What's Become Clear

I speak to groups often about school change and I frequently hear the same question, “Don’t you think were doing anything right?” The answer is “yes” with a great big BUT. That “BUT” is this.

We are doing the best job in education that we have ever done, at what we’ve always done. The problem is this, what we’ve always done is not the right thing to be doing in the 21st century.

The problem is school change happens so slowly, or not at all, that over the years, and now even decades, we have fallen further and further behind. Most of you are too young to remember this chronology but in the 60s we saw major shift when we included special education students in regular education classrooms.

Between that time and 1983 we saw a very gradual gap develop between what we were doing in schools and what we needed to be doing with our students to prepare them for their future. In 1983 the report, A Nation At Risk, was the first shot across the bow of public education.

Between 1983 and the late 1980s we saw an increase in the criticism of public education that led to a highly contentious conversation about “outcome based education.” That was a really the beginning of the conversation fueled by our students’ inability to adequately perform in society.

Between the late 80s and the early 1990s we saw states all across the country mandating accreditation processes based on outcomes rather than inputs. Kansas was no different. The Outcome Accreditation Task force was charged with creating the structure for a new accreditation process that would become known as QPA, Quality Performance Accreditation. In the interest of full disclosure I was part of that task force.

Following the implementation of accreditation processes focusing on outcomes across the nation, there was a mass movement to understand and identify standards, align curriculum, and base accountability on state level standardized assessments. The crowning jewel of that movement is No Child Left Behind.

And now in Kansas we have the Kansas Education Commission trying to figure out what the next iteration of  NCLB will look like. Again, in the interest of full disclosure I am part of the Kansas Education Commission.

I can tell you what it shouldn’t look like. It shouldn’t look like schools have looked for over 100 years. The problem is this. We have spent the last 25 years seriously trying to improve public education by getting better at what we’ve always done. Somewhere along the line we should have started the conversation about what we should be doing instead of what we’ve always done.

So when somebody asks, “Are we doing anything right?” It depends on your perspective. If you’re asking, “Are we getting the things right that we’re working on?” The answer is “yes” we’re doing a tremendous job. If you’re asking, “Are all the things were working on the right things to be working on in order to prepare our kids for the 21st century?” the answer is “absolutely not.”

It’s not too late, but we need to get moving. School change doesn’t just mean that we change how we do what we’ve always done, it means to change what we’re doing.-  Steve Wyckoff

The whole world is changing, and one of the biggest changes involve social media. But for some reason social media isn’t even on the radar of school change. I am fascinated by the impact that social media has had on our lives. It’s affected how we communicate, how we stay informed, and how we stay connected.

Communicating, staying informed, and staying connected seem to me to be important attributes for schools in the 21st century. But it appears that almost all schools block students from accessing social media during the school day on school technology.

Watch this video, it’s fascinating stuff, it appears that isn’t having any impact at all on education.

If you’re an educator and that didn’t blow your mind you need to seriously think about retirement.

We make kids all across America engage in activities that will have little or no impact on their future, or their success in the 21st century. And at the same time we completely ignore some of the most important influences in their lives, now and in the future.

Wake up educators! Pretty soon it will be too late, don’t think for a minute that if you don’t engage in appropriate school change that nothing will happen to your school. It already is, you just don’t know it! – Steve Wyckoff

When we talk about school change there is always a discussion about preparing students for college. There is no doubt that in the 21st century those people who are the most successful tend to be those with the highest level of education. But not all college degrees are highly correlated with being successful in the 21st century.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and in fact later this week I’m going to be visiting with my friend Dr. Jackie Vietti, at Butler Community College to help me make sense of the whole question of college ready. You see, I can give you a whole pile of evidence that we are doing poorly when it comes to preparing kids for college, and that even many of those who make it through college, don’t get jobs that are high paying enough to pay off their college loans. So I am suffering from cognitive dissonance on this issue.

