Beliefs- Goals are Great, But Not at the Expense of the Journey

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I must not be very successful because I'm going to drop a name. Nassim Nicholas is my favorite tweeter. I read his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable acouple of years ago, and am part way through Fooled by Randomness, a follow-up of sorts to Black Swan. Taleb is a thinker, and in the books he debunks many commonly held myths about probability, chance and the models we think studying these entities enable us to predict.

Taleb is one of the most brilliant I have had the pleasure of reading, and he occasionally tweets pearls of introspective wisdom. Yesterday he said, "the opposite of success isn't failure, it is name dropping...There are no objective definitions of failure; success, there are for ..." Once again, Nassim Taleb is speaking to me.

I have said before that I don't believe in failure, only relative degrees of success. We have such skewed perspectives toward success in society. How we view success in schools is no different. How we measure success in society and in school is juxtapositioned against a set of subjectively defined goals that somehow have come to be known as success, once attained. Material good, money, a great job... these are commonly regarded examples of success in society, (at least western society, that is.) In school we measure success by different goals, but goals none the less. Good grades, a diploma, a degree... these are commonly regarded examples of success in school, (at least once again, in our western education system.) These goals are largely absolute and uninterpretable... you have either attained them, or you haven't. They aren't measured on a spectrum, but rather in a have/have not (pass/fail) context. I believe this is very wrong and unproductive in the context of goal achievement and learning.

I find it our human tendency to be so happy, relieved and satisfied when we've reached a goal that in that fleeting moment, we forget about the important journey we took to get there. All the work, stress, effort and commitment applied toward the goal is unceremoniously put aside to revel in the success of reaching the goal, and then very quickly to decide what the next one will be. There's something wrong about this, in my opinion. Goal attainment in life, and as part of learning is a journey, one that should be enjoyed mindfully and deliberately. When we measure goal attainment and learning by pass/fail standards, this process is not possible. I believe that goals are righteous ends to means, but enjoying the journey in pursuit of the goal leads to exponentially greater amounts of knowledge, insight, and contentment once the destination is reached.

There are relative degrees of success, and as quickly as we can realize this, the better off we're all going to be. Like wanna-be pseudo-successful people tend to 'name-drop' as Taleb suggests, teachers who are pseudo-successful at connecting with students in relative ways tend to divert to other scales measuring their "success." In lieu of measuring tangible learning at requisite levels for each individual student, teachers look instead to levels that reflect the mean, and simply place students on this scale where they subjectively think they fit. I have yet to witness a teachers using letter grades that doesn't correlate the letters to percentile ranks within the class, so even letter grades can be curvable. Kids who get placed on the high-end are considered successful, and everyone else falls somewhere below that. I don't think this is OK.

Let's not stop working toward goals; let's stop beating kids up over how relatively well they've reached them. Here's a proposal archived at Personal Learning Stories, a post I wrote with some ideas to create a more student-centered learning process that reflects the thirteen year learning journey in more organic and fluid ways.

I'm sure you also have ideas; I'd love to hear them.

Open Source Hardware?

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So we have a litany of open source software in cyberspace, when will the connected youth of today enjoy open source hardware as part of their education?

The open source concept is brilliant. Open systems in general appear to be winning the day in so many social contexts, and open source software has changed the education system drastically for those who choose to access it. A standing position in my teaching circle is if you're paying for software at all, you're paying too much. I'm wondering why open source software has caught on so widely, but open source hardware hasn't. To me the two are natural partners.

As Moore's Law goes, anything in the software world would be considered yesterday's tool practically as soon as it is introduced... before new software gets wide-spread recognition, developers are taking advantage of exponentially-expanding digital capacity and already working on something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer. Exponential growth in digital capacity fuels the software marketplace for sure, but it also fuels the hardware sector. As digital capacity increases at a faster and faster pace, today's hardware is quickly replaced by something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer also.

So where do the laptops, cell phones, e-readers, etc. go after a year or so when consumers have replaced them with the latest improved tool? Other than being recycled for parts, or in a drawer or closet to be forgotten, I'm not sure I know. What if the same huge software companies that work so hard to create better tech tools and applications understood that perhaps the largest potential market research sector they could be exposed to is short on hardware needed to use the software in question. Kids in schools are often wanting for relatively up-to-date hardware tools, and six months old would be more than current to them compared to the five and six year old computers they commonly are limited to as a result of budget constraints. If huge-scale software firms got into the recycling business, they could put their software in the hands of students who had something to use it on. Isn't that a win-win situation?

