Transient Schools

Maybe school - a place children go to in order to study - is an obsolete construct.  Maybe Ivan Illich  was right, and society could benefit from being deschooled.  By the way, this would mean that School has been obsolete for 40 years now.  I am a bit slow.

Maybe we can take a smaller step:  remain with the institution of school, but allow new schools to be created easily, and allow them to go out of service, and get closed.  This is relevant to a recurring theme in my thinking:  Freedom of choice in education means it should be easy for educators to start a school; it should be easy for parents to choose a school - and then choose another school.  This means that a school may find itself with an insufficient number of students.  A school may fail.  And it has to be allowed to fail and close.

I admit I find this idea somewhat distressing, but maybe it’s because my mind is caught in a no longer existing reality of stability.  In the modern - or post-modern - world, trends start and end very quickly. One goes into myspace, facebook, second life, etc. and pretty soon it may become irrelevant. Products become a craze, then they cease to interest anyone. Companies are established, and many of them flourish and disappear quickly.

There is no expectation of indefinite stability. When I go into a bank to open an account, I don’t expect to always bank there. The same with an insurance company, and HMO, etc. Not even in Japan, where people used to expect lifelong employment. People even get married, and many of them don’t expect “until death do us part” to mean much.

This may feel like bad news, but it doesn’t need to be. In many places it is a pretty agreeable arrangement: When one seeks employment at a company, one usually doesn’t expect to be there until retirement. In a happy employment, one may expect to spend a good few years developing oneself and contributing to the company, and then go on to the next happy employment, hopefully developing further. The school system, and individual schools are part of a very stable model. Maybe the very stability of the model is becoming less valid. Maybe it is a good idea for a school to be established, run for a few years, and close. Much like a trendy restaurant. The chef may establish a new restaurant for a few years, and similarly the leader of the school may establish a new school with somewhat different characteristics, suitable for the changed society.

 

Thinking about education, and especially about changes in education, is a fear-intensive endeavor.  People who focus on the well-being of society are afraid of changes that may result in graduates who are less prepared for adult life.  People who focus on the well-being of individual children are afraid of changes that may result in added stress to children either during schooling or after graduation.  These fears are almost always somewhat founded.  They are also almost always overindulged:  It becomes clear there is a problem ==> A change is proposed ==> Fear arises ==> The change is avoided ==> The problem doesn't go anywhere ==> Another problem arises ==> and the cycle is repeated.  The cycle can be broken between the fear and the avoidance of action (change).  Maybe:  Fear arises ==> Concerns are articulated ==> Valid concerns are identified ==> The proposed change is tweaked ==> Tweaked change is implemented ==> Results are tracked ==> Lessons are learned.

This is all possible.  To a large extent, this process of addressing fears rather than capitulating to them happens in fields that are more successful than mass education:  Business, agriculture, medicine, etc.

Wouldn't it be nice to make mass education successful?

Innovation

“Innovation” is an overused word. Most companies, most executives and many brands like to self-congratulate themselves with it. Still, even if we are tired of hearing a word, the idea of behind it may be useful for us.  Innovation has different definitions. Some concentrate on the “newness” of what it brings, while others concentrate on the reuse of existing resources in different ways. I will try to find a useful definition with a few imagined scenarios.

1. Necessity:  Keeping up with changed reality:
   A new problem/opportunity occurs, and a solution is found within existing knowledge. For example, the depletion of the Ozone layer, together with heightened awareness of skin cancer create a concern among people about being exposed to sun radiation. Existing knowledge can be used to create sun-blocking lotions. Somebody does it as an innovation.
2. Opportunity:  Using changed knowledge:
   A problem/opportunity existed for a long time. New knowledge appears that can be applied to address the problem/opportunity. For example, people have been sewing for millennia. In the early 19^th century, the industrial revolution starts allowing accurately repeated motion of fine machinery. The sewing machine appears as an innovation.
3. Divine inspiration:
   A problem/opportunity existed for a long time, no new knowledge was introduced recently, and suddenly someone thinks of a solution. For example:… I don’t have an example. This doesn’t happen often, if at all.

