Many of you who follow me on Twitter know that besides being an teacher dedicated to MYP and international education in general, I am a yogini. I have been studying yoga for only about 4 years, but in January 2008 I made a choice to get really serious about it (if you’re curious about the story behind that decision, IM me or Tweet me and I will share with you, as it was very much an “a-ha” moment). Since making that decision — only a little more than a year ago — I have learned so much about yoga, meditation, the human body, and myself — all dimensions of myself, including physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. To say that yoga has been transformational for me would be just beginning to describe the journey I’ve been on. It has been, and continues to be, a tremendously rewarding learning experience in the most holistic way imaginable. All aspects of myself are addressed through yoga. And believe me, this was not how I intended it to be. I began to take yoga seriously more or less because I wanted to do something physical and to feel strong. Yet, my practice has evolved into something so much deeper and more meaningful than just the physical asanas.
One of the many wonderful teachers I have had the pleasure of working with is Twee Merrigan. Twee is a dynamic and focused teacher whose openness and generosity is not only overflowing, but infectious. Her energy is genuine, and she wants her students to be genuine, too. I think this is what I appreciate most about Twee — that she expects you to be no one other than who you are. However, Twee recognizes that sometimes things get out of balance. And, let’s face it: things are often out of balance for various reasons.
Let’s look at education for a minute. (Not forgetting, of course, that this is an education blog, first and foremost!) One of the reasons I began this blog was an effort to balance some inequities I saw that were unaddressed in The System:
the unfairness of some prevalent methods of assessment and grading practices
the treatment of viewing and speaking skills as secondary to reading and writing
the lack of access to technology in schools, or — even worse — the use of abundantly available technology being used to “do” teaching and learning the way we did 15 or even 5 years ago, despite the fact that our world has changed
the lack of student choice in “standard” classrooms, being primarily driven by choices made by curriculum, teachers’ backgrounds, or admin decisions
Twee has recently written about how to, in the words of The Doors, “Break on through to the other side.” She suggests we re-name Global Warming and Economic Crisis to Global Balancing and Economic Re-alignment. Think about this for a minute. This is really what we are trying to do: we are trying to balance everything in the world.
So my question of the moment is this: How do we re-align education?
My initial response is, “I have no idea.” My second response is, “I have a thousand ideas!” And then I get overwhelmed — out of balance again.
Secondary questions, beneath the “How do we re-align education?” umbrella are:
Can we re-align education? or does it have to be completely re-designed — that is, do we have to throw it all away and start all over?
What parts of education need the most alignment attention? Is it the issues of academic vs. creative knowledge, as Ken Robinson emphasizes in Out of Our Minds? Or is it something else?
Thus ends my initial post on how I hope to approach education issues: with the hope of re-aligning and putting things in balance. I don’t profess to have any answers — only more questions. But please feel free to post your own ideas in comments. Or Tweet ’em to me. 🙂
I was reading a recent post on Bridging Differences about assessment, and in particular, testing. I respect Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch greatly, and will take a short minute first to say that if you’re an educator and you don’t follow their epistolary-style blog, you really should. Anyway, the post is about testing and the need for data in schools. Deborah talks about how to address the “data problem” and how teachers can (and should) avoid turning their classrooms into testing settings.
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I always read posts like these with only half-interest, I must admit. Why? Because I am philsophically opposed to standardized testing, particularly as it is used in American schools. Where I am from (Canada), standardized tests are linked directly to curriculum and used in an entirely different manner. I had no idea what US-style standardized tests were about until I moved overseas and began having conversations with my American colleagues. They later took on a whole new meaning for me when I had to write one myself: the GRE was required for applying to my top choice graduate schools. Ugh! I learned very quickly in my preparation that these kinds of standardized tests have nothing whatsoever to do with teaching and learning.
I’ve been lucky, I guess, that I’ve also never had to teach in a school where standardized testing has been emphasized. In Canada, my students wrote mandatory government exams in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 (or 4, 7, and 10, and 12 in B.C.) — but again, these are always connected to the provincial curriculum. And my students wrote the Canadian Achievement Tests in grade 7, but schools never used this to “pin” teachers. In fact, such tests (in my experience) were never about the teachers at all. Schools I taught in used the CAT to help identify students who might need learning support, or a gifted & talented program. And such is the way international schools I have worked in have used standardized tests like the ITBS and the ISA.
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Internationally, I have only ever taught at MYP schools. And this comment, left on the Bridging Differences post I mention above, is one of the reasons why:
To get the kind of reliabillity that a multiple choice test delivers, the kids would have to spend a week to answer all the open-ended response questions, rather than the hour or two that the multiple choice test takes.
