Productive stupidity

Do you ever feel stupid?

For some of us, the feeling can be a daily occurrence so I’ll re-phrase the question.

Do you ever feel stupid . . . on purpose?

Because if you haven’t purposefully gone out of your way to feel stupid, I’m gonna suggest that you’re not doing your job correctly. Give me a minute. It’ll make sense eventually.

I ran across an article last week that talked about the importance of being stupid while doing science research. The author describes how very bright science students, successful in high school and college, fail miserably in graduate programs. They’re used to memorizing the answers and acing the tests. When they have to generate their own questions and solve previously unsolved problems, they feel stupid and quit.

Basically the author says that being stupid is not necessarily a bad thing – he describes it as “productive stupidity”:

We don’t do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying. I’m not talking about “relative stupidity,” in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don’t.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time.

While the article is concerned with science students, I see a lot of parallels in history teachers. I think a lot of us did great in high school and college. We enjoy history so it was easy to memorize stuff and spit it back out. The problem is that when we get in the classroom, we stop learning.

As a group, it seems as if most social studies teachers don’t read history books. Don’t watch documentaries. Don’t take history classes. Don’t take advantage of free training and learning opportunities. And I think that we don’t because it can make us feel stupid.

My question is pretty simple:

Are you working to be productively stupid? Are you ignorant by choice?

Over the last year, I’ve had the chance to work with 40 middle school American history teachers in a Teaching American History project. There’s a lot of experience and content knowledge in the room. But they have all purposefully chosen to be a part of the project to learn more by being productively stupid.

They ask great questions. They struggle with problems. They share ideas. And by admitting that they are “stupid,” they are becoming smarter, better teachers of history.

It’s okay to be stupid. Admitting it is the first step to recovery.

Which teacher stays? Which teacher leaves?

Assorted bits that have a similar theme. And a possible solution to the problem.

March 2 Kansas Reporter: Kansas schools brace for 5,000 potential job cuts

Kansas school districts may cut more than 5,000 jobs across the state next year because of funding cuts, according to a new survey by the Kansas State Board of Education.

March 3 Wichita Eagle: Wichita school board members review layoff process

The layoff process for teachers puts those with less than three years’ experience, regardless of quality, among the first on the chopping block. At the start of Monday’s meeting, teachers who are considered among the best in the district, including two first-year teachers, were recognized by the board.

“We were recognizing first-year (teachers) for such a quality performance, and I get very concerned when we are saying that it could possibly be that teacher we would look at before one that’s on a disciplinary plan,” Arnold said.

March 2 New York Times: Building a Better Teacher

When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school’s control produced just a tiny impact, except for one: which teacher the student had been assigned to.

William Sanders, a statistician studying Tennessee teachers with a colleague, found that a student with a weak teacher for three straight years would score, on average, 50 percentile points behind a similar student with a strong teacher for those years.

Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist, found that while the top 5 percent of teachers were able to impart a year and a half’s worth of learning to students in one school year, as judged by standardized tests, the weakest 5 percent advanced their students only half a year of material each year.

Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, enthusiasm and having passed the teacher-certification exam on the first try.

March 2 New York Times: Head of the Class

Video clips of good teachers using great technique

March 6 Newsweek: Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers

In most states, after two or three years, teachers are given lifetime tenure. It is almost impossible to fire them. In New York City in 2008, three out of 30,000 tenured teachers were dismissed for cause. The percentage of teachers dismissed for poor performance in Chicago between 2005 and 2008 (the most recent figures available) was 0.1 percent. In Akron, Ohio, zero percent. In Toledo, 0.01 percent. In Denver, zero percent.

In no other socially significant profession are the workers so insulated from accountability.

Good teachers make a difference.

The sad thing? So do bad teachers.

So . . . keep the good ones, train the bad ones and get rid of those that can’t or won’t get better.

Simple, right? All we have to do is find a way to change the tenure system so bad teachers aren’t protected but still ensure some sort of “safe haven” for the teacher who gives the Board president’s son a failing grade, discover the secret to what makes a good teacher, develop a method for instilling those qualities in receptive teachers and have the guts to push truly bad teachers out the door.

