IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller

We think it’s time we spoke honestly about education and the role of the student in it. For the past two decades, many so called “experts” have absolved students of any responsibility in the education process. From telling students they don’t have to do homework, to lowering the passing grades and watering down curricula and tests, and most egregiously, to contending that students are incapable of staying focused longer than ten minutes at a time, the student has been removed from education’s equation. We believe this egregious assumption has been mostly about those students “experts” have low expectations of …mostly urban street kids.

Many of today’s students have a very hard time having to overcome the difficulty that usually accompanies learning new things. Many just say, “I can’t do this” and quit. The truth of the matter is that everything is hard when you start. Riding a bicycle is hard when you start, so is shooting a basketball, tying your shoes or learning the times table.

Quitting because it is difficult or because it doesn’t come easily is NOT how learning happens. In fact, learning, much like being successful in any other endeavor you can think of, doesn’t start off easily. The beginning of everything is a challenge, a battle, something unfamiliar. When things are unfamiliar, they are hard. That’s just how things are, that’s how they have always been. The fact is that the more you become familiar with anything, the better you will get at that unfamiliar task and the “easier” it becomes.

We know this. We’ve seen it happen time and time again in classrooms. Over and over again, We all have had students complain that something we were trying to teach them, something with which they were totally unfamiliar or something they could not master in five seconds, was too hard for them to do or to understand. Often, those same students one or two weeks later were successfully completing those same tasks! They weren’t perfect, but they were trying and suddenly the task they simply could not do, was being performed by them.

When asked why they could now understand something they originally claimed was impossible for them to understand, if they are any smarter now than they were before, if they are now suddenly geniuses, or if we were doing things any differently than we were doing them before; almost without exception, those students say they aren’t any smarter now than they were when they “couldn’t” understand the work; that they didn’t suddenly become geniuses. They even said that the techniques and lessons weren’t any different now than they were before. In fact, they say that the only difference is that they are trying, that they are making an effort to learn instead of just giving up and quitting, and saying this is just too hard for me to do or “I just can’t do it.”

For us, the purpose of education in general and school specifically, is to prepare students for the world. Succeeding in the world will NOT BE EASY, it will not be watered down or sugarcoated, and there will be times when it will just be damned hard!!

If they are going to survive, if they are going to have success, they are going to have to fight. They are going to have to not quit because something is hard or unfamiliar. The fact is they won’t be the first people to battle or to meet challenges, and they won’t be the last. No one can succeed if he/she chooses to stop just because it is not easy or because it takes more than ten seconds to “get it.”

Sometimes you have to learn to “be comfortable with being uncomfortable”. It takes time and effort to learn to love learning, given the difficulties that may arise.

Like the epigram states, “ Not everything you work for you will get, but EVERYTHING you get, you will surely work for.” You can’t get anything you are NOT willing to work for. Whether you are a star athlete, an entertainer, a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, a parent or a student- you cannot succeed if you stop just because a thing isn’t easy. The only way you can have any hope of success is to work your way through the hard parts. If you are willing to work through the tough spots, an amazing thing will happen- it’ll get easier, and once it gets easier, success will not be very far behind.

We guarantee it.

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Five Myths Reformers Want You to Believe about Teachers

And we don’t use best practices, collaborate, mentor each other, and have a lasting effect on our kids’ lives….

David Greene Gives a Lesson to “The Economist” on Teaching and Teachers

Thank You Diane Ravitch.

Diane Ravitch's blog

David Greene, experienced teacher of teachers, read an article in The Economist about teaching teachers, and he got steamed. Guess who is training the best teachers? The corporate-funded Relay “Graduate School of Education,” where none of the “professors” has a doctorate. Relay is a program where charter teachers teach future charter teachers how to raise test scores. To call it a “graduate school of education” is an insult to real graduate schools, where professors are scholars and masters of their field. “Raising test scores” is not a field. Which economists think that the Relay way is the best way? Tom Kane, Eric Hanushek, Roland Fryer.

The article cites the favorite myths of the economists:

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University, has estimated that during an academic year pupils taught by teachers at the 90th percentile for effectiveness learn 1.5 years’ worth of material. Those taught by teachers at the…

View original post 1,175 more words

ON TEACHING THE JOURNALISTS

 

HOW INSULTING!

