The power of mutual knowledge

I understand why many teachers feel the need to shut their classroom doors and teach as if they were on an island. For some of these teachers, they do this out of necessity. It's sadly ironic that in order for some teachers to be innovative and creative, they need to isolate themselves from the shackles of the system's unreasonable standards and accountability regimes.

These teachers engage in a kind of professional subversion.

These teachers become what Barry Schwartz calls system dodgers.

While system dodging can be fueled with good intentions, it simply is not sustainable; educators need to move from being mere system dodgers, who the system is glad to pick off one at a time in isolation, and graduate to being system changers.

However, if educators ever wish to move beyond having to bend the system's rules in order to do right by kids, we need to assemble in the metaphorical public square where everyone will see everyone else. Once educators assemble where everyone can see everyone else, everyone knows that everyone else knows that everyone else knows that the hyper-prescribed, content-bloated curriculums and high stakes test and punish testing bureaucracies are loathed.

It is through this mutual knowledge that educators will gain the collective power to challenge the idea that those outside of the classroom have more control over those who are inside the classroom.

Collaboration Agent

Collaboration is a very important skill to have. If you are a teacher or parent, you know how cumbersome group projects can be. Sometimes the project itself is the least of our concerns.

But is it possible to collaborate too much?

I took some class time to show my students these videos on Stanley Milgrim's Shock-Obedience Experiments. My students were fascinated and disturbed, as I was, by the results of this social experiment. I also plan on using this with my staff as a professional development activity.

Take a look. This might be your next lesson plan.

If you can see why we should teach children to be mindful of the consequences of their actions, then you have to see why teachers too must be mindful of their own actions.
When I relate this to education, I see teachers taking orders from all kinds of authority figures (politicians, superintendents, principals) as if the teacher was simply an agent of the state.

After all, they are just following orders.

After administrating a standardized test, the follow-up interview with a compliant teacher might go something like this:

Q: It looks like you were under some stress?

A: I found it quite stressful. Yeah I did.

Q: But you went on.

A: I did. Yeah. Because my principal said that these tests wouldn't damage the kids long term. So...

Q: So if by chance these tests do hurt the kids, whose responsibility would that have been?

A: Well, in the eye's of the Lord it would be my fault. Morally, it would be my fault. And I could argue that I was following procedure layed out by my government, superintendent or principal. Perhaps I could blame them. But in reality it would be me prepping and administring the test.

Q: And even with the burden of the knowledge, that morally you are responsible - you went on?

A: Hmm. I'm not entirely pleased about that, but I did. Yeah.

Q: How do you interpret the kid's reactions to these tests seeing that the bulk of a student's intelligence evades the clutches of these kinds of tests?

A: I didn't... I don't know... I didn't actually actually think about it - maybe I probably should have - but I didn't think about it that much. So... my job was to teach the curriculum and prepare them for the test. So...

And the interview with a non-compliant teacher might go like this:

Q: You were involved in an important exercise in educational accountability and the principal told you to go prep and administer the test. Why did you disobey?

A: It sounded a little bit like the Nazis in the Second World War Germany. It wasn't my fault - it wasn't me, I was told to do it.

Q: The majority of teachers go along with this testing - they prep their kids and administer the test.

A: I find that scary. I find that very scary.

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I get that there are strong external pressures on teachers to comply.

I get that there is a "real world" out there that teachers must face. The stakes are high for all of us to comply.

Evidently, we can convince ourselves, in certain circumstances, that these harmful assessment practices are absolutely justified. When I started to look into assessment, I thought of bad assessment practices as something bad teachers- other teachers - did.

And now I see for the first time that this apathetic compliance is not some malevalent force out there. It's very much in us.

In you.

In me.

In everyone of us.

If we aren't prepared to think for ourselves and stand for something - to move for something - then we will reconcile ourselves to the perpetual status quo, spending our time getting children to accomodate themselves to playing the game. We educate them in the elaborate tricks and subtle nuances of maneuvering through the game.

And if we do this...

Nothing will change.

The recipe for all this is simple - all we need is for good people to say nothing.

At some point, your silence is betrayal.

But here's the good news. If you asked any of the test-subjects from the videos above to participate in Milgrim's shock experiments again, they would likely not mindlessly comply.

Their conscious reflection would enable them to replace their mindless compliance with mindful subversion.

