Change is hard

Change is hard.

And especially in education, being an early adopter can also be a scary thing. But eventually, if the idea is a good one, everyone is doing it.

Conversation starter – Did You Know 4.0

Several weeks ago, Karl Fisch of Did You Know fame announced a new release with a media convergence feel to it.

The Economist Magazine is hosting their third annual Media Convergence Forum in New York City on October 20th and 21st. Earlier this year they asked if they could remix Did You Know?/Shift Happens with a media convergence theme and use it for their conference.

Fisch takes very little credit for what is being called Did You Know 4.0 and says that while the focus is not necessarily on education:

I certainly think the media convergence ideas discussed in the video have great relevance for education.

I’m a bit torn.

Videos like this are great when used to generate actual conversations that lead to change. But too often, it seems, these types of things are thrown up on a screen for the simple purpose of making us feel good about all of the gadgets we can bring into schools. Or to justify some short-lived staff development project that does little good in the long run.

The video does provide some interesting information about how information and media is changing in the 21st century – and does it with a beautiful design and feel. So go ahead and use the video.

But use it to help start the conversation, not be the conversation.

Better yet . . . watch the video and then read Convergence Culture: Where Old & New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins of MIT. Use the information to start making actual changes that will impact student learning long-term.

I got an email this morning from a colleague asking for advice. He’s working with a teacher who’s wanting to get her students into Google Docs for collaborative work. The kids need email addresses. The school apparently won’t provide them.

An obvious solution would be for the school district to issue email addresses to all of its students. I can hear the admin and tech types from way over here . . . “but we can’t do that. Kids would misuse email.”

Hopefully videos like Did You Know 4.0 can start conversations within those districts and buildings that still believe kids can learn 21st century skills without 21st century tools.

I’ve embedded the video below in the hope that we’ll use it for real change.

Envy, lust, greed, complusory education

Is forced education–and the consequential imprisonment of children–a good thing or a bad thing?

The author of an interesting article over at Psychology Today says it’s bad thing. Peter Gray of the Freedom to Learn: The Roles of Play and Curiosity as Foundations for Learning blog suggests that perhaps we could do school differently if we re-think the issue of compulsory education.

Gray also suggests that there are seven sins associated with forcing kids to attend school. He spends significant time explaining his seven sins but I’ve pasted just a taste below:

• Denial of liberty on the basis of age.
  In my system of values, and in that long endorsed by democratic thinkers, it is wrong to deny anyone liberty without just cause
• Fostering of shame, on the one hand, and hubris, on the other.
  It is not easy to force people to do what they do not want to do. We no longer use the cane, as schoolmasters once did, but instead rely on a system of incessant testing, grading, and ranking of children compared with their peers.
• Interference with the development of cooperation and nurturance.
  We are an intensely social species, designed for cooperation. Children naturally want to help their friends, and even in school they find ways to do so. But our competition-based system of ranking and grading students works against the cooperative drive.
• Interference with the development of personal responsibility and self-direction
  A theme of the entire series of essays in this blog is that children are biologically predisposed to take responsibility for their own education. They play and explore in ways that allow them to learn about the social and physical world around them. They think about their own future and take steps to prepare themselves for it. By confining children to school and to other adult-directed settings, and by filling their time with assignments, we deprive them of the opportunities and time they need to assume such responsibility.
• Linking of learning with fear, loathing, and drudgery.
  For many students, school generates intense anxiety associated with learning.
• Inhibition of critical thinking.
  Presumably, one of the great general goals of education is the promotion of critical thinking. But despite all the lip service that educators devote to that goal, most students–including most “honors students”–learn to avoid thinking critically about their schoolwork.
• Reduction in diversity of skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking.
  By forcing all schoolchildren through the same standard curriculum, we reduce their opportunities to follow alternative pathways.

Gray admits that his seven sins are “not novel” but I do think that he puts a unique spin on how he presents them. I believe that many teachers work very hard to counter-act these tendencies of the larger educational system. Gray claims that the system works against them.

And while I agree with Gray’s comments, I am also convinced that too many teachers contribute to the problems he describes. I would add an eighth sin – too many teachers and their administrators are too comfortable as part of the system.

One of the basic ideas of economics is that people change only when there are sufficient incentives. Tenured educators often don’t see enough incentive to work against Gray’s seven sins. We need to find ways of encouraging teachers to be more proactive in making changes in their behavior.

More and more I’m becoming a fan of Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system. Rhee pushed for a two-tier teacher contract system last year that would allow teachers to earn higher salaries for better teaching. The system pushed back and that idea is now gone. But I still like the idea.

If we truly want learners to be successful in a different world, than those in charge of the learning will need to start acting differently.

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!