The writer of this comment, ceolaf (who leaves no URL with his/her comment), wrote a lengthy explanation as to why we need, whether we like them or not, some kind of standardized test because of the reliability issue. He further states:
The failure of THOSE tests that we hate does not in any way prove the superiority of our assessments. Our assessments have their own flaws.
I have two things to say in response to these two bits:
I beg to differ. And,
This is why I love MYP.
MYP assessment, while certainly not perfect, is doing exactly what the ceolaf’s first comment implies: they are project-based, for the most part, and so they DO have that kind of reliability. Our students are taking a week (if not longer) to “answer” (I prefer the word “respond to”) oodles of open-ended questions. Further, they are criterion-referenced, with specific descriptors for each criterion and each task so that the student knows exactly where s/he fits on the achievement level. And, as if that’s not enough — in MYP, nosingle assessment is an indicator of a student’s achievement! As teachers, we must see multiple pieces of evidence before we can report on a student’s achievement.
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Lest you start thinking, “Wait a minute. So the teachers are doing everything? Doesn’t that make it unreliable?” allow me to go on. In MYP, although teachers are adapting given criteria (set out in each subject guide) to be grade-specific and task-specific, we are not left to our own devices, so to speak, to assess our students randomly or unchecked. About two-thirds of the way through each school year, we send our Grade 10 work (Grade 10 is the last year of MYP, year 5 of MYP) to be moderated by a complete stranger, also an educator, somewhere else in the world. The moderator’s job: to make sure that the assessments we are doing, as teachers, is in-line with the standards set by the IBO world-wide.
Of course, all of what I’ve said above is really the nutshell version. It’s slightly more complicated than what I’ve described here (yes, there is paperwork and there are discussions, and more), but this is the quick-and-dirty explanation that basically emphasizes one of the many reasons I love MYP: We assess for learning, and of learning, and in ways that *are* reliable but don’t rely on tests! And that is completely in-line with my philosophy.
This post is a response to Clay Burell, blogger for Education on Change.org, one of my new favorite online networks. I’ve followed Clay for a long time both on his personal blog, Beyond School, and in his new home. He’s one of the few educators whose ideas truly make me think, and I admire him for his tenacity and his forthright initiatives, which are all too often very difficult to maintaing in this field. This is not the first time Clay and I have disagreed, but it is perhaps the first time we have disagreed so strongly. You might want to read Clay’s original post first, and the comments that follow — a lengthy debate about Bill Gates’ TED talk and Clay’s response to it. Clay’s last comment to me challenged me to find and quote him on the unjustified assertions I accuse him of. Before I go further, please note that I see this as very healthy banter.
Well, maybe it’s gone past banter now…?
Clay, the links you reference to KIPP schools *are* valid. But I thought you were writing this post about Bill Gates and his TED Talk, not KIPP schools. Therefore, many of the references to KIPP don’t really belong in this argument about whether Gates is attacking teachers. Perhaps instead you’d like to write a(nother) post on why KIPP schools don’t work and why people like Gates shouldn’t support them. But your post title references Gate’s TED Talk, of which KIPP is a part, not the whole.
On making connections and jumping to conclusions
There are many places in your post and your comments where you make links between ideas, words, and concepts which simply are not logical or obvious. What follows are examples of your doing this.
“I think what Gates is getting at is firing teachers and dismantling public schools in favor of privatized charters”
The word dismantling means taking them apart, destroying them. Thus, I think it’s reasonable for myself (and others) to have concluded that you were referring to the end of public schools.
“Mosquitos cause pestilence. Let’s drive that point home with massive projections of them – and then release them into the audience.
Then let’s talk about undesireable people that our society can do without.”
And later,
“Let’s close the ‘pestilence’ – ‘teachers’ pattern with the final frame of two more diseases: pneumonia and AIDS.”
Really Random? by Dan Morelle
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Here, and in your video, you make a connection between pestilence and teachers, but Gates doesn’t do that. Gates simply says mosquitos cause malaria. Poor structure on his part, yes, but he’s NOT talking about undesirable people that our society can do without – that’s your unfounded and unsupported conclusion. Nowhere does Gates use the word “pestilence” or anything resembling it.
“Then let’s sell two things: technology that will collect test scores we can use to fire teachers (he doesn’t say this, but that’s why “Some people are threatened by this stuff,” as he so dismissively puts it); and a book on the “great teachers” at KIPP schools (two of which are currently accused of intimidating teachers for moving to unionize).
It’s a push for technology and charter schools.”
