks for the response. I do have one solution. Get rid of most of the standardized tests and stop making them so central to everything that goes on at the school. In NC, the 8th graders who are in Math I (which replaced Algebra I when NC adopted Common Core) also have to prep for and take an EOG test (end of grade test) on the 8th grade math curriculum. They took 8th grade math last year. They also have to take the EOC test (end of course test) for Math I. Why in the world do they need to take two exams? This is absolutely unnecessary. Over testing has been caused by reformers who pushed standardized testing as a magic bullet.
Also, in science and language arts, all new instruction is coming to a halt as the school shifts to test-preparation mode. Why can't they just give everyone a pre-test now? My son just took a mock test. That could have been used as a pre-test. If a child passes the pre-test, then she doesn't need to waste time with test prep. Such students could then keep learning while those who need extra tutoring could get that. Using this sort of pre-test idea might even motivate students to try harder on the test.
Eric, this is part of my point. Many schools have been woefully failing their students, especially in communities of color, and tests are one of the mechanisms that governments have put in place to try to make sure that the taxpayer money is being used as intended (to help students learn). In the schools I'm describing, such assessments are integrated into the learning.
DeleteIn schools with enough resources to support teachers (including reasonable class size, which would ideally be smaller in high-poverty communities), ongoing assessments happen anyway. Communities of color are also often poor communities with under-resourced schools; not enough resources means underserved students.
DeleteCBE is another one of those things that looks great on paper, but it costs. For the ROI, why not invest the money in those poor schools directly? Why not get their facilities up to par, their class sizes down, get the wraparound services needed in those communities and schools? CBE can't substitute or compensate for those things in any case.
Everything you're proposing is going to cost more to implement in poor communities that are already under-resourced. If we can find the money for tech (can we?), where was all that money for the other stuff all this time? And why not spend it on those things FIRST?
Well, Deb, it's because those other things, when put into the existing system, on average do not work for the benefit of student literacy and numeracy. https://educationpost.org/money-and-schools-debating-ben-spielberg-50-years-after-the-coleman-report/
DeleteClass size totally matters, even if Bill Gates says otherwise. I'll be happy to watch him in front of a class of 30 rowdy kids trying to get control and then cut that class in half and watch some more. It's not just "how much money" but "on what is that money being spent?" Your link (which I skimmed because it's nearly midnight and I'd lost track of this post anyway) seems to be about quantity, as opposed to quality, or at least strategic targeting.
DeleteI'm having a very hard time reconciling "The new public schools: tailored to the needs of all children" with "Tablet computers deliver customized content, such as books and multi-player games, automatically adapted to each child’s level and their style of learning."
ReplyDeleteTablets are not automatically "for all children," and in fact should be very very limited in their use especially at young ages. There is no substitute for hands-on experiential learning, with all the sensory components that tablets remove: sense of touch and texture, of temperature, of vestibular and proprioceptive experience, of true non-recorded *actual* sound, of odor. Even typing on a keyboard or tablet is shown to activate and use different parts of the brain than writing by hand, as reading from paper is being shown to result in higher comprehension than reading from a screen.
THIS is what edu-preneurs do not understand: the SCIENCE of teaching and learning. What you are proposing is a controlled and sterile environment. Especially for those of us who work with younger children for a living (or what would be if it paid anything worth a damn), your vision is actually chilling. Give any teacher a small enough class size and sufficient support, and they can do exactly what you propose your computer-driven system would do, and they would do it more effectively because again, science shows that a living human connection - not a computer, not even a human on the other end of a computer, but a flesh-and-blood physically present HUMAN connection - is more effective. No, it can't spit out precise data points because humans are, well, human - but that's part and parcel of teaching.
For the way you glorify Montessori and the way it influenced your childhood and education, I am surprised that you are so unfamiliar with its precepts to think for a moment that what you are proposing would be compatible with an education that is student-directed (especially in the crucial formative years of 3-6!) and EXCLUSIVELY hands-on, to the point that special materials are required to ensure that students get certain kinds of sensory, motor, and intellectual experiences. Tablets would not fly in a Montessori classroom - no way, no how.
I used to have lots of ideas like you - and then I got into a classroom and immersed myself in *actual* teaching of *actual* small humans. Now I have lots of other ideas, and almost none of them match what you've described here. Your vision is not a place I would send my own children, not even if it were cost-free to me at the point of service.
