“His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem…Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.” ~ Luke 2:41-47
The presentations at the Education Innovation Summit left me with little hope about the future. Our panel discussion that followed, however, did provide a glimmer of opportunity.
At the very least, it created a buzz similar to the boy Jesus at the temple (again, forgive the Biblical references…I’m on a roll).
The panel discussion that followed the presentations would be in the Palo Verde Room, a space slightly smaller than my classroom with lower ceilings and worse light. Even worse, the chairs were arranged in the typical convention manner: rows of tightly-packed catering seats facing a speaker of nominal importance.
To make it a true discussion, the seats were arranged in concentric circles, with my colleagues and I occupying most of the center and the conventioneers taking up space in the periphery. Even as the minutes started to tick toward our start time, I–and most of us, for that matter–weren’t even sure if we could fill the room.
To everyone’s surprise, the room filled rather quickly. Seat after seat was occupied, leaving many of the attendees to huddle around the perimeter wall. Within minutes of the presentation’s beginning, the crowd was so large outside the room that a microphone was needed to broadcast what we were saying.
Believe me, we said a mouthful.
The panel was moderated by Michael Horn, founder of the Innosight Institute and an author on digital learning. It featured the LearnZillion teachers answering questions about education technology, the new start-ups we saw, and the road ahead for education. Horn is best known for his book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation will Change the way the World Learns, so his role seemed very apropos to manage a group of educators not happy with things as they are.
I’m not going to critique the comments from my colleagues; it would be unfair, and their thoughts were as varied and as valuable as the people themselves. One (my friend who loved Bloomboard) who’s very tech-savvy and extremely enthusiastic, hit on the need for a more harmonious development of ed-tech products, using tech buzzwords like “convergence” and whatnot. Another brought home the need for a more active role for teachers in the product development process—a tenet LearnZillion stakes its reputation on. Others stressed the need for more content instruction (science and social studies), less reliance on numerical data, standardized testing, and the need to reach all learners.
I was one of a handful of teachers that spoke multiple times—and among the most biting and vicious, at least in my opinion. Here’s some highlights of what I said:
The “Kid-Friendly” problem – This was really pointed both at ed-tech developers and some of my colleagues who raved about certain programs that provide “kid-friendly” graphics and animation to assist in learning. Now, most readers of this blog know my thoughts on terms like “kid-friendly” (hint: it has to do with waste products). It’s a buzzword that too often is used to dumb content down. Furthermore, it misreads the student population: my kids have grown past most “kid-friendly” content and want real, rigorous, often controversial material to read and analyze. Developers should not be afraid to let children explore the world in a real, meaningful, grown-up way—they’re more ready than you think.
The “Teaching Experience” problem – In an effort to achieve much-needed credibility from both investors and the education community, many of the ed-tech companies tout their collective experience in education. Their PowerPoint slides show various numbers of years experience on the team “20+ years K-12 experience,” “Over a decade of experience.” What that actually means is a mystery, and I made it abundantly clear to them: “We’re not fooled…when your pitch says ’20 years experience’, that could mean one teacher with 20 years experience or 10 TFA nitwits with 2 years in who all jumped into the corporate sector. Not all experience is the same.”
The Content Knowledge problem – Here I’m harping the Core Knowledge line, but it’s a good one nonetheless: the achievement gap goes hand in hand with the knowledge gap. Without content knowledge, students cannot translate their newfound language and math skills into results. The new Common Core based tests are heavy in content, so for those of you who pushed aside science and social studies all these years in order to put in more ELA and math time: who’s sorry now?
Even if the content is difficult (and it usually is, in my class anyway), the key to reaching all students is not changing the content, but the approach to the content. Break up large documents into smaller texts. Differentiate activities on a text based on ability and readiness. Don’t dumb down history and science: make history and science accessible to all your students.
The Teacher Involvement problem – I didn’t introduce this topic, but I did add to my colleague’s discussion of teacher involvement. Too many products in the education universe have little if no input from teachers in their design and implementation. It still amazes me that an education technology conference like that one never involved teachers at all until now. Shouldn’t an end user play a meaningful role in product development, as they are the ones that need to use it for their students?
