tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post7991510381908611977..comments2024-03-27T08:53:29.267-04:00Comments on CURMUDGUCATION: Better Schools Dialogue: Part IPeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-79262711077230569762016-05-09T23:50:46.456-04:002016-05-09T23:50:46.456-04:00Class size totally matters, even if Bill Gates say...Class 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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-40745418512781761792016-05-09T23:47:34.678-04:002016-05-09T23:47:34.678-04:00Dmitri, I think what you envision as a "vast,...Dmitri, I think what you envision as a "vast, vast majority of parents" might be less of a vast majority than you think. LOLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-20133684809403669782016-05-09T23:46:14.218-04:002016-05-09T23:46:14.218-04:00And to Rebecca: yes yes yes, and YES!!!!And to Rebecca: yes yes yes, and YES!!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-53992574663034457192016-05-09T23:45:44.184-04:002016-05-09T23:45:44.184-04:00Oh, TE, there you are!
So your youngest is now a ...Oh, TE, there you are!<br /><br />So 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.)<br /><br />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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-89026181486224174622016-05-09T23:36:45.707-04:002016-05-09T23:36:45.707-04:00Dmitri, I don't think you're understanding...Dmitri, 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. <br /><br />Please 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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-78081226457439577152016-05-09T18:13:58.742-04:002016-05-09T18:13:58.742-04:00Deb and Rebecca, the idea that technologies always...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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-75162699146780257102016-05-09T18:10:02.500-04:002016-05-09T18:10:02.500-04:00Rebecca, the reason I don't claim to be an exp...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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-8655651484687921482016-05-09T18:06:28.781-04:002016-05-09T18:06:28.781-04:00Well, Deb, it's because those other things, wh...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/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-58293134380838397792016-05-08T08:51:46.072-04:002016-05-08T08:51:46.072-04:00TE, you make me tired with your self-aggrandizing ...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.<br /><br />I'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. Peter Greenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-29803807210248647702016-05-08T06:25:29.932-04:002016-05-08T06:25:29.932-04:00I'm with Crunchy. I don't "need"...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.<br /><br />Wow, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-25110583712349286652016-05-08T06:21:57.572-04:002016-05-08T06:21:57.572-04:00TE: Actually, children DO "deduce all the ru...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.<br /><br />And 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. <br /><br />Actually, your suggestions are exactly the way we SHOULD be teachingRebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-70638402651232506662016-05-07T19:33:16.195-04:002016-05-07T19:33:16.195-04:00Peter,
Any chance that my response to Crunchy wil...Peter,<br /><br />Any chance that my response to Crunchy will be posted?<br /><br />If not, you might let Crunchy know that my response was, in your judgement, to dangerous for them to read.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-60805902329885515542016-05-06T18:34:52.729-04:002016-05-06T18:34:52.729-04:00I have always envied music instruction for the per...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.<br /><br />I 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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-40579059157788555192016-05-06T18:30:46.897-04:002016-05-06T18:30:46.897-04:00I'm with Crunchy. I don't "need"...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 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.<br /><br />Wow, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-72555016108740652142016-05-06T17:25:20.130-04:002016-05-06T17:25:20.130-04:00TE: Actually, children DO "deduce all the rul...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. <br /><br />And 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. Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-68483281506005149882016-05-06T14:44:21.083-04:002016-05-06T14:44:21.083-04:00TE, I'm a music teacher. And actually, I *do* ...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.<br /><br />I repeat: neither a book nor a device can do what I do.<br /><br />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. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-77150022890211844822016-05-06T13:43:06.333-04:002016-05-06T13:43:06.333-04:00Crunchy,
It would simply take too long to have st...Crunchy,<br /><br />It 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.<br /><br />You probably do what I do: deliver some content and help your students explore and manipulate it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-7241054656040524232016-05-06T12:59:28.064-04:002016-05-06T12:59:28.064-04:00Of course learning should be interactive! WAY bett...Of course learning should be interactive! WAY better than passive receptors at desks.<br /><br />In 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm going to need a moment. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-26052494584182327912016-05-06T12:05:54.968-04:002016-05-06T12:05:54.968-04:00Then I will have to assume that your mental image ...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." :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-7308156359991470422016-05-06T10:09:25.774-04:002016-05-06T10:09:25.774-04:00Crunchy,
Certainly I deliver content, the books I...Crunchy,<br /><br />Certainly 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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-30266308057086355962016-05-06T07:55:53.798-04:002016-05-06T07:55:53.798-04:00In schools with enough resources to support teache...In 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.<br /><br />CBE 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.<br /><br />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?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-88097549525425938032016-05-06T07:52:01.486-04:002016-05-06T07:52:01.486-04:00Dienne: I meant "deliver content" in the...Dienne: 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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-19111383828021509022016-05-06T07:50:58.821-04:002016-05-06T07:50:58.821-04:00Dienne and Deb: minimal tech does not mean zero te...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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-1315165643844553242016-05-06T07:44:12.713-04:002016-05-06T07:44:12.713-04:00Eric, this is part of my point. Many schools have...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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15621675836930194525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-3297695838135293142016-05-06T06:57:51.713-04:002016-05-06T06:57:51.713-04:00TE, you're missing the point. Teachers and boo...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.<br /><br />The 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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com