So I’ll tell you what I think I believe up to this point. I’m looking at college degrees from two perspectives. One, is the degree in high demand in society today; and two, is it a high skill degree? I’m still compiling a list of college degrees that I believe are high demand and high skill degrees. In this category I would put engineering degrees, many health science related degrees such as nursing, and some IT degrees. But I also put many two year technical degree, and even some industry certification programs. I’m sure there are others, so if you have some examples send them to me.

So that begs the question, are there some high skill low demand degrees? I think that some degrees in the sciences may fit this category; physics, biology, and chemistry. But I’m not completely sure of this.

And as I was thinking further about these categories I started to wonder if there are high demand and low skill degrees. I think there used to be, but I don’t think there are anymore. I think that liberal arts degrees used to be high demand and low skill. I think now liberal arts degrees are low skill and low demand.

when I graduated from college almost 40 years ago a liberal arts degree, like all college degrees, was the ticket to a good job. Today, that just isn’t true. Graduates with liberal arts degrees are perfectly prepared to go on to graduate school, but the jobs available for most of these degrees are for the most part low skill and sadly, low pay.

And therein lies one of our big problems. All of our K-12 core curriculum, and all of our gen ed courses in post secondary institutions are liberal arts courses. Which means we are spending huge amounts of our time, our most precious educational resource, preparing kids in low skill low demand areas, which the students see as boring and irrelevant. Perhaps it’s time as we talk about school change to begin to deal with the sacred cow of education … the liberal arts degree. – Steve Wyckoff

With the opening of schools I’ve had the opportunity to speak to several faculties about school change. I especially enjoy the dialogue that I get to have with the teachers even though we never have enough time to really dig in to the most important topics.

One of the questions that I ask of any audience I speak to is, “If all of our students were proficient on state standardized tests, and we had no dropouts, would society be satisfied with our graduates?” In the last week I’ve had the opportunity to ask this question of several hundred teachers. Not one, zero, nada, teacher said that society would be satisfied.

My point is this, we are working harder than we’ve ever worked in education, and getting better results than we’ve ever gotten, focusing on standardized tests, and more recently reducing the dropout rate. Yet there is a sense that even if we reach our goals, they are the wrong goals.

Nobody wants to talk about it but there’s a real sense that we are not focusing on preparing kids for their future in the 21st century, but rather the pursuit of higher test scores to please politicians and bureaucrats. I don’t think that’s the kind of school change we were looking for. – Steve Wyckoff

Is a great deal of discussion around school change is focusing on the dropout problem. In Kansas, the governor has formed a commission to study dropouts because it has become such an economic issue. As the demand for high skill workers increases dropouts are increasingly a burden on society.

I think one of the positive things that could be addressed is the core curriculum in K-12, and the gen ed curriculum in higher ed. Both of these curricula are at least 115 years old dating back to the Committee of 10, and are primarily focused on the liberal arts.

There was a time in our history when the liberal arts meant well educated. In fact, when I graduated from college in 1972 a liberal arts degree was the ticket to a good job. That’s no longer the case. In fact if you look at two aspects of a college degree, the skill level that the degree instills in graduate, and the demand for the degree in society, the liberal arts degree today is both low skill and low demand. In days past the liberal arts degree was low skill, but very much in high demand.

The second piece of the liberal arts education has to do with our students. The vast majority of our students feel that our core curriculum in K-12, and gen ed curriculum in higher ed, are boring and irrelevant. Boring and irrelevant are not good conditions under which learning can occur.

When you couple all of these issues is obvious to me that our core curriculum and the gen ed curriculum in higher Ed serve no purpose today. They are a relic of education past. We can make major strides to increase the engagement and the relevance of our curriculum for all students by redesigning the primary focus of our system.

What might that new focus be? I’m not sure I have an opinion yet, I need to think about it more. But it may include a focus on globalization, who knows. But if we really want school change, real school change, and to reduce the number of students who leave our system uneducated, then we should take a critical look at the core curriculum in K-12, and the gen ed curriculum in higher Ed. – Steve Wyckoff

As a member of the Kansas Education Commission I remain cautiously optimistic that we may be on the verge of real school change. We’ve met once now as a total commission, and once as a subcommittee for innovation and continuous improvement.

