Educational Readings - ADHD/ John Dewey/ McDonaldisation of education and the NZ elections

By Allan Alach

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

 Equipped for the Future

As good as riding with no hands!

“Continuing down the Common Core “road” with ELA standards that focus primarily on selective and specialized literacy skills instead of broad-based, applicable, and transferable literacy skills, make as much sense as the US Education Department announcing a new initiative to improve U.S. bike riding skills by mandating that all children learn to ride a bike without the use of training wheels, and declaring the new National Standard for being a proficient and globally competitive bike rider is…NO HANDS.”

http://bit.ly/1ldvi4D

Deskfree strategy turns classrooms into creative learning hubs that see student engagement soar

Another article on Stephen Heppell inspired developments in Australia.

“Teachers, parents and students across the state have been briefed by Professor Heppell, a global expert in learning spaces who claims students learn more effectively and behave better within “borderless learning” designs; when they have freedom to work in smaller groups and even learn standing up.”

http://bit.ly/Xscnb8

( It is not often I comment on Allan's selections but I am concerned that people are too easily impressed with the superficiality of these 'modern learning environments' (MLE) . When I visit such schools I like to see the in.depth thinking that has resulted from working in such environments - all too often missing. It is all a bit like the open plan environments of the 70s with computers replacing listening posts and OHPs! Bruce)

Teaching Is Not a Business

“While technology can be put to good use by talented teachers, they, and not the futurists, must take the lead. The process of teaching and learning is an intimate act that neither computers nor markets can hope to replicate. Small wonder, then, that the business model hasn’t worked in reforming the schools — there is simply no substitute for the personal element.”
http://nyti.ms/1prWRGF

How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload

“Dewey examines what separates thinking, a basic human faculty we take for granted, from thinking well, what it takes to train ourselves into mastering the art of thinking, and how we can channel our natural curiosity in a productive way when confronted with an overflow of information.”

bit.ly/1w0EOMT

The Rise of the Helicopter Teacher

“The risk that helicopter parents run is that they will raise children so coddled that they have a hard time functioning on their own in the larger world. So too with the way we have infantilized our students. Afraid or unwilling to challenge them, we pass them through with perfectly good grades but without much of a sense of how to work on their own or think for themselves.”

http://bit.ly/1kSX6uQ

How A Popular TV Doc Has Learned To Explain ADHD Simply

Implications for teachers?

“ADHD is like having a Ferrari engine for a brain with bicycle brakes. Strengthen the brakes and you have a champion.  People with ADHD are the inventors and the innovators, the movers and the doers, the dreamers who built America.”

http://onforb.es/1oCt7Gz

The McDonaldization of Education: the rise of slow

“In regards to education, McDonaldization attempts to wipe out any of the messiness or inefficiencies of learning. Instead, it attempts to reduce it to a commodity that can be packaged,

marketed and sold. Rather than cultivating a deep, holistic love of learning that touches every aspect of a student’s life, learning has been reduced to an assembly line. In reality, we’ve imposed a mechanistic view of life onto how people learn, which is largely an organic process, and at a great cost.”

http://bit.ly/1q0A7wJ

Teaching Critical Thinking in Age of Digital Credulity

Dewey would agree

“Now, the enormity, ubiquity and dubious credibility of the information available to most of the world’s population is requiring each of us to become something of an expert on figuring out when we’re being misled or lied to. Perhaps, unfortunately, for the future of life online, few teachers or parents impart to young people the always useful but now essential skills of how to question, investigate, analyze and judge that link they just got in email or the factual claim they just found through a search engine.”

http://bit.ly/1s8rO1s

This week’s contributions from

Bruce Hammonds:

The New Zealand Election coming soon!!

Nigel Latta goes back to school to see for himself.

 If you were to listen to some politicians you would think the sky is falling in but New Zealand education is in good heart. I was particularly impressed with his positive experience of secondary education. Well worth a read.

Every one has the right to an education they are best fitted for so as to develop the fullest extent of their powers'.