This article really pissed me off. Why does this objective reporter use only one “school”of sources? Why infer that only reformers know how to teach teaching?  

 

ON TEACHING THE TEACHERS: The Economist June 11, 2016

Whoever said this? “Great teaching has long been seen as an innate skill.”

“But reformers are showing that the best teachers are made, not born.”

 How condescending can this be? This article implies that teachers don’t know that?

“Mr. Cavanagh is the product of a new way of training teachers. Rather than spending their time musing on the meaning of education, he and his peers have been drilled in the craft of the classroom.”

MUSING? REALLY?

This is not new. He is actually the result of good training that has gone on for a long time. Hey guess what… reformers haven’t reinvented the wheel.

“Like doctors on the wards of teaching hospitals, its students often train at excellent institutions, learning from experienced high-caliber peers.” 

This has been true for decades! It is how I learned from a cooperative master teacher when I student taught for a semester and how I received mentoring from my Principals, Assistant Principals, and department chairs for 38 years, not just the first.

This too has always been true: “teaching for what it is: not an innate gift, nor a refuge for those who, as the old saw has it, “can’t do, but ‘an incredibly intricate, complex and beautiful craft’.”

However… “But a question has dogged policymakers: are great teachers born or made? Prejudices played out in popular culture suggest the former.”

First, policy makers have never known the truth about the hard work in developing good teachers. And, why listen to pop culture and not experienced teachers?

The “myth of the naturally born teacher” is, of course, a myth. Again this is not startling or new news. Why is it to the author, or to policy makers? As for any other successful professional, quality is a combination of nature and nurture. My cardio-thoracic surgeons who saved my life were gifted because they both had natural talent and developed skills.

It is mostly the others who think this: “A fair chunk of what teachers (and others) believe about teaching is wrong.” Most teachers KNOW how hard it is to develop the necessary skills.

Let’s also not lump these all together. “Unearned praise, grouping by ability and accepting or encouraging children’s different “learning styles” are widely espoused but bad ideas. So too is the notion that pupils can discover complex ideas all by themselves.”

Unearned praise is not a teacher thing…. It is a parenting thing. We know the truth. Good teachers and administrators always have known that heterogeneous grouping works best. Again, try selling that to often biased helicopter parents. We also know that students do learn differently.

Again… We always have done this as well: “Teachers must impart knowledge and critical thinking.”

These 6 aspects of great teaching have also been passed down from professional to professional: motivation, collaboration time management, proper behavior and high, yet reachable, expectations, high-quality instruction and so-called “pedagogical content knowledge”—a blend of subject knowledge and teaching craft.”

Any principal master teacher worth her or his salt already knows: “I don’t teach physics; I teach my pupils how to learn physics.”

He left one thing out. “ I teach kids to learn to love learning,”

To infer that these are new ideas and not the common best practices of generations of teachers before Relay and its ilk showed up is a pure and unadulterated insult.

“Too often teachers are told what to improve, but not given clear guidance on how to make that change.” Yet more often they are.

I will agree that many schools of education must change. I have been saying that since I was relatively well trained back in the late 60s. Many besides myself have been hounding US schools of education to do more craft work and less theoretical. Absolutely, they should incorporate a longer student teaching or residency program.

Does this reporter look into the large and growing number of school districts in the USA who have mandated veteran teacher mentors to new teachers?  

Apparently not. These districts already knew what Roland Fryer of Harvard University found: “managed professional development”, where teachers receive precise instruction together with specific, regular feedback under the mentorship of a lead teacher, had large positive effects.”

“Such environments are present in schools such as Match and North Star—and in areas such as Shanghai and Singapore”…AND IN DISTRICTS ALL ACROSS THE USA!

And of course good teachers here have always known and complained about this: “Mr. Fryer says that American school districts “pay people in inverse proportion to the value they add”. District superintendents make more money than teachers although their impact on pupils’ lives is less.”

The article warps the image of teachers in the USA. This reporter needs to get a fuller picture of the good work that has been done in teacher preparation as well as what reformers say only they can do. Shame!