I know, and I admit, that we will never change schools fast enough for me. For heaven sakes the conversation we are having today should’ve been had at least 10 years ago, if not 15 years ago. But better late than never.

I do have some concerns. While we have already had some great conversations it is extremely difficult to have the people within the system redesign the system.

If we had brought together buggy makers 100 years ago and tasked them with redesigning the mode of transportation, they would have designed a better buggy. I worry that that may be the path the commission follows, designing a better obsolete system.

But we have to start somewhere, and since we don’t have any natural competition to drive innovation and creativity, will have to rely on the individuals within the system for that innovation and creativity.

I hope for the sake of our children that we are able to beat the odds and actually create a system that prepares our students for their future in the 21st century. To say that we have achieved real school change would require no less. – Steve Wyckoff

During a conversation about school change an individual made the comment that we’d be fine if, “The kids would just bear down and be responsible like they used to be!” Interesting thought. This individual went on to say that students from foreign countries, especially emerging countries, come to America and kick our kids butts in school.

As you might guess, I have a different point of view on this. I think that if our kids got their drinking water from a hole next to their house they would be equally motivated to do what ever it takes to change their station in life. Fortunately this isn’t the case.

In an affluent society such as ours we are never going to return to the student behaviors of the past. It’s incumbent upon us as educators to create a system that meets the needs of society in such a way that it also engages our students as they’ve never been engaged before.

The other day while speaking at the University of Kansas to a group of teachers in the process of obtaining their certification to become building level administrators, I was asked if there has ever been a time in our history that our students were authentically engaged on a regular basis. The answer obviously, is no. But it didn’t matter. Our students were being prepared for a completely different society than we have today.

In fact, that’s part of our problem. We are still preparing students for a world of factories and mass production. A world where the most important skill was compliance. If you want to succeed in today’s schools, be very compliant, and act like you care. Guaranteed success.

Unfortunately, graduating from that system doesn’t guarantee success in life. In fact being compliant is the path to a job that has, low pay, high potential for being outsourced, or automated using technology.

The school change we need to make needs to be a thoughtful transformation to schools that prepare kids for their future in the 21st century. For us to attempt to make our kids adapt to our schools is utter nonsense! – Steve Wyckoff

I just finished Richard Florida’s book Flight Of The Created Class. It’s a compelling book, along with his other book Rise Of The Creative Class, they are a must read for educators. Compelling evidence of the need for school change.

But I was disturbed …  okay I know, that’s nothing new …  that it entirely ignored the role of public education. It completely focused on the need to attract immigrants of all types, but especially immigrants in the creative class. It mentioned education in passing but it’s almost as if Dr. Florida has written off public education. In fact, rarely do I read a book today about society in the 21st century that there isn’t a discussion about overcoming the effects of education received in America.

From Dr. Florida’s viewpoint why would anyone assume that public education could produce students equipped for the creative class. Our entire focus is on raising standardized test scores, and our strategies almost completely ignore any practice that would foster and nurture creativity and innovation.

If public school educators don’t get their heads out we will become completely irrelevant in terms of preparing our students for their life in the 21st century.

And, in a state like Kansas, if we don’t figure out how to dramatically increase the percentage of our residents who are members of the creative class we, as a state, we will be relegated to second-class status. School change wouldn’t be just nice, it’s an imperative. –  Steve Wyckoff

As I think about school change I’m always searching the current literature on the 21st century for theories of how the world works. I recently read the book, The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison. Fascinating stuff. They do a great job of describing the world that is emerging and comparing it to the world we are leaving.

The world we are leaving is a push platform. According to the authors,

“’Push’ describes a method and means of organizing activities and actions. Push operates on a key assumption, that it is possible to forecast or anticipate demand. Based on this assumption which works mightily to ensure that the right people and resources are delivered to the right place at the right time to serve the anticipated demand.”