 Going back to principles that underpinned the First Labour Government

T.he Labour Manifesto’s education policy of the time made it clear what was expected in education and when elected Peter Fraser, Minister Of Education, asked the Director of 

Peter Fraser and Michael Savage

Education Dr Beeby to rewrite the then Ministry of Education report to the new government to capture his ideas. Overnight Beeby wrote the following principle:

‘…that every person whatever his level of academic ability, whether rich or poor, whether he lives in the town or the country, has a right as a citizen to a free education of the kind best fitted and to the fullest extent of his power……(and that this ) will involve the reorientation of the education system.’

Important choice coming soon!

 With the election drawing near the choices are sharpening – or ought to be.

 Creative education will depend on who
is the government post-election..

It’s time for all people share in the apparent growing wealth of the few – the disparity between the rich and the poor is still growing. In schools the government talks about an ‘achievement gap’ , ignoring the effects of growing poverty and sees the solution as developing ‘super’ principals, cluster principals and lead teachers as the answer – such people obviously chosen because of their adherence to National’s policies – National Standards

.

Educational Readings - for the critical educator

By Allan Alach

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

Rational And Evidence-Based Responses To Standards Advocates And Critics

This article will provide you with a valuable tool to support all those debates you are having  with pro-GERMers!

“A practical logic problem also exists for those advocating or criticizing standards: If I am teaching, my job is to identify where any student is in her/his learning and then to take that student farther, both in terms of direct teaching and by motivating that student to learn. That fact of real-world teaching renders detailed standards irrelevant because it doesn’t matter what a standard deems any student should know and when since the reality of that student supersedes those mandates.”

http://bit.ly/VacczD

What’s the real purpose of educational benchmarking?

Very good article by Andy Hargreaves:

Andy Hargreaves

“Is there a second purpose of educational benchmarking then? Is it to delineate the weak from the strong, inciting nation to compete against nation, Americans against Asians, and school against school. After we have pinpointed schools that are failing, does this just make it easier for invading opportunists to set up charter schools in their place, or to market online alternatives, tutoring services and the like?”

http://wapo.st/1qk4GL6

Standardized Testing

The Opposite of Excellence

Another excellent blog by Peter Greene:

“When they talk about highly effective teachers and excellent schools and proficient students, all they are talking about is the scores on a standardized math and reading test. That's it.”

http://bit.ly/1oULVMQ

8 Needs For Project-Based Learning In The 21st Century (thanks Tony Gurr)

To seek- use- and create

“We tend to think of project-based learning as focused on research, planning problem-solving, authenticity, and inquiry. Further, collaboration, resourcefulness, and networking matter too–dozens of characteristics “fit” into project-based learning. Its popularity comes from, among other characteristics, its general flexibility as a curriculum framework. You can do, teach, assess, and connect almost anything within the context of a well-designed project.”

http://bit.ly/1omGBrr

Let's Stop Trying To Teach Students Critical Thinking

Socrates - so what is new?

‘The philosopher most associated with the critical spirit is Socrates. In the 1980s, Australian philosopher John Anderson put the Socratic view of education most clearly when he wrote: "The Socratic education begins … with the awakening of the mind to the need for criticism, to the uncertainty of the principles by which it supposed itself to be guided.”’

http://bit.ly/1ueD8xr

Never Again! Now The Evidence Is Irrefutable…

And this includes education

Read how three separate groups have taken over American education, then use this to analyse the situation in your own country. Are there any similarities?

“Finally, each group attempting to destroy or reform public education and access the tax dollars citizens pay for public schools, violates some or all of the tenets that guide the education profession. What are some of these tenets?”

http://bit.ly/1vwVGL0

Reformers Standardize – Teachers Individualize

“Only in the field of education do we find The Professional completely superfluous. Much has been made of the public’s disregard for teachers: the idea that since you’ve graduated high school, you

Forced standardisation.

know what it means to be a teacher. You don’t. You don’t get a teaching certification digging around in a Crackerjack box. People earn genuine college degrees in this – many of them get masters and doctorates. Those degrees even require you to go out and do some actual teaching! Let me assure you, none of it entails reminiscing about your old high school days and all the teachers who were mean to you.”

http://bit.ly/VcYY5r

Shifting The Point Of View

How to best develop the use of technology in education?

