Monday, February 28, 2011

Student Data and Child Exploitation #edchat #edreform

Michel Foucault. This is Not a Pipe (1968)
I came into work this morning and immediately became dismayed, which is a feeling that I cannot seem to shake as I write this. I work with many different schools in my role as a technology integration specialist both as a full-time position and on a contractual basis. I see my role not as a technology trainer, which is a confusion many people have about TISs based on years of only receiving corporately sponsored training on how to use the tools districts provide, but as a guide. My role has more to do with questioning and exposing ideas than it has to do with showing people how to do things. Part of that role is helping people to expand their definition of what technology is and see both the positive and negative impacts of it. I am here just as much to turn you on to new possibilities with technology as I am to point out how you are being used by technology. This includes the invisible technologies we have in our lives, including language, curriculum, grades, and schedules.

What has me dismayed is coming into one of my schools today it was announced that the school office personnel were in the process of erecting a data wall. One of the other schools I work with did this a month ago and I still have not gotten over my disgust. This data wall contains graphs and charts showing statistics related to student test scores, discipline referrals, and other things that can be measured statistically. They draw from test scores and recorded data regarding the number of suspensions and discipline referrals have been issued over time. This coupled with the email I received this week from one of these schools that the student-use computer lab will not be available for a full month from March 5th-April 5th because of testing, testing that requires such a high level of our district's bandwidth that it renders all other computer technology in the district functionally disabled.
It turns out that we spend over 25% of the school year monopolizing district computer technology for the purpose of measuring student achievement in math, reading, writing, and science. This means that for as powerful a tool for learning the computer is, it is only available 75% of the school year. This coupled with the fact that these are not 1:1 schools and both have policies in place that do not allow students to bring and use their own tools makes the actual amount of time a student is allowed to use one of these tools for learning to be nill. And, even if these tests provided reliable and accurate results (which they don't) teachers don't get that data until it is far too late to make effective use of it in the classroom. At least the Skinner Machine gave immediate feedback. It takes the state months to report back results on standardized tests taken on computers. And, then you have the issue of whether or not the teachers have sufficient understanding of how to interpret that data to make use of it.

Like I said, this all assumes that these tests actually tell us something useful and are reliable. But, there are too many factors that taint the pool. The test cannot tell us what a kid really knows and understands if they have test anxiety. That anxiety can cripple a student taking a test and produce results that are entirely false. If a student takes the test on a day they have something overwhelmingly troublesome on their mind (a death in the family, a breakup with a boyfriend/girlfriend, a parent who has lost their job, a parent who is being sent to jail, fear related to things outside the classroom, hunger, etc.) the test results will also be unreliable. If the student takes the test and finds the questions insulting to their intelligence they are likely to blow it off. This is often why we see some otherwise bright kids turn their bubble sheets into creative pixel drawings instead of actually answering the questions. There are many reasons why data of this kind is unreliable.
Children are not the data they produce anymore than they are the poop they make when they go to the bathroom. When we are told we must focus on the data we are being told that we must all become scatologists and focus on the crap the child produces and not on the actual child. By making a "Data Wall" we are essentially spreading the crap on the walls. Such a wall, if it is erected in a school belongs near the bathrooms and ought not be displayed prominently for all to see. I find it despicable that in this drive to become "data-driven" and "accountable" that we have been forced to paint our walls with this crap.

You can only tell so much about a person from their poop. And, most sane people flush that poop down the toilet, they don't smear it on the walls.

What makes this despicable is that it objectifies children. By focusing our attention on the data they produce and using that data to drive our decisions we forget the child. It turns the child into a bunch of numbers and figures. Educators are asked to look at the data, not the child, and data can only tell us so much. There is much it doesn't measure. But, measurement is a big part of the problem. We measure because of the reification of the child's data. Through this process we convert children into an abstraction that can be measured. Once we can measure the child we can sort them. Once we have turned a child into a number (or set of numbers) we can treat them not as human beings but as things. We objectify them. And, objectification leads to exploitation. How many companies are there out there looking to make a fortune off the reification of student data? How many i3 grants did the U.S. government hand out to companies and groups to make this process scale?

How is this process of testing, measuring, and turning children into numbers any different than child pornography? Both activities objectify and exploit children. Why do we look at one form of child exploitation as disgusting and make it illegal while promoting and embracing the other? A physician may have need to see a child naked but as soon as they take pictures of that child and post them for all to see they have crossed that line. Taking questionable data and posting it on the wall about students is no different. It is objectification and exploitation.


