On This Date Three Years Ago

  I am not on facebook, but every once in a while, my wife will share a photo that facebook pops up from “x” number of years ago.  The most recent example of this took place last week when she forwarded a picture from six years ago to me. It was of our dog Aggie, whose proper name was Mary Agnes :), and this picture in particular was kinda fun to see because after 13 great years in our family she had passed away not long after the picture was taken. I share this story because that is what is currently on my heart this morning and what is on my heart and in my head each Saturday morning is what I typically blog about for the week. However, I also mention it because of the “on this date” part of the story.  It is funny how some things you think about have a way of circling back in your mind at certain times of the year. As we plan to officially rollout our new strategic vision for Board approval on Monday and then work with a group of teacher leaders on Wednesday, I found myself thinking about a topic that I happened to blog about on a Saturday three years ago this week.   It is a topic that is as timely three years ago as it is today and one we should continue to discuss as this new strategic vision is introduced.

 “They Do Not Understand Shallowness, Because They Do Not Experience Depth” 

     How often do you catch yourself being frustrated with your students because they seem to focus more on the points of an assignment or the grade rather than the learning?  In most cases, it is not their fault as throughout their schooling they are often not put in situations to counter the strong message we give them about grades. Jacqueline and Martin Brooks, in their book “The Case for Constructivist Classrooms”, point out “they do not understand shallowness, because they do not experience depth” when referring to why students struggle to construct an essential understanding of a subject.  Our students don’t experience depth because we have a tendency to come to their rescue once they begin to struggle, we over scaffold a lesson so they gain a clear understanding, we show them rather than allow them to discover a point just in case they don’t find it, and we lead them down the path we want them to travel to make sure they get to where we want them to go.  We send a message that it is the product, not the process that is important to us and then we wonder why they worry about the grade.  

The importance of the  “process” is exactly what Robert Kaplinsky addresses in his hilarious but thought provoking video on Productive Struggle.  In only six minutes, Kaplinsky shares a key ingredient to why our students need to experience depth.  Productive struggle is basically a more user friendly version of Vygotzky’s Zone of Proximal Development, but Kaplinsky uses a powerful analogy to make his point.  He also mentions that when we put our students in situations that cause them to struggle there will be push back from students, other adults such as parents or our colleagues, and even ourselves (when we ask, why are we doing this to ourselves).  However, the keys are that the struggle the students experience is productive rather than unproductive struggle and that we send the message that we are there to support the students in their learning. It is a “teach a man to fish” sort of thing.  We can help our students to experience depth through productive struggle by promoting a student centered classroom through strategies such as problem based learning, competency based education, and other constructivist related activities that allow students to build upon their own understanding.  Up until a few days ago, I knew this was a good idea, but couldn’t say I was completely convinced.  

     Recently, Jo Boaler and Sarah Kate Selling shared their research titled “Psychological Imprisonment or Intellectual Freedom?  A Longitudinal Study of Contrasting School Mathematics Approaches and Their Impact on Adult’s Lives”.  In short, they first describe research in which a traditional method of teaching mathematics was compared to a project based approach to teaching mathematics and how the students developed profoundly different relationships with mathematics knowledge that contributed towards the shaping of different identities as learners and users of mathematics.  Boaler and Selling then revisited the students from the study eight years later to look at the long term impacts of the traditional method of teaching vs. the one that promoted more productive struggle and what they found was very interesting. In my mind they provided evidence of the power of productive struggle.  

This research is applied to math, but productive struggle can work across the curriculum. I would encourage you to try a group worthy task, create a problem based learning unit, or even develop a competency based education course.  Because I strongly believe, the more we put our students in situations which cause them to experience productive struggle, the more they will experience depth, and then the more they will come to realize shallowness.  

Here is a graphic summary of Boaler and Selling’s research article:

Scenario	Traditional Pedagogy	Productive Struggle
Math Teacher Focus	Mastery of the content	Understanding of content along with to develop inquiring, problem solving, and responsible young adults
Pedagogy Taught while in school	Follow rules: rehearse content from the textbook , practice methods shown by the teacher, and use cues from the questions to know what to do	Freedom to Explore:  learned to ask questions, choose from different methods, adapt and apply methods, draw conclusions using mathematical evidence
Perception of Math in School	Uninteresting and unrelated	Positive including descriptions such as brilliant, ideal, and brave
Authority resides with...	the teacher and textbook	the students who demonstrated a strong sense of responsibility, agency, and authority along with an adaptive form of knowledge
Expertise developed	Routine Expertise	Adaptive Expertise
Mathematical Identity	submission to outside authorities with cannons of knowledge and list of content	Actively use, adapt, and apply knowledge to solve problems
Perceived usefulness of math learned in school after 8 years	None thought their school math helped them in life, although 75% reported liking math as adults	All those interviewed found the math learned was useful in their job and 100% reported enjoying math as adults
Use of school math in their jobs	Did not use school math and deferred to authorities to know if the math that was done was correct	Worked flexibly with math  with responsibility and agency

Reaching A Tipping Point in the Information Age

In one of his more popular TedTalks, Start with Why , Simon Sinek emphasizes  the importance of understanding your purpose over “what you do” or “how you do it.”  Understanding your “why” goes a long way to successfully communicating a shared vision   (see also The Value of a Shared Vision).  I am sure many of you have heard the statement, “Schools should not prepare students for our past, but instead prepare them  for their future.” I think this statement helps us to understanding why we need to make the shift in our pedagogical approach, but I don’t think it tells the whole story.