Let's take Google for example; if Google were to create a recycling protocol for those wishing to donate their old laptop, cell phone or whatever to them for reconditioning and installation of whatever Google software could be loaded onto them, and then donated these devices to schools under a partnership agreement that the schools would use their software exclusively with the expectation that feedback would be provided to improve it, I would be jumping over other teachers to sign up for that program... schools get their hardware and the software applications it enables, and Google would get real-time feedback from perhaps the largest cohort of connected technology users on the planet so they can continue to improve their products more efficiently and pragmatically.

What do you think?

Silence is many things...

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Silence can be a virtue or a curse, a tool or a weapon and a hindrance or an enabler. I'm either annoyed or fascinated by silence; it all depends on the person being silent.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, (@nntaleb- a pretty damn sharp guy...) tweeted today about silence. He first said, "usually, what we call (a) 'good listener' is someone with skillfully polished indifference"... and then revised the statement to restate, "some reticent people use silence to conceal their intelligence; but most do so to hide the lack of it." This got me thinking for sure.

In education, there is no shortage of playing "the game"; people saying what they believe will get them what they want or allow them to avoid what they don't want, and refraining from what they should say in attempting to avoid scrutiny or punishment. Nobody within education is immune to the politics that surround everything we do, (I would assert that everything, period, is political... why would teachers think they are immune to this?) Choosing when to speak, and when to remain silent is an art in and of itself, and definitely worth constant consideration and practice.

Taleb firstly equates silence to listening with his original statement suggesting indifference on the part of a silent (good) listener. I know many who are highly skilled at appearing intrigued and engaged as they listen to what others are saying, (usually at the same time they are really just thinking about what they are going to say next.) Taleb's revised statement characterizes silence as a tool used either to hide one's intelligence, or conversely, a lack of it... kind of the opposite of the "if you can't dazzle people with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" saying. The theme I'm taking away from Taleb's statements, (and he is a regular producer of useful and thought-provoking aphorisms,) is that silence can be many things.

I have said before that teachers need to find their voice in education, so why am I talking about silence? I'm talking about silence because it's the silence that balances the voice.

Teachers need to learn how to pick their spots so to speak; to choose their hills to die on before they jump into the fray and say too much. Teachers need to get informed and aware of current issues and ideas within education before they speak. That's just the way smart people operate. If you're not ready to be one of these smart teachers, please don't speak.

On the other hand, there are highly intellectual and insightful teachers who for whatever reason, are reserved when they should be bold. These teachers who know need to step up and lead us forward confidently and capably. For these latent, would-be educational leaders, (and especially for those that need their leadership,) silence is a curse.

Within an interpersonal context, silence can be a tool or a weapon. Really strong leaders, (and all teachers are called on to lead at some point- even if that leadership never leaves the context of their classroom- teachers lead students,) use silence as a tool when they need to divert negativity, aggression or innuendo. One strategy I like to use involving silence when teachers, parents or students come to me with a huge problem, (problems are always huge to the people experiencing them,) is to ask them after they've let me have it about their concern, how long it took them to articulate what they were bringing to me, and what they wanted me to do about it. When they answer me with whatever time they come up with, I tell them that I will respond to their issue or request for action after I've thought about it for the equal amount of time. It's interesting that by the time this period has passed, much of the stress of the original problem seems to have passed too. In this case, silence is an enabler... sometimes people just need to be heard and not spoken to.

As a weapon, silence can be particularly effective, but not necessarily in a positive way. Just as all teachers are occasional leaders, they also occasionally need to be led; that's just the way it is. When managers of education have an axe to grind and leave people hanging out there in the ether without direction to illuminate their inadequacy; this is not good. I submit that silence as a tool is much more appropriate than when used as a weapon. It's in this context that silence is always a hindrance to collaboration, progress and solution-focused processes.

So whether I'm annoyed or fascinated with silence really boils down to the question of leadership in education, and how effective educational leaders are regarding their choice to use it. Some are pretty good at it... some not so much.

I get annoyed when uninformed people blabber on without any substance to what they are saying, and fascinated by those among us that have an uncanny ability to pick their spots.

I am fascinated by those who pull silence out of their strategic toolbox when they need to enable others, but get very annoyed by those who use silence as a weapon to demean, belittle or just put people in their proverbial place.

Have you thought about how you use silence lately?