So, what do these data walls do for us? They serve as a kind of magic mirror. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the wicked stepmother asks the mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" The magic mirror is the only one who is qualified to make this assessment because the mirror deals with abstractions of reality. The mirror takes what is in the world and produces an image, an illusion of that which it sees. Through abstraction we can assign data to represent people and with this data we can sort them. The "Fairest" is an idea that can only exist in a world where we can sort and categorize and to do so the mirror must first turn it's subjects into objects.
I suppose the wicked stepmother might as well have asked who the "smartest" or "most well-behaved" was. Essentially, through the use of this data wall, that is what we are doing. We are reinforcing that centuries-old purpose of school to sort students so that we can train 20% to become managers and send 80% to go work in the mines.

Another way to look at what we are doing with student data, and one the "data wall" makes too easy a comparison for is that the data is like shadows on the cave wall in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The shadows are cast on the wall, and prisoner's in the cave are made to spend their whole lives looking at the shadows and never allowed to turn around and see what is making them. To Plato's prisoners the shadows are the real things and anyone who is freed and turned around to see what they are producing is thought to have "gone to the surface and come back without their sight" because spending time actually examining what has produced those shadows has made their ability to see the shadows for real objects worse.

I did not get into education to become a scatologist, to objectify and exploit children, or to spend my life gazing into the magic mirror sorting kids based upon some abstraction we have created of them. I don't think there are many educators who did. I also don't think this is what the public
(with the possible exception of Sandy Kress) had in mind when they began calling for accountability. This process is perverse and must stop. I am an educator because I want to help students to make the right decisions for their lives, to be happy and grow into individuals who live with a sense of purpose, appreciation, and compassion. Someone please tell me how a data wall helps us to do this.

So, as a technology integration specialist, charged with helping to show people not only how to use technology but to help them see the bigger-picture implications for the technologies they adopt I feel I have to speak up. What does this data wall lead to? What does the injection of this technology change about the environment. I think I have a pretty good idea. If the result of using this "data wall" ends up being a rise in test scores it may be a Pyrrhic Victory. Will we then lay claim to say that, "The operation was successful but the patient still died?" Chances are though, we will not see any significant change in test scores because by focusing on them we have ignored the children that produce them.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Motivation, Discrimination, and Social Learning #TechEquity Breakout-Session

Today I will be facilitating a break-out discussion session at our Technology & Equity in Education Symposium at Hamline University. Our discussion will focus on this video:



Compare differences and similarities we face today with education and technology.
  • Have things changed?
  • What do the issues raised by these three men mean for educators?
  • What do they mean for schools?
Any response to these questions in the comments below will be shared with the group and greatly appreciated.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Finish High School or Work At McDonalds #WIunion #killthebill

The battle in Wisconsin has been at a fever pitch for quite a number of days now. The legislature there has passed a bill requiring the democratic representatives who are held up in "The Land of Lincoln" to come to Madison in person to collect their paychecks. Ohio is next, then who knows but it is clear this battle will not end there, it is likely to go from state to state in an attempt to bust up unions, especially the teacher's union. Most of the time I turn on the news or listen to the radio (be it NPR or a conservative station) I hear two basic sides of this issue expressed and we are caught in a recursive blame game. Nothing good can come of this and I would like to take a few moments to reflect on the situation and propose all sides take a moment to, lets not call it "see it from the other's point of view" but rather take a third party perspective.

To boil this down to the point of over-generalization, which is what most people will take away from broadcast media anyway, we have two positions being expressed: 1. The teachers, and other public employees, need to keep their collective bargaining rights and maintain their solidarity in the face of those who would hand everything over to big business. and 2. The teacher's union is nothing more than a thuggish organization that has held the state hostage for years demanding unrealistic pay and benefits. These are the two stories I hear when I turn on the television and radio, is this correct? Lets take a moment to analyze what problems there are with both sides.

The purpose of school.

I have long felt that the biggest problem with education, especially public schooling, in this country is confusion over the purpose of school. I have for the last two years made a point of asking the question a lot. I even began capturing some of these responses on video last fall and I hope to capture some more this week (I'll post them on this blog early next week). Whenever I would ask teachers what the purpose of school was the vast majority would answer, "To develop lifelong learners." Whenever I would ask high school students or their parents this question I would get, "To get a good job," as their number one answer. Another popular response from tends to be, "to create a functional democracy, and informed electorate." The list of possible answers to this question are nearly endless and there really is nothing that explicitly informs us what the correct answer is. There probably is no one right answer and that is part of this problem in Wisconsin right now.

