Blog | The Compass Point

Tradition and change

From the Poughkeepsie New Yorker (Over 78,000 Read-Round-the-Clock 35 Cents Weekly) December 1941 came this news item about Poughkeepsie Day School.

It was the annual Christmas Festival “with many of the school’s alumni present, as well as parents and friends.”

It was a community event. There were student made decorations including a clay figures and ornaments that were donated to Vassar Brothers Hospital. There were songs in Spanish and French, a capella, carols and an original song “Silent House” written and composed by the pupils.

Children of all ages worked to make it possible.

Times change and continue to change. In the 68 years since 1941 we have, among other things, developed a more inclusive and less uni-cultural approach to the seasonal celebration.

But it’s interesting to read the long history of so many of the elements of the PDS Winter Festival.

Change, PDS Events

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Standards Train Wreck

In Teaching in a Knowledge Society Andy Hargreaves has a cautionary tale – Education off the Rails - about the effects of applied performance standards that push people all too easily into quick fixes rather than sustainable improvement. His analogy concerns a stay he had in the UK and a railway meltdown.

In that case, emphasis on standards turned into standardization and targets met. Privatisation cut the cost of engineering repairs by contracting them out to private tender. Performance standards replaced long-term accountability. And the consequences were disastrous.

His point is that excessive concentration on minimum standards and short-term performance targets can be self-defeating. They can push trains, and education, off the rails by eradicating an established culture.

In the illustration Henry the Green Engine* is derailed because a fall of snow forced the signals down. In that rail disaster, cocoa was spilt but no lives lost and Henry was dispatched to Crewe for a new firebox.

Henry the Green Engine by the Rev. W. Awdry.

Assessment, Books, Change, Critical thinking

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Toad, Mole, or Rat?

When a new technology comes along and knocks you off the old one – in this case a motor car and a canary-colored horse-drawn cart – are you more of a Toad, Mole or Rat?

‘Glorious, stirring sight!’ murmured Toad, never offering to move. ‘The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here to-day–in next week to-morrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped–always somebody else’s horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!’

‘O stop being an ass, Toad!’ cried the Mole despairingly.

‘And to think I never knew!’ went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone. ‘All those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even dreamt! But now–but now that I know, now that I fully realise! O what a flowery track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust-clouds shall spring up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid little carts–common carts–canary-coloured carts!’

‘What are we to do with him?’ asked the Mole of the Water Rat.

‘Nothing at all,’ replied the Rat firmly. ‘Because there is really nothing to be done. You see, I know him from of old. He is now possessed. He has got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its first stage. He’ll continue like that for days now, like an animal walking in a happy dream, quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind him. Let’s go and see what there is to be done about the cart.’

Of course – Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows has other options. Badger or Wild Wooder for example.

Illustrations by E.H. Shepard.

Learning, Many minds, Technology

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Guy Claxton on Education for Lifetime Learning

21st century schools, Creativity, Critical thinking, Education, Future, Learning

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A Day in the Life of the Internet

Created by Online Education

Technology

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Mission and The Builders Manifesto

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There’s good provocative thinking from Umair Haque on the Harvard Business Review blog: The Builders’ Manifesto: 20th century leadership is what’s stopping 21st century prosperity.

With everyone on the leadership bandwagon proclaiming the need for leaders and leadership, it may be time for a fresh perspective. Because – whatever is needed – from health care reform to education to action on climate change – we don’t seem to have it. Haque writes:

Dear World Leaders,

This relationship isn’t working out…. We’ve tried to make it work. But it’s not us — it’s you (really).

Haque’s hypothesis is that the word “leader” feels like a relic of the 20th century and that rather than try to train better leaders we need to reboot the concept.

He contends that it’s a myth that leadership is a set of timeless skills and points out that leadership can be both powerful – and bad. And it is certainly true that the graveyards of the 20^th century are littered with the consequences of effective leadership.