“Technology is advancing too fast and its effects on society for today and future are observed clearly by many institutions and they are changing themselves accordingly. Unfortunately educational institutions can not follow them since they are the most resistant ones to change. Most of the schools who are having their technology transformation nowadays are only changing their shop windows. A deeper and more realistic change can not happen until they really shift their perspective from technology to pedagogy.”

http://bit.ly/1AKkAGR

This week’s contributions

 from Bruce Hammonds:

The Science Behind Classroom Norming

Bruce’s comment:Use this primer on the five stages of norming to establish a positive classroom community.

“Does the norming process take time? Yes, but when students share important values, beliefs, and goals, they accomplish more. Don’t trust me. Trust the science.”

http://bit.ly/1mLWDpo

The 5 Critical Categories of Rules

On a Similar theme:

Author

“Regardless of whether a school is open and free or traditional, limits or rules are necessary to teach students responsibility. I have identified five areas that I call critical categories which are useful when deciding what rules you need. Because rules work best when students have a say in their selection, I prefer teaching students what these critical categories mean, and developing rules together.”

http://bit.ly/1q9Nub2

Back to School: A Surefire Strategy for Building Classroom Community

And another - back to school time must be approaching in the USA!

‘… this post does not address anything related to technology or the CCSS. It addresses a topic of much greater importance -- the emotional environment of the classroom. Without an excellent, intentionally designed, emotional environment (one which builds authentic community in the classroom), the standards and the technologies are of little value. As Steven Covey and many others have said, "First things first!”’

.  http://bit.ly/XjnQdm

20 Things Educators Need To Know About Digital Literacy Skills

Bruce’s comment: Something to think about – even for those who struggle with digital technology.

“Teaching digital literacy is about more than just integrating technology into lesson plans; it’s about using technology to understand and enhance modern communication, to locate oneself in digital space, to manage knowledge and experience in the Age of Information.” bit.ly/1yQAZ94

Difficult Discussions Are The Most Important Discussions

Bruce’s comment: Making difficult decisions before your ‘train’ goes off the track!

“The best way to prevent a train from heading down the wrong track is candid discussions about the facts and clarity around why the journey should happen. But we need to do a better job at having those tough discussions earlier in the process.”

bit.ly/1v7OKQm

Universal Design for Learning: A Blueprint for Successful Schools

Bruce’s comment: An excellent 18 minute TED Talk - lessons from flying a jet - personalised talent based learning. A very simple message.

“Teachers confront this challenge with every lesson, activity, and course as they acknowledge that no

Customizing pilot cockpits

two students learn the same way. With the added pressure to address standards, integrate technology, and prepare students with 21st Century Skills, consider the potential if school leaders could offer teachers a single strategy that would address all of their students’ needs. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) does just that.”

http://bit.ly/1tfR2N4

Educational Readings - so called ed research/ Finland/ Educ myths/ Corporate takeover!

By Allan Alach

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem,

 email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

A Big Problem with Ed Research

If this article is accurate (and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise) then the basis of Hattie’s mega-analysis research may have been severely undermined.

‘It means that very likely a great deal of what's passed off as research-based knowledge is information that has never been checked, the result of just one piece of research. Imagine if you were seriously ill and your doctor said, "Well, there's this one treatment that only one guy did only this one time, and he thought it turned out well.”'

http://bit.ly/1oxifv2

Revisiting Content And Direct Instruction

This is a very important article about the battle for education in America (and applicable elsewhere) over the last century. The seeds of today’s problems were sown a long time ago, and survive, in spite of visionaries such as Dewey and Freire.

“Before diving into the content and direct instruction debates, I want to address what is really going on. You don’t have to read George Orwell or Ray Bradbury to know this (although you should*), but the powerful in any society recognize that those who control knowledge (and language is knowledge) ultimately control everything. Thus, to codify what is known, what counts as knowledge, and what facts mean is to establish power.”

http://bit.ly/1sZ6wWv

A Conversation On Lessons From Finland

More from Pasi Sahlberg, this time in conversation with an Australian educator. Very applicable all over, especially in the usual five Anglo-Saxon dominated countries.

