3 ways to sabotage learning

Want to sabotage learning? Here are three ways:

1. Judge the learner. Whenever the learner does something, make sure to marinate the learner with judgement which includes both praise and punishment. Because grading can only ever be experienced as a reward and punishment, make sure to grade everything. You need not be worried about balancing praise and punishment -- because they are two sides of the same manipulative coin, they will both equally contribute to stifling the learner.

2. Rush the learner. On the macro level, make the purpose of learning a race to the finish. Convince people that the only reason you go to school is to get a better job than your neighbour in a globally competitive economy. Keep everyone frantically compliant by constantly reminding/threatening them that they might be falling behind. On the micro level, make classroom activities about finishing first. Time everything. In math, be sure to do Mad Minutes! and in all classes be sure to place a great deal of emphasis on due dates and late penalties.

3. Control the learner. Make sure the school schedule is designed with minimal input from the learner. Allow the learner to think they have a say in their leaning by letting them pick a couple optional courses but otherwise be sure to keep their input on what they learn and how they learn to a minimum. Learning should be fractured and compartmentalized so that subjects appear isolated, unrelated and irrelevant. Course outlines and curricula should be published by distant authorities and mailed to the schools. Lesson plans should be standardized by a PLC and laminated.

If, however, you wish to nurture and encourage learning, then consider all this as the anti-model.

Zeroes for students and Suspensions for teachers

Consider these two scenarios and let's see if there's a connection.

Scenario A

Let's pretend I'm a teacher who believes in grading students work and when they don't hand things in on time I deduct marks each day until the assignment is handed in. When kids don't believe that my assignments are a good use of their time or effort, I give them a zero.

I believe I am holding kids accountable and responsible for doing their job. I believe I am upholding high standards.

Scenario B

I am that same teacher who works in a school district where there is a no zero grading policy. Because I don't agree that this policy is a good use of my time and effort, I refuse to follow the district's no zero grading policy and am suspended from teaching.

The school district believes they are holding me accountable and responsible for doing my job. They believe they are upholding high standards.

Conclusion

The threat of a zero is the equivalent to the threat of a suspension. These are instruments of control between the powerful and powerless. Zeroes for students and suspensions for teachers have less to do with learning, accountability and responsibility and more to do with compliance and punishment.

How we feel about zeroes and suspensions all depends on whether we are dispensing or receiving them. The kid getting the zero is likely to feel the same way as the teacher getting the suspension.

This is why I cashed in my reward and punishment tool box a long time ago and found a better way to work with people, regardless of whether they have more or less power than me.

Shit Creek, Paddle Stores and Schools

When government maintains all the authority over teachers via prescriptive curriculums and standardized tests while placing all the responsibility for student achievement squarely on schools and teachers, it feels like this.

Discipline is Distracting

To focus on discipline is to ignore the real problem: We will never be able to get students (or anyone else) to be in good order if, day after day, we try to force them to do what they do not find satisfying.

-William Glasser

Often we express sincere frustration when we can't get someone (who usually has less power than us) to do what we want them to do.

When we catch ourselves or others making this complaint, we need to resist engaging in carrots and sticks -- instead we need to first reflect on the task that we are demanding be done. 

If it is sincerely something that no one would ever want to do willingly, then we shouldn't be surprised that we are met with resistance.

If it is something that we would sincerely wish others to be inherently interested in and authentically engaged with, then we must move away from doing things to people to gain compliance and shift towards working with people in an effort to encourage engagement.

The real problem isn't that you can't get them to do what you want - the real problem is that they don't see why they would want to, and force won't solve this problem; in fact, it will only make things worse. 

Which is why discipline is distracting.

Anger is the enemy of instruction

When I watch this commercial, I see the the mad chef as the corporate reformers who wish to control what goes on in the classroom from outside of the classroom by publicly shaming and manipulating teachers.

Phil Jackson represents the educators whose collective knowledge and experience routinely go unrecognized.

The sad irony is that no high performing country has ever become high performing by pursuing strategies that villainize teachers.

In the context of this commercial, Phil Jackson has nothing to gain from confronting the mad chef, and so he smartly just walks away. For a long time, teachers have put up with what I call "initiativitis" which is an acute condition educators experience when flavour of the month proclamations come from education departments on Mount Olympus. In response to these popcorn initiatives, some of the best teachers have simply retreated to their rooms, closed their doors so they could do what they do best -- teach their children.