Institutions are broken, he says, and their dysfunction means the old model of leadership cannot work. The answer he says not leadership but “about ‘buildership’, or what I often refer to as Constructivism.”

Haque includes some interesting contrasts between leaders and builders: Sarah Palin v. Nelson Mandela; Ben Bernanke v. Mohammed Yunus. He has others from a variety of fields, and his commentary provokes thought.

In education, constructivism challenges the default mode of sage-on-the-stage, all-knowing leader-teacher whose job it is to transmit knowledge.

It’s a meaning-making theory of learning that maintains that individuals create or construct their own new understandings or knowledge through the interaction with what they already know and believe and the ideas, events, and activities with which they come in contact.

Knowledge is acquired through active engagement rather than imitation or repetition. A constructivist classroom is characterized by active engagement, inquiry, problem solving, and collaboration. Constructivist teachers help students by encouraging active questioning and challenging learners to form, reform, and refine their ideas and understandings in an active and social context. Multiple perspectives, intellectual diversity and engagement with the real world are taken as a given. Knowledge is not out there to be taken in, but derives from interaction and engagement as the learner builds a personal world of understanding. It’s a social process, and it means that you have to do something – intellectually and/or physically – to learn. And caring – i.e. motivation – matters.

So back to the Builders.

Haque concludes with a list of ten principles that contrast bossism/ leadership with buildership. My summary is that builders (constructivists):

believe in community
are motivated by the desire to change things for the better
are inspired by what could be
work to show why the destination matters
draw passion for the enterprise, and
are there every step of the way.

And to distill it further: Builders believe in, and work for, a mission and a vision founded on values.

Do these ideas apply to institutions like schools and to school leadership?

Change, Critical thinking, Leadership, Mission Vision Values, Teamwork

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Ken Robinson 2009

“Our children, every day, come to school and spread their dreams at our feet. We should tread softly.” Sir Ken Robinson.

Sir Ken Robinson from NYSCATE on Vimeo.

21st century schools, Creativity, Dance, Education

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Higher standards. Please.

Assessment, Humor

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School of the past, school of the future

This summer I the quite wonderful Hancock Shaker Village. It’s where in craft and design, form meets function with simplicity and beauty. So many interesting things to see and pay attention to.

Of course – I had to visit the schoolhouse, now separated from the main buildings by a busy highway.

The school room was bright and well lit and seemed both familiar and welcoming. The shelves held books, quills and slates. There was a stove with a long pipe, and a teacher’s desk at the front and on it a handbell. Student desks were in rows and tall windows framed pleasant vistas in spite of the road.

The date on the blackboard was 1898.

At around the same, a French postcard presented a view of the school of the future – the year 2000. The same room, students still in those desks and rows. But now knowledge has been mechanized. Knowledge as represented by books is fed into a hand cranked mincing machine (at least there’s one active learner!) and directed to the heads of passive students via electrical circuits dropped from the ceiling.

It all looks like the nightmare of an isolation chamber/ computerized/ learning laboratory devoted to mind control.

21st century schools, Books, Change, Education, Educational Insanity, Future, Humor, Learning

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Future past imperfect

Enjoy the drawing. But but then read this: Shifting Ground from Chris Lehmann.

From the Chicago Tribune 1958. (But only one child distracted by the flying machine outside the classroom?)

21st century schools, Change, Education, Future, Humor, Technology

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What's changed?

What’s changed? Pretty much everything.

A question to get going with:
Shopping and information then and now: If you want the best dishwasher or digital camera or know how to remove turmeric stains from linen or why there’s a sudden infestation of ladybugs – where would you go to figure it out?

And for most people the answer would be: online.

What did not change in that equation was the desire for the product and information. And wanting to be informed.

But let’s not confuse the map with the territory and destination.

In school technology changes everything. And nothing. Children are the same. But they experience the world differently than a generation ago. Fortunately we have some amazing and empowering tools to help us to fulfill our mission to develop educated citizens with a passion for learning and living. And the tools are all around us, and them. The question is – are the tools in use? Or in digital detention?