“Your question about the value of PISA is like asking what do you think about fire! They are both useful and can benefit our lives significantly if we know how to deal with them. Unfortunately PISA is often like a box of matches in the hands of a child. PISA certainly has had negative consequences in some places where it has taken the driver’s seat in determining priorities in national education policies. There are a number of countries now (including Australia) that have formulated their goals in education to be on the top of the global league tables. An over-reliance on reaching such targets, by insisting that schools and teachers focus on a narrow area of academic achievement at the expense of broader learning and personal development goals, may have worrying effects later on.”

http://bit.ly/1xOPWbf

The Time is Now

An article by Dr Robert Valiant, sourced from the US website Defend-Ed.

“I have been doing a little reading on one of my true loves, brain research, and would like to take a moment to say that rapid growth in the field is producing astounding findings that are important to those of us in the brain business, teaching and learning. I am, of course, dismayed by the current education reform efforts, most of which appear to be diametrically opposed to the new research findings. I won't go into detail here, but even on the macro level the predatory reformers have it wrong.”

http://bit.ly/1rWavAS

Manufactured education

Another blog posting from UK academic Steve Wheeler:

“And yet standardisation, synchonisation and centralisation stubbornly persist in a few notable enclaves. Perhaps the most notorious resistance to the technological wave comes from the state

education systems.” And:

‘The factory model of education persists, because in the mind of its proponents, it is still the most efficient, cost effective way to train the workforce of the future. And yet, according to critics such as Sir Ken Robinson, this is not the way forward. In a recent speech, Robinson intoned: "We still educate children by batches. We put them through the system by age group. Why do we do that? Why is there an assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is their date of manufacture?”’

http://bit.ly/1kGQsHY

“Education As Great Equalizer” Deforming Myth, Not Reality

A very comprehensive article that debunks the neoliberal myth that education is the solution to poverty.

“So, you are 2.5x more likely to be a rich adult if you were born rich and never bothered to go to

college than if you were born poor and, against all odds, went to college and graduated. The disparity in the outcomes of rich and poor kids persists, not only when you control for college attainment, but even when you compare non-degreed rich kids to degreed poor kids!”

http://bit.ly/1opyf1e

Growth Mindset – The Holy Grail Of Education?

“The author of mindset theory, Carol Dweck, cited neuroscience research that examined brain activity of students when receiving feedback. Students were asked various questions and then told whether they were right or wrong. If they were wrong, they were also told what the correct answer was. Pretty much every student’s brains were active when being told whether they were right or wrong but only growth mindset students’ brains remained active to hear what the correct answer was if they had made a mistake."

http://bit.ly/1uyiUMo

Ranking and Sorting: The Sordid History of Standards and Tests

Very important article by Anthony Cody, which will give you the essential understanding of the whole testing and standards movement. It’s not nice.

“One of my heroes was the late Stephen Jay Gould, who devoted his life to exploring and explaining the intricacies of evolution. In his book, The Mismeasure of Man, he reveals the roots of standardized testing in the work of Lewis Terman, who brought to us the first widely applied tests, building on the work of Binet, who had pioneered intelligence tests for inductees into the Army during World War 1.”

“This “science” of measurement was also connected to a movement called “eugenics.” It was seen as undesirable for the less intelligent to reproduce, since their offspring would be inferior, and thus a burden to society. And there were heavy racial implications as well.”

http://bit.ly/1stklxP

This week’s contributions from

Bruce Hammonds:

6 Things You Should Know About The Future

Bruce: “The future’s not what it used to be!!”

“That’s the funny thing about the future.  It’s never as fantastic as we hope nor as horrible as we

fear.  The one thing that’s for sure is that times will change and we will have to adapt. While there is no way of knowing exactly how that change will play out, we can identify trends, make common sense judgments about where they lead and prepare for them.”

http://bit.ly/1B6GDrJ

Why phonetic spelling isn't effective

GERMers seem to love phonics as the solution to everything (e.g State of New South Wales in Australia). They obviously haven’t read Frank Smith.

