edreform Archives

Seventeen and a half Inch Neck

Not everyone knows what it is like to be the odd man out. Lacking fit. I am used to it in lots of ways. Outside of education discussions, my most persistent experience with this is when I buy clothes. You see, I am built for speed. Not too high off of the ground so as to incur headwinds. I have been known to hit the gym. So when I need, say, a shirt this is often the beginning of a bit of an adventure. The best method to get around this is to know what brands and what stores make clothes that fit my body type. In the case of clothing that cannot be tried on, like a new Jiu Jitsu gi, I have to call or send an email. It usually goes like this:

What size gi should I order?
Have you looked at the sizing chart?
Yes. I’m 5’7″ and 210 lbs.
Well, which is it?
What?
If you’re 5’7″ you should get an A2.
But I’m 210 lbs.
Oh. Well, I guess you can buy an A3 and try to shrink it.

Now try getting a dress shirt with 32 arms and a seventeen and a half inch neck. This sums up a lot of areas in my life.

You know? I can’t get behind that.

Classrooms are not designed for class activities, they are designed for class sizes. Seated.

I can’t get behind that.

Curricula are designed for tests. Or teachers.

I can’t get behind that.

Teachers are prepared for management.

I can’t get behind that.

Education is designed for compliance and one path is the best and variants are considered failures.

I can’t get behind that.

It is 2014 and we are not required to accept everything that is given to us. To fit. It is time to rebel. We can no longer accept the teacher who is not also an activist and advocate.

Passivity is acceptance. Endorsement. Establish the rule of engagement. Engage. Fight.

Dig into Goodness of Fit. Seek to understand why we do not have to fit.

Who you callin’ a MOOC?!

My first job out of college was at a classical record store. It was one of the best record stores in the city–hands down. That includes rock stores. By standards of stock, we were unmatched. The store manager was a composer who had studied with Maxwell Davies and the assistant manager was a mean fiddle and bouzouki player who recruited me into his celtic rock band, The Hooligans. We had fun. The store had some basic tenets. We were open every day from 9am until midnight. No matter what. We had–in stock–every record in print and often several records that were out of print. It was a haven on South Street in Philadelphia. You know. Where all the hippies meet.

It was around that time that digital audio tape was still around. Digital cassettes were new and already fading. Laserdiscs were still being bought and sold (for good reason). Super Audio Compact Discs were becoming the rage for the audiophile set. It was a growing set.

People wanted def. Hi def. They mos def wanted as much def as you could get. They paid for it, too.

A typical new release cd was selling for $14.99. That’s $16.04 after the (formerly) 7% sales tax. On sale it would be $11.99 ($12.83). Yes, I still remember 7% of most retail price points–do not even mess with me. Super audio compact discs (SACD) were selling at above $20 which was a stretch for a lot of consumers. Most were around $22.99 which after tax is pushing $25 and pushing a lot of people away from the idea of high definition.

There are some things that you need to understand about the recording process–or any creation process–in order to understand why these quality standards were, in many ways, a farce. That is not to say that there was any deception. But there was surely a misperception. The misperception that a SACD of George Szell’s famous Beethoven Symphonies may sound like they were recorded using today’s technology–noiseless, bright and alive. Often times, it was just the opposite. These super-recordings often emphasized the faults of recordings or the editing process was very recognizable. The end result in the early digital age of music left us longing for our vinyl records and tube amplifiers.

Many failed to read the disclosure statements and the labels on the backs of cds. I do not even know if they are still there. We ‘in the industry’ knew the ages of the recordings and the quality of recordings from experience, Schwann or Peterson’s guides, or from complaints heard when a recording was returned. Overall, you got what you paid for. That $7.99 Great Performances on Sony? Yes. It is a great performance. A great performance that sounds like someone in the percussion section is frying up some sausages. You see a perfect 24-bit digital copy of an analog recording is only as good as the original recording quality.

Cut to: MP3s, file sharing, portable digital players, voila! the iPod.

Apple taught us an important lesson.

file size is more important than sound quality.

Any engineer, mechanic, electrician, or team leader will tell you the same thing. You set your tolerances based on the weakest of the components. Back in the SACD 80’s, you would be well set to have a noiseless digital recording playing through your hand-wired amplifier and playing through your active crossover full range of home speakers in a room with an integrated bass trap. It would be lovely. Someone asks you to keep it down and you plug in a $9.99 pair of COBY headphones from Funk-O-Mart and you have broken the chain. All of those other components cannot shine. The same would be said of any other link in that file chain being compromised.

We lowered our high definition standards in the name of fashion and convenience. Portability was also pretty cheap. Easy access was worth it. Chip away. File sharing? Don’t mind if I do. 8-bit? No that’s too low. You Tube? Oh look, video. Chip away. We have enormous televisions and we opt to watch screens inches wide that make videos look really sharp. Chip away, chip away.

