Sunday, January 2, 2011
A conversation with a young, first-year teacher on Christmas day had me contemplating the problems in education and how we should solve them. Every reformer from Sacramento to Brooklyn has some idea about how to fix education in America. The answer to this monumental issue, I believe, may be contained in one simple New Year's resolution that every teacher and administrator, new and old, should make. The New Year's resolution is simply stated:
"This year, I promise to throw away the education blueprint."
What I learned in the aforementioned discussion with the first-year teacher is that we continue to churn out new teachers from the same old blueprint -- one that creates automatons who believe that teaching is comprised of worksheets, homework, and summative assessment.
The conversation began with me asking the young teacher if she assigns homework. The reply, as you might imagine, was a resounding "Yes." Calmly, I asked "Why?" With very little hesitation, the eager young teacher declared that her students need to be responsible. Quoting almost verbatim from Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth, I told her that there is no research to support the notion that homework teaches responsibility.
She quickly backpeddaled, amending with the old "homework-provides-practice" defense. Students need to demonstrate that they have learned a concept through homework, she said. I forged politely ahead, saying that bad practice will only frustrate her students.
Are there points attached to the homework, I asked. She confirmed that there were and that if assignments weren't complete, students received a zero. She seemed proud of this last point, as if it were some sort of victory over a deadly enemy.
Now, students are punished for not completing useless homework, which leads them to hate both school and learning, I proposed. The response to this declaration was the most astonishing of all: "My students will always get homework," the youngster announced, showing no deference to any argument I made, in spite of my nearly 20 years of classroom experience.
The problem is with the blueprint
Please understand that this enthusiastic newbie is not the problem. She may be a good
teacher; she certainly has good intentions and a desire to succeed. The problem is with the same blueprint that we've been using in education for centuries. The one that college professors and cooperating teachers, most of whom should have retired many years ago, have been using forever.
teacher; she certainly has good intentions and a desire to succeed. The problem is with the same blueprint that we've been using in education for centuries. The one that college professors and cooperating teachers, most of whom should have retired many years ago, have been using forever.
The blueprint says that teachers, regardless of grade or subject area should do the following: deliver information, have students write the information in a notebook, assign ill-conceived homework, purportedly related to the information; then, have the students complete multiple choice assessments, demonstrating that they have memorized the information that the teacher has delievered.
Teachers are stuck in a time capsule
I was puzzled by the first-year teacher's attitude toward homework, grading and even feedback to parents -- so much that it stuck with me for weeks after that Christmas-day discussion. Where does an intelligent, well-educated individual get such antiquated ideas, and why is she so resolute that she is unwilling to listen to someone she trusts, someone with nearly two decades of teaching experience?
It's because like most teachers, she is stuck in a time capsule, ruled by an ancient blueprint. So, I wondered, how can I stand up against that damned, centuries-old blueprint, when leading researchers like Alfie Kohn, William Glasser and Edward Deci can't make a dent in it?
The only answer, I reasoned, is to be resolved to throw out the blueprint, which I have done by creating a Results Only Learning Environment. Essentially, I have created my own blueprint, based on the research of the aforementioned luminaries and a few other people who understand teaching and learning and intrinsic motivation.
My blueprint is not the only one, but it is certainly better than the old one -- the one handed to new teachers and the one used by most current teachers. Something that's been around this long is almost universally accepted as the only one that works, yet virtually every major corporation in the world works from a new blueprint. The Model T, typewriter and one-room schoolhouse have all been replaced.
Only teachers continue to use the original blueprint, even though it's hundreds of years old. Isn't it time to join the likes of Ford and Remington -- two major corporations that have successfully built new models.
Shouldn't you resolve to throw away the blueprint?
