Is school like work?

Some people suggest that school is like work and grades are like earning money.

Let's pause to take a moment to examine whether this is true.

I have two questions:

1. What do workers do at work?

2. What do students do at school?

I bet most answers look like this:

1. Work

2. Learn

You'll notice that these two questions have two distinctly different answers. This isn't just semantics. Work and school are very different places because working and learning are two very different goals.

Here's why:

At work, the product is the point.

At school, the process is the point.

The purpose of school is not simply to replicate the real world. If it was, we wouldn't need school at all. Instead we could just send our children out into the real world and work. The government could replace the department of education with the department of child labour.

Sounds pretty stupid when we put it that way, doesn't it? This is precisely why saying school should simply be like the "real world" (as if that is a fixed and predictable place) is often developmentally inappropriate.

Children don't go to school to work -- they go to school to learn.

Alfie Kohn writes in his article Students Don't "Work" -- They Learn:

To get a sense of whether students view themselves as workers or as learners, we need only ask them (during class) what they are doing. "I'm doing my work" is one possible response; "I'm trying to figure out why the character in this story told her friend to go away" is something else altogether. Better yet, we might ask students why they are doing something, and then attend to the difference between "Because Ms. Taylor told us to" or "It's going to be on the test," on the one hand, and "Because I just don't get why this character would say that!" on the other. 

Another way to judge the orientation of a classroom is to watch for the teacher's reaction to mistakes. Someone who manages students' work is likely to strive for zero defects: perfect papers and assignments that receive the maximum number of points. Someone who facilitates students' learning welcomes mistakes - first, because they are invaluable clues as to how the student is thinking, and second, because to do so creates a climate of safety that ultimately promotes more successful learning. 

Moreover, a learning-oriented classroom is more likely to be characterized by the thoughtful exploration of complicated issues than by a curriculum based on memorizing right answers. As Hermine Marshall has observed, for students to see themselves as learning, "the tasks provided must be those that require higher-order thinking skills." 

Does a rejection of the models, methods, and metaphors of work mean that school should be about play? In a word, no. False dichotomies are popular because they make choosing easy, and the "work vs. play" polarity is a case in point. Learning is a third alternative, where the primary purpose is neither play-like enjoyment (although the process can be deeply satisfying) nor the work-like completion of error-free products (although the process can involve intense effort and concentration). 

To question the work metaphor is not to abandon challenge or excellence. Rather, it is to insist that work is not the only activity characterized by those features - and play, for that matter, is not the only activity that can be experienced as pleasurable.

The first commenter on this post made an important point about how we do want school to be like the real world without falling victim to the job-place metaphor:

When I say I want learning to be like the real world, I simply mean that I want it to be genuine. I want kids to be out in nature learning about science. I want kids to touch, feel, and engage with the world around them. I want them to talk to adults that are doing good, helping others, or creating art. I want questions asked of these adults. I want museums to be explored. Civil war battlefields to be walked. Engineers to take a few moments to show kids their actual work- their actual plans and processes. I want kids to have the opportunity to learn like you and I do- I flow from one curiosity to the next. 

Or, we can sit 30 kids down at a desk and show them pictures of the world. "Look Billy, this is a picture of a tree. Yes there are real ones right outside this room, but we don't have time for that- study the picture." We can continue to let them read snapshots of careers. Give them math problems that have no relevance to anything they can think of. We have to change- not like child labor and not like learning is a job- we have to get the adults out of the way and let the kids learn- with the adults on the side guiding.

Funds spent on teachers good for real learning

Jonathan Teghtmeyer

This was written by Jonathan Teghtmeyer who is with the Alberta Teachers` Association.This post first appeared on the Alberta Teachers` Association website. 

A troubling narrative is emerging from school boards. According to some superintendents and school board trustees, 80 per cent of education spending goes to employee costs—salary, wages and benefits. The subtext of this narrative is that employee costs are out of control, they have increased over the years and if only we can control employee costs then more money can be directed toward students.

Not only is this narrative damaging to the teaching profession and others in the education sector, but the figure on which it’s based is inaccurate.

