school
Eight years ago, I set up a text-based adventure game with my older son called "Muppyville". He was in fourth grade. We showed it to all the kids in his class for one class session and then he and a handful of his friends played it for months.
There was a little boy who was fascinated by the potential of Muppyville to exert power over the other children. He created places in the game that he could lead unwary people into where they would be trapped and he could taunt them and then leave them stuck there. He eventually figured out that he could change his "name" to "1imako", which looked a lot like the username name I used "limako" (the first character is a a one instead of an "L"). And then he would pretend to be me to other kids but then insult them and use obscenities -- among other things. I gave him a couple of chances to straighten up, but eventually I had to block his access and tell him he would have to have his parents contact me if he wanted access again. He was understandably reluctant to do that.
Fast forward to 2011: According to my son, this boy got an administrative password to "Powerschool" -- the database that the school uses to maintain records -- and subtly adjusted a few of his own test grades to change his grade from a B+ to an A. And he got caught! Reportedly, he was suspended and all of the colleges and universities he had applied to were notified of his academic dishonesty.
Some people just never learn...
In Phil's post about Children and Power, he describes a typical worksheet and the kind of mental trickery that these exercises often embody. The exercise he describes is a type example of tedious busy work: it's "make work" for students constructed in a particular style to make it easy to correct.
The biggest problem to good assessment is our society's assumptions that answers can be "right or wrong". This simpleminded attitude has nothing to do with learning or judgement and everything to do with making tasks that are cheap and simple to evaluate. There are no questions that have simple answers: even "What's 1+1?" can lead to a whole discussion about the nature of integers or the literary origin of using 1+1=3 to talk about emergence (the sum being more than the whole of its parts) -- and that's just scratching the surface.
The most evil outcome of this system, is giving machines the task of evaluating human productions. For meaningful learning, human productions need to be evaluated by humans that can appropriate a statement (ie, put into the context of the larger conversation) and then help the student see how their production fits -- or does not fit -- what the teacher had in mind. There was a school of thought in cybernetics called "Programmed Instruction" that tried to create systems that could do this, but it runs into the fact that domains cannot be fully specified. Programmed instruction went out with behaviorism, although you still see people every few years, ignorant of the history, who assume it should be easy to do.
I did some freelance work for a text book one time and one of the things they wanted desperately was for everything to have some kind of "assessment" associated with it. Every chapter, every section needed to have assessments. When they ran out of space in the book, and wanted to add these random grab-bags of facts online, they even wanted those to have assessments. And that was when I made the realization: when I pointed out that it was meaningless to have assessments of random collections of facts, which had no underlying conceptual dimension, they just hired someone who was desperate enough for the money to write a bunch of questions. That's the lowest common denominator here: these assessments get designed as cheaply as possible, no matter how meaningless and pointless they are.
For students to be engaged in tasks, the tasks need to have some purpose. They need to be things the students think are worth doing and part of a larger effort that's going somewhere interesting. Schoolwork that is pointless and a waste of time encourages students to be cynical about the whole enterprise and encourages cheating.
It's possible to have students to real work -- work that matters -- that requires the same kinds of skills. And there's no reason not to do this, except that it requires three things. It requires teachers have (1) the freedom to let students go in different directions, (2) the wherewithal in terms of time and imagination to not just grab the first worksheet that comes to hand and co-construct interesting tasks with students, and (3) the time to provide meaningful mentorship and evaluation to students as their projects develop. Unfortunately, as budgets are cut and teaching profession becomes increasingly deprofessionalized, none of these are likely to happen in public education anytime soon.
Governor Patrick released a set of new strategies to close persistent performance gaps in education as a summit at UMass Boston. Unfortunately, it represents more of the same fundamentally wrong-headed approach that education has increasingly adopted in our country: it treats students as the product of the system, rather than participants or partners. Our educational system has become a place where compliance is valued over creativity and passion. Worst of all, it fails to empower our children.
Few adults would tolerate being treated the way we treat children. Few adults would consent to this kind of regime: having their waking hours regulated by a series of bells, being required to ask permission to stand or use the bathroom, being given hours of tedious drudgery to perform every day -- drudgery that didn't really matter -- that will just be marked up with a red pen and then thrown in the trash. Why do children put up with that? Why do we tell them they should accept that? What does it teach them that these are the expectations we set for them?
