What's Become Clear

For the 34th and 35th time I had the opportunity this week to speak to students in the College of Education at the University Kansas. Twice each semester for the last nine years I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students in Dr. Mike Neill’s class. These are students who hope to become teachers. Usually there are 80 to 100 students in each class. That means that over the last nine years I’ve had the pleasure to interact with between 2,800 and  3,500 students. Okay, so if you do the math it should have had the 35th and 36th time right? Well they missed one day a couple of years ago because school was dismissed because they won some basketball game. You may remember

Anyway, these are always some of my favorite days. I have the opportunity to interact with students who are pretty much fresh out of high school, but also are committed to becoming educators. In many ways it’s refreshing and uplifting. In other ways it’s depressing.

Let me explain. I always love their enthusiasm and their commitment. They possess a passion for what they think they’re going to face. They are bright, engaged, and ready to take on the world.

The depressing part, I always visit with them about authentic engagement. The flow that learners are in when they are so engaged they lose track of time. I tell them it is my opinion that the most important thing they can do is to create learning experiences that are so engaging that their students are regularly authentically engaged. But then I ask them how many of them were authentically engaged on a regular basis in high school.

Yesterday was most one of the most depressing days when I asked this question. Not one hand was raised. Think about it, these are young adults who want to spend the rest of their life in school, and yet none of them were regularly authentically engaged in high school.  Normally, there are only five or six students in the entire class who were regularly authentically engaged in high school, but still to have no students raise their hand was a little bit shocking.

Through our dialogue it was clear that they understand what being authentically engaged is. They even talked about their school experiences that were authentically engaging. They listed them, year book, drama, athletics, and other experiences that were almost all outside of the core curriculum.

When we talk about the core curriculum students in this class through the years have rarely, if ever, identified them as authentically engaging. Interestingly enough  when students did find a class in the core curriculum that was authentically engaging to them, that is typically the subject they are preparing to teach. I hope they don’t model their teaching after the teachers they had simply because it was authentically engaging to them.

The other thing that I’m always aware of when speaking to the students is how pervasive the thinking is that the way our system operates is the only possible way the system can operate. I wish that we had more time to talk about how the system could be modified in order to engage students and yet still learn the things that we want students to learn, that usual in education time limited how much we can accomplish.

Other interesting topics we cover: standardized tests, which always realize a conversation; the need for individualizing instruction; innovation; and our system is pervasively focused on preparing kids to go to four years college rather than preparing them for their life. – Steve Wyckoff

I spent a lot of time thinking about what needs to change in schools, how we do school reform. I also spend a lot of time listening to books. Over the last several months I’ve listened to six books that make great connections for me. I’d recommend the following six books for every educator.

Drive – Daniel Pink
How We Decide – Jonah Lehrer
Talent Is Overrated – Geoff Colvin
The Talent Code – Daniel Coyle
Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
The Element – Sir Ken Robinson

So what do all these books have in common? They all deal with motivation, learning, and great performance. Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version of what I took from these books, but please read them and let me know what you think their importance is.

First of all there is a common thread through the six that motivation and excellence are linked to interest. Individuals who have high intrinsic interest in what they’re doing are better learners. So for schools this means that we must allow students to have choice in what it is that they’re learning.  School reformer Phil Schlecty always said that teachers don’t know what their job is. He said, ” That a teacher’s job is not to teach kids. A teacher’s job is to create work that is meaningful and engaging to the student, whereby they learn the things that we want them to learn.” He’s right on target according to these authors. We have to give kids work to do, but it has to be meaningful and engaging to them.

The second thread that runs through these books is that there is no such thing as inherent talent. There are several studies that are referred to that show two things. One, and individual must spend approximately 10 years and/or 10,000 hours involved in the pursuit to become an expert. But time alone is not enough, the individual must also spend that time in what the authors referred to as, “deliberate practice.” That’s practice that focuses on improving each and every facet of the performance. By the way, the performance can be physical or cognitive, it doesn’t matter.

So what does that mean to us in schools? Well the sad truth is what we have students practice most often for 10 years and/or 10,000 hours, is passively being compliant. We ask them to sit in the seat, do what they are told, do it when they are told, and do it how they are told to do it. If they run into trouble we tell them to raise their hand and we will answer their questions, and solve their problems.

