Unreal expectations

I stopped writing this blog because I was going to university and wanted to concentrate on my studies.  Now it is time to share some of that information.  The purpose of the blog will change a bit as I will no longer only concentrate on education issues, but will broaden my scope into other issues that I find interesting.

I would like to start by sharing my thoughts about getting a second bachelor's degree in my social security years.  That has, so far,  been a highlight of my retirement and given me much to think about.  One of my thoughts was that college really was not much different than it was when I went in the 60s and 70s.  Certainly American culture has changed and students today have fingertip access to information that would have taken me weeks to find back then.  Still, there were students interested in learning what the professors had to say, some who were primarily working for the credential to improve their lives and some who were in as much a daze as I was at 18 years old.  I don't think that has changed.

One of the complaints about young people today is that they can not read nor write as well as their parents generation.  I question that assessment.  It seems that kids are reading all the time, it just that reading is different with all of the technology.  I have always know people who preferred movies to books, particularly in the fiction genre. I would also say that a student today has probably written far more than I did at that age if they post on social media or text.  Is there quality in what they write, I am not sure how important that is for everybody.  I certainly encountered students at the university in the last three years that could write much better than I ever did.  I will say that this time around I was an English major and almost all of the people in my classes liked to read and write.

Being a grandfather of an almost college aged student put me about one generation away from my fellow students' parents.  That was the generation I taught as a public/private school teacher/librarian.  That was a generation that was also constantly harassed by certain segments of society as not profiting from their public education.  I have never been sure if all of the comparisons are with my generation or my parents' but it seemed to me then as it does now that some liked to learn and some couldn't stand it.  I think that has always been true.   There is a factor which gets overlooked in comparing generations of students in America.  Today we teach everyone and expect them to succeed.  The diversity of the students today was a larger spectrum than when I began school.  That means there are going to be more on the low end but I believe there are also more on the high end of skills and motivation.

I believe that motivation is the key for all learners.  At 18 years of age many people do not yet know what motivates them.   College for many is a test to find that out.  It took me three attempts at college before I was really ready to learn.  Our high schools do not allow students to spend much time discovering what motivates them.  This is nothing new, Dewey proposed this idea in his teachings, demonstrating the links between interest, curiosity and effort.  Perhaps I can best illustrate this with a story about my last education job.

I spent the 2005-2006 school year working in a rural district that basically was one elementary, one middle, one high and one alternative school.  I was the librarian for the district and spent most of my time working with grades 3-6.  The teachers supported a very robust Accelerated Reader program for these students and everyday they would come to the library to choose books to read for the program.  They read and read and read.  They seemed to have a strong interest in reading and I thought they truly enjoyed reading.  These students passed the standardized testing and had high reading scores.

This seemed a success story until I began comparing the amount of reading done at the elementary school with the middle and high schools.  The number of books read per student declined each year.  By 12th grade almost nobody checked out a book from the library to read unless they had to for a class, although as everywhere there was a small cadre of those who loved to read.  Further observation and discussions with students led me to the conclusion that most of them did not like to read.  In addition the middle and high schools were not passing the standardized testing of the time.

I realize there were many other factors involved that I did not consider, but it was undeniable that most of our high school students only read a book if they had to.  It is my belief that we took the joy out of reading.  Is that different from my time at that grade?   Certainly many adults love to read the stories in books and many students dropped out of school along the way.  But we have created a system of schools where the Chancellor of Washington DC schools is allocating 5 million dollars to make sure that those students like school.

It is all about motivation.  If you make someone do something, they will turn against it.  I .  Each individual is different.  But, if we expect to have students with high skills they need to be motivated to gain those skills and punishing them with education will not bring that about.

So what learned this time around in college is that not much has really changed other than society's unreasonable demands upon students.  The students haven't changed.  Read I found a blog by Scott Barry Kaufman at Scientific American entitled Interest Fuels Effortless Engagement for more information about this Thought From Yrisarri.

Beyond the Hard Truths of Teaching

I have been trying to get myself motivated to start blogging about education on a regular basis once again.  I am going through my education files and while doing so found this article by Marvin Chachere that closely mirrors my feeling about teaching.  


Click here to learn more about Mr. Chachere  a retired teacher and University of California administrator who played saxophone in his youth with a New Orleans jazz band and died June 17, 2010 after 82 years of life.

BEYOND THE HARD TRUTHS OF TEACHING 

Marvin Chachere

EARLY ON in my teaching career I learned that most principals, superintendents, and deans don't worry much about fostering student learning. 

I'm not sure precisely what they do worry about or even what interests them. Perhaps it's management itself. matching means to ends. Or maybe it's simply tranquillity, • school that's run smoothly. At any rate, teachers and managers have little in common. 

When I taught college. I told my students each semester, quite bluntly. that their institution wasn't organized and run primarily for their learning. I reminded them that they'd worked hard to gain admission. only to be hassled in registration lines. circumscribed by course requirements, intimidated by term papers and exams. categorized by grade points. 

