Last week I wrote about the overwhelming influence of just a few large textbook companies on our school system to the detriment of high quality, progressive education, and our need to take back our education system. I don’t really blame textbook companies. Like all major companies, they have a job to do, and that’s to make money. The job of schools, however, is to educate children. So why do we let the textbook companies control what we teach and how we teach it? Sadly, we don’t let them. We help them.
Authentic learning, that learning that happens outside of school, on an as-needed basis, on the job or for a hobby, generally doesn’t happen with a teacher, a presentation and a textbook. These days, many of us learn whatever it is we want to know by searching reliable sources on the Internet, watching a YouTube how-to video, or chatting via Skype or Facebook with someone who, if they don’t know it already, are willing to work with us to figure it out. That’s the most natural, enjoyable, easiest learning there is, and it results in the best retention. We identify a need to learn the content, we find the tools and resources we need to learn it, we learn it, and then we immediately apply it to our identified need.
There’s an old adage that teachers teach the way they were taught. Because anybody over the age of about 35 completed their K-12 schooling before most schools had computers, before PDA’s, and long before the iPhone, it’s reasonable to believe that most teachers, administrators and the college professors that train them were not taught using technology to research, analyze and synthesize ideas in unique, rigorous, collaborative investigations aligned to standards.
It’s equally reasonable to believe that most, but not all, of those who become teachers were probably successful and comfortable in that teacher-centered world. It was likely their comfort and success in that model that drew them into teaching in the first place, and after 20 years or so as successful students in that model, they are unlikely to teach significantly differently than they themselves were taught.
In classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do fashion, examples abound of professors giving long lectures on constructivism, authentic assessment, and project-based learning. I know that I personally have snickered at the ironies of such a practice on many occasions, particularly in graduate school and professional development workshops. (This is not to say all lecturing is bad – it’s still fine as an introduction. The question is about what you then DO with the new information.)
Without background in these methods, without high quality modeling by master teachers and college professors, and given the many outrageous pressures on teachers’ time in our school system, teachers have little incentive to do things any way other than the traditional way. It’s easy to teach from a textbook. It’s easy for many teachers to stand and talk for 45 minutes. It’s easy to stay comfortable and in control, knowing the answers to all the questions students might ask because they rarely depart from the anticipated script. It’s what students expect. It’s what parents expect. But it’s exactly why our schools are failing so many of our students. We have trapped them and ourselves in an old model that does not work in our current world.
Last week I promised I would try to overcome the valid criticisms of the Occupy Movement in my own version, Occupy Education, by actually offering specific goals and techniques. Last week, Goal 1 was that you stop using your textbooks.
Occupy Education Movement, Goal II: Truly excellent, creative, progressive, and engaging teaching is extremely difficult work. In the real world, day after day, unit after unit, not every day can be filled with exciting, fascinating stimulating learning. So pick one unit. Or if you’re an administrator, have your teachers focus on just one unit. If possible, have a couple teachers work together on a unit for March or April. Make this one unit an over-the-top, dream-inspired, creative, extravaganza of a student-centered experience with minimal or no use of the textbook or teacher talk. Just one unit. Just once. Give yourself permission to do something really special. Let me know how it goes.
A Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!
Next week: “Bad students” – from the students’ perspective
Perspectives and Information on Education (PIE) 