“Push approaches are typified by what we might call “programs” or “routines,” tightly scripted the specifications of activities designed to be invoked by known parties in predetermined contexts.”

If that doesn’t describe education today, I don’t know what does! Here’s more from the book…  “summarizing the philosophy of push, we might tally the following instincts, assumptions, and beliefs:”

• There’s not enough go around
• Elites do the deciding
• Organizations must be hierarchical
• People must be molded
• Bigger is better
• Demand can be forecast
• Resources can be allocated centrally
• Demand can be met

So what is pull?  “Pull is the ability to draw out people and resources needed to address opportunities and challenges. Pull gives us unprecedented access to what we need, when we need it, even if we’re not quite sure what “it” is. Pull allows us to harness and unleash the forces of attraction, influence, and serendipity.”

Pull has three levels. The first level is access, which has been growing over the last three decades. The advancements in technology have given us, all of us including students, unprecedented access. The second level of pull is attract. We now have the ability to attract people of like interests and passions. We can connect with people all over the world based on the things we are most passionate about and interested in knowing and doing. The third level of pull is achieve. We aren’t there yet but the first two waves are already sweeping over us.

I’ve written many times about the accomplishments of Erie high school. Their project-based learning is an example of a pull platform. Their students use access differently, more efficiently, and more effectively than any other school in the state. They design their own projects, and create their own knowledge.

They are beginning to attract like-minded adults to the projects that they develop. It is only a matter of time until they start attracting students from around the world to their projects based on interest and passion. They currently identify, contact, and engage their own mentors based on a common passion that they possess with their mentors.

And even early on they are starting to achieve things in their school that are unheard of in high schools. The cloning of cattle, the conversion of vehicles to run on hydrogen, the making of precision musical instruments, are only a few examples. And you can be sure in the coming years there will be many many many more examples.

I hope that Erie high school is just the beginning of the transformation of schools from push platforms to pull platforms. That will be real school change. – Steve Wyckoff

Maybe school change can happen. In May the Kansas State Board of Education authorized the formation of the Kansas Education Commission to examine the framework for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). I have the honor, at least I think it’s an honor, of having been selected to serve on the commission.

Since my invitation I have given a lot of thought to my personal approach to the commission and I’m ready to put some of it in writing to see how it looks and sounds. I’m trying to clarify in my own mind what I think the state of Kansas should be thinking about in the redesign of schools. So here we go…

1. I believe that schools need to move from a push platform to a pull platform. If you haven’t read The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison it’s a must-read. They do a remarkable job of describing how the world is changing. How we are moving away from centrally controlled and organized systems to empowered individuals, connected to others with similar interests and desires, creating our own knowledge and achievement as we go.

2. The core curriculum, that curriculum mandated by the Kansas Board of Regents, has always been the “main dish” of education. It’s time that the core curriculum be relegated to a side dish. The main dish of the system needs to be the inspiration of every student to discover what it is that they are so passionate about that they begin the journey to becoming remarkable at it.

3. We also must recognize that our system was designed to prepare large numbers of students in basically the same way, for the same work experience in their lives. Today instead of large numbers of students being prepared for a few work experiences, we must prepare small groups of students for vast numbers of work experiences. The “mass production” of students in a “factory model” school is simply intolerable in the 21st century.

4. I believe with all my heart that if a state like Kansas creates a 21st-century school system, even begins intentionally moving towards a 21st-century school system, individuals and businesses from around the world will flock to Kansas to join the movement.

5. As a state we need to minimize as much as possible the impact of the federal government on our system. The perverse focus on standardized tests and national standards is crippling us, and our students. We need to do the minimum to comply, and hope to do as little damage to our students as possible.