Which one(s) do we see happen in Education?

1. Keeping up? Hardly. We moved from Industrial, to modern, to post-modern, and the mass schooling system is still extremely similar to how it was at its initial phases.  My understanding is that this is very much the case also in most of the countries that implemented reforms in their education systems.  The basic concepts of school, classroom, teacher as a conveyer of information, bare knowledge testing as the means to ensure the information was conveyed, assumptions about the importance of one subject over another, the very concept of "subject," ...  All these and more are almost unchanged.
2. Using changed knowledge? Hardly. We now have much more advanced technology than in the early 19^th century.  Yet we are only starting to use computers, and almost exclusively to replace pen and paper while the pupils are performing the same tasks they performed 150 years ago.  We have a better understanding of the brain, but we use it almost exclusively to design drugs to quiet the pupils down, so they can sit in their chairs quietly just as they were supposed to 150 years ago.
3. Divine inspiration?  Not lately.

How do we "achieve" this almost-perfect lack of innovation?
Innovation - almost by definition - seldom comes from the established center. It shrivels up and dies in an environment of micromanagement.  The direct antidote is to allow people in the system the necessary self-rule to try new things.  To innovate.  With that autonomy must come tolerance for errors, since with trying new things comes the risk of failure.

The necessity is great - reality has changed a lot since the last major changes in education.  And it keeps changing very quickly.
The opportunity is great - technology, science, affluence are at their peak.  And at least technology and science seem to keep progressing fast.

If (much) more autonomy is exercised by individuals, and if temporary failure is tolerated, we can generate a steady flow of innovation.  For the benefit of the pupils, the system and society.

Micromanagement

This is a big one.  It's at the core of the problem of industrial education.  Most organized education systems are just that - organized.  They are an organization.  Usually, an old fashioned organization, with central command, and with lots of rules, bylaws and lines of authority.  And from one year to the next, there are more rules, not less.  It is all very natural: The organization people manage the field people.  Logistical, administrative, legal and political (national & local) concerns tend to overshadow pedagogic concerns, since the organization is made of more logistics and administration people than pedagogues.  Also, the non-pedagogues have more time and attention for the power-struggle.  Pedagogues are busy thinking about education…  of all things…  The organizational center is worried about controlling a very large organization with hundreds of thousands of teachers at many thousands of locations, being responsible for millions of pupils.   The natural response to this worry, taken together with the type of people and type of activities in the organizational center, often leads to strict control of the center over the field.  At least an attempt of strict control.  At its worst, this strict control is embodied in micromanagement - an attempt to control exactly who will teach, how they will teach, when they will teach, whom they will teach, certainly what they will teach, whether they will be allowed to teach one subject or another, and none of that pesky "why."

Again, all this is very natural. Education systems are very large organizations. A large organization is interested in itself, its own internal rules are enough to create a microcosm around the people working in it.  Especially the people who are removed from the field, since those at the field - teachers - are less likely to think the organization is the whole world.  The field people encounter a larger world every day through the pupils and parents.

What are the results of this micromanagement?

For pupils, micromanagement means that the teaching is aimed at a certain theoretical group of pupils, since the [micro]managers are concerned with all the pupils and they can't be familiar with all the individual students.  This theoretical group may be at the mean of abilities in one subject or another; it may have a certain learning style; they have a certain emotional state; etc.  The micromanaged teacher is not allowed to suit the teaching speed, material, method or timing to the needs of the individual pupils in front of him.  So the pupils get a lesson that is not suitable for them.  At any given time, most of the pupils get the wrong lesson in the wrong timing and the wrong way.

