Mr. Fuson’s Page of English Enlightenment

Well, according to my personal beliefs and this article at http:/openeducation.net, pretty much everything. This is a view I have long espoused to my students and their parents, surprisingly to their chagrin. It has increasingly been my experience that people do not want to hear that they have control over what happens o them. They would prefer to chalk up their failures to the government, the schools, or mom and dad. Sometimes, when talking with these people, i feel like I am watching a bad reproduction of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo screams “Then I defy you stars….” implying fate has dealt him a dirty hand, all the while refusing to acknowledge the fact that he did, in fact, marry Juliet without their parents’ consent. Of course, this only skirts the real problem as it was Romeo’s choice to kill her cousin Tybalt even when the law would have taken care of the punishment on its own.

When I think of this issue in education, I always think back to Paul Koch’s brilliant book Doomed to Fail . It makes the extremely valid point that of all “enlightened” countries, only America seems to believe that the person most responsible for the learning of the child is…..the teacher. It may seem like I am putting into practice the exact trait that I am currently arguing against, a so-called passing of the buck. I can only disagree in the sense that a child’s failure to learn is partially my responsibility. I did not find the best method to help them learn or the correct motivational techniques, but then again, if the child set out to learn in the first place, would they really need motivated?

In considering this, I am once again inclined to think about the metaphor of the doctor from my previous post. There are professions where the professional can only do so much, but the onus for change and commitment rests solely with the patient. The sonner America comes to grips with that, the better off we will be.

Right this moment, I am attempting to critique two classroom management systems which I believe are somewhat new, Quia and LAMS. Both sites are very interesting and seek to improve upon the classroom management systems such as Moodle and Blackboard. The one apsect that truly stands out about these systems is the unbelievable interactivity they afford students in the classroom. They really underline the length to which our society and they way people can interact have changed.

The thing that torubles me, though, is the utilization of this technology. I can remember first beginning to use Moodle in the classroom. Two other teachers piloted this effort with me through an InAccess grant. I was immediately a fan of the students’ ability to message one another even if it was not instantaneous. My two collegues felt quite differently. They wanted the message feature turned off right away, believeing that it led to cheating and students who were inattentive to the classroom. Of course, they have a legitimate concern. Students with freedom will sometimes choose to “tune out”, and while I can’t say that is a good thing, I can definately say that “tuning out” is an indictment of what is going on in the classroom. If the student does not care about what the teacher is teaching, then the tecaher needs to connect it to their life. In order to do that, we need to utilize the technologies students use in order to communicate, which takes us right back to the central problem; Students utilizing the technology to do something other than what the teacher is instructing.

So, is it better to control your environment and block out these technologies, or is it better to open up these tools and instruct students to use them correctly and responsibly? I know where I stand, I’m just wondering where everyone else stands.

I just read an article about beginning to assess teachers by student performance. This country and its politicians never cease to amaze me. When standardized testing first started, teachers were assured that these assessments would not be used to measure performance. After all, that would be ridiculous, right? Assessing one person based off of how another person performs? Let’s see how this works in the real world, since every time teachers complain about this we get the handy statement that we simpyl don’t work and “those who can’t teach” (good one, by the way–Very original, if teachers helped you imagine that one, we deserve to lambasted).

In the context of the medical field:

“Dr. Stevens, thanks for coming to see me today.”

“It’s no problem Administrator Johnson, anything I can do to clear up this situation I am willing to do.”

“Well, that’s just it Dr. Stevens. You’re fired. Furthermore, your license is being revoked.”

(Standing Aghast) “Why?!? What have I done?”

“Well, it’s very simple. Over the last three years you have lost over 100 patients. We can’t have you failing at that kind of rate. It simply is not good for our hospital’s image.”

“But, many of those patients were old and died of natural causes. And some were terminal before I ever saw them. The disease had progressed too far.”

“I appreciate your disappointment, but the facts are the facts. Take the Robinson case from yesterday….”

“I have been telling Mr. Robinson for five years that he needed to stop smoking and start eating better or he risked cardio-pulminary failure. In fact, I wrote him a prescription for medication for his blood pressure last year and he refused to take it. You can’t hold me accountable for the patient’s lack of action on his own behalf!”