Mmm . . . easy.

Part of the answer lies in helping teachers use the simple things that make a difference. Doug Lemov of Uncommon Schools has bundled together 49 simple techniques that taken together makes teaching better and learning easier. Titled Teach Like a Champion, the book lists a variety of things we all need to do get reach that top 5%.

Update – A “debate” between the authors of Building a Better Teacher and Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers has been posted at Newsweek. Adds nicely to the conversation.

The best educators are all heretics

I had the chance to listen to Seth Godin the other day. You know . . . author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, The Purple Cow and Small is the New Big?

No?

Well . . . he’s not really an education guy. He’s a marketing guy. But he said some things the other day that I think can apply to us.

Like many others before him, Godin compared K-12 education to the traditional factory system. And not in a good way. Not really a novel idea but he went on to suggest what I think is a novel solution.

You ready?

Create a tribe.

That’s right. A tribe.

In his latest book and during his keynote, Godin suggests that all people want to belong to a special group, that we all want to be “insiders,” that we want to belong to a tribe. It could be the Red Sox Nation, the Red Hat Club, the Red Hot Chili Peppers fan club or the Red Cross 10 Gallon donor group. His point is that  people have been joining tribes forever.

And he suggests that we as educators can use this desire to join tribes to our benefit. If we truly want to change the educational system, it will have to come through the work of a group of dedicated people. And to be successful, this new tribe must be led.

And led not just by any kind of leader. Godin makes a very strong case that:

every successful tribe is led by a heretic.

I love that quote!

Change is hard, especially in education, and it take people who are willing to bend the rules a bit (and maybe break them once in a while) for real change to happen.

And the scary thing is that many of the leaders now in place – principals, superintendents and Boards of Education – are often not heretics. They like things to be stable and comfortable and “manageable.”

(One exception might be Michelle Rhee of the Washington DC school district. Rhe has offered teachers the option of merit pay, closed poor performing schools and fired administrators – all while saying “what happens to kids is what’s most important.” Heresy!)

Godin suggests that it’s up to you, the point of the spear, to make sure that true change occurs. And I see his idea apply both directly in the classroom and in the larger education realm.

How to effect change?

There is no Tribes for Dummies book but . . .

• Challenge the status quo
• Create a culture that encourages positive deviancy, a change for the better
• Develop the idea of “insiders”
• Create a culture that stands for something
• Be curious about everything
• Be charismatic – “Charisma doesn’t make a leader, being a leader makes you charismatic.”
• Communicate a ton
• Connect with your insiders

He ended with the phrase:

2v4

If you are doing this 2 people, you fail. If you do this 4 people, you succeed.

I’m still working through this in my own head and will be going back to his book to review. But I like Godin’s very positive attitude that we can effect change and that we can improve education.

If nothing else, Godin’s ideas make me feel optimistic about the future of K-12 education. And I like that!

Teach for America also self-selects

Earlier this week, I popped off about pre-service teachers. That perhaps those college kids with the most potential to truly impact learning are making conscious choices to not be educators. That we’re losing kids who could be great teachers because they sense that perhaps they wouldn’t fit the typical mold of the K-12 educational system.

And now that I’m over most of my grumpiness, it’s good to know that good things are happening in education. Many may not be aware of a group of new teachers who also self-select and who are doing wonderful work in urban schools all over the US. Teach for America started in the 1989 with the purpose of recruiting

recent college graduates and professionals of all academic majors and career interests to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools.

I had the chance to meet several TFA teachers this summer – one teaching in an inner city school in New York and one who was transferring into the Washington DC school system. Both incredibly talented teachers who were spending part of their summer honing their craft and who impressed me with their desire to help kids.

Some have suggested that TFA grads really don’t have that much of an impact but this study (and this one) suggest otherwise. So . . . there are young teachers who are choosing to step up and are working in “disruptive” ways to improve the system.

And just like that, it’s a good day.