Educational Insanity

Once upon a time, when I was a graduate student at Boston College, I studied under a professor named Dr. Michael Schiro.  He had published a book called Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns.  In that book, he spells out four “conflicting” theories of curriculum. I won’t detail them here other than to say that each of the theories (or ideologies) is backed by psychological theories/principles.  For my final paper for his class (this was over a decade ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday), I challenged his whole premise and asserted that there were essentially only two schools of thought with respect to curriculum: one school based on principles of developmental psychology and the other based on behavioral psychology.

This wasn’t completely novel thinking, but for a masters level student, it was pretty heady stuff.  Years later, I read Kieran Egan’s article, “Why education is so difficult and contentious” wherein Egan asserts that “thinking about education during this century has almost entirely involved just three ideas -socialization, Plato’s academic idea, and Rousseau’s developmental idea.” Egan goes on to argue that “[a]ll educational positions are made up of various mixes of these ideas. The problems we face in education are due to the fact that each of these ideas is significantly flawed and also that each is incompatible in basic ways with the other two. Until we recognize these basic incompatibilities we will be unable adequately to respond to the problems we face.”  In other words, attending to academics, socialization and child development were each flawed goals for schooling and when pursued simultaneously, they conflict.

Leaving out the socialization piece, Egan’s thesis further strengthened my belief in the ultimate pitting of principles of development psychology and behavioral psychology in the enactment of schooling. Lately, I’ve been imagining this as more of a continuum than a dichotomy.  Interestingly, this new(er) thinking has been influenced by my observations around parenting as much as schooling.  I’m a father of two kids under 5 years old, and we interact with lots of parents of young kids.  What I have noticed is adults who tend to parent in ways that are heavily developmentally-focused, heavily behaviorally-focused, or some mix of the two.

These observations and ideas are not entirely original, but there’s another dimension to add that I think is equally important to my own (maybe original) developing theory of schooling and parenting.  This second dimension (or continuum) has to do with intentionality.  That is, adults interact with kids in ways that are more or less intentional.  Some things we do with kids are done with great intention, while other things are done without much thought at all (sometimes even by accident).

If we cross these two dimensions, we end up with something like this:

[how's that for advanced use of my tablet PC?]

So, the more deliberate/intentional/purposeful adults are in their interactions with children (as educators and/or parents), the further to the right of the graph they are.  The more developmentally-focused one’s actions are, the higher on the y-axis they fall (and the more behaviorally-focused one is, the lower on the y-axis they fall).  For instance, consider rewards systems for kids (e.g. “read 25 pages per night and earn 5 gold stars on the reading chart!” or “poop on the potty and earn 5 M&Ms!”). Those are interventions based on principles of behavioral psychology.  Thus, they’d be pretty far down on the y-axis.  Where that interaction would be plotted with respect to the x-axis depends on how purposeful the adult(s) was(were) in choosing that strategy. I submit that many educators and parents engage in such activities without much thought as to why they are doing it.

I try not to be judgmental about how people parent their kids. We all have unique needs and circumstances and have to make very personal parenting decisions.   My wife and I are very, very deliberate about our parenting. It is hard for me to imagine that anyone has read more books and thought more about parenting than my wife.  As a result, just about everything we do as parents would be plotted far to the right on the graph above.  We’re also very committed to a developmentally-focused orientation towards parenting called Attachment Parenting. So, we try to be as high and far as possible into the upper-right quadrant of the graph above.  That works for us.  It doesn’t work for most; I fully recognize that.  All I’ll say beyond that about parenting is that I am concerned that too many parents are not intentional enough about what they do.

In fact, I feel pretty strongly that all of our interactions with children should be as intentional as possible.  With respect to schooling, I strongly favor developmental approaches; I’m not shy about that bias.  However, if educators use behavior-based approaches, I can be more supportive if it is done so with great purpose/deliberation (e.g. “I know there are consequences, particularly with respect to motivation, to implementing a rewards program, but I believe the benefits outweigh the disadvantages…”). In most cases, though, behavioral approaches to teaching/learning are undertaken without much deliberation.  This default, behavior-based orientation to schooling troubles me immensely.  I have great fears about exposing my children to that form of schooling.