So do I think the Kansas education commission will lead to real school change? I think it has a chance, but I remain skeptical. I’m not sure this situation is desperate enough… yet! I remain hopeful. – Steve Wyckoff

Real school change will only happen when the “main dish” of education is a student centered, learning by doing experience. When our 115-year-old core curriculum is relegated to a  “side dish.” There is such a school, Erie High School in Erie Kansas. At Erie high school students have the option to be in a project based curriculum. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I believe that students at Erie high school who are in the project-based learning curriculum, are the best prepared students in the state of Kansas to face their lives in the 21st century.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting with school leaders in the Erie school district. We had a very engaging and ebergetic discussion about many aspects, and affects, of project-based learning. About their journey to create a school that strives to help every student become remarkable. And not on standardized tests.

But as good as the conversation was the highlight of my day was to tour their new school that will open in the fall of 2010. Over the last 40 years I have been in many, many new school buildings. But this one was different. Oh, there were many of the same features you would see in any school. But what you won’t see in any school is a learning space specifically designed to enable and enhance student learning in a project based environment.

From the state-of-the-art natural lighting, to the large open aesthetically pleasing spaces that will house the individual student workstations, the new facility is amazing. And it’s not just the aesthetics, architect Allan Milbradt, and Superintendent John Wyrick, took the time to show me all of this state-of-the-art green technologies that are designed to enhance learning, reduce cost, and not do damage to the environment.

I only hope that visitors to the school will pay as much attention to the way that students are learning as they do the beautiful facility. The educators in Erie are making tremendous strides towards creating a learning experience that truly prepares every student for their life in the 21st century. This is rural school change! – Steve Wyckoff

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how our world is changing from a “push” approach, to a “pull” approach. I’ve heard a couple of good examples of the old “push” method, TV and education. The TV executives make a command decision about which programs you get to watch. What day they are on, what time they are on, and if they will continued be on.

In the “pull” world you set your DVR and watch it whenever you want, furthermore, you can fast-forward through the commercials if you want. But the real “pull” world is YouTube. You can search for almost anything, and watch at any time, just about anything you want. There are no elites deciding what you get to see when you get to see it, it’s all up to you.

Another good example of the old-style “push” world is education. Our students are told what they have to take, when they have to take it, with very little if any choice. We have elite individuals who have decided what THE “standards” need to be for every child, and most of our curriculum in K-12 schools is mandated by colleges.

I’m very proud of the project my colleagues at ESSDACK have launched. It is truly a “pull” approach. The name of the project, and the website, are My Kids Turn. Each of the six programs, soon to be expanded to 10, contains video clips designed to help parents with the educational needs of their kids.

Jane Seward’s channel is called Magic Spell, and is intended for parents who want help their children become better spellers. Michelle Flaming’s channel is called By The Numbers, and is designed to give parents strategies to help their kids understand and love math. Reneé Smith and Jaime Hendricks team up on Just Deserts. Just Deserts gives parents table games that can be played with their kids at meal time, that support and enrich their learning at school.

Jodi Case has developed Learn, Grow, and Bloom, which is designed for parents with toddlers through pre-school with language and speaking, build pre–reading and math skills. Great Games, Better Brains is produced by Glenn Wiebe and Jaime Hendricks and helps parents explore the wild and woolly world of video games for their children, from an educational point of view. And finally, Kevin Honeycutt is featured in Raising Digital Kids. Kevin is a national presenter who often speaks on Internet safety and the use of technology by kids.

We are betting that, in the 21st century, the world will continue becoming a “pull” world. We believe that the use of “pull” approaches to learning will lead to real school change. Check out the website and see what you think. Can you imagine your school, or your classroom, or your children’s learning experience becoming customized and individualized through new technologies? – Steve Wyckoff

I recently listened to a podcast from the Cato Institute on National Curriculum Education Standards. This is an extremely interesting podcast in spite of the fact that the first segment is done by a politician. Neil McCluskey, of the Cato Institute, has a very interesting take, and also interesting data.

Several points stood out to me, given my repulsion to national standards and standardized tests. The first point that Dr. McCluskey made was against the argument that a modern country should have one set of educational curriculum standards. The evidence that has always given is that India and China are gaining on us. Therefore we need national standards. But wait a minute, both India and China have realized that they need to de-centralized their educational system not centralize it more. Why then are we centralizing more?