Our current system is designed to reduce the deficits that our kids have. We identify what they’re not good at and we try to raise them to mediocrity. What we should be doing is identifying what they are good at, and letting them become experts in that area. In the real world if you can shine at something you can be a success, in spite of your deficits.

Does that mean that we ignore their deficits? Absolutely not, but we should improve on those deficits as part of the deliberate practice they do in the area that they have a high interest. So they will become experts in an area with the supporting skills and knowledge necessary.

So schools, start figuring out how to create educational experiences that are, long-term, engaging to each and every student on an individual basis, and allow the student to become an expert in what rows their boat in the 21st century. – Steve Wyckoff

Erie school district has been blessed. By Mike Carson, Rose Frey, Ted Hill, and many many others who were involved in the transformation of their school. Erie high school is unique. What makes them unique is that their focus is on their students, and their student’s futures.

Erie high school has changed what the students learn, how the students learn, and how they organize the students to learn. In addition, while the students do take the state mandated standardized tests, their students are measured in much different ways than almost all other kids across the country.

The curriculum used in Erie high school is based on projects and problems designed by each individual student, based on their own interest, needs, and desires. And the results have been equally unique, students, and I mean all students, have far exceeded the normal expectations we have for high school kids. And, as former superintendent Mike Carson is fond of saying, “It isn’t just the head cheerleader and the quarterback that are doing great things.”

What Erie high school has figured out is how to not just expose their kids to curriculum with all the standards, but how to actually engage the students in meaningful work, whereby the kids learn the things that they want them to learn. Is it perfect? No. There have been, and continue to be, many issues. But unlike school improvement in traditional schools, they are getting better at the right things, rather than just getting better at what schools have always done.

I’ve observed for the last 40 years scores of creative an innovative projects. Some big, some small. The thing that they all had in common was a champion. The sad truth is, as soon as the champion moved on, and eventually they always do, the gravity of the status quo always pulled the project back into the mainstream and morphed it into a traditional program. There seems to be no way to make real systemic change in the educational system.

So I’m watching Erie high school with great interest. The superintendent has retired, as has the high school principal responsible for the project-based, problem-based learning curriculum. Other changes have been made with key personnel. My hope is that the model employed in Erie high school will spread across the state and the country.  The hope is that new champions have replaced the old champions.

I have low expectations. In spite of the fact that their kids are doing exceptional things and are truly well-prepared for the life they’re going to live; and in spite of the fact that it is actually cheaper to educate kids in this model; and in spite of the fact that we are in a financial crisis; I fear that it is impossible to actually make sustainable systemic change in public schools.

Time will tell.

For the last 20+ years I’ve constantly considered what it would take to make systemic change in the public education system. I’ve looked at it from every angle and I’ve changed my mind many times. Apparently, this is another one of those times, because I have change my mind again. In the past I’ve looked at policies, regulations, and practices, from the perspective  of what should we require schools to do. I’ve considered universal vouchers, and while I think they are still a good idea, they aren’t going to happen, and even if they did under the current conditions it wouldn’t change much.  I admit that up until now I’ve got universal vouchers were the answer.

Let me explain. I think vouchers, at least in a state like Kansas, would be very much like the charter schools. The charter school law while well-crafted, and well-meaning, has had little or no impact on the educational system. This is true in Kansas because control of charter schools has been left in the hands of local school districts and the state Board of Education. To become a charter school in Kansas, in spite of what the law says, you must look exactly like traditional public schools, in order to be granted a charter. This clearly violates the intent of the law, but I think lawmakers were more concerned with having a charter school law that having charter schools.

I realize that in some states charter schools have had a tremendous impact in terms of systemic change. States where this has occurred have had the benefit of a charter school law that is strong, and a legislature that intended to really have innovation in their schools. Neither of these is true in a state like Kansas.

So why do I think vouchers would fail in a state like Kansas? They would fail because there are so many regulations and policies that force every school to operate within the very narrow parameters of what we’ve always done in school. On top of that overcoming the inertia of more than 100 years in the current system is a daunting task.