It’s not about the tools – just as it never was – but the learning, the meaning, and the purpose. And it’s not just about doing things more efficiently or faster – it’s about agency and access, empowerment and transformation.

And for a reminder of just how much has changed in the way we conduct our, here is a quick slide show memory jolt from Dangerously Irrelevant on the pace and breadth of technological impact on (almost) every aspect of life, work, and leisure

Digital Technology Impact Slides[gigya width="425" height="355" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=castledigitaltechnologyimpactslides-091202063525-phpapp01&stripped_title=digital-technology-impact-slides" quality="high" wmode="tranparent" ]

View more presentations from mcleod.

21st century schools, Change, Creativity, Education, Future, Learning, Mission Vision Values, Progressive Education, Technology

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Whatever it takes….

Oldie but goodie. An irresistible cartoon from the Syracuse-Herald Journal 1991
From another era…or…?

21st century schools, Assessment, Education, Educational Insanity, Humor, Learning, Motivation, Progressive Education

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Locking the gate: Data is Dead, Long Live Data

When I’m in the car I listen to WAMC, and yesterday I heard Roland Fryer’s Dowmel lecture. His specialty is race-based economic issues, and his research projects seek to answer the question of why African-Americans are harder hit by poverty than other demographic groups in America

The focus was education and the data dismal.

Fryer is a brilliant economist, an engaging speaker and he told a compelling personal story – from the streets to Harvard via football, an aptitude for mathematics and the support of his grandmother, a teacher

He says we have to do “Whatever it takes” and “Whatever works” when it comes to lifting achievement of poor performing groups. For Fryer this includes financial incentives and he is one of the voices behind NYC’s scheme to pay students for performance in school.

Data is big in the education world right now. Nothing wrong with that. But what is it data about? There’s the rub.
Data is good. Good data is even.

One of the key tenets of a progressive approach to education is the attention to the whole child. Education is not about academics only and intellectual growth is not limited to verbal proficiency and mathematical achievement alone. (Beyond that of course – the evidence clearly shows that the arts, physical activity and creative play all boost test scores.) The focus on testing narrows the path and locks the gate for so many children

Fryer spoke of the gold standard of data versus the heart standard of the anecdotal “I know it’s working because I feel it in my heart.” I am all for the gold standard. But – for me that means looking at what we are measuring. Some things are still bigger than the constituent parts and the punishments and rewards built into the current school testing system ignores the realities of what matters most. Test scores often reflect children’s backgrounds more than the quality of a given teacher or school.

The data shows that poor children fail in school and drop out in large numbers. It does not show that they lacked a desire to learn and succeed when they entered. Maybe the issue is not the lack of motivation but something else: The support, encouragement, resources and achievement that accompany active and joyful learning perhaps.

So here’s a thought: If the data shows that students aren’t learning effectively, could it be because of the prevalence and persistence of traditional beliefs and practices in our schools?

And a second thought: Let’s work on finding ways to test what actually matters most.

21st century schools, Assessment, Change, Creativity, Critical thinking, Data, Education, Learning, Many minds, Progressive Education, Uncategorized

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State of play

So the debate on the purpose of play in early childhood simmers on. It popped up on my Facebook page yesterday with this from the ASCD: Play is problem solving

That then led me to the The Playtime’s the Thing from the Washington Post.

The pressure is on to raise achievement scores and this puts the squeeze on time for play.

“If we are to prevent the achievement gap and develop a cradle-to-career educational pipeline, early learning programs are going to have to be better integrated with the K-12 system,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday at a convention of the nation’s largest early childhood organization, the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

With school districts targeting student achievement the focus has been on literacy – especially reading and math skills for children at ever-younger ages. No Child Left Behind requires schools to ensure that all children are proficient in math, reading and writing by 2014. What could be wrong with that? Well – quite a lot as it happens. With a society that actually needs a wide range of aptitudes and abilities – with the route to actual success in school being more than the narrow gateway of test scores – we are in danger of leaving many children behind.

