Something to Consider During the Holiday

TSTA is off the next couple of weeks. I'm posting twice today. The post below is standard format. Can't give Michelle Rhee the holiday off, not after this new attack.

 This post is going to be less standard. You see, when we consider the future, it's possible we have no idea what's coming. Others are starting to plan it, though.

If you had told someone about the Internet in the early 1980's, this would have been a ridiculous idea to them. Or consider those black things we used to spin to hear music. Tell someone in the 1970's about the last 25 years or so. "Digital music? What's that?" Then "Music without cd's?" Then "Pay by the SONG?" Then "What do you mean, there are no moving parts in this player?" How about this last question: "You mean the player is in this portable phone thing?"

In the 2004 election, there was no Facebook to speak of. Twitter didn't exist. In the 2008 election, these were primary means of communication. Technology is changing history...and the way we are making it.

There is a site you might want to hit over the break. It's called 2020 Shaping Ideas. It comes from Ericsson, the telecom/cell phone company in Sweden. They chose 20 leaders, visionaries, to speak about the future in health care, global poverty, education, and other issues. You may need a sleep aid after watching the videos. You need to watch them, though.

Two of the videos should be especially interesting to you. The first is significant because it deals straight-up with education. The man's name is J.P. Rangaswami. Watch it, and you will get perhaps your best-ever idea for a student assignment.

The second is both absolutely thrilling and absolutely terrifying. The key questions are these: What if electronic communication wasn't limited to information? What if it was possible to send more than copies over a fax machine or pictures through an email attachment? What if you could send things, physical objects, through electronic means?

They're already starting that one. To see the very beginnings of the brave, new, terrifying world, watch Adrian Bowyer's post on his RepRap machine. Anybody need a coat hook? Children's shoes? Another RepRap machine?

And that's just the first phase. I can't imagine what is coming next. But I probably need to start trying.

Ariana Huffington agrees with me in her video--you don't know what's coming in 10 years.

Still, we need to brace for it, and hopefully embrace it.

Here you go. Have a safe, happy, restful, and rejuvenating break!

http://www.ericsson.com/campaign/20about2020/

Teachers Last ≠ Kids First

Leave it to Michelle Rhee to find yet another way to mistreat teachers. Publicly. She got sacked in Washington, DC because she mistreated people. What do you do? You start a think-tank-advocacy-group-focus-on-education-make-me-money foundation. And pretend it's not about you. They've got a new video out. It's three minutes long, and it has real, live teachers slamming other teachers. Sometimes I wonder if people realize what they are saying. Here are a couple of examples of "educators" who love the Rhee philosophy:

Allison, a 10th grade math teacher, put it this way:

We're raising our next generation. We're raising our next doctors. We're raising our next lawyers. We're raising our next politicians.

Are we raising the next generation of teachers? Who cares? Right, Allison?         

I have a better one:

When we have to contract out how many hours a teacher spends, how many hours they get paid for after school if they stay after school, how many hours they're required to be on school premises, that's not putting kids first.

                                                                                --Barbara, Learning Specialist

Seriously? Teachers don't put kids first if they want to be treated as, well, HUMAN? My good friend Barbara here thinks that teachers must spend whatever she decides is necessary.

That's the difference between TSTA and Michelle Rhee. See, I'm a Teaching and Learning Specialist. As her title implies, she flat out doesn't care about teachers. She doesn't care whether teachers get paid to work or not.

Therein lies my key belief on the teacher shortage. Teachers are often treated this way in Texas. If an elementary teacher has to report at 7:15 a.m. each day and stay until 6:30 p.m., they should do that. After all, that's putting kids first (never mind if the teacher has kids at home). This lack of respect, this lack of commitment, this lack of caring, puts teachers last.

And that's not putting kids first.

An International Perspective

 

On Monday, the results of the triennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). As expected, the United States finished somewhere in the middle. This is unacceptable, as we have always had the highest scores (untrue). Education “experts” from both sides of the political spectrum use these results to go on the attack. American schools are in decline. We are being outpaced by all of these other countries. Or just the city of Shanghai, for that matter. One conservative calls this the new “Sputnik” of the 1950’s. He calls for a revolution in American education, the same kind that led to NASA putting a man on the moon. Otherwise, our children’s children will be working for people in Shanghai.

We need to focus on reading, math, testing, and judging teachers through test scores. I attended a stakeholder meeting yesterday where TEA is moving exactly that direction. More and more outsiders have appointed themselves experts. Some (like Bill Gates and Michael Milken) can even buy their way into public education and use our public schools as their personal laboratories. Texas education is facing a severe financial crisis, and teachers are facing the real possibility of pay cuts and layoffs. So lets consider two quotes from the world’s major newspapers. They came on the same day, which was the day the PISA scores were released. Each looks at the tests differently. I see the same thing.

The first quote is from the New York Times:

Shanghai students outscored peers from 65 countries on reading, science and math exams in China's first foray into international standardized testing. The Program for International Student Assessment was administered to 15-year-old students. Shanghai students were tops in math, even besting Singapore, and came out ahead of South Korea in reading and Finland in science.

Shanghai’s scores were “jaw-dropping.” They far outpaced other countries. Of course, Shanghai is a city, not a country, and it is one of two educational hubs. China refused to let the whole country be compared with the rest of the world. But that’s not the point. Singapore focuses on competitive testing. Their school days are very long. There are no weekends. Drill and kill. Repeat.

Finland used their whole country and came in second. Here’s the second quote, from the London Guardian (UK):

Finland's schools are considered among the best in the world but contrast sharply with more rigid systems. School days are short and interspersed with activities. Children start school at age 7 and get a free education up to the university level. Students take one set of national school exams when they leave school, and results are not made public. The country's education success is partly attributed to the fact that all teacher training occurs at universities and a master's degree is mandatory for every teacher.

Finland has a fantastic education system. That is unquestionable. Suddenly Shanghai has a fantastic system. What could be a common factor here?

Finland pays their teachers 141% of the per capita Gross Domestic Product (Texas pays 71%). Shanghai teachers…received huge raises over the past three years. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.