Jeb Bush and Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)

Will Richardson shared this video and called it required viewing for every parent and educator who wants a better picture of the global education reform movement (GERM), and I agree.



If I can find the time, effort and patience, I really want to go through this video and offer some line by line critique.

Mike Thayer left this comment on Will Richardson's post. I think it speaks volumes:

The bottom line to me is, this is a talk about tactics; the fundamental strategy of the new educational reform movement is left unsaid.

According to Gov. Bush, the tactics for the new reformers are pretty simple. Tactically, the strategic goals will be achieved if the "reformers" are able to: 

1) Create the perception that "higher, better" standards will help solve the problems of education.
2) Create the perception that (public, only public) schools are failing.
3) Create the perception that there just need to be great teachers in every classroom, and all will be well.
4) Create the perception that technology will be the panacea. 

Here's the great part: For no particularly good reason, I actually believe that Gov. Bush believes each of these (that is, remove the words "create the perception" from each of the items above). And he has the conviction of the true believer. Anyway... 

The strategic goals are, as far as I can tell: 

1) To privatize education completely, or at least to corporatize it to the point that the contrast between public vs. private/charter/whatever schools would be a distinction without a difference.
2) To treat education as a field that could become a source of major profits for large corporations.
3) To make students who view knowledge as purely pragmatic, rather than providing them with means to be more critical or holistic thinkers. Having future consumers with a very simplified view of the world is good for business.
4) Etc. 

I think if we care about the ideal of truly public education, we need to develop strategies and tactics of our own. We are way behind the other side on this one, in my view.

I would also add Alfie Kohn's article Beware of School "Reformers" as required reading. With chilling accuracy, Kohn identifies the ingredients to be a school "reformer":

* a heavy reliance on fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests to evaluate students and schools, generally in place of more authentic forms of assessment; 

* the imposition of prescriptive, top-down teaching standards and curriculum mandates; 

* a disproportionate emphasis on rote learning—memorizing facts and practicing skills—particularly for poor kids; 

* a behaviorist model of motivation in which rewards (notably money) and punishments are used on teachers and students to compel compliance or raise test scores; 

* a corporate sensibility and an economic rationale for schooling, the point being to prepare children to “compete” as future employees; and 

* charter schools, many of which are run by for-profit companies.

Digital Native myth

The idea that children are digital natives is at best inaccurate and at worst a lie.

It's weird how the glitz and glamour of technology can hypnotize even the sharpest people into believing silly ideas. If someone came out and tried to sell the idea that some children are literacy natives, we would scoff at them because we know that the ability to read and write, like all learning, is constructed from the inside out while interacting with our environment.

And yet, as soon as we start talking about smart phones, tablets, texting and other technologies, we get bamboozled into thinking that digital natives exist.

Children who have access to technology and are encouraged to use it in a playful and informal manner grow up to be adults who feel comfortable and competent around technology.

Children who have little to no access to technology and are discouraged from using it (usually out of fear and ignorance on behalf of the adults) grow up to be adults who feel uncomfortable and incompetent around technology.

All this has nothing to do with their DNA and everything to do with opportunity and affluence.

Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems

I spent the day learning about Ross Greene's approach for working with children. We talked a lot about how children will be successful when they can and it is our job to first identify the lagging skills and unsolved problems that are causing difficulty. 

One of the tools Ross Greene's approach uses is the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems. Using this tool, I wrote a sample case formulation or what could be an Individual Program Plan based on Ross Greene's approach.

Sample Case Formulation

or

Individual Program Plan

A summary of some key lagging skills, perhaps those that are contributing to challenging behaviour most often or maybe those on which caregivers can most easily agree:

Nolan has difficulty managing his emotions in response to frustration so as to think rationally... isn't very good at appreciating how his behaviour is affecting others and recognizing how he's coming across... and difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person's perspective or point of view.

Emphasize that these lagging skills are especially problematic in the conditions (unsolved problems) in which they are demanded by the environment. Specify some of these conditions:

Nolan tends to run into difficulty when these lagging skills are demanded. So he has a lot of trouble shifting from computer time during language arts to putting the computer away and going to physical education. It's very hard for him to learn cooperatively with his classmates... he often has difficulty compromising on ideas with others without pushing his ideas on others and getting very frustrated. And then he can't figure out why others are mad at him. When playing floor hockey, Nolan has difficulty negotiating the interpretation of the rules with his peers such as offsides, goals and high sticking. Has difficulty coping and forgiving others for wronging or hurting him by accident without getting very angry.