Furthermore – it appears that while certain measures of proficiency show up in test results the far reaching effects of lack of play do not. According to the article lost playtime shows up in life. And with devastating, costly consequences – delinquency, school failure, emotional disturbance and delayed social development.

It’s with dismay, then, that I read the statistic of the amount of play allowed quote story:

“… in kindergarten, children are playing for fewer than 30 minutes a day, according to a study of full-day kindergartens in New York City and Los Angeles published in the spring by the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit group based in College Park. They spend four to six times more time on literacy, math and test-taking than they do on play.

What it signals to me is a false dichotomy of play and work. Perhaps adults can distinguish between the two – although meaningful work often has a playful aspect. But for small children the two are one and the same.

If play is the work of the child then why are we keeping these children from their essential work for a short-term bump in test scores? And at what price? Evidence seems to suggest that this educational dead end short circuits the very activity – the industry and intellectual activity of active play – that children need to grow academically and socially.

I’m with Friedrich Froebel on this one:

Play is the highest level of child development…It gives…joy, freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest, peace with the world…The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life.

21st century schools, Assessment, Creativity, Curriculum, Data, Education, Educational Insanity, Kindergarten, Learning, Literacies, Lower School, Many minds, Mission Vision Values, Progressive Education, Research

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Publish! And democratize learning

Interesting post from The Innovative Educator: 21st Century Educators Don’t Say, “Hand It In.” They say, “Publish It!

Read the post to hear what happened when she put out the word via Twitter and also to see her suggestions for making it happen in the classroom.

Meanwhile – here is one of the slides from a presentation by C.K. Prahalad* at the recent TEDIndia in Mysore. It’s about democratizing learning. Are these the key points? What do you think?

*C.K. Prahalad studies business and innovation around the globe — from the top to the bottom of the economic pyramid. He asks, “How do you convert information into insight, and then into action?” Learning, he says, is about inference; two people will infer different things from the same information. We can improve learning by understanding the processes that alter the way different people make inferences. …. We’re at a unique point in history — more people than ever have access to information through technology, but we must democratize learning, too. Books
http://blog.ted.com/tedindia

21st century schools, Change, Choice, Education, Future, Learning, One World, Technology

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Dangerous praise

Good reminder about how not to praise from Stephen Currie in a recent post to the PDS Math Guy Blog.

It’s all to do with the effort effect and how to talk to kids about their work. Researcher Carol Dweck’s work has shown that praise for being smart is a great demotivator. Here are the researcher’s tips for a better way to talk to kids about their work:

Here are Dweck’s tips from Mindset:

Listen to what you say to your kids, with an ear toward the messages you’re sending about mind-set.
Instead of praising children’s intelligence or talent, focus on the processes they used.
Example: “That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”Example: “That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”
Example: “You put so much thought into that essay. It really makes me think about Shakespeare in a new way.”
When your child messes up, give constructive criticism—feedback that helps the child understand how to fix the problem, rather than labeling or excusing the child.
Pay attention to the goals you set for your children; having innate talent is not a goal, but expanding skills and knowledge is. Don’t worry about praising your children for their inherent goodness, though. It’s important for children to learn they’re basically good and that their parents love them unconditionally, Dweck says. “The problem arises when parents praise children in a way that makes them feel that they’re good and love-worthy only when they behave in particular ways that please the parents.”

Education, Intelligence, Motivation, PDS People, Progressive Education, Research

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"We wish all children could be glad and safe"

“War is not here”
“No sirens are warning us of air raids”
and the last line
“We wish all children could be glad and safe.”

In all-school activity groups on Tuesday students wrote what they are thankful for on strips of colored paper – now displayed in the lobby. (Family, friends and pets feature strongly.)

As reported by the Poughkeepsie New Yorker evening edition for November 21 1941 they did the same thing 68 years ago. It was before Pearl Harbor but the world was at war and the children knew it.