For educators, micromanagement means they are reduced to Modern-Times-type technicians, lacking control over their time and actions.  Being micromanaged, the teacher's own judgement is not very relevant.  The teacher has very little autonomy.  People who are good at what they are doing - be it teachers or any other profession - tend to demand a measure of autonomy.  Offer to them a job description with "subservience" as a significant component, and they will decline.  Micromanagement in education alienates many would-be good teachers, and breaks the back of those good teachers who do enter the system.  the same goes for principals, counselors, etc.

For the education system as a whole, micromanagement means that there is no room for innovation.  Innovation needs to be connected to the field.  The opportunity for innovation must be available to many people - not just to a designated innovator at the main office.  As a result of systematic-non-innovation, many education systems are the most conservative organizations one can find.  They don't change at all, and ignore the quick changing world around them.  The very world for which they are supposed to prepare the pupils.

To conclude:  Micromanagement is a natural occurence in large organizations, and is natural to education systems.  The only problems with it are that: Micromanagement of education impedes learning, impedes teaching and prevents the education system from performing its core function.

Democratize education!

Tough Choices

What choices are tough?

All choices are tough.  Inherently. To choose is to risk an error, while at the same time taking responsibility.  Very unpleasant business.

This post is a short addendum to an older one - Price of Freedom, which was a bit theoretical.  Now I can add a few more recent insights and experiences, to make the idea more real.

A few months ago my wife and I decided to look for a better school and a better kindergarten. Not for the theoretical pupil which is to become the theoretical graduate, but for our own very real children. Big difference.

We knew that our decisions are going to have a significant impact on our kids' well-being.  These decisions will affect their distant future, for example, what type of schools they graduate.  The decisions will affect their more immediate future, for example, their sense of belonging to one community or another, their contact with their friends.  Even the very preliminary decision to consider  change had an immediate impact on the children's present - they were worried about the coming changes, about the coming unknown, about moving away from the familiar.  These were the difficulties inherent in any contemplated change involving our kids.

To this distress we had the added factor of the schooling market being far from a perfect market:  We didn't know enough about what schools are available - either in our area or farther away.  Of those schools we did know existed, we didn't know enough about their qualities.  And then of course, even if a school is good for some kids, it may not be good for others.  And we have two very different children to take care of.

Until now in this text I have been using the plural "we" when talking about decisions, but the married reader is probably aware that there is never a "we" in such unclear situations.  There are two separate "I"s.  Each with its own anxieties and fears.  Trying to make a joint decision about a complex system (kids, parents, jobs, studies, accommodation, social contacts) without knowing what would be good for the kids (because it's not knowable), without having all the information about the market, without knowing the future.

Putting it more formally, school choice is done with high stakes - our kids well-being.  It is done with no internal clarity about what's right for the kids.  It is done with no external clarity about what the options are.  It is done (if we are lucky) jointly by two different people, about very different kids.  And there is no relief from the responsibility - it is ours. If anything goes wrong - it's our fault.

So, that wasn't easy at all. And it was probably much easier for us than for most people, since we are involved in education, and we have the economic privilege of being able to move.  Also, we are in the habit of making choices about our lives. There are many people who aren't used to making choices.  They think they have no choice.

We ended up moving to a place where we actually have a choice between two different schools.  We went for the democratic school.  We will know if that was a good decision in 10 years.  Maybe.

Discomfort Zone

I like working with computers.  They are predictable - kind of; they don't have complex emotions; they don't expect anything; and if I don't enjoy working with them, I can just turn them off and go do something else.  It's easy.  It's comfortable.

But over the years I started working with people, employing people, selling products and services, selling ideas, getting socially involved.  Also started a family, raising children...  Suddenly I am surrounded by people who are not predictable, have complex and dynamic emotions, expecting things from me.  I am responsible for their well-being...  I strayed so far from my comfort zone, that I am not sure I can find my way back.  The story of course is not that simple, but close enough to demonstrate the issue of comfort zone.

