Dangerously Irrelevant

As Howard Rheingold notes,

The technology affords an environment in which students [can] take on more of the power and responsibility for their own learning.

But we don’t see that. Instead, we see

a hype-and-bust cycle that goes back to the personal computer. Look at all the marvelous things technology is going to do! And then it doesn’t happen.

And the reason, as Rheingold correctly identifies, is

the secret, or maybe not so secret, agenda, which is that the classroom is really for teaching compliance. That was useful when societies were transforming from agrarian to industrial, but it’s less than useful in a world where you’re going to need to be thinking critically about the information you find.

And there we have – all tidy and neat – the biggest barrier to effective technology integration in today’s schools, even in those 1:1 environments that provide computing devices for every student. We could be (should be!) utilizing technology to empower youth at school but instead it’s still about control. That’s why we have acceptable use policies, not empowered use policies. And that’s why in most classrooms we continue to see replicative uses of technology rather than transformative uses. It doesn’t matter that computers are the most powerful learning devices ever invented in all of human history if we’re afraid to lets kids fly.

Fear is a prison. And empowerment within tightly-constrained, adult-directed parameters isn’t really empowerment.

[Guiding question: What can we do to give students more agency and ownership of what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, and how they show what they’ve learned?]

Image credit: Fear is a prison

Mimi Ito says:

There have always been people who are really passionate about their learning and interest-driven, but with the advent of new technology, this kind of learning becomes something that is not only more accessible but also, really, required.

via http://spotlight.macfound.org/featured-stories/entry/qa-mimi-ito-on-connected-learning-for-all

Uri Treisman says:

When you visit most math classrooms it’s like you’re in a Kafkaesque universe of these degraded social worlds where children are filling in bubbles rather than connecting the dots. It’s driven by a compliance mentality on tests that are neither worthy of our children nor worthy of the discipline they purport to reflect.

via http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17047

Brandon Busteed says:

Every student in the world, from pre-K to higher ed, needs:

• Someone who cares about their development
• To do what they like to do each day
• To do what they are best at every day

That’s it. It should be the new bill of rights for all students – and frankly, all people – worldwide.

via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-busteed/the-new-bill-of-rights-for-all-students_b_3306642.html

We already have some schools that are organized around these principles. They’re amazing, incredible, energizing places of learning. Now, if we could just get policymakers, educators, and parents on board so that we can scale…

Robert Shepherd says:

One cannot tell [how sophisticated the Xerox automated essay grader] is from the marketing literature, which is a concatenation of glittering vagaries. But even if one had a perfect system of this kind that almost perfectly correlated with scoring by human readers, it would still be the case that NO ONE was actually reading the student’s writing and attending to what he or she has to say and how it is said. The whole point of the enterprise of teaching kids how to write is for them to master a form of COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PERSONS, and one cannot eliminate the person who is the audience of the communication and have an authentic interchange.

via http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/16/can-machines-grade-essays-should-they

Diane Ravitch says:

[The] data-driven focus [of Houston Independent School District's Apollo Program] contains the seed of its own destruction. Talking about tests all the time, doing test prep all the time, making kids take tests that they are not relevant to them and that they are not prepared for. . . .

I was not surprised by the emotional and physical reactions of these kids as staff kept trying to get them and keep them in school. The kids keep saying that the learning is irrelevant. They keep saying that school is boring. They keep saying that no one understands them and their plight. Telling them, “No Excuses!” is disrespectful.

via http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/17/pbs-in-houston-watch-the-faces-of-the-students

Erin Olson’s student, Tanner, shares his thoughts on the purpose of education in this new video. Happy viewing!

Perhaps some of the issues seen in schools these days comes from young people being a part of something day-in and day-out for 13 years that rarely inspires them

Jason Walsmith via http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130513/LIFE/305140019/YP-Spotlight-Program-brings-professionals-to-school-to-encourage-students-creativity?Frontpage&sf12766709=1

High school student Jack Hostager says:

[My participation in the Coastal America Student Summit on the Oceans and Coasts] was indisputably the best learning experience I have ever had. I learned more than I could have ever learned in a classroom about how the planet works, ways in which humans depend on and impact the ocean, and efforts being undertaken to conserve them. Equally important, I discovered how to work well with others, connect with people, be persuasive, speak in front of an audience, answer questions under pressure, juggle competing priorities, and follow through with a project.

These all sound like skills that every student should have. Yet because I didn’t practice them in a classroom, I was punished by education’s systems of grading for this. When I got back to school, my grades had dropped (some considerably) since I missed a few assignments and a test. It was as if the whole experience meant nothing because I learned the wrong thing. But it would have been irrelevant even if it directly related to what I was studying because I still would have had to make up the work, listen to a lecture, and eventually take a test.

After returning inspired and ready to change the world only to be thrust back into the invariable cycle of desks, worksheets, textbooks, and lockers, education’s expectation for me hit me painfully hard. I realized that apparently my job is to shut up and study hard. If I’m so inclined, I can go out for a sport or join a club, but my schoolwork should trump all. I’m not supposed to contribute anything noteworthy to the world, but instead lay low and consume it until after I’ve graduated. Sure, adults applaud when we do something great outside of school. But ultimately school only cares if it meets some curriculum standard that can be measured. Oh, and it has to be the one we are studying right now, and it has to be part of an assignment that’s going in the gradebook. If not, I don’t get credit and therefore it’s a waste of my time.

via http://iowatransformed.com/2013/04/16/meaningful-contribution-punishment-back-at-school

Three great slides from Bill Ferriter. More at the Great Quotes About Teaching and Learning Flickr pool and my Pinterest set of slides!

Today’s schools have been sterilized

Being good at school is like being good at Frisbee

Students are not dead fish waiting to be stuffed