Hi Deb. Lovely to hear from you. I agree with almost all of what you just wrote in this comment, but the thrust of your criticisms suggest that maybe we are not fully understanding each other. Tablet-based learning can be enormously valuable, but it should not replace all of the things you mention. You may have noticed that I praised Montessori methods and spending time outdoors. In the Montessori-based schools that I most admire, tablets are taken out sometimes, but only sometimes. The point of a tablet is that it is a reader (with content such as books), but the reading can be adaptive and interactive with the child. As a teacher, you can see the speed with which your different children are reading. You can also have the math tests grade themselves at least in part. You can use tools like Essay Assay to help with writing grading. It's a tool, just like a chalkboard and later a whiteboard was a tool. But it's a much more powerful tool and it's silly not to use it. If we had the kind of public school system that I'm talking about, parents could indeed choose to find schools that used tablets relatively more or relatively less, but I'm pretty confident that very few (close to zero) parents will choose schools that do not offer any connected tablets at all.
Delete"As a teacher, you can see the speed with which your different children are reading." As a teacher, I can do that without the computers. I don't need a FitBit, for example, to know that I've done a half-hour of walking; the number of steps I've taken in that half-hour isn't the kind of data I need when I'm getting in shape. And I don't WANT math tests to grade themselves; I want to see for myself where each child is having what kind of difficulty, and I doubt that we have the tech to do it the way *I* would do it.
DeleteThe idea of going outside with tablets...*shudder* I can see it in specific applications, all of which could be done just as well without the tech. It's becoming better and better understood that screens distract children (and adults!) from what's going on around them. Why would I send a kid outside with a tablet when odds are that their outdoor experience will be vastly different (and not in a good way!) WITH the tablet as compared to without? (Not to mention tablets+outdoors=/=the safest combo for tech LOL)
And sorry, but when you say things like "it's a much more powerful tool and it's silly not to use it," I immediately get the feeling that gratuitous tech use is being pushed at me. (That may not be your intention, but that's what it feels like to me.) Tablets may indeed be adaptive, but if kids' comprehension goes down reading on screens as compared to paper, then it would be "silly" (and bordering on educational malpractice) TO use it - and yet you've just suggested it, right after I reminded you that comprehension is lessened on screen reading. Gah! I feel like I'm back in PD all over again, with someone telling me what I need to do in my classroom even though they're not teachers and not familiar with my subject or my students....sorry, kneejerk reaction, but....it happens to us All. The. Time.
PS: "Montessori-based"=/="Montessori." There is a difference, and it can be pretty substantial.
I don't see how the Essay Assay software can truly be helpful in teaching students to write. I don't see how grading essays higher than stories shows that it recognizes good argumentation. The Essay Assay website also says it provides students with "substantive feedback", but there are no examples of the kind of feedback provided.
Delete"...but I'm pretty confident that very few (close to zero) parents will choose schools that do not offer any connected tablets at all."
DeleteThen why are all the Silicon Valley types beating a path to Waldorf's front door? People who really know tech know that kids need minimal amounts of it (or maybe none) to be prepared to use tech. Learning is something that happens by being engaged with the world and other people. Tech, by and large, is something that separates us from the world and other people.
Dienne and Deb: minimal tech does not mean zero tech. Younger children should spend very little time with tablets, but as kids get older and they start to learn more complex subjects tablets can be a powerful tool. No breaks for standardized testing; assistance with essay reviews just in case your pencil gets a little less sharp after the 30th or 60th essay you're reading on a subject (in case you're teaching two periods of the same class); all paperwork automatically handled. The schools that I'm describing would indeed be Montessori based, but there is no uniform standard in the USA for how Montessori should transition into higher grades. Technology enablement is a core part of what top private schools offer and "pitch" to their clients, but they lack scale and thus can only offer the tools at extremely high prices. The vision is that with private and public sector partnership we could build such solutions for all parents who want them. And, Deb, I am not a full-time teacher, but I spent a full year in a classroom, and have spent significant time before and since then volunteering with children of diverse backgrounds, including those with special needs, speech impediments, English as a second language, and diverse socioeconomic status. I have yet to meet the student who doesn't need more hands-on learning, and if I was a teacher in this environment I would use tablets sparingly. But I sure would want to use them.
