Educational Insanity

Think about *all* the implications that come from shifting our language from learn(ing) from to learn(ing) with. (and words matter, right David Jakes?)

That’s the “shift” that has to happen. (apologies to Karl Fisch)  That’s it.

“Learning from” was often necessary when one party in the learning transaction(s) had greater access to information than the others. There are hardly any differences in access to information anymore.

“Learning with” has always been possible, but it was limited by our capacity to be in the same place(s) at the same time(s). Those limitations are all but gone now, too.

I don’t want to learn from anyone anymore, and I don’t want students to learn from me anymore. I’m willing to be a lead learner, but I want to learn with everyone.

Those with whom I network for learning purposes through Twitter, blogs, Nings, etc. are largely members of an amorphous educational technology community.  That community is fond of throwing around terms like “change” and “reform” connected to schools or education and most often the “change” or “reform” is largely related to advances in technology. The gist of the argument is that technology has changed the world we live in but not schools so schools need to catch up (or something to that effect).  Schools are becoming “dangerously irrelevant,” right Scott?

There are also frequent references to those other educators who do not “get it.”  Yet, it is never clear, at least to me, what the “it” is that other educators are supposed to “get.” There are references to School 2.0, Classroom 2.0,etc.  Significant technology integration is certainly implied, but even that is a loosely defined concept.

Many of the same individuals with whom I learn and interact online will be attending Educon 2.2. at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia this coming weekend.  That event will involve lots of conversations, largely around technology and the future of education. Chris Lehmann, the principal of SLA, has long been clear that Educon is not an educational technology conference.  In fact, the conference is guided by five axioms which you see below:

That’s not a bad starting point for framing the “it” that “others” are supposed to “get,” but like all standards, they are vague and high-minded.  I believe “we” (myself included) would all do well to think long and hard about what “it” is that “we” are aiming for and figure out a way to articulate “it.”

What troubles me more than an overall lack of an operationalized vision of the change that “we” want are the many flawed arguments made in favor of “it.” That is, to justify a vision that I argue is not clear from the start, there are a host of arguments being made within the amorphous ed. tech. community that are logically problematic. I summarize and briefly discuss some of those arguments below:

The “Digital Natives” Argument – yes, I’m well aware that “we” have largely denounced the digital natives-immigrants dichotomy, and I’m on board with that.  However, I see a new, related line of thinking that is equally problematic.  It has to do with the notion that kids are really comfortable with technology, they use it a lot, so we should bury them in it at schools too.  When the recent Kaiser Family Foundation report was released, it spread like wildfire among “our” networks/communities.  Here are the money lines: Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Well, there you go. Given *that*, how can we NOT make our schools more “relevant?”  HOLD ON…what’s the logic there?  Just because that’s what kids do on their own time, that’s how we should engage them in schools?  Why is that exactly?  Maybe, actually, what we need to be doing is using that evidence to argue for maximizing face-to-face time.  In fact, this gives me even more reason to argue for the “flipped classroom” model that you see discussed here.  Let’s “disrupt” or “interrupt” kids time online by, where necessary, providing content or instruction via digital means so that when they come to school they can learn to interact with each other and learn socially while face-to-face.

The Economics Argument – this is the argument based, often, in the works of (non-economists) Daniel Pink, Richard Florida, etc.  It is a big part of presentations done by folks I admire greatly, including my friend/colleague Scott McLeod.  Watch and/or listen to Scott’s presentation to the NEA and you’ll hear a lot about the changing nature of the workforce and how we need to reform schools to meet those changing needs.

I get that, kind of.  Here’s the problem.  If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce.  That’s not at all something I believe.  For me, first and foremost, schools are in the business of preparing kids to be active, productive citizens in a deliberative democratic society.  Schooling for citizenship and deliberation, not employment.  I want to remove all references to “workplace” or “workforce” or “economy” from any and all school mission statements.

If I argue or advocate for technology integration in schools, it is based on the idea that we need to recognize that the Web is causing us to rethink what citizenship means and is increasingly becoming a space where important deliberation happens (see e.g. the ways in which social media impacted the last presidential election in this country).  We need to help kids become deliberative  and to express their ideas and thoughts in productive ways in spaces that are digital and PUBLIC.

That said, building upon my notion of maximizing face-to-face time, let’s think about ways to use school time to foster civic engagement and deliberative habits. As far as I’m concerned, every kid should be required to take a debate class.