Some people will say that there are developmental differences that require children to be treated in this way. Or that they need to be taught certain things before they can take charge of their own learning or do anything interesting. These are false -- and demonstrably false. Children that do take charge of their own learning can be remarkably successful: many entrepreneurs (most recently Steve Jobs) cite dropping out of school to pursue their own interests as providing the key insights that led to their success. How many children's gifts are wasted because they never realize the prison that is cunningly woven around then beginning with preschool and kindergarten.
I saw it most clearly when my second son started kindergarten -- and my older boy was in fourth grade. In kindergarten, we start teaching children to wear chains: to stand in line, to ask permission, to respond to authority. The chains aren't pulled tight, but children get used to hearing them jingle as they run. By fourth grade, the chains are pulled in tight, locking them into their chairs.
When my younger son was in fifth grade, we had a particularly clueless teacher. Even though the school day didn't start until 8:40, she required students that arrived before then, to sit in their seats and do worksheets. My son, having a clue, refused to arrive to arrive before 8:40. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to such a regime? And when he refused to do his homework, she kept him in from recess week after week, even though she admitted that he could easily pass the tests that the homework was supposedly practice for.
There are unquestionably developmental differences between children and adults, but the largest differences in our society are cultural: the fact that children are systematically disempowered by society. They are threatened with punitive actions for exercising power and are systematically discouraged from even learning about the power they have. Our society compels children to comply with a punitive regime of senseless drudgery and busy-work that destroys the potential for genuine human relationships between children and adults.
Some people really do have power over one another, but in most cases that power is conceded by one to another. We really only have power over ourselves. We can choose to act in compliance with the wishes of another or we can withhold our cooperation. They can choose to punish us, but rarely do they have the power to genuinely compel. Few adults help children understand that they have this power and can choose to exercise it.
One of the main causes of childishness and poor behavior on the part of children is that they don't believe they have any power and don't know how to effectively use what power they have. When children have a voice and recognize that what they do matters, the childishness tends to fall away. That isn't to say that children don't need protection from being preyed upon -- or from the consequences of serious mistakes. But we would all be better off if there were more genuine interactions between children and adults, rather than the artificiality produced by the dominance/subservience relationship demanded by our educational institutions.
Rather than trying to control children, we should be providing leadership: creating an environment that is fertile for students to choose to learn. Children so empowered could pursue their own agendas with supportive adults around them to provide guidance and mentorship. Children that are able to pursue their interests, have the potential to discover "work" as their life's calling -- and not just meaningless drudgery necessary to placate a faceless authority. Children who pursue meaningful work will find it necessary to learn reading and writing, math and science, history and literature. And by pursuing these things for themselves, it will actually mean something -- and not just be marks on a paper soon to be thrown in the trash.
We need to stop the madness.
Last night, Alisa, Daniel, and I were invited to speak briefly at a dinner for the North Star Board to thank donors. After the dinner, the director selected people to speak. The first was a young woman who has been doing activism rather than high school: she spent a year at North Star, but has subsequently been doing internships and volunteer work, including spending a summer in Washington and winning a prestigious local award. Then it was Daniel's turn. Poor Daniel had to admit that he hadn't won any prestigious awards or gotten involved in important projects, but that he had been very unhappy in school and was much happier in North Star and much more confident that he was going in the right direction. Then it was my turn.
In the summer before 7th grade, Daniel talked to me about not wanting to continue with school and looking for other options. But since he'd only gone to a small elementary school, I suggested giving 7th grade a try to see how it was. And so he did. But the school really wasn't a good fit.
At the first parent teacher conference -- we got about 15 minutes with someone who was in a rush to tell us all the things he wanted to do to our child -- the first thing he said was, "We can see Daniel's going to be a tough nut to crack." We were horrified and I said, "But I don't want Daniel cracked. I want him to be engaged with his learning." The teacher, said, "No, no. That's not what I meant." But it was. That was exactly what he meant. The school really didn't know what to do with a kid like Daniel.
Our experience was that Daniel would get assigned about 3 hours of homework a night. And the work was not interesting or engaging -- it was almost entirely these mind-killing worksheets -- pure drudgery. When he got home from school, he would do anything to avoid thinking about school so when I got home from work at 6, I basically had a choice: I could stand over him with a stick to make him do his homework or not. I mostly chose not to do that.