DeleteI'm with Crunchy. I don't "need" computers, there's no way computers can teach writing improvement, and I want to see for myself what kinds of difficulty my students are having. I can do a decent job of teaching with nothing but a chalkboard or whiteboard and curriculum I make up myself. Sure, technology can have an enhancement value, but it's not necessary for the foundations, and it would have to be totally customizable for what *I* as pedagogical expert see as meeting the needs of my specific students for it to be effective. If I could design it, sure, but not at the cost of students not having the wraparound services they need or small enough classes so that each student can get the individual attention they need from the teacher. Individual computer time does not make up for lack of individual teacher time.
DeleteWow, one whole year of teaching. I started feeling like I really understood what I was doing after seven. Then I felt like I went to a different level at 15, and again at 20. If I hadn't retired at 30 because my body was breaking down from so many years of stress (which would have been less if, like in Finland, teachers taught fewer classes with smaller class sizes and had more planning and collaboration time), I'd be improving still. Of course, if I hadn't had the fundaments of the science of pedagogy, and continued to keep up with it on my own, I don't think I would have reached those breakthroughs, or it would have taken much longer.
CBE is never going to scale to be effective learning for all students. I've had a couple of students who quit school and home-schooled using online programs and did very well and were much happier than attending school, but these were students who were very strong academically and motivated to learn; they could pretty much teach themselves. Their problem was that they were super-sensitive people, and being around so many people on the school campus was overwhelming to them. If they could have been in a somewhat smaller school with smaller classes so that it felt like a community to them and they could feel like they belonged, maybe they wouldn't have had to leave school and they would have been able to learn how to get along with other people. But interacting with a computer does not teach you discussion skills or any kind of people skills. And studies have shown that most students are not motivated to learn by themselves staring at a computer screen; in fact, they've shown that most students prefer pencil and paper, and are motivated by the teacher-student relationship.
Unless you have expertise in pedagogy and curriculum, there's no way you can understand the learning process well enough to offer any kind of effective advice on how to improve said process. Understanding student motivation is key. Probably those super-teachers you talk about that seem to be able to mysteriously "accelerate" learning for all students are the ones that best understand cognitive/affective learning theory, can inspire enthusiasm in their students by their own enthusiasm for their subject, and are people that the students feel/know care about them.
Rebecca, the reason I don't claim to be an expert in pedagogy and curriculum (in addition to the fact that I am not) is that I don't actually intend to have that conversation. Rather, I am trying to have a conversation with you all, and with Peter, about what kind of organizational structure will allow great ideas in these areas to come to life. If you don't want computer enablement in classrooms, that's your call. I'd venture to offer that the vast, vast majority of parents disagree, and most teachers disagree, and many actual experts in pedagogy and curriculum disagree. My take on the evidence (including reading work by others, as well as my own experience) is that well-adapted technologies, alongside other innovations, can radically improve the customization of schools and move us away from the factory-based model that has degraded public education since it started in America in 1647 and expanded with the common schools movement.
DeleteDmitri, I think what you envision as a "vast, vast majority of parents" might be less of a vast majority than you think. LOL
Delete"(I define good faith as saying what you actually mean, hearing what the other person is actually trying to say, and trying to understand rather than score points)"
ReplyDeleteWell, that certainly isn't what Jazzman got in his discussion with Mehlhorn - in fact, I've rarely seen a better display of mendacity. I wish you better luck.
I just had breakfast which I'd rather not toss, so I'll have to read this later.
Well, not as mendacious as the exchange with Jazzman (although there's still time!), but this is just a bunch of warmed-over CBE/blended "learning"/"personalized learning" stuff that Peter has already addressed and demolished before, as have many others.
ReplyDeleteThe one mendacious part is where he says these schools don't exist. Hell, even my local public schools in a low-rent, underfunded suburb of Chicago have announced one-to-one technology and blended "learning". These schools, incidentally, look nothing like the Montessori school Mehlhorn waxes rhapsodic about. So where do those of us who *don't* what this horror show for our kids go?