It seems that to achieve almost anything I want, I have to leave my comfort zone.  And I am not very special this way:  The comfort zone is normally inert, unchanging, un-achieving, restful, sluggish...  It has it place, but generally it doesn't support development.

What does all this have to do with education?

Education is a place of development.  Learning is development and change.  If a pupil remains in his comfort zone, development and change (=learning) are not likely.  Much of learning is trying new ideas and activities.  By definition, these new things are not the old comfort zone.  Even worse, trial goes with error.  Trying new things is closely associated with failure - at least at first.  I don't know anyone whose comfort zone is large enough to include failure. Those people who deal well with failure are just more tolerant of it, and recover more quickly from the discomfort of having failed.  They are flexible in moving in and out of their comfort zone.

So, learning is change.  Change is not very compatible with the comfort zone.

Also, learning involves failure.  Failure is very incompatible with the comfort zone.

Learners must be flexible outside their comfort zone.

What about teaching?  As in "standing in front of a group of people who are themselves out of their comfort zone?"  Sounds uncomfortable.  Definitely error-prone.  Sadly riddled with failure. For mortals, it's way out of the comfort zone.

Teachers must be flexible outside their comfort zone.  They are the ones who should be able to model flexibility in moving into and out of the comfort zone, so pupils can learn that, too.

So much for learning and teaching.  What about the school graduate?  Can she stay much in her comfort zone?  Since we expect the world to keep changing quite rapidly, we can expect the graduate (=ourselves) to keep learning constantly, which means we all need to be outside our comfort zone much of the time, and to tolerate our own failures.

We all must be flexible outside our comfort zone.

It is a worthy habit to develop.

Minimalist Core (Curriculum?)

What's at the core of Education?  Or, rather, what should be at the core of education?  Often we refer to "Core Curriculum," but many of us are not even sure that the curriculum is at the core.  Maybe it's the school's environment?  Maybe the side-effects of schooling, such as socialization into the larger society, are at the core?  And what is that socialization about - is it about becoming a good citizen?  A productive (economically of course) member of society?  A subservient employee? A well-rounded human, whatever that is?  A happy person?

As usual, more questions than answers.  And maybe that's good, as Isidor Rabi would say.

Without noticing it, the main question became "who is the desired graduate?"  I wrote about that some two years ago, but this time I will go towards the minimalist end.

Let's start with two levels of characteristics of the graduate:  Personal and Society.  Notice I leave the Transcendental/Spiritual outside the short-list.  Not saying it's unimportant, but feeling that it cannot be discussed and agreed upon by different people of different spiritual denominations.

Personal:
Everybody wants the best for their kids.  Different people think that "best" is different things.  No reason to formalize it in state laws.  Let parents and pupils select a school from those offered, according to their own perception of what's personally good for them.  Spirituality can fit nicely here, too.

Society:
We tend to want the graduate to be a contributing member to society, and again an avalanche of questions ensues:  What do we expect from everyone:  Economic contribution?    And how much is enough economic contribution?  From each according to his abilities, as Karl Marx would have it? Full participation in the democratic process?  And what is enough participation?  Participating as a voter? as an activist? as a candidate for a public post? as a member of the crowd cheering to a Dear Leader?  Do we expect many people to volunteer their time for civic society activities?
But the title says "Minimalist."  This follows the basic understanding that the wider the demands, the farther we get from the possibility of consensus.
So, instead of requiring everybody to be a contributor to society in many ways, let's just try to make sure nobody harms society beyond what it can tolerate.  A sort of societal Primum Non Nocere - First, do no harm. And here is my personal opinion, correct to September 27^th, 2011, 14:11:30

• Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic.
  Without a good grasp of all three, a person is likely to become a burden on society.  There is room for some details, such as the required level of reading, the content of arithmetic studies, etc.
• Democracy
  Representative Democracy, to be exact.  This is the modern western state-religion, and deviations from it are dangerous to the stability of such societies.  This core subject includes several important requirements
• An understanding of the mechanisms:  Voting; Parliament; Government; Judiciary; Journalism; Lobbying; Good-old-boy networks; Politics
• Various granted freedoms
• Equality
• Violence is the Monopoly of the State.
  Modern western society is quite adamant about that, and can't tolerate almost any violent behavior by individuals.