So why do I bring this up and what does it reveal? We sacrifice a lot for many reasons. We make a series of decisions that influence the types of options and the types of decisions that follow. Eventually, hopefully, we raise our eyes and look around. We see where we are and realize that we are far off from the road we began. Take inventory. Is this the quality that you expect from yourself and from others? Are the sacrifices in one area worth the gain in another?

If not, what’re you? Some kind of mook? mooc?

Pedagogy and its Discontents pt.2, Lead me where?

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement–that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

Let us not make any bones about the situation. The teacher is at the front of the room and hold the keys. There are places that students cannot go. There are places that students can go. There are places that students may only go if the teacher takes them there. Say what? This is the 21st century. This classroom is flipped. We are unlearning. Delearning. Relearning. It is our new pedagogy. You can’t front on that.

Or can you, Biz? Will you front on that? Is it the content, the context, or the process that is of value in the classroom? Some mix of the three, perhaps. Maybe, even, a fourth entity–the interaction of them all. In the same way that you may not separate nature and nurture, it is unlikely that you may separate the content from the context or either of them from the process that brings them to light. Further, it is unlikely that by explicitly valuing one part of the mix that a teacher or student will be sure to have the desired influence over those components.

Do you follow? If I, as a teacher or student make explicit statements of value, the reaction of students may be to value or devalue or, perhaps, to have no change in their valuation of the component. Some rebel while some draw near. It depends on how that serves their needs for safety, belonging, esteem, or actualization. Remember Maslow? Not to oversimplify, but if you have ever tried to teach a hungry student, you are probably missing more than my point.

Getting back to the matter at hand, students respond to the content, context, and process–along with the demonstrated valuations by the instructor in a given manner. They may follow, rebel, or have no change in their value of the experience. The teacher, assessing the response, may ‘course-correct’ mid-stream-of-thought BUT what may happen is not entirely predictable! Change on the part of the teacher–either re-emphasis, over-emphasis, or a decreased emphasis–may result in a different overall response.

The most significant (read risky) overall response may be an overarching loss of interest should the instructor effectively abandon ship on the premise or the beliefs that were held at first. Any teacher still holding the torch of pedagogy as a method of a priori distribution of information should probably have a widow’s walk built and learn a new lament. The kids are alright.

“And yet, in making any general judgement of this sort, we are indanger of forgetting how variegated the human world and its mental life are.”

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

No, #Reform is Not “trending”

You know, there are a handful of things that drive me nuts. Okay, fine, maybe more than a few. But in regard to #EdReform, there are a few. When talking about #EdReform, some folks feel compelled to either brag or complain about the school that they attended…in the 80s. Right, Men Without Hats was awesome and your school was not. We get it. Or, Debbie Gibson was the worst, but your school rocked. Fine. #EdReform is not the time for out of context discussion and what ifs–no, really, I can help…since I have no idea what goes on in the classroom, I’ll be a good out of the box thinker. No, you will not. Go get us some chips.

The fact that we have to talk about #EdReform is a sad day. There should be no enjoyment of the rallies and no late-night laugh-fests about the problems we are having. We are not reminiscing about the old days. We are discussing a system that is broken. Sadly and sorely and perhaps irreparably broken. And we are the ones who can fix it. Teachers.

Pennies for your thoughts or real change?

I mentioned this to @tshreve in response to a post on Twitter. “The fact that education is the solution does not mean that it is (or was ever) the problem.” Educators are the ones who hold the solutions to the issues in education right now. I do not say that to be separatist, but it is we who need to get our house in order so we are able to return it to its rightful place.

Unfortunately, there are many who are making their living off of criticizing education. Sheisters, chancers, and ne’er-do-wells who parade around in teachers’ clothes claiming that they have the insights and solutions that are needed. Gary Stager’s comment that “unqualified is the new qualified” is terrifyingly true–and we wonder what went wrong!!! It is trendy to by “untainted” by “teacher school.” That is a sad statement.

If we want real reform, we have to begin with what is most important–in no order: kids, teachers, schools. The focus of our energy, the conductor of that energy, and the context of that interaction.

Let us make the decision to keep it simple. Quality #EdReform is not performed by swinging the pendulum to the opposite side. It is not performed by those who have a monetary stake in the game. It cannot be “won” but it must be fought for. It cannot be ignored.

I have a belief that the knowledge that I need exists among the people whom I teach on any given day of the week. As a teacher, it is my job to draw that knowledge out and to facilitate the meaningful construction of that knowledge. It takes some faith, I know–this approach has served me well. I have the same belief about our #EdReform needs. Everything that we need and every resource that we have already exists. We must come together to draw it out and construct it. We need the faith of those with the power to support these efforts. What school, district, or state would be willing to give a busload of committed educators the reins to their schools? Let’s do it.

Who’s with me?