     Schools have been taking an approach to teaching students which has efficiently and effectively met the needs of our society.  Schools as we know them have, in essence, selected and sorted students for the last 100+ years. This fact leads to educators asking the question, “Why do we need to change what we have been ‘effectively’ doing our whole career?”  After all, what has changed today that our approach to teaching somehow does not prepare students for their future? We could discuss the fact that colleges are lamenting that many students are graduating high school unprepared to be successful in college or that employers are complaining that they can’t find qualified people to hire.  Instead, I would like to propose that it simply boils down to one word...information.

     Over the past one-hundred years schools have been hubs of information with students obtaining that information through the expertise of their  teachers. I am sure you have noticed that when you were in school there seemed to be a lot more information to know than when your parents attended school.  If you have kids in school or if you are teaching today I am willing to bet you have noticed that kids today, in the “Information Age,” have exponentially more information to take in and know than we did in school.  Schools seem to continue to pile on the information that kids need to know generation after generation in order to keep up with all the information that is available. The sheer quantity of information is becoming overwhelming for most students which has led to this generation of young people having more anxiety, greater depression, and an all around elevated stress level when it comes to school.  In short, we have reached a tipping point or critical mass of information to know. There is simply too much information for any one human being to take in and store in the manner in which we have expected in schools. As educators, we need to pivot from requiring students to know certain amounts of information, to helping them to learn how to use that information. This is why we need to make the shift in our pedagogy in the Information Age.  

    Tony Wagner has stated,  “The world doesn’t care what you know, it cares what you can do with what you know.”  Although this might come across a little harsh, I think it sums up the need for this pivot in education.  To be honest, I find this shift somewhat of a relief. I think we have all felt the pressure from trying to cram more information into our students in the same  amount of time they have had in the past. By shifting from requiring students to know information to helping them learn what to do with the information they know we are able to slow down and give ourselves permission to not simply cover the content.  This new “why” will then help us to work together to figure out the best way to approach teaching (the how) as we prepare young people (what we do) for their future and not our past (see also a New Narrative for Our Schools).   If we, as educators, can make this first step and shift our lens from curriculum delivery to preparing young people for life we will have found a powerful purpose...a new WHY...for schools that will help guide our decisions from this point forward. 

Learners Beget Learners

During the teacher interview process, when asked if you have any questions for us, a candidate will oftentimes respond, “What are you looking for in a candidate?”  The most common answer I have given to this question is that we are looking for a “learner.” Of course there is more to being an effective educator than just being a learner, for example you have to like kids, but if you are an educator who is not a learner your opportunity for growth has stagnated and you will soon find yourself not being as effective in helping young people to meet their own potential.  (see also The Red Queen Effect)  If this is true, which it is by the way, than that means we all must continue to evolve our practices and build on what we currently understand about teaching and learning.  There are typically three responses to this fact.  

     Educators are either excited about the prospect of change and growth, burdened by the inconvenience of change and look to avoid it, or nervous about their own ability to change and grow.  Fortunately two of the three responses, the first and the third, are good for both our profession and the young people in which we serve. These two responses carry with them an energy that provides the pressure needed to evolve our practices in order to meet the needs of the current population of young people.  Often times people see the second as a “death sentence” when it comes to being an effective educator. I do feel it is the most challenging response of the three to overcome, but it is the reality of many educators and one that I feel can be altered.

     Many times those who see change as a burden feel that the hard work that was previously put in will somehow be lost if they were to make some sort of shift.  I would argue that what we do and learn is never lost, but rather helps us to lay a foundation of understanding for where we currently stand which we then build upon over time.  Another common reaction to change from this second group is to become defensive and jump to the conclusion that they are being labeled with accusations of incompetency and “doing things wrong all this time.”  I would argue that this is also not the case. There is a quote by an unknown author (to me anyway) that states, “What we learn today doesn’t make yesterday wrong, it makes tomorrow better.” When have any of us done something “right” the first time?  If we were to look back on our first years as teachers we would all cringe at much of what we did. However, we did the best we could for the time and then when we learned something different we changed. That is what made us better and therefore more effective educators.  So, I would argue this second group has changed over their careers, are still capable of change, and therefore are not “dead in the water” as previously mentioned. What is missing for them is the rationale to change and the avenue by which to make the changes. This takes us back to the term “learners.”