The issues above may be the only absolute requirements.  Beyond these, society - through the state - may choose to encourage (but not require) a few more core issues:

• A positive attitude towards learning
  
• Good command of English as a second language, for those who don't speak English as a mother tongue.  English won.  For now.
• A deep connection with one's own culture
• A deep understanding of the scientific method.
• An understanding of technology.
• An understanding of historical processes.
• A positive attitude towards Representative Democracy.  Did anyone say "indoctrination?"
• A positive attitude towards participation in civic society.  Volunteering one's time and efforts
• A positive attitude towards personal economic viability:  Being an effective producer and a voracious consumer of goods and services... See why I prefer to be a minimalist?

These may constitute the core of education.  What's required and what's merely encouraged.  All the rest may be left to the individual schools, teachers, parents and pupils.  No state-mandated content, teaching-methods, timetables, etc.

Assessment

To make sure this post is focused on a single coherent issue, I will think of assessment as part of the general subject of measurement,.  Measurement can be concerned with anything, including money, buildings and their characteristics, time, noise, people, etc.  Assessment - in my current arbitrary definition - is concerned with people, and more specifically, with people's progress towards their goals.

The motivation for assessment is the same as for more general measurements - it provides feedback to all involved, which enables them to see where they are going, and to correct their course if they find they are going somewhere different than where they wanted to go.  I hold these truths to be self evident, that anyone working in open-loop - i.e., without feedback - is bound to fail, except in the simplest of tasks; and that mass education is not simple at all.

First, let's get the following off the table:  In my opinion, testing as it is normally done in schools is a poor method of assessment.  Incessant testing is a detriment to learning, and standardized testing is a detriment to teaching.  I put some of these thoughts in writing in previous posts about tests and about announcements.  The general idea is that studying for a test is very unlike learning, and succeeding in a standard test is quite different than having acquired knowledge, skills or habits.  Whew!  I am glad I took that off my chest.  Now I can continue speaking in praise of assessment without being accused of being a test-happy bureaucrat.  I hope.

Open minded people thinking about assessment of pupils' progress, often talk about using informal methods, such as conversation between a teacher and a pupil, thinking together about what has happened, what is going on, what their expectations may be, etc.  If this sounds vague, it's only because it is.  Such conversation - and what educators sometimes call "reflection" - can be useful in digging underneath the surface and gaining insights.  It has similar advantages to those of qualitative research, and very similar disadvantages, as I discussed in Education Research Impracticalities a while ago.  One specific issue with such methods, which may be called "qualitative assessment," is that of credibility.  A conversation between two or more people is very personal.  It could go differently if other people were involved - for example, if the assessment talk happened between the same pupil and another teacher.  The conclusions from such a conversation depend on the specific people involved, on their mood, and on other things.  It is not easily repeatable, and therefore not verifiable and the level of faith the pupil can have in it suffers.  Faith being an important part of the usefulness of feedback.  I think such qualitative assessment methods should be part of the arsenal, but we should not limit ourselves exclusively to them.

To complement the qualitative assessment method

Now, if we say that the assessment is intended to be used as feedback, to promote growth in the directions we want, then surely the pupils are not the only ones who can benefit from it.  So do the teachers, administrators and the school in general.  Assessment of teachers should be done not only because it is indeed useful, but it will lend credence to the teachers' claim that assessment is not a whip to beat the weak with.  It will also let the pupils learn how to relate to assessment by the example of the grown-ups, which may be the only way to learn any behavior.  We can leave the assessment of parents to another phase of utopia.