They were thankful for being safe, for the army, the navy, and for for living in a democracy where they could “cooperate to defend their country’. They were thankful for the freedom to worship God and criticize the president without being put in a concentration camp.

On the same page as the PDS story are two accounts of a torpedo boat fight. The German high command version is quite different from the British Admiralty story.

For pictures of our activities on Tuesday – check the Flickr feed – below right. In addition to making the list we also had pumpkin squares baked by the fifth and sixth grades and sang the now traditional “Thank-you” song written by students for the original musical “Life on Earth” in 1999. The story was the quite wonderful Giving Thanks by Jonathan London beautifully illustrated by Gregory Manchess. Thank you Robbie Puglisi and the kindergarten class for bringing it to my attention.

Books, Change, Education, PDS Events, PDS People, Progressive Education

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Testing Madness on the Race to Nowhere

A colleague at a nearby school sent me this link to the NYTimes – just the latest bulletin from a world gone mad with narrow definitions of achievement and success. Test prep for pre-school no less. And a real moneymaker for the lucrative (and unregulated) test prep industry.

Tips for the Admissions test – to Kindergarten

“Kayla Rosenblum sat upright and poised as she breezed through the shapes and numbers, a leopard-patterned finger puppet resting next to her for moral support.

But then came something she had never seen before: a visual analogy showing a picture of a whole cake next to a slice of cake. What picture went with a loaf of bread in the same way?

Kayla, who will be 4 in December, held her tiny pointer finger still as she inspected the four choices. “Too hard,” she peeped.

Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.”

What happened to childhood?

What happened to all the decades of research and study that shows that play is the work of the child and that narrow definitions of achievement serve only to exclude children from their birthright of unique success?

What happened to common sense that knows that getting down on the floor and playing with, and listening to, children is best way to help their cognitive growth? There are ways to promote children’s intellectual growth. Test prep anxiety is not one of them.

This week we both heard Dr. Paul Yellin whose presentation to parents and faculty began by emphasizing what we already know about children’s minds:

There is no perfect brain
Intellectual diversity is the norm
Brains change over time and continue to grow throughout our lifetimes

One size does not fit all. PDS knows that. We all know that. All kinds of minds deserve respect and appreciation and can learn. Resilient, creative, flexible, ethical and persistent thinkers and doers succeed. And learning is a habit for a lifetime and directly connected with personal purpose and joy. The best preparation is to build school learning that enables children to develop those skills and the test is life itself. And it begins with play. It does not begin with pumping your child with canned instruction. Programs like Baby Einstein are cognitive dead ends. (You can now apply for a refund from Disney – this is true, check the link.)

We all know that the world needs a variety of aptitudes and experiences and we must value each child’s unique talents and know they are on an individual journey. There are many minds within one family – let alone classroom, school, world. And we need all of them.

Why then do we continue to insist otherwise with our emphasis on testing and the pressure and anxiety that goes with it.

I need a new category for some posts to this blog: Educational Insanity.

And what is the price of this testing madness? Childhood is the price. And you only get one of those. And if we strip the joy of learning from childhood then the damage is incalculable. And to what end?

At the high school level here’s one answer in Race To Nowhere. This film takes a look at education, childhood and the unintended consequences of the achievement and test obsessed way of life that permeates American education and culture. The pressure on kids is unrelenting and is creating a generation suffering from unprecedented levels of stress, depression and burnout. No wonder 2,000 kids a day drop out of high school. Here’s the trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--zDyLGQYGk&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

And in the Hope department: Here comes this from Time Magazine.

“The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids….”

Read more: The growing backlash against overparenting.

Assessment, Creativity, Critical thinking, Diversity, Education, Educational Insanity, Future, Intelligence, Kindergarten, Learning, Lower School, Many minds, PDS Events, Progressive Education

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How to effect change

Education is all about change. And fun makes it so much more effective. Here’s a great example from Stockholm – sent to me by a parent.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6]

Change, Education, Future, Motivation, Play, Technology

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The site of the Head of School at Poughkeepsie Day School