Gates is not making a plea here to push the technology for standardized testing. He’s pushing a new model, KIPP, yes. But technology? Huh? He’s saying that some people are threatened by new models and new ways of thinking of education. Your jump to it being “a push for technology and charter schools” is an unreasonable one. (I’ll come back to the charter schools issue in a minute.)
Another instance of you making an assumption and judgment is when Gates says: “the teacher improvement data could not be made available and used in the tenure decision for the teachers. And so that’s sort of working in the opposite direction. But I’m optimistic about this, I think there are some clear things we can do.”
But you translate this as:
“He does liken teachers who resist test-based evaluations to ‘the problem.’ “
No, he does not “liken teachers who resist test-based evaluations to ‘the problem’.” He talks about teacher improvement data – which could, actually be a LOT of different kinds of data, not necessarily test-based – and how it could not be used to decide tenure, and how THAT is a problem. (And, it is a problem.)
“Gates doesn’t have time for those studies, apparently. To him it’s ‘simple.’ We need KIPP schools and no more unions.”
Again, Gates doesn’t mention unions, and he uses KIPP only as an example. Which reminds me, I think we are talking at cross-purposes regarding the “privatization of public education.” To me, privatization means tuition or business ownership. Charter schools are, as far as I know, publicly funded — ie., taxpayers dollars. So what do you mean when you say “privatization of public education”?
One more jump-into-the-inaccurate-accusation lake: when you mention Gates’s
“use of statistics and scientific-looking graphs to justify the scapegoating.”
So the next time any teacher or tech integrationist — or anyone for that matter — uses statistics and graphs to prove a point, and that point happens to be about specific group of people, they are propaganda-ists?
On Emotion and Blogging
I observe the similar juxtaposition between the structure, symbolism, and rhetoric of Gates’ talk and a propaganda film that happens to have been a product of an historical era that causes emotional reactions from people.
That’s just it – I think you’ve made this too emotional. It’s not. It’s a big-name CEO sharing his thoughts about what he thinks needs to be changed about teachers. You are taking it personally, for reasons unbeknowst to your blog audience.
Yes, propaganda relies on emotional appeals – like yours, I’d say. But Gates? I didn’t see any emotional appeals in there. None at all.
Blogging about an intial reaction, finally, is not a problem. That’s what bloggers do. The reaction was justified with the similarities I’ve already repeated ad infinitum.
Perhaps this is what bloggers do when they are simply sharing and not aiming to convince. If you want us to believe you (and Change.org exists, well, for regular people like us to create change), you will provide reasoned and logical responses, not knee-jerk first reactions. So tell me please, what was your purpose in writing this post? Was it simply to express an emotion? or was it to persuade? This is, I think, what Jean was getting at with the reference to the selling. It seems as though you were trying to sell an idea, and doing so in an emotionally charged way (as Jean says) just doesn’t hold water with me. In fact it makes your points, even if they are worth listening to, less credible. My point here: if you want to express emotion and outrage in an initial reaction, go ahead. But perhaps the Change.org venue is not the place. Or, you can title your post differently. Purpose and audience: you know they are the two golden keys to effective writing.
You know, Clay, that I respect you greatly and have keenly followed your work and ideas for some time now. But this post has really rubbed me the wrong way. Even if your points are not valid, the method in which you’ve chosen to present them is inflammatory and rash.
This week, you win the Jump-to-Conclusions Award… which reminds me of a funny scene from one of my favorite movies, Office Space. If you haven’t seen it — a must-see for anyone who has ever worked in a corporate American-style office — watch the clip below. [Warning: this clip has some strong language]
(And yes, I did know Gates was a college, not HS, dropout. Thanks to Carl and Alfred for correcting that. Sorry – I was writing rather quickly.)
Many of you who follow me on Twitter know that besides being an teacher dedicated to MYP and international education in general, I am a yogini. I have been studying yoga for only about 4 years, but in January 2008 I made a choice to get really serious about it (if you’re curious about the story behind that decision, IM me or Tweet me and I will share with you, as it was very much an “a-ha” moment). Since making that decision — only a little more than a year ago — I have learned so much about yoga, meditation, the human body, and myself — all dimensions of myself, including physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. To say that yoga has been transformational for me would be just beginning to describe the journey I’ve been on. It has been, and continues to be, a tremendously rewarding learning experience in the most holistic way imaginable. All aspects of myself are addressed through yoga. And believe me, this was not how I intended it to be. I began to take yoga seriously more or less because I wanted to do something physical and to feel strong. Yet, my practice has evolved into something so much deeper and more meaningful than just the physical asanas.
