eduskeptic

One of the problems at our school, and maybe at many more, is the overall ability to connect to the internet.  In theory, one should be able to connect at high speeds from anywhere on campus: the lab, the library, classroom, cafeteria, playground, either wired or wirelessly.  Without the ability to connect, at high speed, the entire technology initiative falters, sputters, then stops, somewhat like an old car with crud in the carburetor. Cathleen Norris and Elliot Soloway did a study some years ago that found connectivity issues, not reluctant teachers, was the biggest problem in spreading the use of computer generated learning.  I have big questions about how the internet and computers are advertised as a panacea for education problems, and always take such information with an entire carton of salt. I think that technology is vastly important in the educational system.  We do need to keep up with what the children are using and doing.  If we tap into what appear to be useful opportunities relative to technology I think that we really could be able to teach well.  Certainly, the technology industry thinks so.  Children, who are growing up with a very connected world, think so.  At our school, excited, technologically literate teachers have run into, and largely been stopped, by the connectivity issue.  When we do have computers that are capable of handling the intense graphics and memory requirements of the internet, we connect, and wait.  And wait. The enthusiasm for waiting for downloads is just about zero.  The teachers and students, for the most part, have high speed connections at home, either cable or broadband, and know what should be happening.  Sitting in the lab, or classroom, with an entire class of children with nothing to do but wait for the site to show up on the screen is a losing proposition.  It doesn’t matter what age the children are–kindergarten through highschool–it’s the same.  We lose a teachable moment, and the willingness to do such a thing on a consistant basis is slim.  I heard a good thought about techno useage at our school: the teachers most likely to lead the way aren’t, due to the slow or non-existant connect speeds.  They are, however, expectant, ready, and willing.  It is hoped that we will be able to have a fully working, and high-speed, network, with appropriate computers, very soon. I don’t know about other systems out there, but if a high percentage of them are anything like ours, there are a lot of expectant teachers and students out there–waiting.  The rub is that the message being put out in the press, and by the nclb people, is that we, meaning school people, just aren’t up to the task at hand.  A national committment to fund high-speed networks and the appropriate pieces of equiptment is needed to get past the waiting.  Politcal posturing about how much money is wasted in the educational system simply establishes a longer wait.  Keep in mind that the study done by Norris and Soloway was done “some years ago”. Comments from readers of this article are welcomed.

I just read an interesting post at Edutopia by Ben Johnson. He ran into Roger Wagner, hyperstudio inventor, and reports on the renewed interest in hyperstudio. Rather than the didactic mess that nclb has attempted to insert in place of actual learning, hyperstudio, or I must assume, anything like it, allows, gasp!, creativity, student interest, and learning. In this rather electronically connected age, using the available tools to foster learning should be a good thing. I’m quite sure that it takes a fair amount of work to build into a program, along with a dedicated and knowledgeable staff, but perhaps it is worth it. Read Ben’s post. Let me know if it makes sense to you.

One of the more important aspects of listening to all of the rhetoric concerning anything educational is to always check things out for yourself. Assume nothing, verify everything. So, on to the subject at hand:

Pre-school/daycare can be a great place for a child. It shouldn’t be necessary to add the caveat “…a good pre-school…” Pre-school/daycare may provide some very nice things for a young child: a safe and supportive place to be when Mom and Dad are at work; a good dunk in the socialization pool, learning how to share, communicate with others, listen and so on. For some families, where Mom and Dad both have to work outside the home and are not in a postion for one to work days while the other does, perhaps, a swing shift, pre-school, or good day care, are necessities. But, what if your child doesn’t do any pre-school, or daycare? Will he or she really end up in dire straights? Recently there has been a bit of rhetoric about the pre-school/daycare experience. A study, by the Rand Corporation, is often cited, as “proof” that if your child doesn’t make it into good quality pre-school/daycare, he or she will experience the following possibilities: a greater chance of going to prison or jail, developing a substance abuse habit, not make much money or certainly not enough, and/or miss out on the joy of life altogether. Scary stuff indeed. National TV shows spent some time on the issue, with very learned and serious guests promoting the absolute necessity of pre-school/intensive daycare if your child is to grow into a productive and normal adult, one without a prison record, or any time spent in the county lock-up, or the local food stamp line. After all, the Rand Corporation did the study. They did, it’s true. And some of the information presented by the national press is also, according to the study, true. If, however, one actually reads the study, a different, unabridged  version appears right before your eyes. The important piece of the study that is commonly left out is the piece that identifies the group the dire information describes. If a child is from abysmal circumstances, either physically or emotionally, comes from an uncaring or incapable set of parents, is seriously poor and so on, then pre-school/daycare can indeed help out in the long run. It is not a certainty, but the odds of success go up. For children who come from the broad range of normal families the data do not show a gain of any substance. In fact, if you and your family do things together, eat together, read together, go places and explore, and if your young children are allowed to explore the yard, the house, have time with other children either at your place, their place or the park, and are generally allowed to be children within a supportive and loving atmosphere, pre-school/daycare isn’t something that you need to do. Subjecting very young children to an overly regulated day, especially if it is all day, can curb their natural learning abilities. Micromanaging their time is a bad idea. If your family is in that broad range of normal, there still is no place like home. The next time you hear a big push for pre-school/daycare to keep your child out of jail, check out the person speaking, look at the money trail (after all, if you can be convinced to place your child in pre-school, someone is making money on the deal), and above all check out their sources, validate for yourself the research that is being used to support their theory. You may find a different story than the one being presented. Assume nothing, verify everything, including what I have written here. Let me know what you find out.