“Of course we can. If you were a good doctor you would have explained things in such a way as to make sure your patient heeded your advice and did everything necessary to extend his life. You know, in every patient there is a healthy person who just wants to be set free.”

“What do I do now? Where do I go? Being a physician was my life!”

“Don’t lose hope, Stevens. You could still teach. You know what they say….”

OK, so this is a little over-the-top, but my point remains the same. America, in all her substantial glory, is at serious risk. Just as I stated that we were holding kids back by our actions concerning technology, we are also holding them back by stating that a teacher is responsible for their learning. I have had both skillful and not-so-skillful teachers in the past. Ultimately, I could still learn though because it was my desire to do so. Only in America do we point at parents, teachers, and society for the failure of students.

We fail students in that we imbed the idea that they do not “own” their failures. Someone else does. Compared to other nations who have “passed” us in the education of their population, this becomes even more clear. In Japan, students who do not pass the national test given at certain grade levels are not permitted to move forward and are instead re-directed to trade schools. Sound sharsh, but keep in mind that these trade schools are more difficult than the average high school classroom because the students are simply expected to learn.

Why is this important? Well, our current economic situation is a direct reflection of this “It’s everybody else’s fault” mentality. For 20 years people have been warning of an impending credit crisis as we rapidly approached the point where the cumulative debt of the people of this nation nearly matches the gross income. Of course, our government has not been a good model, racking up trillion of dollars of debt themselves (which is also ours, so we’re pretty much screwed), and yet very few people have curbed their spending. In fact, we have increased the rate at which we use credit. America as a whole is repsonsible for this problem, not just the politicians, investors and bankers. Seriously, it never occured to anyone that 0% down on a house could be just a little shaky?

Again, I digress (why not, it’s one of my favorite things), but my point is this; Personal responsibility has got to become a priority in this country once again! Blaming teachers for the failure of students doesn’t make sense. We can evaluate teachers on a number of criteria, and I think it’s important we begin to define those criteria and revamp them to the needs of today’s students soon, but we simply cannot look at students performance, particularly on a standardized test, to assess teachers. It just doesn’t work.

No, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go fire my dietitian as I have gained five pounds the past week….

after I eat these two foot-long chili-cheese hot dogs and loaded french fries.

I get this questions quite a bit. Whenever I tell people I am a tecaher, they immediately puff out their bottom lip, and adopt the half-lidded sympathy eyes and quickly express “I don’t know how you do it.” They quickly follow up their display with the words, “What is wrong with kids today?”

My answer is simple; Nothing. There is nothing wrong with kids today. They are fine….in fact, they would be great if we didn’t stand in their way. As a society, we put every possible hindrance into their path to keep them from accomplishing their goals. Further, we try to reprogram them to make their goals more like ours.

It’s really quite funny. Look at the current situation in our economy. Kids today didn’t create these problems. We did. The adults. Those of US who seem to think we know better than THEY do. Now, THEY are going to have to clean up OUR problems. Think that’s overstating it? I don’t.

Yesterday, I spent the day at a conference where the focus was how to make technology useful in the classroom. We showed teachers wikis, blogs, podcasts and other assorted activities that would change the way tecahers tecah and students learn. The general consensus at the end of the session was that none of these thigns were useful. Seriously! 10,000 podcasts published every day…..100,000 YouTube videos….and teachers can’t think of a single use for them?

Now, I admit, there are some aspects of technology that are still too rough. Why people continue to post pictures of themselves drinking, partying, and half-clothed on MySpeace is beyond me. I mean, you do realize that the first thing admissions and employers do when they hear about you is Google you, right? That means, if your MySpace page pops up, that will be the impression they get of you. Is that the image you really want to project? Oh well, I digress. The point is that schools everywhere are blocking students from accessing these tools rather than teaching students how to use them responsibly and effectively all because of fear of what the student might do. It’s sort of like not teaching a child to swim because they could drown in the water. Well, what the heck happens if that child ends up in the water anyway?

It simply seems to me that a school should strive to prepare its students for what they will be doing in the future, not preventing them from using those tools? Am I alone in this? Have I finally lost my mind (in as much as I ever had one to lose)? I guess I am going to put those questions to you and see what you think. What should teachers be doing with technology today and how much access should students have?