The Business Argument – this argument was bolstered by the publishing of Disruptive Class which is based on the theory of disruptive innovation developed by of one of the book’s authors, Clayton Christensen.  The general premise there is that technology will increasingly allow us to individualize/customize learning and makes learning possible anywhere/anytime and that is an innovation that will disrupt the model of formal schooling as we know it here…unless, of course, schools figure out a way to head off that disruption at the pass.

Let’s say we accept the book’s premise. Then what?  It was NEVER clear to me in reading the book what it is that schools need to do in order to not get “disrupted.”  Are student-centric learning technologies that customize learning the disruption or the prescription against disruption? I may be missing that, and if so, I’m willing to listen.  But, if “we” include the “Disrupting Class” thinking in “our” arguments, “we” need to be prepared to then tie the vision of the “it” that “they” are supposed to “get” to the logic of disruptive innovation.  In other words, it’s not enough just to say that the current model of schooling is going to be disrupted.

That said, I’m not accepting the book’s premise, largely because I’m missing the last link  in the chain of logic.  I also still don’t understand why the author’s went after K-12 education and not higher education.  Higher education is a choice (to a degree). Up to a certain age, though, public schooling is mandatory.  It’s also, for most people, a public enterprise and not a profit-driven one, and I don’t think the theory of disruptive innovation works in that context.  For a more thoughtful critique of Disrupting Class, I encourage you to read this critique by Andy Zucker of the Concord Consortium.

The “Bored Kid” Anecdote – OK, @bengrey, your turn under the bus. So, lots of attention was given to the story of Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company that created EtherPad.  Ben wrote about Aaron’s story here.  Lisa Nielsen wrote about it here and here.  Aaron’s story is not a new one.  And, I know Ben and Lisa and others know that.  In fact, that was pretty much their point.  Since forever, kids have been bored in schools.

Well, guess what?  For all of the Aaron’s out there, I can point to a…well…me. School worked beautifully for me.  I’m the perfect anecdote for maintaining the status quo in schools.  I loved school. I got to learn, largely by myself, and that’s what I liked.  Teachers soothed my ego and made me feel smart and great and I achieved at high levels. So, why isn’t anyone blogging about me and how schools work?

Additionally, the Gladwellian tactic of finding a case to fit an a priori belief is not compelling to me.  I think case studies can be immensely interesting and meaningful, but only if done thoroughly and systematically.  Gladwell gives us bits and pieces of his cases and, as a result, we can’t know how well that case “fits” his theory because we don’t know enough about the case.  Same with Aaron Iba. Do we really have enough information here to know the whole story? To conclude that the schooling system failed Aaron? Writing a good case study is hard to do.  When done well, though, they are deep, rich narratives that are full of meaning; they aren’t meant to be “generalizable” though.

One last question about the “bored kid” anecdote: what makes you think the “it,” the “new” school or modes of learning that you apparently have in mind though haven’t quite fully articulated will be not boring for everyone?

In sum, then, I think “we” are putting broken carts before the horses. “We” are concentrating too much on the “why change” argument without first fully and clearly articulating what it is “we” want from schools.  Furthermore, the “why change” arguments, I argue (meta?), are fundamentally flawed.

There are lots of reasons for the institution of schooling to be transformed.  Likewise, there are lots of reasons to consider the affordances of ubiquitous computing for learning.  I ask you to help me think through those reasons in ways that are well-informed and logical…especially those of you with whom I hope to have fully maximized face-to-face experiences this weekend at Educon. I look forward to deliberating with many of you there!

I blogged.

For Wes Fryer.

Because I’m trying to steal the attention of his vast audience.

Click here to see the post if you’d like.

photo credit: AchimH

[NOTE: thanks to Scott McLeod for dreaming up this idea three years ago.  This is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009.  The Leadership posts I've already seen are great, and the collection of posts will ultimately make for an important and interesting contribution to the field of educational leadership.]

I have a doctorate in Politics and Education and when I’m asked what that means, I usually speak to a definition of politics I’ve “borrowed” (re-mixed?) from an adjunct professor with whom I took a course while in graduate school.  Dr. Dale Snauwaert, an adjunct professor at TC at the time, wrote about politics as the intersection of power and justice.  Combining my interests in the politics of education and educational technology, I’ve written much about justice and educational technology (see e.g. this article).  I have not, however, written much about power and educational technology…until now.