This is the reason I pinned my star on LearnZillion. If Eric and Alix (the co-founders) simply cranked out video lessons and sold them to school districts to be shoved down teachers’ throats, I wouldn’t have given them a minute of my time. Yet they didn’t, to their infinite credit. Their model is, admittingly, more complex, more labor intensive and I would guess more costly. Yet hiring real veteran teachers as product developers makes sense in ed-tech: end users as developers virtually guarantee a product that is professional, high-quality, necessary and useful. If other companies really care about their products’ effects on education, then their development requires at least a partial bottom-up approach. Teachers have to be part of the development process, period.
One audience member asked what they can do to help define the Common Core. I answered that she was asking the wrong question. The real question is “How can we turn your ideas about the Common Core into tangible products for the classroom?”
The Teacher Evaluation/Data Collection problem—I really hope Bloomboard boy was in the audience to hear this…I saved my most venomous comments for this part. Someone had mentioned a trend in the corporate pitches towards different products for data collection. It was as a follow-up that I shared my thoughts on the Bloomboard presentation with the audience and thus my central point: if these collection and evaluation systems are meant to provide meaningful feedback to teachers, then the systems must be more than a dump of numbers. A number in a category on a spreadsheet like a box score does not define my practice. Observational, qualitative feedback does. Data-based systems simply give administrators a number to (a) give to higher administrators, and (b) fire “bad” teachers. Any ambulance-chaser of a lawyer can fight these evaluations easily.
On this not, one particular colleague of mine said the quote of the conference, and I want to honor him personally. Cory Howard is a math teacher from Indiana who seems, at first, like a typical shit-kicking hick. He fools a lot of folks with that drawl.
He’s far from a typical country boy: getting to know Cory, he’s among the most honest, down-to-Earth, and among the most prescient thinkers I’ve ever met. When asked about evaluations and the use of data, he brought the house down with the following (and I’m paraphrasing):
“You can measure a pig all you want…but it won’t make it grow any faster.”
Apparently, our panel was the hit of the conference that day. Twitter feeds were ablaze as the crowd outside our room grew and grew. Horn mentioned to me that it was the easiest moderating job of all, simply passing a mike to each of us who had loads to say. The room didn’t empty right away as audience members lingered to speak with us.
This was a good sign…or a bad sign.
Now that I’m in my classroom, reflecting on the weekend, I take stock in that the discussions and feedback we gave could be a huge step in changing the way education technology is created. If the moneyfolks and the entrepreneurs really took our advice seriously, it could create a shift in process and focus that could finally combat the glut of inferior education products that serve little purpose to classrooms and students.
On the other hand, they could be simply paying us lip service and continuing with business as usual once we left. After all, despite all the posturing and proclamations of doing it “for the children,” it’s doubtful that a class of struggling students in the South Bronx is getting a profit share in the IPO. No student in Harlem, Detroit, south side of Chicago, southeast DC or south-central Los Angeles is securing seed money for expansion of these folks.
This is, after all, about making a buck.
My only worry is that the chase for the almighty dollar overshadows the need to educate our children.
Mr. D's Neighborhood 
Can We Keep it This Simple?: A Response to Amy Weisberg’s Huffington Post Article on Education
Recently, a 32-year veteran teacher, Amy Weisberg, wrote an article for the Huffington Post outlining five necessary steps for improving education in this country. She never claims that the solution is simple, and rightfully so. Furthermore, her claims are based on her long experience as an educator, watching the ups and downs of the fads in educational theory.
Lastly, she points the finger of blame squarely at the so-called “experts” outside of the field of education, as she begins her article:
That a blueprint for solving our education problems would come from a veteran teacher makes all the sense in the world. Yet as she explains her necessary 5 steps for improvement, you can just sense that each one seems a little too easy:
This is really two solutions, not one: funding early education and limiting class size. Early education funding has had an extraordinarily rocky history in this country: starting with Head Start in the 1970s, controversy has raged about the funding, curriculum, scope and accountability of early childhood programs. Pumping money is one thing: establishing the right atmosphere that allows a young child to thrive in the school environment is another matter—one that isn’t so easy to solve.