Now it's your turn...

The problem with infinity

In his book The Dip, Seth Godin writes, "the problem with infinity is that there's too much of it." He ends up talking mostly about business and markets, but his point is not lost on education.

The trouble with focusing on content as the primary role of education is that there is an infinite amount of stuff to know.

If teachers are suppose to the be sage on the stage, they might never have time to get off the stage.

If teachers are suppose to be the jugs and the kids are the mugs, the teachers might never notice that their jugs are bottomless and the kids' mugs are already overflowing.

If teachers are to chalk and talk, they may only stop talking because they are waiting for their turn to talk again.

Rigorous and rigid curriculums that are bloated with content is used to rationalize all kinds of horrible pedagogy such as horrendous loads of homework to sit-and-get-regurgitate-and-forget lessons. We cover curriculum at break-neck lightning speeds so that we can say that we covered while we really have no idea whether we've uncovered anything for the kids.

I'm not saying content isn't important, but for the most part, school gets curriculum wrong. You can't demand teachers to dispense an infinite amount of material and then hold them accountable for reducing it all to a finite score.

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson offer this perspective on planning in their book Rework:

Why don't we just call plans what they really are: guesses. Start referring to your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial guesses, and your strategic plans as strategic guesses. Now y ou can stop worrying abou them as much. They just aren't worth the stress.


When you turn guesses into plans, you enter a danger zone. Plans let the past drive the future. They put blinders on you. "This is where we're going because, well, that's where we said we were going." And that's the problem: plans are inconsistent with improvization.


And  you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up opportunities that come along. Sometimes you need to say, "We're going in a new direction because that's what makes sense today."


The timing of long-range plans is screwed up too. You have the most information when you're doing something, not before you've done it. Yet when do you write a plan? Usually it's before you've even begun. That's the worst time to make a big decision.


Now this isn't to say you shouldn't think about the future or contemplate how you might attack upcoming obstacles. That's a worthwhile exercise. Just don't feel you to write it down or obsess about it. If you write a big plan, you'll most likely never look at it anyway. Plans more than a few pages long just wind up as fossils in your file cabinet.


Give up on the guesswork. Decide what you're going to do this week, not this year. Figure out the next most important thing and do that. Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance.


It's OK to wing it. Just get on the plane and go. You can pick up a nicer shirt, shaving cream, and a toothbrush once you get there.


Working without a plan may seem scary. But blindly following a plan that has no relationship with reality is even scarier.

On the record, teachers are bullied into saying that they teach every single outcome that their state or province dictates. Afterall, if they admitted otherwise, they run the risk of being tossed out on their ear. But off the record, over an ice-cold beer, teachers will likely say that they don't get to everything because they just can't. There is too much.

And yet, there are some teachers who will stand stead-fast and recite their allegiance to their curriculums. To these teachers I say, wouldn't you like a little more autonomy? To be trusted a little bit more? A little more time and opportunity to explore the things you and your students would like to explore? In the end, all I am advocating for is more trust and autonomy for teachers.

This is why the very best teachers spend everyday of their lives subverting or ignoring curriculum. And they do so because it is in the best interests of their students.

Subversion as an act of professionalism

Have you ever been subversive in your line of work?

I'm pretty sure most people would agree that subversive activities would not be overly welcome in any institution.

But what if an organization had some policy or rule that simply didn't allow you to always to the right thing? When does it mean that being a professional means being subversive?

I was reading Pollinate Asheville blog that gave this anecdote:

The mirror in a middle school girls’ restroom is rusted to the point that one can not see her reflection. The Principal recognizes that not being able to primp properly before class is making girls tardy to class and affecting their learning. She asks the janitorial staff to replace the mirror. The district has a policy that mirrors are not replaced unless they are broken. The Principal calls the district to confirm, and promptly breaks the mirror with a hammer in order to solve this problem.

I can readily admit that we need rules and we need policies, but how often do professionals become slaves to those rules and policies?

I'm not sure I can imagine a policy or rule that has ever been created, that if followed to the letter, would always promise the most ethical and moral choice.

'Do no harm' is not a bad moral compass to follow, but 'Do good' may take us to an even more professional destination - and to do so, you might have to subscribe to a form of artistic insubordination.

Sometimes the letter of the law simply can not properly represent its own spirit.