Authentic Learning is the Kind We All Remember

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As much as I was dangling them in junior high school, I cant remember the rule about participles. Maybe a more authentic lesson would've helped me get it right on the test.

In all seriousness, I was speaking with parents at parent/teacher interviews last week about the difference between how kids were taught a generation of students ago, and how we are teaching their children today, (or at least how some of us are trying.) I can remember doing worksheet after worksheet correcting sentences that contained dangling participles, but although I know one when I see it, I couldn't give you a really good description of what one is. Perhaps it's not important beyond knowing what one looks like so I can avoid using them in my writing. That's where authentic learning comes in.

With regard to developing writing skills, why not allow students to simply write? They can write about whatever they want in so many many different forms... and I'd know they used dangling participles because I would read their writing. After reading, I would provide feedback regarding how to do it differently and more appropriately. My kids love to write; they do it all the time. When we're at home and they ask me to read their writing, I don't give it a mark as if it were one of the worksheets I did so long ago; I just tell them that I'm proud of how hard they worked, and then I suggest some things they could do next time to improve their writing. They seem to appreciate this feedback. If it works with my kids at home, why can't it work for my students at school?

One way for teachers to provide more authentic learning opportunities for their students is to provide choice in the manner students desire to show us what they can do, and then use formative feedback to assess how they're doing. I had some really good teachers in junior and high school, and I remember many writing assignments they gave me; all with an element of choice embedded within them. One of my favorites was a poetry assignment within which students were to choose animals that each of their classmates reminded them of. The teacher made a list of students and the animals that were matched to them, and then we were to choose one from the list that matched our name and write a poem about ourselves as characterized by the traits of that animal. Another one was to write a manifesto that was designed to change the world... just like that; whatever we wanted to write. I chose to write a statement about how to solve the world's eventual overpopulation problems. Yet another was to write a first-hand account of the scariest thing that ever happened to me without using a single adjective. I wrote about my first spill of one of our horses.

I'm sure that all three of the teachers that assigned me these tasks provided feedback; after all, that's their job- to assess my writing- but the fact that I remember these assignments at all over twenty five years later is a testimony to their skill in designing writing activities that are fun, meaningful, motivating and dare I say, authentic.

I am certain my love for writing is in no way attributable to those damn worksheets. Other than remembering having to do them, those worksheets didn't leave me with a lasting impression at all.

Why not teaching schools for teachers?

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Doctors receive real-time training and support from their profession during their internship. This process is generally recognized as an automatic and routine element of physician training. Teachers, on the other hand, if they are lucky, only get a few weeks of practicum experience during their pre-service training, and they don't receive any tangible on -the-job training at all. If internships are good for doctors, whey wouldn't they be good for teachers?

Teacher training doesn't appear to be keeping up with things. The training pre-service teachers receive in university has been under scrutiny at least since I was an undergrad, and things don't seem to be improving. Unbelievably, like I was required to take a course learning how to laminate things and use a photocopier while I was in university, today pre-service teachers are required to take classes learning how to use digital technology in the classroom. It's ironic that teachers in the field are starting to understand that teaching about technology is ineffective when compared to using technology to teach, and the newest teachers among us aren't getting this message in their own training. They should be using 21st Century technology as a tool in their learning. This is just one example of the unimaginative and static hoop-jumping pre-service teachers are required to participate in.

To improve the situation, I believe it would make a bunch of sense for teachers to continue their practicum work during their pre-service training, but to also be expected to work under a mentor for a period of time after graduating from teacher college in what I would call a teaching school. Teaching schools would employ intern teachers just like teaching hospitals employ intern doctors. I see great possibilities to get new teachers into schools where they can begin to ply their craft as apprentices without the high levels of stress and anxiety new teachers routinely describe as they are thrown to the wolves in their first years. I also see great possibilities to connect in more meaningful ways the work that is done preparing teachers in pre-service training, and the real-time, action research-based work that is done in the field. There is such a chasm between the theory teachers learn in college, and the practical use of these theories in the field. We need to bridge that gap.

Doctors intern, lawyers article and even engineers participate in a mentorship of sorts before receiving their final accreditation from their professional governing body. It's time for teachers to do the same if we intend to raise our stake on the professional landscape. A collaborative, three-way partnership between government departments of education, teacher preparation institutions and school boards makes sense to me if we are truly interested in establishing a holistic and effective framework for teacher training and accreditation.