Albert Einstein on school

Einstein on motivation

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed" - Albert Einstein

How many parenting strategies, classroom management schemes, business performance plans would we have to seriously rethink if we took Einstein seriously?

Everybody is a genius

This was written by James Gutteridge who is an educator in Australia. You can find his blog here.

by James Gutteridge

Few things sadden me more than when I hear my students declare that they will never be successful, that they don’t have a dream, and that they don’t know what makes them happy. This is such a pessimistic outlook that one really has to wonder where it originated. And it’s not something they’ve been told.

It’s something they have learned. It is interesting that we hold up those who have university degrees to be the pinnacle of society. Perhaps the quality of society could be measured by community cohesion and the happiness of its members than by the number of people with university degrees?

As a result of this academic pursuit of knowledge, schools do their best to educate people to enter university. We therefore value those disciplines that are most closely aligned with academia. The arts aren’t as valued, and we commonly hear the phrase – “you can’t do that, you won’t get a job!” Yet who do we pay most to be entertained by? Actors, chefs, dancers, musicians, sports women and men, and authors.

It is a mistake to make students feel stupid for not fitting in with the academic demands of school. There are, of course, those who thrive academically, and their best contribution to society may require that particular pathway to expertise. There are also those whose contribution to society will be aspiring to the likes of Jamie Oliver, Johnny Depp, Michael Schumacher or J.K Rowling. Whatever makes us happy, providing of course that it does not involve harming others, should be our pursuit.

A.S. Neill, founder of the world-renowned Summerhill School, famously stated that he would rather educate a happy street sweeper than a neurotic prime minister.

Albert Einstein also famously stated that “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Optimism, as Martin Seligman writes, is the key to success. But when many students feel as stupid as a fish feels that cannot climb a tree no matter how hard it tries, society will continue to be filled with pessimistic people.

Despite this, I’m optimistic it can change! People just need to realize their inner genius.

I've posted this pic on my blog before, but today I want to connect this picture to an Einstein qoute:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 

-Albert Einstein

Primitive Moral Development: PBIS

Unfortunately, my school subscribes to a program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. Teachers hand out green cards to kids who are caught being good, and red cards for those who are caught being bad. For the student's who have attained green cards, prizes are dispensed over the public address system during morning announcements, and school-wide assemblies have us all watch the administrators draw more names from buckets - all sorts of prizes are up for grabs.

Keep in mind that only the "good" kids who were lucky enough to be caught being good by receiving a green card are eligible for prizes - including the opportunity to eat lunch with the administration.

My objections to this system are many. (However, my suggestion for fixing this system is fairly simple: I would make everyone eligible for these prize thus turning them from conditional rewards to unconditional gifts. This would mean teachers would no longer need to dispense tickets as if they were traffic cops)

Here's a real story that happened just the other day:

My grade 6 class was in the gym for "Free Day Fridays". This is where we spend our gym time emptying the equipment room, looking for all the cool things to play with like scooters, jumping ropes, yoga balls, footballs, floor hockey sticks, etc. It all looks pretty chaotic, but the kids have a lot of fun. 

While standing in the gym with another teacher, a giant, purple yoga ball hit my colleague in the back of the head. As I turned around I could see Nolan gasping in shock as he realized that his errantly kicked yoga ball had hit a teacher.

His first reaction was shock.

His second reaction was to run in the opposite direction.

I quickly caught up to him and asked him to stop so we could talk. Admittedly, I was a little angry about his reaction, but I tried my best to suppress my frustration so that I could talk with Nolan about what had happened.

While his eyes watered and his face reddened, I asked him, "why did you run away?"

He answered, "I didn't want to get in trouble."

"So you were thinking about yourself?"

"I guess so."

"Nolan, I saw what happened. You kicked that yoga ball into the wall, and it hit a teacher in the head, and then you ran away. Nolan, who should you be thinking of during a time like this."

He paused. His eyes continued to water as he said, "the person I hit."

"Why?"

"Because she might be hurt."

"So then why did you run away?"

"I was scared."

"Nolan, I am not a normal teacher. You know I don't believe in rewarding or punishing people. I am not talking with you to get you in trouble. I'm not going to punish you. But I am here to help you solve this problem. What do you think you should do to solve this?"

He took a minute to think this over but eventually said, "I should go and see if she is all right."

"Nolan did you do it on purpose?"

He was quick to answer, "no, I promise I didn't mean to do it on purpose."

"Nolan, I believe you. So why did this happen?"

Again, this required some thought before he responded, "I wasn't as careful as I probably should have been."

"Okay, so what's next?"

"I don't know."

I just waited.

"Well, I guess I should go and see if she's okay."

"Sounds like a good idea, Nolan. Let me know how it goes."

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If we endorse behavior programs that use rewards and punishments to coerce children into compliance, then Nolan's initial reaction by running away after hurting someone else is as reprehensible as it is predictable. 

When we dangle rewards in kids faces, we encourage them to ask, "What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?" And when we threaten them with punishments or consequences, we encourage them to ask, "What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don't do it?" Neither question encourages kids to contemplate life in a way we would like to promote, and neither question has anything to do with creating a collaborative community built on caring.

After Nolan's escapade with the yoga ball was over, an observer of the whole affair snidely commented, "you know, some kids just never change." 

You know what?