Underscore that challenging behaviours occur in response to these unsolved problems, that the manner in which the adults are presently going about trying to solve them is making things worse and solving no problems durably, and that the unsolved problems are highly predictable:

These unsolved problems cause Nolan to become quite frustrated, and that's when he is likely to exhibit challenging behaviours, like crying, hitting, isolating himself from others and swearing. When we remind Nolan of how we expect him to act - or reprimand or punish him for not meeting those expectations - it only makes things worse... and doesn't help Nolan solve any of the problems over which he's becoming upset. Fortunately, since his unsolved problems are highly predictable, we don't need to try solving them in the heat of the moment.

Check to ensure that there is a consensus and that the case formulation (or Individual Program Plan) accurately summarizes the deliberations of the group:

Does this sound like a good summary of what we've been saying about Nolan?

Point out that the goal of intervention is to solve these problems collaboratively so they no longer precipitate challenging behaviour and so that lagging skills are taught, at least indirectly:

Our goal is to begin solving some of these problems with Nolan's help, so that he's involved in helping us understand what's getting in the way for him and he's also involved in coming up with solutions that will work for him and for us. Once the problems are solved, they won't set in motion challenging behaviour any more. And if we solve the problems collaboratively, then Nolan will start to learn some of the skills he's lacking.

***

I see all this as an important shift in mindset. It is so tempting to focus on a child's behaviour and to theorize, hypothesize and develop stories around why those behaviours are occurring, but none of this is helpful in supporting the child develop the skills they need to better navigate their day. Instead, we are far better off using our limited time, effort and resources to identify the skills children lag along with the situations and unsolved problems that are demanding these lagging skills.

Once we identify the lagging skills and unsolved problems, we jump into Ross Greene's approach for working with children.

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.

Mental Health Day is inconvenient

Imagine this: you are a grade 12 student who is at the tail end of English and Chemistry 30 that travels through too much curriculum at break-neck speeds with a Diploma exam that is worth half of your entire course's credit. And then imagine having intrusive thoughts where you can't stop thinking about killing yourself, you can't sleep and your anxiety is so high that you have a hard time going out in public.

Imagine this: you are a grade 10 girl who is fixated on chasing perfection which translates into an acute fear of failure. In order to attain your goal of 90 lbs., you starve yourself by only smelling food, imagining the calories entering your body through your nose. And when you do eat, you lock yourself in the bathroom, making yourself throw up followed quickly with 500 sit ups. You cut your arms from bicep to wrists with your dad's razor blade because its the only time you can really feel something. You can see the value in others but can't see why anyone would waste their time caring for you because deep down you know that you are a piece of shit that doesn't deserve to live.

Imagine this: you are a grade 3 boy who has been placed in isolation at school for weeks on end because the adults see you as a threat to yourself and others. You've been told over and over again how bad you are and you are starting to believe it. Relationships are built on coercion and manipulation. Rewards and punishments, threats and bribes are the default. Every interaction with adults is a power struggle where you engage in a cost-benefit analysis. When someone asks you to do something, you ask "what will I get if I do?" and when they threaten you, you ask "what will happen to me if I don't?"

Imagine this: your foster parents go on vacation and while they are gone, they inform your social worker that they have decided not to have you in their home anymore. You bounce from foster home to foster home where strangers who call themselves "family" enter and exit your life faster than a fiddler's elbow. You grow bitter and angry. To salvage your dignity, you isolate yourself from others and focus entirely on ensuring your own needs are being met through control and aggression. To test the conditional nature of these strangers, you look for ways to test their caring by refusing even their most reasonable requests, and you fully expect everyone to fail. Over time, you fail to receive appropriate care and come to believe that deep down this all makes sense -- trust is a swear word, relationships are hurtful and life is by definition hateful. Fuck everyone. Fuck everything.

As a teacher on a children's inpatient psychiatric assessment unit, I have seen variations of each of these four children. Each one is as real as they are tragic.

Despite their complex needs, I have come to see May 9th as an inconvenient day for Mental Health Day.

This can be true for many reasons but the purpose of this post is to show how ignorant and hurtful the school system can be towards children's mental health.

Here are but a few examples I have experienced where the system has placed its own needs ahead of the child:

• In about a month from now, many students will enter final exam season, and addressing Mental Health on May 9 is adversarial to the school system's needs. Upon hearing that a grade 12 student was admitted to the hospital, one teacher lamented, "I just wish the student was removed from my class list. I know what's going to happen. They are going to miss class and when they write their diploma, they are going to pull down my class average."