Because corporate suits have upped the ante, passive defiance will no longer suffice. All it takes for ignorant policies to prevail is for good teachers to say nothing. If teachers are not willing to stand up and refuse their cooperation in an effort to reclaim their profession, no one else will do it for them.

Not even the Zen Master.

Speaking (and owning) your mind

Have you ever noticed how often people feel the need to explain that the views they express are their own and not necessarily a reflection of their employer?

I've seen some people change jobs and then announce to the world that they can now speak their mind. Have you noticed that it's at this point that the things they say are sometimes for the first time worth listening to?

If you can't speak your mind because of your employer, are you sure your mind is still yours?

Heightened control

Despite what conventional wisdom tells us, heightened control and demands for obedience are the worst responses to defiance.

Where there's no relationship, there's no trust.

Where there's no trust, we resort to manipulation and dictates. Compliance and obedience become the name of the game, and for most kids this spells disaster.

Education deform is dehumanizing

A better rule book with better rule-followers won't make anything better.

A better curriculum with better tests will never make schools better.

Education deform is built around dehumanizing the education system by propping up content-bloated, prefabricated, highly prescribed curriculums that are married to punitive, high stakes standardized tests that are quickly followed by the reinforcements. We are all choking on carrots or sore from sticks - either way, most of us are either too drunk on incentives or scared shitless to stand up and question school deformers.

Those who present a healthy dose of skepticism about what is generally taken on faith as the best way to improve schools (read: prescribed curriculums and standardized tests) are put in their place with the kind of efficiency that would make the likes of Benito Mussolini proud.

I don't have all the answers for authentic education reform, but I do know this: getting all teachers and all students to simply teach and learn the curriculum so that they can achieve high test scores won't improve a damn thing. To think otherwise reminds me of an old saying: "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong." Good teaching and real learning are far too complex for what a silly, over-simplified solution such as standardization can offer.

A teacher who teaches curriculum well with students who test out proficient can no more call themselves teachers and learners than someone who simply follows a trail can call themselves an outdoorsman.

The sooner we can come to this realization the better because our kids can't wait.

Quality Control

The problem with new ideas is that in their infancy the really really innovative and truly different ideas can look no different than the crazy, hair-brained ideas.

In their infancy, all ideas are fragile.

The trick here is two-fold.

Firstly, how do we create an environment where people feel safe to create these new ideas?

And, how do we create an environment where people can differentiate between the truly innovative and the truly stupid ideas?

Ideally we want to be able to competently answer both these questions; however, these two questions are cannibals - they eat away at each other. Uber-imagination and crazy creativity can lead to both innovation and waste-of-time ideas while pragmatism can act as a kind of quality control; however, things go awry when we place too much emphasis on control and not enough on quality. It's a precarious balancing act that can take on a life of its own.

Either way, we need to suspend our disbelief and knee-jerk skepticism (or even apathy) and allow all ideas to at least germinate. We can decide later if we want to support or squash them.

Controlling Teachers

How did you interpret the title of this blog post?

Did you see it as teachers who are controlling or that someone is controlling teachers? or both?

As a teacher, I truly value my autonomy. I am fortunate to not have anyone standing over me saying that I have to do the exact same lessons as someone else. I don't have anyone knocking on my door if my test scores are low, and I don't have someone prescribing for me standardized tests that I must use to measure my students' learning.

Some of this is possible because I teach a grade level that happens to not have a Provincial Achievement Test at the end of the year, but some of my autonomy is becoming endangered. There is currently a movement in my district where common exams are being enforced.

If I appreciate my autonomy, don't I have to appreciate the importance of students' autonomy? But how many teachers prove to be hypocrits on this issue? How many teachers demand their own autonomy and expect to be trusted to do their job well, but turn around and teach in a controlling way that provides students with little to no autonomy. I'm talking about sitting in desks that are in rows, facing the front while reading the textbook and completing teacher dictated assignments. I'm talking about curriculums that provide teachers and students with little to no time to learn about things of their choosing and force students to show their learning on tests that they had no input on producing.

Controlling will gain compliance while autonomy will produce engagement. Teachers and students alike need autonomy to learn.