So how does the purpose of school relate? Well, about seven years ago a family member of mine graduated from a well respected and fairly expensive private college. When he was sent there by his parents they had this view that this was a sure investment, just as their own college educations were sure investments. It was expected that once he graduated he would be given a job and that the school would be there to support him in the process. Turns out this was a false assumption and for quite a number of years afterwords dinner table conversation at family gatherings tended to center around this profound misconception. The family response went from confusion, to blame back and forth between graduate and school, anger, then finally acceptance. Mom and dad had no reason from their own experience not to expect that education=good job, that is how it was for them and that was also a line that our institutions of learning have been happy to own for quite some time.


The lie that the purpose of school is to get a good job became so widely accepted as truth that even a lot of educators started to believe it. How many of us sat with school counselors and heard them expel the mantra that the key to success is a good education and that if you don't want to spend your life working at McDonalds (another line I now find quite offensive) you would at least have to finish school and you would probably need a college degree. While there is some truth in this statement, it is not a whole truth. The way this message had been sold for decades led most people, even most of the educators telling it, to believe that a potential outcome improved by a formal education was actually the result of that education when in actuality it is only a factor.

Why all the hate for teachers?

The purpose of school is not to get a good job and most educators know this, it is why most of them will say "to develop life-long learners" when asked the question. But, they have done an exceedingly poor job of selling the public on this idea. So, when I see protest signs that say things like "I lost my benefits, why should they keep theirs" an anger is being expressed and blame being placed that illustrate this confusion. Likely the people who are angry at teachers, the people making up much of this Tea Party movement that swept the nation this last election cycle, are like my relatives who blamed the university when their son couldn't find work in his field when he graduated from college. So, when economic times are tough and when for so long people who are now out of work heard their teachers say "finish school or spend your life working at McDonalds" and they took that advice but are still having to take jobs working at McDonalds or Walmart if they are lucky enough to find work at all it is through deductive reasoning that they might come to blame their teachers, especially when they see them still collecting a paycheck.

What we see going on, especially from those who would otherwise benefit greatly from union membership in their own fields who sit on the Tea Party picket line, is sheer retaliation and anger. There really is no other way to describe it. Especially when the budget crisis really is somewhat small:


What Scott Walker and the Tea Party are doing here seems to make sense when you look at why they might think that way. But, they hold a misguided notion of the purpose of school and there is a whole corporate industry egging them on who would like to see unions crushed and the public schools turned over for profit. There is money to back this misguided notion and enough angry people without jobs willing to buy what they are selling to strike back at those who led them to believe something that was not true.

So, while I support the teachers union in their efforts here I have to lay some of the blame for all of this on, well, teachers.

Twitter Book Club: John Holt (1964) How Children Learn - Chapter 9

Learning & Love

"For it is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning. Can we bring ou... http://tl.gd/8tek6mless than a minute ago via Twittelator


Holt talks about falling in love with one's own learning in this chapter. He cites a story by Seymour Papert who talks about how he learned to love math by studying gears when he was a small boy. He found the gears wonderful, he fell in love with them. What learning did I fall in love with when I was younger:
  1. I loved the computer and trying to figure out how to program it. I would spend hours learning how to make it do things in BASIC. I learned much math and probably a fair amount of physics through my love of programming.
  2. I loved painting. I fell in love with the ability to convey such rich meaning in a medium that could be "read" in such a quick time frame. I fell in love with some of the great works of art by others that evoked an emotion and/or revealed a great truth. I stood silently transfixed once in front of a Marc Rothko painting in his chapel in Texas for this very reason.
  3. I fell in love with Legos and construction.
  4. I fell in love with philosophy and what wrestling with profound ideas would do for my own growth and understanding of so many other things. And, through my love of philosophy I discovered a love for the printed word, a love which escaped me until well into my college years.
  5. I fell in love with film and narrative storytelling very early on and especially science fiction.
  6. I fell in love with politics and became fascinated very early on with how people could all have such different views of the world, of right and wrong, of justice, and what ought to be done.
What love lies at the center of your most important learning?