When Daniel would go to school, the teachers would ask, "Where's your homework?" And Daniel would say, "I chose not to do it, because it didn't look like it was worth my time." And they really had no idea what to do with a kid like that. School was just not a good fit.
North Star has been wonderful for Daniel. His real passion is writing. Even in elementary school, Daniel started writing -- mostly fantasy -- and has written tens of thousands of words. And North Star gives him the support and flexibility to explore new ideas and focus on the things he really wants to do. We've been grateful for the opportunities that North Star provides.
The third speaker was a young woman who recently arrived from Washington State who loves art. She took one look at the high school and North Star and said, "That's where I want to go."
I'm genuinely impressed with the results that North Star produces with kids. Once you stop trying to be controlling and directive -- and give kids real choices and power, they rise to the occasion and become fully-fledged participants in the process -- and their own lives. I've known that and believed it for years, but it's wonderful to actually see it in action.
The Boston Globe has suddenly discovered that teenagers use sexual slang and epithets to torment one another. Is this a surprise to anyone? Did they repress their own memories of being a teenager? The environment described in the article is the consistent with what I lived through 30 years ago.
Particularly striking to me is a statement by Fatima Goss Graves, a vice president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington (which may have been taken out of context, but probably not):
"Schools get too caught up in the label," she said. "If it's the sort of conduct that's interfering with a student's performance, it ought to be stopped."
Oh, right. It's not about doing what's right or ensuring that the people in our care aren't mistreated: it's all about their performance! God forbid those test scores would drop! Then we'd all be in trouble. Sheesh...
When they put Mark's Meadow up against a wall last year, the town just turned the other way while it was killed. Now they think I'm going support an override? Forget it.
Yesterday, we opened a new Intro Biology laboratory to students for the first time. Today I walked down and took some pictures. It really takes me back.
The first major project I took on when I arrived at UMass Amherst was to propose a redesign of the intro labs. It was an incredible experience to be fresh out of graduate school and having a transformative effect on the preparation of the majors at a research University. Scientists often are conservative about science educators -- my experience in graduate school had prepared me to expect that I'd be relegated to working with non-majors. It was a surprise to arrive and hear that the faculty *wanted* me to shake things up.
I met for months with a committee while I outlined my vision, persuaded everyone, found money on campus, and nailed down the design. The goal was to bring all the rooms together (rather than having them scattered around the building) and have a design that provided four octagonal tables, each for two groups of to work around computers, with each pair of tables connected with a long table for wet work. I had to make several compromises on what I wanted due to budget constraints -- and one person who just couldn't be persuaded that the design would work. She was convinced that the connecting benches needed to be as long as possible to make sure there was enough space. I had wanted them a bit shorter so that the benches could be off-set from one another to make it easier to circulate through the room. In the end, I got 95% of what I wanted, but not that. I rode herd on the project while tens of thousands of dollars of stuff was ordered, the rooms were renovated, and everything got set up.
We opened the rooms with much fanfare while I had some significant apprehension that the design would flop. But everything went swimmingly. Over the years, the labs have been a model of success. Now, a dozen years later with a bunch of brand-new iMacs, everything is still working great and even the furniture looks nearly as good as when we got it.
When we had the opportunity to set up a fourth Intro Lab, I was gratified that there was no question but to build it the same way. In the process however, I got the chance to fix the stuff that I hadn't gotten the first time around. In particular, I got my shorter tables and to make the benches off-set. It's awesome.
The semester has started and I'm feeling busier than I think I've ever felt. I'm being pressed to support more, more complex, and more dispersed resources. Every way I can think to describe how busy I am feels cliched.
I've introduced a big change in the BCRC: I've set limits on free printing. This summer, I had a volunteer who worked out with me the general outline of a web-based page release system that could be grafted in between Samba and lp (or any other unix printing system). We set the print command in samba to calculate the number of pages in the job and submit with it job-handling set to hold. After authenticating, the user can see their jobs and page totals, they can select jobs, and then they can release (or cancel) them. The system has a few tables in mysql to keep track of jobs and page quotas. We're still feeling our way forward toward a system for establishing personal page quotas and providing exceptions.
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