Dienne, thank you for writing again. Given the tone of our conversation on Mark Weber's post, it may be that we make no progress. However, just in case, I thought I would mention that I agree with you that the schools today look nothing like the schools I'm describing. That is the point. Bolting on new technologies to the old model doesn't create a new model. A new model is one that uses all of the "best of" ideas in teaching (from Finland, from Korea, from Prussia, from John Dewey, from Maria Montessori) and also technology. That is a truly new model.
DeleteBut you contradict yourself with your own words: "Tablet computers deliver customized content, such as books and multi-player games, automatically adapted to each child’s level and their style of learning."
DeleteTablets should never "deliver content". That presupposes that education is stuffing knowledge into kids' heads. Whether with technology or without (I don't have an issue with technology per se, only how and how much it is used), kids need to be delivering their own content. A tablet is not a teacher, it's an inanimate thing. I'm fine with a limited amount of technology if students are the ones using it. But you're envisioning the technology using the student.
Dienne,
DeleteIf your against tablets delivering content, it seems to me you have to be against books delivering content as well, as books also presuppose that education is stuffing knowledge into kids heads. Teachers perhaps should also to be banished, as they often provide content to students.
TE, you're missing the point. Teachers and books don't "deliver content" either. Well, maybe *you* do, but I don't see "delivering content" as my job as a teacher, nor do I consider it to be a function of any of the books, fiction or non-fiction, that my kids read.
DeleteThe point is that when people, or devices, or books, are seen as "delivering content," there's a disconnect. That's not how humans work; that's not how education works, really, despite how nice and neat and non-messy "delivering content" reads in the Ivory Tower. If "delivering content" is how non-educators view my job, then it's unlikely that there will be any further or deeper understanding of what it is I actually DO, of what it is that ACTUALLY is happening in my classroom or my school.
Crunchy,
DeleteCertainly I deliver content, the books I assign deliver content, the videos that I make for my students deliver content, my teaching assistants deliver content, but so do you. It is not all I do, probably not all that you do either. It is a decreasing proportion of what I do in class because I am now able to move much of it out of the classroom, but I still do it.
Then I will have to assume that your mental image of "delivering content" is different from mine. Come see me teach sometime and see if you agree that I "deliver content." :-)
DeleteCrunchy,
DeleteIt would simply take too long to have students rediscover the sum of human knowledge. Do you have your students deduce all the rules of grammar from reading texts and listening to native speakers? Do you hope that your students hit on the insight that Leibnez and Newton had when they developed calculus? Do you dump a bunch of primary documents on the table in the middle of the room and hope that they can reconstruct the course of the revolutionary war by reading them? Of course not.
You probably do what I do: deliver some content and help your students explore and manipulate it.
TE, I'm a music teacher. And actually, I *do* have my students experience musical concepts (IRL when possible, which is usually) before I do anything even resembling direct instruction about those concepts. My students experience my subject on an individual and ensemble (group) level, both individual concepts (sure, we can call them standards if you like) and lots of things going on simultaneously, at whatever level they happen to be at. I don't pretend that it's the same as, say, instruction in math or English, but I *can* say that when I've been in classrooms teaching those subjects (and I have, FWIW), it's been less direct instruction and more drawing-out, which I personally don't equate with "delivering." Again, though - maybe difference in how the two of us define that term.
DeleteI repeat: neither a book nor a device can do what I do.
As an aside, I mentioned on FB that books & devices can't do what I do despite another teacher asserting that "delivering content" is what I do; the first commenter on that was "baffled and alarmed that ANOTHER TEACHER said this." So yeah, gonna chalk this up to a difference in defining the term. :-)
TE: Actually, children DO "deduce all the rules of grammar from reading texts and listening to native speakers". That's how they learn to speak and write. Their brains are wired for it. They figure out, for example, the patterns of regular and irregular verbs, so they're able to use past tense for regular verbs they've never heard the past tense of. Often children will will say "I went", and then when they realize regular verb patterns they say "I goed" for a while until they auto-correct because they figure out "go" is an exception. And if you want them to write well, have them read good writing (and have them practice writing and work with them individually with it), but they'll model good writing if they're exposed to it.