“However, it seems to me, that those people who want phonetic spelling have not thought through all the problems that would be created by it. The problem is that different people pronounce some words differently and so would spell them differently phonetically. Amongst people who speak English there are many different types of accents and thus pronunciations.”

http://bit.ly/1uqLa6o

15 Things Every Teacher Needs from a Principal

Bruce’s comment:Seems an insightful list to me.

‘“Principalship” entails many things, but at its core, it is—and has always been—about building trusting relationships. We may balance the budget and successfully maintain the building; we may ensure that teachers have the necessary resources and all the professional development opportunities in the world…but if we fail to build trusting relationships, what good are balanced budgets, “SMART” classrooms, one-for-one programs, and squeaky clean amenities?’

http://bit.ly/1r8lB9K

From Bruce’s oldies but goodies file:

The corporate takeover of society and education.

This is the GERM that needs to be challenged – the key issue of the upcoming NZ election. One of Bruce's most popular blogs.

“As part of the corporate strategy was the demeaning the teaching profession through finger pointing and blaming them for student failure while at the same time ignoring the effects of poverty

on student achievement. The market forces  corporate ideology places value on hardnosed economic growth and demonizes teachers and schools as failing students and being stuck in the past. To reform this seemingly failing situation a standardised model has been implemented which has resulted in a one dimensional approach to education with success being determined and measured by narrow literacy and numeracy levels in primary school and NZCEA levels in secondary.”

http://bit.ly/1hARUnP

Another expert on teacher quality? Disruptive or dangerous?

While this article is about New Zealand, it discusses a problem common to all GERM countries, and also the OECD, where economists feel qualified to comment on education and teacher quality. Dangerous.

“No one would challenge Makhlouf's assertion that education is the key to economic success but how one defines achievement ( in a narrow literacy / numeracy sense, or the development of

student's talent and gifts) needs debating. And as for Makhloufs enthusiasm for performance pay, once again, this depends on what is counted as achievement. Performance pay has had a checkered career in the US. Makhlouf , being an economist, believes it is all about collecting data to measure success. Simplistic stuff - important learning  attributes defy easy measurement.”

http://bit.ly/1sP6gbw

Basing education around student inquiry.

Bruce’s comment: This popular blog  outlines a discovery approach NZ creative teachers at all levels are aware of.

“Well-executed PBL begins with the recognition that, as in the real world, it’s often difficult to

distinguish between acquiring information and using it. Students learn knowledge and elements of the core curriculum, but also apply what they know to solve authentic problems and produce results that matter. Students focus on a problem or challenge, work in teams to find a solution to the problem, and often exhibit their work to an adult audience at the end of the project.”

http://bit.ly/16VkKej

The Blue School

“The Blue School in Lower Manhattan was established by members of the Blue Sky Company -a company involved in helping organisations develop creative ideas.They wanted to establish a school

that celebrated the creativity and ideas of children - they wanted to establish a school they would have liked to have gone to - a dream school for their own children. They wanted school committed to keeping alive the sense of wonder, play and joy of young children. The school currently caters for children from 2 to 6. The ideas will not be new to creative teachers, particularly those that 'teach' younger children but their emphasis on making student inquiry central is a challenge to us all in these day of making literacy and numeracy achievement central.”

http://bit.ly/1pNq8Ld

This week’s contributions from Phil Cullen

A History of Blanket Testing

This is a powerful article from Phil that discusses his experience of Minimum Competency Testing in the USA in 1980. You will notice that apart from a change of name to common core standards, not much has changed. This is a must read.

“Did I hear you say that things are different these days? Well. This is a personal account from back when. In 1980, I visited the USA and the UK for the express purpose of studying the Minimum Competency Movement in the USA and the Assessment of Performance Unit in the UK, both politically-produced ordurous reactions to the Back to Basics meme of the 1970s. The 70’s “standards debate” had been a vicious attack on schooling that was lasting far too long. In Australia, it was led by “The Bulletin” and one or two conspicuous non-teaching attention-grabbers in each state. It died in Australia as it deserved to do before the the educational dementia of national blanket testing set in. Not so in USA. Sad consequences there as reported below.”

http://bit.ly/1pNr0iR