TWO GUEST ESSAYS

From my long time friend and colleague, Bernie Keller:

 

 

AS A KID:
“As a kid, my favorite sport was baseball. I was pretty good at it, too. My older brother’s favorite sport was basketball. He was pretty good and the desire to be able to beat him drove me to work hard to become better at it, but whether it was by playing baseball or from playing basketball, I learned a lesson from sports that made me a good teacher, a lesson that education’s reformers and educrats would do well to learn and follow.. These team sports taught me you need the whole team- the power hitter, the bunter, the pinch hitter off the bench, the 20 game winner, the middle reliever, the fire throwing closer, the three point shooter, the 20 point per game player, the rebounder, the sixth man- you need them all.

Any champion will tell you it’s great to be a great player, but if you want to win a championship, you’re gonna need some “not so great” guys to help you. While this may seem so simple it’s almost embarrassing to even address it, for all of its simplicity, it is evident to me that either the education experts never played team sports or if they did, they failed to learn its lessons. Whatever the case, the product of their reforms makes it clear that one of the most important elements of success for education is actually the sports concept that you need everybody.

The current education philosophy that asserts you need only to get the greatest teachers-champions if you will-, that all students must be prepared only for college, that every teacher must teach every lesson the same way, is proof to me that “they don’t get it.” As a player and a coach, I understood that one guy couldn’t win it, that you needed everybody. Teaching is no different. Teaching is not a one man show. Like those sports, teaching is a “team sport”-it needs everybody to play if it is to work as it is supposed to work. The reality is being a great teacher is more than just being able to teach a lesson or meet the requirements of some rubric. Being a great teacher involves the ability to “sell” the subject being taught, as well as to make a connection to and/or with the students

Being a great teacher means having the freedom and the ability to do what you do well, and being a great teacher is believing in and trusting in your ability so it is evident enough to your students that they will believe in and trust in you, too. Just so you know, intimidation, rubrics, checklists and threats won’t create great teachers.

Great teachers develop, and that development takes time, and that development takes others. Sometimes the others are master teachers, sometimes they are mediocre teachers with a few great lessons, sometimes they aren’t teachers at all, but every one of them adds to the greatness of that great teacher.

Great teachers aren’t going to save education. First of all, by definition of the word great, their numbers will be extremely limited. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, no matter how great the teacher is, he/she will still need “the rest of the team”- committed students with a curiosity for the acquisition or the pursuit of knowledge, supportive and committed supervisors, parents, and a community and/or society that embraces and backs education policies and policy makers who view education as more than just a campaign slogan, or a way to throw money at a problem just to be able to help their friends to make a profit, or be able to say they ‘re doing something.”

Doin’ It Differently

“As I watch the changes in education ands listen to the people talk about how the old ways and techniques are antiquated and antediluvian, I can’t help thinking about how much I learned from my parents who never graduated from high school or elementary school is as true for me today as it was when they taught it to me – things like “Treat others the way you want to be treated”, “earn your pay every day”, “Do your job and do it to the best of your ability”. The same is true about so much I learned in school- things like two plus two is four, the symbol for chlorine is Cl and George Washington was the first president of the United States. I keep watching people and listening to people talking about changing education “to meet the needs of the children”, “to make them competitive with the rest of the world.”

Let’s take an airplane for example. Let’s give this airplane state of the art technology, even as we are advocating that same technology in order to guarantee the success of schools. It is an irrefutable fact that the instruments used to guide and fly planes today are far more advanced and complicated than those used by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. There are those who would contend that a pilot who had not kept up with technology would end up crashing the plane in spite of the pilot’s prior experience flying. Perhaps that is true but what happened recently when just such a plane’s technology failed and the plane had to be landed, without the benefit of the much ballyhooed and highly praised technology, safely into the Hudson River? That pilot was not successful because of his access or understanding of technology, but because of his experience and knowledge acquired, (better known as the definition for learning), over decades of flying. While the airplane’s instruments may have changed since the Wright Brothers’ first flight, that which makes flight possible is as true today as it was when Leonardo DaVinci pondered it during the Renaissance.

As an English of English, I taught students parts of speech. Verbs were action words 100 years ago, and they are action words today. You can say it differently if you like, but in the end, verbs will still do what verbs have always done –tell you what action is taking place. Period. You can teach it with computer disks, act it out, teach it using crazy cartoon characters – it’s still a verb and it still tells you what action is taking place.