What’s become clear to me is that if we really hope to implement real systemic change in public schools the solution lies in eliminating or dramatically reducing the ability of the state Department of Education and the state Board of Education to regulate and control schools. In an age of customization and individualization in all aspects of our life, it makes no sense for 10  laypeople to make decisions that require every single school in the state to behave in exactly the same way. Nor does it make sense to have bureaucrats make decisions that each and every school must follow in spite of the fact that in almost all cases there are many possible solutions that might work well.

Again I refer to Dan Pink’s book, Drive, or perspective. Pink outlines the factors that lead  heuristic behavior. Exactly the kind of behavior we need in our schools if we hope to meet the needs of our students in the 21st century. One of the key elements that Pink talks about his autonomy. He identifies four components that must be present to satisfy the need for autonomy.  He called them the four “T’s”: the task, the time, the technique, and the team,

The task is what you actually have people working on, they must have some control over the task. Currently the KSDE, and KSBE, are continually narrowing down exactly what the task is that schools must accomplish in spite of the fact that neither students nor society are served well by the defined tasks. They define the core curriculum, most of which is out of date, and the metrics for measurement, define standardized tests, that turn our kids into test taking machines and our schools into test preparation academies. If regulations didn’t exist mandating exactly what every student will receive in school, schools would immediately start to redefine what it is they want every student should know, do, and be like. And in turn to a much better job of meeting the needs of individual students and society.

The second “T” time is also mandated by the state. In fact every school must account for 1118 hours (I think that’s the right number, but it’s so irrelevant who would bother to remember it). In addition there are hosts of regulations and guidelines surrounding the “how’s” and “when’s” those hours must be counted. Another side effect of standardized testing mandated by the state and federal government, is that schools are controlling the timing of instruction and learning more rigidly than ever before. Which flies in the face of the fact that all kids learn at a different pace and are ready to learn things in a different time.

The third “T” is technique, the how you go about your business. Through certification requirements and collaboration with colleges, every teacher must be certified in the subject area that they teach. This ensures that how we teach and what we teach will never very from a traditional classroom model. This model is several centuries old now. I do concede that we are doing the best job of traditional instruction that we’ve ever done. The research surrounding this method is extensive. But it leaves no latitude other than direct instruction as the dominant instructional mode.

The fourth “T” is team, or who you work with. Once again through certification and departmentalization, mostly as a result of college entrance requirements, teachers work in isolation, teaching their subject in isolation. Not only do they not have the choice of who they team with, they don’t team. We do have anecdotal evidence of schools that are promoting teaming among their teachers, but they certainly are not the rule, nor do they seem to have much shelflife.

My contention, that if we would eliminate most of the rules and regulations forced upon us by state and federal regulations and policies we would see the kind of innovation that occurs in other industries, and a real focus on preparing students for their future,  rather than forcing them to “fit” into a system that is over 100 years old.

Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear from you.

Take a second and look at the list below. What do each of these have in common?

Cell phones
Smart phones
iPod
Chat
Text messaging
Twitter
Facebook
E-mail

Perhaps you said these were all digital. Or that they are all customized and individualized. You may have said these are all things that kids use. Or you may have said these are all things that are used in businesses today as  tools. All of those would have been correct, but they weren’t what I was looking for.

The thing I’ve noticed that they all have in common is that each of these is banned in the vast majority of our schools. Wouldn’t you think that the tools that are used daily in our kids lives, and are also used as business tools, would be utilized equally effectively in our schools?

When I talk to faculties of high schools they are adamant that these items should never be used in school. And in fact, they identified them as huge distractions to student learning. My question to the staff members is, “who is responsible for teaching kids to write multipage research papers?” Typically, several hands go up. Usually they are members of the social studies department, or the English department, or the science department, or a combination of all of these.

But when I asked who was responsible for teaching kids the appropriate use of the items in the list there is  never hand raised. My next question then is which of these would be most often used by our students in the real world, a multipage research paper or the items in the list above? Obviously, the items in the list will be used regularly by most, if not all, of our kids in the real world as students, and adults. They will be used both in their personal life, in their professional lives.

So why do schools refuse to incorporate these items not only asked curriculum content, but also as tools to learn the existing content? What do you think? Leave me a comment below and we’ll talk about it.