     There is a difference between knowing and learning.  Knowing something is a static binary product. You either “know” something or you don’t know something.  In contrast, learning is a dynamic process and not merely a product. There are many different ways to go about learning and therefore many different ways to learn.  The first step for this second group is to ask if they are focused on helping young people “know” about their subject area or “learn.” Through the process of learning we are not abandoning what we know, but instead creating something new or applying it to something different.  Even those people who we have identified as being one of the most creative or innovative thinkers in the world ranging from Pablo Picasso to Steve Jobs, did not invent something new out of nothing. They instead took what they knew or understood and applied it to something new by either bending, breaking, or blending what they already knew.  

(see also Promoting a Proliferation of Options via the Three B’s)  Therefor educators who identify with this second group can take heart that what they have worked on and what they know will not be going to waste even if they change their approach, but instead should recognize that what they have worked on and know will serve as the material which can then be bent, broken, or blended in order to create a new approach to teaching this particular group of young people how to learn.  In making these changes for young people we become better learners ourselves.  

 One of my favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes is “It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.”  Developing learners is one of these actions, but requires change in order to be most effective. Whether we see the change as exciting, nerve racking, or even a burden, the change will help each of us to become better learners.  I am sure you have heard the maxim “Like begets Like” which also can be extrapolated to “Learners beget Learners.” If our goal as educators is to develop learners, then we ALL must be learners to accomplish this goal.

Lessons from Red Right 88

I’m a big Buckeyes fan, so I’m not sure if it was fresh wounds from  Ohio State’s controversial exit from this year’s College Football Playoffs (CFP) or the fact that TODAY  is the 39th anniversary of “Red Right 88,” as they both had me gnashing my teeth and ripping my clothes for what could have been, but I have recently been thinking about relevant reflection versus reflection that is grounded in regret.  

     I do feel reflection should play an important role in anything we are part of as without taking time for reflection there isn’t a chance to look back and learn from past events.  However, I think it is easy to get lost in being part of something bigger than yourself (i.e. Buckeyes or Browns fan) that when something happens that is completely out of your control you take on some sort of personal responsibility that is bathed in “what ifs” or “if only” scenarios.    As a 10 year old in 1981, I had as much of a role in Red Right 88 as I did as a 50 year old watching Ohio State in this year’s CFP, which was absolutely zero, yet somehow I still felt the same lingering regret when reflecting on what happened. So many times similar situations happen in our schools.   When something happens that we have no control over we are often so assimilated to the school as a whole that we start to apply that “what if” and “if only” mentality to something that we can’t control. I think that promotes a mentality of reflection grounded in regret that is not productive as compared to relevant reflection which, by definition, is more productive.

     Relevant reflection is reflection on what role we played in an event and what we can do to learn from our successes or our mistakes.  By focusing on relevant reflection we steer clear of the BCD (blame-complain-defend) that often follows reflection grounded in regret The former  is a powerful use of our limited time while the latter is a time consumer. People who live in glass houses (or Greenhouses :) shouldn’t throw stones, so I am not criticizing anyone who has fallen into the regretful reflection trap.  Instead, I am encouraging all of us to reflect on what WE can control and the role that EACH OF US can play to positively move OUR schools down a path that nurtures the roots of young people who are entrusted to our care. If our reflections reveal that we should or could have done something differently we should embrace that new knowledge and not stand firm to the status quo.  Maya Angelo has been quoted to say, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” We have a responsibility to do better if we know better, but shouldn’t beat ourselves up if we find the need to change. We also have the responsibility to expect others around us to do the same. This is especially true with colleagues who we work with the closest (i.e. in our PLCs).  Many times teachers feel or even say they don’t have the authority to confront a colleague who is not being reflective and that it is not their job. I disagree as our profession needs all of us to be reflective and every young person deserves teachers and administrators who are reflective. This is all of our responsibility and has nothing to do with accountability. Constructive feedback and deep conversations with a colleague can be, and usually are, a more powerful agent for change than those with an evaluator.  “It doesn’t matter what your position is: you can influence change. If education is going to move forward, you can't wait for someone else to do it” (Couros & Martin, 2019, p.229).  

     Heraclitus astutely pointed out that the only constant in life is change, so it is important that we embrace the change we can’t control and positively contribute to the change we can impact.  Practicing relevant reflection for ourselves as well as within our PLCs will empower us to make positive changes which will help us to avoid stewing in the “what ifs” and “if only” feelings that reflection grounded in regret begets.

References

Couros, George & Martin, Katie. (2019).  Innovate Inside the Box:  Empowering Learners Through UDL and the Innovator’s Mindset.  Monee, IL: IMPress.