School budgets, at least in California, are very strange things. They are very much an Alice in Wonderland experience. We must plan and execute a budget without knowing how much money we are going to have. It isn’t actually supposed to be this way, but the California legislature, which apparently flunked economics at every level of school they attended, has routinely failed to pass a budget on time for a number of years. We in the school arena must come up with a budget on time, and we must prove that it is balanced for the year it is written and the following two years. We do so completely blindly most of the time, as there is no state budget to tell us how much we may expect to have. It is the law, and we must do it. I have no idea how it works in other states, but wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t much the same. In addition, the whole thing can be changed in the middle of the year, or at any time I guess, or a year or so after we have spent the money that finally is agreed upon. Since we don’t manufacture anything, we have no way to either speed up or slow down a non-existant manufacturing process to make more money if we need it. In normal business practices (except for Wall Street, which is on another planet), retail or manufacturing, ordering is based on sales, so the profit margin can be maintained as things go through the year. We just keep teaching, while the district office attempts to make sense of the budgeting processes. All of the business folks out there, especially at the national level (Bill Bennet et al) don’t seem to understand this simple fact. We do not make things, we have no control over the raw product (students) that shows up. Unlike businesses, we cannot return a defective batch of anything. When my wife and I were in business we had occassion to send back batches of clay that was defective in exchange for clay that worked, contaminated glaze materials for good materials and so on. Mr. Bennet et al probably have done the same. When we have need of more funds, our only avenue is to cut something out of the budget. Most of the time that means that services to students suffers in some manner or another. Invariably, it is always at those times that special needs start to increase. It is also at these times that the business folks start in with a hue and cry that if just ran the place like normal businesses, we wouldn’t get into the financial messes that do pop up. Certainly there are places in a budget that could be refined, but once they have been refined, there’s just about squat left to do. We can’t let students go, or layoff the least productive students, or staff for that matter. If the business community had to run its businesses using the same rules we do, the best thing for them to do would be to lock the doors, cancel the lease, and get out as quickly as possible before they went completly bankrupt. School budgeting is truly a creature unto itself. A steady, understandable method of finance, free of politics and funds that are restricted, would be nice, not only locally, but nationally. Educational debate on the national level would be more believable if the folks at the national level attempted to understand what they are talking about.  If you want some really facinating reading, or an incredible conversation, get in touch with your local school’s chief financial officer. You’ll find a fantasyland that may cause you to leap down the rabbit hole.

One of the issues that keeps popping up in the national media is how badly our school system is, how it is failing, how it doesn’t compete well with those in the rest of the known world. We are told by various pundits that China and India are blowing right past us, that the systems in Japan and Europe put us to shame. I tend to read those stories, as I am a teacher and always curious about what the writer has to say. Nowhere in these writings do I find anyone comparing the actual school systems with what we do in the United States. The most common statement seems to be that we don’t spend enough time in school, and that it isn’t rigorous enough. The age of starting school, the length and composition of the school day and school year, the classroom conditions, and the actual make up of the school systems aren’t addressed. It appears to be easier, and perhaps more saleable, to follow the line that we aren’t doing enough. This is just a quick post, and I will get back to all of that in different post. I will stop with this question: if we are the educational laggards that some make us out to be, how come the United States has more Noble prizes than anyone else on the planet?

The entire purpose of education is, oddly enough, to learn. We are continually bombarded with what this means, and what is wrong with the way we go about it. I have been in this business for about 34 years. I think that more is right than is wrong. More to come in the days ahead. I hope to hear from many of you out there regarding the posts on eduskeptic.