Talk is Cheap

Two Ed Week articles caught my attention, because they are about Social Studies (which is a change of pace from all of the talk about STEM subjects). One article decries that 28 states received failing or near-failing grades in History standards (according to a Fordham Institute review). Of course they did, because there is no funding for a huge majority of Social Studies classes. 


The article also points out that one element to the Fordham study seems to put emphasis on names, dates & events (rather than the underlying concepts & context), by paraphrasing the Fordham president "...its analysis is about making sure students have a firm grasp of historical facts before developing concepts and ideas." What?! The two are inextricably linked. 'Facts' are meaningless without the context around them, and besides, those 'facts' are often disputable depending on the perspective. What good is it if students can parrot back the date the Civil War began if they don't know the underlying causes?! 


No wonder there's no money for Social Studies. We can't even decide what is valuable about content to begin with. If we can't agree on the value, how can we explain/justify why students should learn it?

Back to Bullying

Again Ed Week has an article about bullying that resounded with me. The article indicates that researchers are just beginning to focus on 'relational' aggression - a means by which people use bullying tactics to control friends and enemies. 


At first, I was a little surprised to learn that this was a relatively 'new' research subject, but then I realized that humans have a hard time identifying what they themselves do. (For instance, it is easy to recognize when someone is nagging you, but it is much less likely that you will recognize that you are nagging someone.) Relational aggression is not limited to K-12 schools. It happens in colleges, offices, neighborhoods, churches, and virtually every place that people come together in groups to spend significant amounts of time. In fact, it's common to see reflected in movies and on tv even. We adults just don't have the same scrutinizing eye assessing our behavior.


I completely agree that the most beneficial thing we could do is to help our kids learn to stand up for others. This helps both the person being defended and the person standing up reclaim power and build self-confidence. It build real, honest, respectful community among people. Maybe those students can take that same responsibility into the 'adult' world and make a change for the better.

Conflict of Interest

With all of the talk about private schools, especially in the article about the Swedish company managing its first school in NYC, I find myself conflicted. On one hand, I have no problem with the idea of capitalism. Companies should be able to make money in their businesses. 


However, it seems like there are some sectors where the idea of for-profit companies creates a conflict of interest which is too high and the detriment to society too great, namely: education, health care and utilities. We all absolutely need these three things to survive. Since the main goal of a for-profit business is the profit part (especially if it has shareholders), it seems too difficult to juggle that element with the best interest of the "consumer". 


I'm not saying that the government should run them, because we can all cite areas of governmental waste and inefficiency. I just think that those who do run them should be not-for-profit. Personally, I do not think that a CEO should ever have to decide between shareholder dividends vs. a better program. As a society what do we value more?

Literacy for Parents & Kids

The January 26th Ed Week had an article about a Toyota-funded initiative (and the D.C. school using it) stressing family literacy was fascinating. Basically, the grants help schools that facilitate family literacy by providing programs which boost the literacy of their children's family members. What an incredible program!


This program benefits the parent and child at the same time while providing real skills that will be a huge stepping stone for both. There are programs out there for adults who cannot read and write, but the programs to boost skills seem less obvious. That leaves a lot of people with limited literacy, in turn creating a bad feeling about their education and skills.


In this program, the student benefits by learning the skills and by having his/her parent come to school and participate with them, but they also get increased help and exposure from home. The adult gets a boost in skills, more self-confidence and the ability to help their kid in and out of school...all in an atmosphere without pressure. For the ones in this article, who dropped out of high school, I get the impression that they feel helped and helpful all at the same time. 


It is much easier to leave your mind open if you don't feel like someone is pointing out the things you can't do. I think a lot of people would learn so much just by sitting in on a class. Really, education is at its best when we understand it as a journey together. 

School Bullies

Ed Week online recently published this article on school bullies in which two researchers studied the social web of social structure at school to learn more about bullies and victims. (The task alone is mind-blowing.) They found that bullies are not who most people think they are. Instead of being the students on either extreme of the social structure (the most or least popular), the majority of bullies are the kids in the middle who are looking for an edge to maintain or upgrade their social status. The research indicates that this transcends race, class, age, grade, etc. 


This makes absolute sense to me when I think of how adults act, especially when it comes to upward mobility. Often the very wealthy (who have had that wealth for generations) are comfortable with it and don't really flaunt it. However, the recently wealthy are often the ones who use their newly found social position to bully others into doing what they want.  


Bullying seems not to be about actual rank but about underlying insecurity. The top feel sure they will stay on top, while the bottom are sure they will stay at the bottom, but the middle are not sure how they fit in and use a variety of tools at their disposal...including violence.

Teacher Leadership

Ed Week recently featured an article called "Why We Need Teacher Leadership" by Doyle Nicholson, in which Mr. Nicholson outlines the need and potential of teachers taking (or making) an active hybrid role for themselves as part-time teacher and part-time leader. I think such a collaboration is a fantastic idea, especially in the current climate of funding pressure. 


The potential benefits of this that struck me are:

• Helping to bridge the "us v. them" divide that recently has become prevalent as districts struggle to cut budgets. If there are educators who are working in both areas, then they will be able to see both sides of the issues, which could lead to less "teacher v. administration" and more cooperation. In turn the perception of fairness could increase.
• Sometimes the goal of educating students means different things to different sides because of perspective. This would help to create a common goal, with all issues represented at the same time.
• The goal is educating students--without them no on would have a job. It's crazy that there are places where these two sides do not cooperate.
• They may be able to come up with fair systems of evaluation, development and support to increase teacher effectiveness.  
• Collaboration is always the best way to create solutions, because a group is generally smarter than an individual.

In order for this to work well, there has to be real commitment on both sides (and a concerted effort to leave any ego issues behind and to reorganize the union focus a little). While the politicians may still control the larger system, there is no reason not to start one school at a time. That's how we educate a nation...one student at a time!