When I taught English, the most important skill I taught students was how to think because the ability to analyze and break things down into smaller pieces is how learning happens- no matter what the subject or what the skill. Machines, no matter how advanced, cannot think for us- we must think for ourselves, we have to “do the work”. I am confident that if you were to look at the school systems of the students all over the world who are beating out our students, you would find they are not focused on “making learning fun” or making it more interesting or user friendly, or even technologically advanced.I think you would find they are focused on what has always engendered success- challenging work, high expectations, student responsibility and the challenge to students to use their minds to analyze and examine what they are taught. Since Socrates, this has been the focus when it comes to learning. It was relevant and valuable then, and thousands of years later, it is still what makes learning happen.

My mother used to say, “All going to college means is that you’ve been there.” She was right. Going to college didn’t guarantee that I’d learn anything or that I’d get a degree. I had to earn it. Going to college didn’t guarantee me a job. I had to look for one like anybody else, I had to take tests, go on interviews and do whatever else I had to do in order to persuade someone that I could be an asset to them. Going to college didn’t guarantee I’d never lose my job. When I was terminated because the city went broke in the mid-seventies, I had to go out a look for another job just like everybody else.

You can paraphrase my mom’s statement to apply it to making changes or doing things differently. Simply because you change something or do something differently, that doesn’t guarantee the resulting change or difference will work any better than the old way. The idea that just changing things or making them look different or sound different, or coming up with different names or strategies, or making things technologically advanced is the way to make education better is both inane and vacuous, for change in and of itself, does not promise improvement, it merely ensures that things will not be the same.

 

 

Keep a good thought

A Hamiltonian Dilemma

Today we are faced with a presidential election filled with contradictions. The presumptive Republican candidate claims to speak for the middle classes yet is one of the wealthiest men in the nation. Our leading Democratic candidate claims to represent the working and poorer classes but is clearly a member of the New Liberal elite of professionals and meritocrats. Who are they but the 20th and early 21st century versions of Hamilton’s 18th and early 19th century cronies of “landholders, merchants and men of the learned professions, whose experience and wisdom travel beyond the circle of their neighbors”?

An interesting “review” in today’s NYT of Hamilton, the musical  discusses how the play only portrays Hamilton’s more positive traits and forgets his elitism.

He is usually the one to whom this quote is attributed: “The Masses are asses.”

Whether he said it or not isn’t the point. One of the reasons there is an electoral college, was because  many of the founders felt the people could not select the best person to be the president of the United States. Hamilton was instrumental in the creation of the electoral college, and made his point that the masses couldn’t be trusted with this huge responsibility. Today’s Democratic party incorporated this attitude when it decided to have super delegates.

Jason Frank and Isacc Kramnick  point out in their essay that,

“Hamilton mistrusted the political capacities of the common people and insisted on deference to elites…. Many of the Convention participants feared the “excess of democracy,” but Hamilton went much further.’The people are turbulent and changing,’ he declared. ‘They seldom judge or determine right.’ They must be ruled by ‘landholders, merchants and men of the learned professions,’ whose experience and wisdom “travel beyond the circle” of their neighbors. For America to become an enduring republic, Hamilton argued, it had to insulate rulers and the economy as much as possible from the jealous multitude.

Hamilton, with his contemptuous attitude toward the lower classes, was perfectly comfortable with the inegalitarian and antidemocratic implications of his economic vision. No founder of this country more clearly envisioned the greatness of a future empire enabled by drastic inequalities of wealth and power. In this sense, too, ‘Hamilton’ is very much a musical for our times.”

In fact, Hamilton was a bundle of contradictions. As he said

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

It seems to me we face the opposite dilemma in 2016.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first oblige it to control itself.

 

 

TFA Spies on you.

 

FOR

From the TFA website:

YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT TFA DOES WITH YOUR INFORMATION:

https://www.teachforamerica.org/privacy-policy

 

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Non-Personal Information. We use Non-Personal Information in aggregate form to build higher quality and more useful services by performing statistical analyses of the collective characteristics and behavior of our users, and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of our Website.

 

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