Some other thoughts about the graph:

• I believe that the majority of educators and parents engage kids in ways that would be plotted in the bottom half of the graph.
• In the world of schooling, I believe the majority of interactions between adults and children would be plotted in the lower-right quadrant.
• I believe very few interactions between adults and kids would be plotted in the upper-left quadrant.  Especially in the Western Hemisphere, the default parenting orientation tends toward behaviorism.

That’s all I’ll say for now. I hope to revisit these ideas on occasion.  I also hope you’ll help me think through them.

[NOTE  #1: this was originally posted on February 7, 2008.  I am re-posting it here as part of the #edublogBT idea/meme about which I wrote yesterday.]

[NOTE #2: at the time, I had designs on posting a weekly blog post about educational research.  I think I got as far 4 or 5 entries before that idea faded. I'd like to, at some point, revisit the "scientifically-based blog post" idea. I think it's a niche I can help fill.]

***

Might as well start right at the top of my own pecking order. To me, one of the very best, if not the best, articles I have read is called, Factors Affecting Technology Uses In Schools: An Ecological Perspective, by Yong Zhao and Kenneth A. Frank from Michigan State University. This well-designed, mixed methods study examined teacher and student use of computers from an ecological perspective. The authors start by referencing the introduction of zebra mussels into Lake St. Clair. The mussels were first introduced in 1988, and by 1990, they could be found in all of the Great Lakes. In fact, in a very short period of time, the introduction of the zebra mussel has caused tremendous ecological change in the Great Lakes. While recognizing that computers and zebra mussels are very different, the authors imply that their goal is to understand why “computer uses” as an invading species have not caused disruption to the schooling organization.

Their first major finding confirms some of my own empirical conclusions; the vast majority of the variance in computer use exists WITHIN schools, not between schools. I think that’s a really important but rarely understood finding. One of the many implications is that we are much more likely to be able to identify high-end computer using teachers than high-end schools. Schools are not the right unit of analysis in examining differences in technology use. Other findings:

• Teachers niche in the ecosystem – English teachers were much more likely to use computers than their peers.
• Teacher / Ecosystem Interaction – teachers who reported feeling pressure and support from colleagues were more likely to use computers more. Also, where there were too many competing invading species (other “programs” or “innovations”), computer use suffered.
• Teacher-Computer Predisposition for Compatibility – teachers who found computers to be more compatible with pedagogical beliefs and practices used computers more.
• Opportunities for Mutual Adaptation – teachers that had more time to “play around” with computers used them more for teaching/learning.

Overall, the authors found great support for the ecological framework. I think the study is framed beautifully, carried out well and reported eloquently. Most importantly, the findings resonate with my own empirical understandings of technology integration. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

I have an idea. Maybe it’s a meme. Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, the idea has three origins. First, it dates back to a dinner conversation in Chinatown (D.C.) during NECC ‘09 with (CAUTION: name-dropping to commence…) Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson, Wes Fryer and Scott McLeod. I forget how the discussion started, but we ended up talking about resuscitating old blog posts. I thought it would be interesting to somehow curate a collection of self-nominated “favorite” or “best” blog posts.

Second, I’m fairly convinced that many of “us” use our blogs less regularly since Twitter came upon the scene. Sometimes I struggle to write anything that is more than 140 characters.

Finally, I’m reminded of when Scott McLeod used to recognize blogs that deserve a bigger audience (DABA). I know I’m not alone in thinking that there are individual blog posts that deserve a bigger audience.

So, here’s the idea: resuscitate a blog post that was written “before Twitter” and be sure to include the tag: #edublogBT.

For those of us that blogged reasonably regularly before we starting tweeting regularly, that should be pretty easy.  For those of you who started blogging and tweeting about the same time (or started Tweeting first), you can’t play…Well, I suppose you can still play and revive a post that you wrote a while ago that you would like to reintroduce to the world.

I have some ideas of how I’d curate this collection of posts (which all assume you are good about including the “edublogBT” tag.  If you have other ideas, fell free to share them in the comments here.

I’ll (re) post my first “edublogBT” post tomorrow.

Wanna play?

photo credit: Jasmin Baltres PhotographyI

According to some studies, charter schools are good. According to other studies, charter schools are not so good.

There are some good charter schools. There are some bad charter schools.

On the whole, then, charter schools make no difference.

[Peer-review *THAT* fellow academicians!]