• Upon having their student admitted to the hospital, I had a school's guidance councillor contact me to ask what I was going to do about the student's grades. The student was taking remedial English for the second time and still only had a grade of 24%.

• Sometimes teachers and administrators send tests for me to "administer" so that the teacher can fill in their gradebook.

Because children do not come to an inpatient psychiatric assessment unit to get caught up on their homework, I often find myself advocating for children in a way that protects their mental health needs against the needs of the education system.

Look, if these children were healthy enough to attend school they would, but they aren't. It's like we are in a boat with a hole that we can't fix because we are too busy rowing. Our relentless race to nowhere is fueled by an insatiable fear of "falling behind" academically. Pushing children to win this race never ends well.

It's time we stop putting the system's needs ahead of children's needs. It's time we pull our heads out of the sand and acknowledge what is truly going on. Until good people open their eyes and stand up for children, Mental Health Day will remain nothing more than a day we can check off our calendar.

Teachers eat their young

Teachers eat their young and education systems encourage them to do so.

Too often beginning teachers are assigned too many courses with too many students and provided too little support. As a first year teacher, I was assigned five language arts classes at three different grade levels. Each class had about 30 students which means I was responsible for teaching about 150 students every day. A teacher who is responsible for more than 100 students in a day isn't really teaching anymore -- they're doing crowd control. I also coached the junior boys volleyball team.

If teacher preparation colleges mentored and supported beginning teachers for their first year of teaching, beginning teachers would benefit from further support and the teacher colleges could remain relevant and connected with real classrooms and schools.

Local school boards, education departments, teachers' unions and teacher colleges need to collaborate in an effort to support and nurture beginning teachers.

Some people complain that we have a hard time getting rid of bad teachers. There's likely some truth to this, but it's a red herring. Getting rid of teachers is easy - we do a good job of ensuring that around half of all beginning teachers leave the teaching profession inside their first 5 years. Because there is a world-wide push to turn teachers into standardized testing technicians, it is likely that many of those who leave the teaching profession are very competent people who are unwilling to subject themselves to such soul killing drudgery.

Andy Hargreaves explains:

We know that one of the biggest impact factors on student learning achievement in the schools is the quality of teachers. However, at the moment we have too many demoralized teachers. The recent MetLife survey showed that there are clear levels of teacher dissatisfaction and that satisfaction is declining. We know that an inordinate amount of teachers are leaving teaching very, very early. The modal (most commonly occurring) number of years' experience in teaching, according to the National Staffing Survey is one. We have more teachers with one year of experience than with any number of years of experience, which is a new thing for American education. 

If we went into hospitals and the most commonly occurring number of years of experience for doctors and nurses was one there would be public outrage. Too many schools are looking for young, inexpensive and flexible teachers with little experience and keeping them for a few years and moving them on long before they have reached the peak of their performance. That's a wasted investment. 

We need to look at why teachers are not staying in the profession and one of the major reasons is too much testing. America is really the only country that tests all the children on almost everything, every year. It is the only country in the world that does this and it's not associated with high standards but it is associated with driving teachers out of the profession because their work is excessively prescribed, excessively standardized, constantly interfered with and lacking the judgment and discretion that all professions need.

If we focused on supporting teachers even half as much as we focus on sanctioning them, we might start to see some improvement.

Please read: Hargreaves, Kohn and Zhao

This is another post in a series that I wish to call Please Read. My purpose here is to randomly and inconsistently provide a handful of links on a certain topic that should be read.

I am thankful for the work of Andy Hargreaves, Alfie Kohn and Yong Zhao. After reading books by all three and hearing each of them speak, I've come to see them as shining lights in the dark that is education reform.

Alfie Kohn Interview: Will the Common Core Benefit Children?

Yong Zhao Interview: Will the Common Core Create World-Class Learners?

What is ailing American Schools? An Interview with Andy Hargreaves

5 ways to fix schools

Susan Ohanian gives 5 ways to start fixing schools:

-Feed them. (and I'm not talking pink slime here. Hire Moms/Aunts/Grandmothers/Cousins to cook real food in the cafeteria.

-Fix their teeth.

-Guarantee their housing.

-Give them a lot of books. . . books they choose. . . books that come without interrogation.

-Read stories aloud to them. Wouldn't it be great if every teacher read aloud something (s)he found interesting/suspenseful/amusing/outrageous/inspiring? At least once a week.