Class size is one issue where I echo Ms. Weisberg’s concerns. This year, I taught close to 90 kids, three sections of at least 30 kids a pop. To be honest, some kids fell through the cracks, not because I was mean or malicious, but because I had so many kids to keep track of I had to prioritize between those who really needed a lot of help and those who needed less. It’s a tough balancing act with ONE classroom, let alone three.
This really is beating a dead horse. Yes, teachers are underpaid. Yes, teachers should be compensated for the education and training we receive and utilize. Yes, teachers should be treated like professionals.
However, this can only happen if the teaching profession treats ITSELF like a professional. Today, education is prone to self-abuse; the land of broken toys for those who can’t hack it in the real world. This is the common myth because teaching treats it that way—if anyone can be a teacher, with lax rules of admission and lack of rigor in instruction, then it is NOT a professional career choice. Professions develop by weeding out the chaff at the VERY BEGINNING.
This can only be done through massive reforms at the university level, propelled by government guidance. How many education schools in this country are willing to change their diploma mill status—and take the requisite revenue cut—to make teaching a truly professional calling? You tell me.
In the areas that are struggling the most, this is absolutely important. Many parents are barely kids themselves, and struggle raising children not out of any malice, but out of sheer ignorance. They never learned about real parenting, sometimes never had real parents as role models, so they do the best they can with the knowledge that they have. To bridge this gap is essential to keeping a home life that supports school.
However, the role of the parent as educational partner with the teacher is often ill-defined. In today’s universe, it has come to mean that parents have final say in everything, no questions asked. If teachers are to be professionals, they must be treated as masters, absolute experts whose advice may be ignored, but should be questioned openly. If # 2 is implemented and teacher training made more professional, then the parent-teacher partnership can be most effective.
Both parents and teachers require a little more professionalism, in that sense.
A permanent fund for education? Wow. Now were you thinking one national fund or 50 separate funds for each state plus one for DC? Where would the revenue come from? Property taxes, as they are now in many states? Payroll taxes? Direct government expenditures? Oil money? Gold bricks from Fort Knox?
The funding issue is NEVER as simple as it sounds. The tie between schools and property taxes, in particular, is problematic. To give an example, certain districts in Rockland County, NY are populated by Hasidic Jews who send their children to private religious schools. The public schools are populated by Hispanic, black, Asian and some white families. However, the school boards are often packed with Hasidic residents with little or no stake in the public school system, and they are determining education spending.
These situations where spending is misaligned and mismanaged need to be addressed. Permanent funds, for the immediate future, seem like a pipe dream.
See all of the above, particularly numbers 2 and 4.
I don’t want to belittle Ms. Weisberg: after her many years as an educator, her recommendations, on the surface, should be Gospel by now. The sad fact is that they are not, and they aren’t because the microscope shows the complex and often nasty realities that need to be addressed that have no clear solution.
It shows school districts packed with children from broken homes, teen parents and families hovering the poverty line.
It shows diploma mills where teachers are cranked out regardless of intelligence or ability, along with alternative programs that throw idealistic young people to the lions of high-needs educational reality.
It shows parents that are confused, frustrated, underinformed, overinformed, brow-beaten, and talked down to when they should be seen at eye level.
It shows teachers that are treated the same way, if not worse.
It shows an incredibly misaligned funding scheme where property taxes are tied to education, even if the property owners have little if any stake in the public education process.
It shows issues of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, socioeconomic class, and political affiliation.
Can these issues and others be addressed using these five points? Ms. Weisberg seems to think so in her closing, where she states that governments must “own these suggestions and form working committees to dedicate time and energy to developing a funding method that begins with our youngest students, limits class size, educates parents, compensates educators, and provides the support needed for all students including those with special needs.”
I really wish it were that simple.
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