Furthermore it is always pointed out that the countries that do better than us on standardized test all have national standards. What is never pointed out is that 33 of the 39 countries that ranked below us all have national standards. In 11 of the bottom 12 countries have national standards.

Which leads to another point that I found very interesting. There is no empirical evidence that national standards produce better results. Isn’t that interesting? In no Child left the use of research-based practices is mandated. Yet conspicuous by its absence is the research on national standards. Yet no research has been done on the use of national curriculum standards.

Call me a skeptic, but I think national standards are more about control than they are about improving educational opportunities for our children. In the 21st century it’s all about individualization and customization, national curriculum standards are just the opposite. If we want real school change we should be focusing on customizing and individualizing the educational process to meet the individual needs of every child. Otherwise we are doing a great job of further preparing kids to work in the factories that no longer exist, doing jobs that no longer exist. – Steve Wyckoff

Have you ever heard somebody say something and said to yourself, “That really make sense.” And then days later, or weeks later, or years later, and even decades later you realize how profound that statement was. Well  Phil Schlechty has one of those quotes. The first time I heard it I was intrigued but over the last couple of decades, as I thought more and more about it, I realized how profound it is. Phil said;

“A teacher’s job is not to teach kids, a teacher’s job is to create meaningful engaging work whereby the student learns the things we want them to learn.”

How profound. Phil also led me to understand how important authentic engagement is to learning. I don’t know if Phil decided authentic engagement was important and that led him to understand what the teacher’s role needed to be. Or if he analyzed successful teachers and saw that those that created work for the student, that was meaningful and engaging, led to engaged students. It may be a chicken or egg discussion.

But the reality is this, for students to truly learn, not just remembering stuff until the  standardized tests are over, they must be emotionally engaged in the learning process. Nothing emotionally engages students in what they’re learning more than doing work that is meaningful and engaging to them.

“Work” also implies that the students are doing something, not passively observing as the teacher does the work. There is a mountain of research that you only learn something, by doing something. My friend Roger Schank has led the research and the movement for learning by doing.

I think when you couple learning by doing, Roger Schank’s work, with Phil Schlechty’s theories, work that is meaningful and engaging, you have the recipe for students becoming remarkable. – Steve Wyckoff

I wrote recently about the need to give schools autonomy if we want to see real school change. Not autonomy to implement government rules however we see fit, but the autonomy for dedicated educators to implement the kind of educational strategies and processes that could really make a difference for our kids in preparing them for the 21st century.

I have the pleasure of working with a group of educators who for the third year are planning a two-part summer conference for educators. The conference is called I Connect I Learn 2010 and will occur on June 2 and 3rd in Colby Kansas, and on June 10th and 11th in Salina Kansas. These are exactly the kind of educators who need the autonomy to implement their strategies and ideas … make that dreams, in their schools and classrooms.

You have to attend icil2010 to truly understand what I’m talking about. The passion and energy level will be off the charts. In fact, this conference is billed as an “un-conference.”What, you ask, is an “un-conference? An un-conference allows participants to pursue a learning path of their choice, and believe me, with this crew you couldn’t stop them from pursuing their own path of learning if you wanted to!

They don’t call for presentations, they call for facilitators. The facilitators lead discussions on various topics during the breakout sessions, or  space is provided for participants to lead their own discussions.

Lately I’ve written about the three things that our kids need; inspiration, passion, and to be remarkable. Well, if there’s ever been a group that those three words describe it’s the team that voluntarily organizes and makes icil2010 run like a well oiled machine!

I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of public education. I think we’re headed down the wrong path and only a major event can change the path we’re on. But if by some chance public education does turnaround and prosper it will be because of the efforts of individuals like these. Margaret Mead is quoted as saying; ” Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. It is, indeed, the only thing that ever has.” And I can tell you this is a group of concerned citizens! – Steve Wyckoff