They're right. Nolan's inability to think about others, combined with his obvious self-interest certainly exemplify a primitive level of moral development... but, if the adults in his life subscribe to an equally primitive kind of character development, how can we come to expect anything more? How can we expect kids like Nolan to progress to a higher level of ethical behavior when our dependence on rewards and punishment is precisely what condemns kids to such primitive self-interest.

For many kids like Nolan, rewards and punishment aren't even working to gain temporary compliance. There are probably as many stories of kids doing bad things to each other as there are kids, and these incidents are happening under the current system of discipline. I find it sadly ironic that many teachers and parents continue to perpetuate the status quo of reward and punishment, sometimes at twice the dosage, when by our own admission these tactics are a failure.

Albert Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. 

Teachers and parents for the most part are good intentioned people. In fact, most of our societies real heroes are teachers and parents, but sometimes our good intentions are guided more by tradition than by reason. Because our misguided use of rewards and punishment perpetuate a preoccupation with self-interest and predictably stunts moral development, it's time we stop blaming the kids and start questioning our own practices.

Spelling Implications

There is a good chance you've seen this graphic. If you have, stay with me, I may have a different take on this than you might expect. If you haven't seen this yet, enjoy!

If you are like most people, you could still read almost every single word without much hesitation.

The message was not lost.

Communication did in fact prevail!

So what can we learn from this?

Firstly, spelling may not be as important as my grade 8 Grammar-Nazi teacher might have thought it was. Because the first and last letters must be in proper place, I can't say spelling is entirely unimportant - but I think we can agree that if communication is our purpose, then a closer examination of the history of writing rubrics may indicate that spelling has received an inflated stature of importance.

Why?

Spelling is a very tangible skill. We can see it. We can measure it. We can count it.

If you are teaching writing, and you feel the need to quantify something, would you rather measure spelling or creativity?

However, before we throw spelling on the discard pile, let's try and figure out why spelling may still be something worth teaching.

If my blog maintained its quality content but was asblutely rdidled whit msitekas, would anything change?

As nice as you may be, I have a feeling you might make some serious judgments on my intelligence (or lack of) and it is entirely plausible that my inability to spell might annoy you to the point that you wouldn't return. However, I am a full time teacher, and I only blog when I have time to and so I know every post has mistakes - and yet, I know I have returning readers. Interesting!

Resumes written with this kind of spelling might still get the content across, but may be responsible for having it fall off the table and into a waste basket.

However, people do not become good spellers by being bullied or scared into being so.

Students must be provided with an opportunity to play with language. They must feel comfortable with spelling words wrong, and we, the teacher, are responsible for providing them with a learning environment that allows kids to see school as an opportunity to figure things out - to make mistakes and bump up against their limits. Perseverance in the face of failure may be one of the most important attributes a successful learner can adopt.

If we pursue our student's spelling skills with such dictatorial fervor as my grade 8, Grammar-Nazi teacher, we risk sabatoging the enitre learning operation.

Here's what I mean.

Which would you prefer a student to write:

OR

At what cost are we willing to gain ultimate precision in spelling?

If the point of school is to show how good you are, why would you waste your time taking risks that might show how good you're not?

Alfie Kohn illustrates an even grander concern in his book The Schools Our Children Deserve:

Invented spelling is based on the finding that young children who write more tend to read better. Not surprisingly, as we saw with Patty, kids are inclined to write more, to take risks, when they don't have to worry quite yet about spelling words perfectly - which, at that age, is unrealistic in any case. The question is what we're willing to have them sacrifice for technical accuracy... (Of course, for very young children, the choice may be even more stark; either we let them use invented spelling or we don't let them write at all.)

Albert Einstein provides us with a bit of a wake up call:

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Inflating the importance of something easily counted like spelling can almost entirely nullify something that is not tailored towards being counted, like creativity.

Teachers must be mindful of this counting trap.

Next time you want to focus on spelling, keep in mind that if you make spelling count for too much, you might get what you ask for. Kids will spell words correctly at the cost of using words that sacrifice the intangibles such as creativity.

Counting what counts

Albert Einstein once said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." He hung this sign above his desk at Princeton University.

It is very easy to fall into the habit of simply measuring whatever is easily measurable, however, there is a big difference between valueing what we measure and measuring what we value.

Unfortunately, technocrats tend to believe in the former, but the best educators appreciate the latter.

Here are but a few examples of things I think we should measure even though they would be difficult to nearly impossible to count.

*If we care about living a healthy and active lifestyle, we should concern ourselves less with counting how many championships our school's teams win and more with counting how many of our students grow up and continue to play in men's and women's 'beer league' sports.

*If we care about life-long learning, we should concern ourselves less with test scores that measure how many students forget the material 15 minutes before the test versus those who forget 15 minutes after the test and more with counting how many of our students grow up to be parents who instill a love for learning in their own children.

*If we care about character education, we should concern ourselves less with measuring how many students mindlessly comply with pre-conceived rules, and more with counting the students that understand the difference between mindful compliance and artful subversion.

Unfortunately, this kind of data is hard to collect; it's hard to bar graph; and so, we tend to ignore it entirely - which forces some teachers and policy makers to become horribly distracted by less valuable, less valid and less reliable data that is easily gathered and pie-charted.

Thus, too often poor data is driving poor decision making. But those bar graphs and pie charts sure do look fancy.