My message, of course. was a truism: Wanting to know something is a necessary precondition for leaming it. "How many of you are here to learn philosophy?" I'd ask. Everyone. (It was an elective course.) "How many of you would be here if this course offered no credit?" No one. 

Students know the difference between learning a subject and going through the motions because they need the credits. Indeed, if a student really wants to learn, he doesn't need good teaching, and if he doesn't want to learn, the best teaching is useless. You can't force anyone to learn anything, unless you're an army sergeant teaching a recruit to fire a rifle. You may tell others what to learn, but this carries no force. Students recognize their rights in this very clearly, and they can easily reject your teaching. 

By now you may be thinking that if I had any self-respect [ should have long ago sought other work.  But for me it was precisely by recognizing these realities and struggling. with them in my own mind (if not in faculty committees, board meetings. and teachers' unions) that I found nourishment as a teacher. I enjoyed teaching and I stayed with it, but not to invent methods for jamming Iearning into the minds of unwilling students. If I wanted reform at all. it was in how I saw my job. Gripped by cynicism regarding my superiors and futility regarding my charges. I still struggled to see teaching as noble work. 

My efforts weren't completely successful, but they brought satisfaction. Once I decided to Iet the managers and policymakers get on with their work, whatever it may be. I was free to get on with mine. By concentrating on the conditions of my students their real and supposed reasons for being in my class, their interests and abilities, even their joys and sorrows. I sought to reform my thinking, to neutralize the negative forces. In other words. I sought the essence of teaching: to stimulate, inspire, animate and arouse another.

" The main job of the teacher is to convey enthusiasm. A teacher isn’t a purveyor of intormation, a guide to the realm of ideas, ambassador of culture, a certifier of students' achievements, or a  guarantor of good. paying jobs. Even less is a teacher concerned with development of a students' character and good citizenship. The only goal that's worth pursuing is to inspire your students with a love of your subject. Any other outcome, however honorable, is incidental. 

This is simplistic, you say. All teachers try to get students interested in their subjects-and good teachers succeed. My point may be simple, but it's not simplistic. It carries three practical consequences, each affecting the improvement of teaching. 

The first consequence is that you acknowledge your students' individual likes and dislikes even as you continue to show them how they can become enthused about what you're teaching. Realize that some students just don't like math, history, literature, science, or whatever. In recognizing individuality, you recognize reality. 

The second consequence is that there's no subject for which studentls' enthusiasm is unworthy or unwarranted, not even basket-weaving. Let me quickly add that I don't propose teaching something just because students will sign up for it-a Bruce Springsteen seminar? But interest in one thing may lead to interest in other things; basket-weaving isn't unrelated to geometry, to physics, to history. Any student who shows you enthusiasm about anything at all has displayed a certain capacity. Good teaching implies the ability to exploit that capacity. find ways to put it to use, and transfer it, if possible to your subject. 

The third consequence follows from the simple essence of teaching. You can’t arouse enthusiasm for a subject unless you've mastered it. The more you learn the more ways you have for arousing students' interests, and the better your teaching will be. Mastery is far more important than methods. Methods follow mastery, not the other way around. Students will be quick to see your enthusium. and if it sterms from mastery they may catch it. 

That's all you can hope and work for. And it's enough. ~ 

Development Based Education

Useful Sites  
Librarians' Internet Index
Refdesk.com
Infoplease

Articles of Interest
Schools Need a Culture Shift is an article by Betty J. Sternberg who addresses motivation in schools.
What the Workforce Will Require of Students is another Education Week article by Catherine Gewertz who questions the need for all students to have college-level skills.

Technology
Here are two short videos from ConnectEd a site for educators from Walden University.  They address topics that have been part of discussions with educators throughout my career.
Why We Need To Teach Technology in School
21st Century Skills: How do We Get There?

Thoughts From Yrisarri
As I listen to the discussions about educational reform I feel that a key concept is missing from the dialog.  I was trained to be a middle school teacher and learned the importance of considering how children are grouped in terms of developmental progress.  That was the impetus behind the middle school movement, that children have a stage between childhood and adolesence that requires a different approach to teaching than children or adolescents. 

I was reminded of this while reading  Scholars: Parent-School Ties Should Shift in Teen Years by Deborah Viadero in Education Week  as she talked about education reform and parental involvement.  She says that there is no mention of how the parental involvement requirements of No Child Left Behind should differ between age levels.  I believe this is the cause of some of our problems in education.  As we discuss public policy we do not recognize the different roles of each stage in the education system.

We only seem to consider that each grade is a preparation for the next grade.  We do not consider that children have development stages and teachers should employ different modes of teaching to capture the interest at different stages.  If the federal government is going to become the source of education policy then they should discuss educating our children not just general education beliefs.