In my courses on the politics of education, I guide our exploration of power with two questions: (1) who has power? and (2) how is power organized/distributed?  Much has been written about who has power in the area of educational technology, though there’s more that needs to be written.  Today, though, I explore what I believe to be a major obstacle to school reform through the lens of educational technology: how power is distributed around educational technology.

Educational governance is ultimately about control and how that control is (or is not) partitioned among the various stakeholders matters immensely. I argue that in education, the system is multi-layered and overly partitioned.  I compare our educational system to onions and silos.

“The way authority is structured and exercised shapes the intellectual and moral character of the school, thereby profoundly influencing student development” (Snauwaert, 1993).

ONIONS

The U.S. education system is like an onion in that it has many levels and the more you try to peel away at those layers, the more you start to tear up.

Policy decisions are made by federal, state, and local education agencies.  Even locally, decisions are made at the district, school, department and classroom level.

In addition to aiding or hindering quality education, there are many consequences to the multilayered system, including the phenomenon of mutual adaptation (which I’ve written about here).  As McLaughlin wrote in an article in 1990 about school reform, “…it is exceedingly difficult for policy to change practice, especially across levels of government” (p. 12).

I was reminded of the onion last week at NECC, and my reflections from the conference reinforced my thinking.  The largest ed. tech. conference in the U.S. is nearly entirely classroom-focused and the conversations are nearly totally absent of policy context.  Yet, alongside NECC proper, SETDA (the umbrella organization of state education technology officers) was holding their Emerging Technologies Forum & Annual Convocation.  There was some overlap between the two events, but from my perspective, the state-level policy makers were meeting in parallel with the school and district-level folks at NECC.  Similarly, shortly after NECC, the Education Commission of the States held their annual National Forum on Educational Policy.

This sort of parellel play doesn’t advance anyone’s cause.

SILOS

Even within the same levels of decision making in education, we have a serious silo problem.  Like policymakers across levels of governance, educators within any given level exist and work within separate silos; i.e. they play in parellel.  Think of all the silos: subjects, grades, departments, etc.

One silo problem that is particularly problematic is the curriculum vs. technology distinction.  I’ve long wanted to do an examination of school district organizational charts to see how technology is related to curriculum.  I know that in some districts, they are separate departments, each with its own director.  In some districts, there is an IT department (hardware, networking, etc.) that is separate from the instructional technology folks who may or may not live/exist under the direction of the curriculum folks.

I used to do evaluation research for education technology vendors who would often tell me stories about the “curriculum witch.”  They would usually pitch their solution(s) to the technology department and come very close to making a sale only to have the “curriculum witch” show up at the 11th hour and declare the program/software/etc. inconsistent with the curriculum goals of the district.  I’m certain there has been wasteful spending across numerous districts because the “curriculum witch” never did intervene.

In Virginia, our ISTE affiliate is VSTE.  They recently moved their annual conference to an early December date.  In fact, their conference is November 30-December 2.  From December 2-December 4 is the annual conference of VAASCD, the Virginia affiliate of ASCD.  That organization is focused mostly on issues of curriculum and professional development.  That these conferences are back-to-back in different parts of the state makes it nearly impossible for anyone (myself included) to be able to attend both.  So, the technology people will meet with the technology people and the teaching/curriculum people will meet amongst themselves.  I know people who I respect greatly that lead each of these organizations and I’m not at all blaming anyone for this situation.  I’m only pointing this out as a situation that reinforces the silo problem about which I am writing.

I could go on, but I need to bring this around to Leadership Day 2009.  For me, true school reform will not happen until leaders at all levels and across the many silos get together to think about governance arrangements. Especially at a time when collaboration and communication are easier than ever, we need to work together across levels of government and annihilate the silos in our education agencies.  Tha t is a huge leadership challenge.

“The real work of learning happens in the classroom, in the interaction between teacher and student.  This interaction is affected by innumerable large and small decisions made by principals, school boards, superintendents, state legislatures, education department officials, and the federal government.  These decisions and their implementation can either aid or hinder quality education in the classroom.” (Committee for Economic Development, 1994, p. 2)

Photo Attributions:

• Leadership Day: Scott McLeod
• Onions: Darwin Bell
• Silo: Chris Knight

I blogged.

About NECC.

For the fine folks at Dell.

Check it out there.