DeleteAnd if you guide them to it, yeah they'll be able to duplicate Leibniz and Newton's insights, and will understand it much better than if they're just told, "This is what you do." And yes, the best way for them to understand the course of the Revolutionary War is to reconstruct it from reading primary sources. They can get there faster if the teacher is good at selecting which primary sources and how much of them to concentrate on, and if the teacher is good at explaining the language and other things about the times, but your suggestions are actually exactly the way we SHOULD be teaching.
I have always envied music instruction for the performance aspect of the instruction, but there has been a lot of content delivered to those students. Students do not get to tune their interments as they like (or if yours do my youngest would have loved you as his director. After his freshman year in high school, the only time his violin was in the conventional tuning was during orchestra class), they do not get to use the technique that they like (violins are not played on the forearm in a high school orchestra, for example), they sight read, they learn the techniques required to play classical music in large groups, so no double stops.
DeleteI think music instruction is one of the things a device does well. My son has turned into a more than respectable old time banjo player thanks to the fantastic teachers he has. Among his teachers are Tim Eriksen, Dock Boggs, Riley Baugus, Ola Belle Reed, Clifton Hicks, Brad Kolodner, and host others. My son has never meet any of them, and in fact several of his teachers are dead. But he learned how to play from them and continues to improve his playing using that device.
Peter,
DeleteAny chance that my response to Crunchy will be posted?
If not, you might let Crunchy know that my response was, in your judgement, to dangerous for them to read.
TE: Actually, children DO "deduce all the rules of grammar from reading texts and listening to native speakers". That's the way they learn to speak and write. Their brains are wired for it. That's how they can use the past tense of a regular verb when they've never heard it for that particular verb before. Sometimes after children say "I went", they start saying "I goed" for a while until they realize "go" is an exception. And if you want students to write well, have them read good writing (and have them practice writing with individual consultation), and they'll model what they read.
DeleteAnd yeah, with guidance, students can get to the same insights that Leibniz and Newton had, and they'll understand much better than if you just tell them "This is what you do." And yes, the best way for them to understand the course of the Revolutionary War is to reconstruct it from primary sources. Of course, they'll get there faster if the teacher is good at making the selections of the sources or parts of sources, and is good at explaining any problems in understanding language and what life was like in those times.
Actually, your suggestions are exactly the way we SHOULD be teaching
TE, you make me tired with your self-aggrandizing baloney. Nothing you have ever posted has been too "dangerous" to run. Plenty of it has been too redundant, and some of it has displayed an unwillingness to actually read what anyone else wrote. On your worst days, you remind me of the person who doesn't listen, but only waits for his chance to talk.
DeleteI'll also remind you that this is not my job. So if I occasionally get busy doing things like picking up my daughter and grandson from the airport or attending my nephew's college graduation in another part of the state, sorting through your pearls wisdom so that you can slap people into place with your blindingly awesome insights-- well, dude, that is not always high on my list of things to do today.
Oh, TE, there you are!
DeleteSo your youngest is now a great banjo player thanks to YouTube? Have those teachers checked his hand and arm to make sure he won't end up with carpal tunnel due to a hand or arm position that might work those muscles incorrectly? (Seriously, this is a real concern; I have guitarist friends who've been self-taught who've had to stop due to this.)
There is certainly more than one way to play most stringed instruments, and to tune them, and plenty of orchestra directors (given the time and opportunity) provide their students chances to do things like that. That said, there's a REASON that orchestral strings aren't played on the forearm (muscles are less able to play faster noted in that position, because Physiology, the same reason win players play better sitting up rather than hunching over/slouching and compressing their lungs in the process); there are reasons that orchestral strings in ensembles are tuned the way they are (consistency for one, because ensemble playing =/=solo playing for one). I'd also bet a year's full-time Masters+30 salary in my district that your kid would be an even BETTER banjo player if any one of those names got to watch him play in person, or even better, if he got to play WITH any of them.
And to Rebecca: yes yes yes, and YES!!!!
DeleteDienne: I meant "deliver content" in the same way that teachers and books deliver content. The actual learning must be interactive. Good teachers help make that happen, but good interactive games can help.
ReplyDeleteOf course learning should be interactive! WAY better than passive receptors at desks.
DeleteIn general, though, in education, any interaction is best between/among live humans. Student<-->teacher, Student<-->student, volunteer<-->student<-->teacher<-->administrator.... you get the idea. You get authentic organic and yes, sometimes unpredictable (the best kind!) interaction, not what amounts to canned responses - and until we get further into AI, that's really what tech is limited to.