According to Alberta Education’s 2010/11 audited financial statements, $4.5 billion was spent on salaries, wages and employee benefits against total expenses of $6.7 billion. In other words, 67 per cent of funds was spent on people.

Other ways of calculation might increase that figure, but none drives it up to 80 per cent. If you look at the expenses of school boards, they spent $4.4 billion on employee costs out of a budget of $5.9 billion—a ratio of 74 per cent. Digging deeper, we find that school boards spent $3.2 billion of $5.9 billion on salaries and benefits for certificated staff—showing that teacher costs are only 54 per cent of school board expenses.

A few people have stated that not only are employment costs rising, but that 10 years ago costs were 20 per cent less. Actually, the proportion of board expenses related to employees has remained largely stable over time.

This troubling narrative implies that the portion of the budget not spent on salaries is what makes a difference in the level of education that students receive, thus suggesting that money spent on employees doesn’t make a difference for students. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Money spent on employees puts teachers in classrooms and funds teaching assistants who work with students with special needs. It pays for librarians, counsellors and support staff, who ensure that schools operate smoothly and meet the needs of our students. It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, that employee costs are significant. Education is a service industry delivered by educated professionals and qualified support staff. The best investment for students comes by adding to the employee cost side of the budget.

While some of the remaining 20 per cent is spent on textbooks or technology, it’s also spent on transportation, energy costs, provincial testing, governance and system administration. But surrounding students with tools (pencils, paper, textbooks and computers) doesn’t guarantee meaningful learning. It is the adults in the school who spark the fuse of learning and ensure that inanimate tools become instruments for discovery. The role of the teacher as catalyst is critical to learning.

More than anything, in a world of infinite information from a ­multitude of sources, the skills to search, sort, filter, adjudicate and analyze information become paramount. While students may be able to access information without the direct instruction of teachers, they will require more guidance, supervision and mentorship than ever before. Teachers will be required to plan curriculum objectives, guide students by implementing learning strategies, assist with the synthesis of information and evaluate the learning outcomes. As these activities become more personalized, students will require more one-on-one time with teachers, which is money well spent. And that is good for education.

I welcome your comments—contact me at jonathan.teghtmeyer@ata.ab.ca.

Pay people fair and well

As a teacher who believes students should experience their successes and failures not as reward and punishment but as information, and like Nick Jaworski's post from yesterday, I am often faced with the following challenge:

Don't we all work for pay? How many adults would continue with their jobs if they didn't get paid? Rewards work!

Comparing the use of rewards and bribes such as gold stars, grades and praise to salaries and wages is to confuse rewards with compensation. We all understand that money is necessary in order to live life - but that doesn't make it sufficient.

Most people understand that money can't buy us happiness, and I think most of us understand that those who spend their lives obsessively chasing money at the cost of their families and friends will find that their is never enough money to fill the void.

When people are asked what is the most important characteristics of their own job, money is consistently listed below things like purpose, autonomy, support and progress. And yet when we are asked what we think others' priorities are we place money at the top.

It's likely because of this paradox that most people have a hard time understanding what Frederick Herzberg meant when he said:

Just because paying people inadequately can be demotivating doesn't imply that paying people better will be motivating.

While it's true that people need to be paid that is not the same as saying we can or should use pay as the carrot and/or stick to manipulate those who work for or with us. In fact there is a boat load of research that confirms Alfie Kohn's take on how money should and should not be used with people:

The problem isn't with the dollars themselves, but with using dollars to get people to jump through hoops.

Thus, my formula for how to pay people distills the best theory, research, and practice with which I am familiar into three short sentences: 

* Pay people well.

* Pay people fairly.

* Then do everything possible to take money off people's minds.

Money matters but so does motivation, and anyone who is primarily motivated by money is not welcome to educate my children - and I have a feeling you might feel the same way.

I mean, if you were an administrator and you had two teachers - all things being equal - one was motivated by the pay and holidays while the other was motivated by working with children...who would you hire?

In the end if we want children to be motivated to learn or employees to do good work, we would all do well to listen again to Frederick Herzberg:

If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do.