I say once again that I don't "deliver content." In my classes, we DO and learn through the doing. My younger daughter (5th grade) was taught to "appreciate" poetry by first being taught about poetic devices, THEN being given poems and told to find poetic devices in those poems (the Langston Hughes poem with all the writing circled and labeled made my blood run cold, it really did :'( ), then being told to write a poem using at least 3 of those devices. At my suggestion (she was despairing of a topic), she ended up writing a poem about how much she hated the poetry unit. Dry as freakin' DUST! THAT was "content delivery," mandated by a CCSS-aligned curriculum that our district created in a deal with Pearson to market the thing, but that is not what *I* do. Neither a book nor a tablet, frankly, could do what I do....and having just now finally put that profundity into words, I'm kind of floored that I never thought of it in that particular way before.
I'm going to need a moment. :-)
I'm with Crunchy. I don't "need" computers, there's no way computers can teach writing improvement, and I want to see for myself what kinds of difficulty my students are having. I can do a decent job of teaching with nothing but a chalkboard or whiteboard and curriculum I make up myself. Sure, technology can have an enhancement value, but it's not necessary for the foundations, and it would have to be totally customizable for what *I* as pedagological expert see as meeting the needs of my specific students for it to be effective. If I could design it, sure, but not at the cost of students not having the wraparound services they need or small enough classes so that each student can get the individual attention they need from the teacher. Individual computer time does not make up for lack of individual teacher time.
DeleteWow, one whole year of teaching. I started feeling like I really understood what I was doing after seven. Then I felt like I went to a different level at 15, and again at 20. If I hadn't retired at 30 because my body was breaking down from so many years of stress (which would have been less if, like in Finland, teachers taught fewer classes with smaller class sizes and had more planning and collaboration time), I'd be improving still. Of course, if I hadn't had the fundaments of the science of pedagogy, and continued to keep up with it on my own, I don't think I would have reached those breakthroughs, or it would have taken much longer.
CBE is never going to scale to be effective learning for all students. I've had a couple of students who quit school and home-schooled using online programs and did very well and were much happier than attending school, but these were students who were very strong academically and motivated to learn; they could pretty much teach themselves. Their problem was that they were super-sensitive people, and being around so many people on the school campus was overwhelming to them. If they could have been in a somewhat smaller school with smaller classes so that it felt like a community to them and they could feel like they belonged, maybe they wouldn't have had to leave school and they would have been able to learn how to get along with other people. But interacting with a computer does not teach you discussion skills or any kind of people skills. And studies have shown that most students are not motivated to learn by themselves staring at a computer screen; in fact, they've shown that most students prefer pencil and paper, and are motivated by the teacher-student relationship.
Unless you have expertise in pedagogy and curriculum, there's no way you can understand the learning process well enough to offer any kind of effective advice on how to improve said process. Understanding student motivation is key. Probably those super-teachers you talk about that seem to be able to mysteriously "accelerate" learning for all students are the ones that best understand cognitive/affective learning theory, can inspire enthusiasm in their students by their own enthusiasm for their subject, and are people that the students feel/know care about them.
Deb and Rebecca, the idea that technologies always or necessarily get in the way of human interaction is contradicted by much of history. True, many humans (generally female, often low-status) socialized while washing in the river, but the advent of washing machines enabled new forms of interaction that enabled less drudgery. Game-based tablet computers can help students learn coding, mathematics, and other subjects in ways that can actually free up teachers' time to better coach and engage other students. Students also learn enormously from unstructured free time, which can be done outdoors but also can be done from games such as Minecraft. This is the common-sense reality that teachers and parents overwhelmingly understand.
DeleteDmitri, I don't think you're understanding my objection. There is a VAST difference between tech like washing machines that can free people to do other things and tech which by its nature requires attention to be spent on IT, to the detriment of whatever else is going on.
DeletePlease educate yourself on how screen time is different from non-screen tech like washing machines, and how screen time *literally* (and that is not a word I use lightly) affects the human brain at a neurological level. The difference is VAST, and it is CRITICAL. What people like you, pushing stuff like this, do NOT know, has the power to do real harm if not tempered by what others DO know.