Twitter Book Club: John Holt (1964) How Children Learn - Chapter 8

The Mind at Work

"Unless he is very fortunate, a young psychologist is very likely to have his head stuffed full of theories of chil... http://tl.gd/8sngkvless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"Like many teachers, he may not recognize the many ways in which children betray anxiety, because he has never seen... http://tl.gd/8snhu4less than a minute ago via Twittelator



"It is always gratifying to be able to understand what someone else cannot; and more gratifying yet to make yoursel... http://tl.gd/8snoq2less than a minute ago via Twittelator



"We teachers—perhaps all human beings—are in the grip of an astonishing delusion. We think that we can take a pictu... http://tl.gd/8snvidless than a minute ago via Twittelator


"We teachers—perhaps all human beings—are in the grip of an astonishing delusion. We think that we can take a picture, a structure, a working model of something, constructed in our minds put of long experience and familiarity, and by turning that model into a string of words, transplant the whole into the mind of someone else." John Holt

"Most of the time, explaining does not increase understanding, and may even lessen it." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"the only way children can learn to get meaning out of symbols, to turn other people's symbols into a kind of reali... http://tl.gd/8so3odless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"Perhaps the greatest danger of becoming too bound up with symbols, too symbol-minded, if I may be allowed the phra... http://tl.gd/8sojbiless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"it cannot be proved that any piece of knowledge is essential for everyone." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"The person who really needs to know something does not need to be told many times, drilled, tested. Once is enough... http://tl.gd/8te0qrless than a minute ago via Twittelator


"The person who really needs to know something does not need to be told many times, drilled, tested. Once is enough...We don't forget the things that make the world a more reasonable or interesting place for us, that make our mental model more complete and accurate." John Holt

"Words are not only a clumsy and ambiguous means of communication, they are extraordinarily slow." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"The human mind is a mystery. We will never get very far in education until we realize this and give up the delusio... http://tl.gd/8te3b7less than a minute ago via Twittelator


"The human mind is a mystery. We will never get very far in education until we realize this and give up the delusion that we can know, measure, and control what goes on in children's minds. To know one's own mind is difficult enough." John Holt

"What I am trying to say about education rests on a belief that, though there is much evidence to support it, I can... http://tl.gd/8te7ghless than a minute ago via Twittelator



This too, I believe:
"What I am trying to say about education rests on a belief that, though there is much evidence to support it, I cannot prove, and that may never be proved. Call it a faith. This faith is that man is by nature a learning animal. Birds fly, fish swim; man thinks and learns. Therefore, we do not need to 'motivate' children into learning, by wheeling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do, is bring as much of the world as we can into the school and the classroom; give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and get out of the way. We cab trust them to do the rest." John Holt

Twitter Book Club: John Holt (1964) How Children Learn - Chapter 7

Fantasy

"We are seeing something new in human history, a generation or two of children who have most of their daydreams made for them." Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



RT @anderscj: "We are seeing something new in human history, a generation of children who have most of their daydreams made 4 them." Holtless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone



"When we think about it a bit, what these children (and many others like them) do in their play is remarkable. They... http://tl.gd/8s0tbdless than a minute ago via Twittelator


Love this quote:
"When we think about it a bit, what these children (and many others like them) do in their play is remarkable. They are at one and the same time writing a play and directing and producing it. This would be hard enough for many of us adults to do, even working all by ourselves, but these two children are working as partners. Whatever one of them introduces into the play the other must deal with." Holt

"We are fed by our fantasies as much as by our food. They open the world to us." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"as we move farther and farther into the world, we take more and more of it into ourselves. As children enter the w... http://tl.gd/8s17hrless than a minute ago via Twittelator

Twitter Book Club: John Holt (1964) How Children Learn - Chapter 6

Art, Math, & Other Things

"The business of turning real objects into flat pictures is a convention, like language, and like language, it must be learned." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"This was not because of the teacher, who was a very understanding and gentle woman, and gave these children much m... http://tl.gd/8qhkh4less than a minute ago via Twittelator



"It is ironical that China, a country vastly poorer than we are, should attach so much importance to children's art... http://tl.gd/8qi484less than a minute ago via Twittelator


I am not sure about the truth in this statement.

"art is a powerful and essential way for many children both to explore the world around (and inside) them and to ex... http://tl.gd/8qi5nlless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"One of the fundamental ideas behind most of what we do in school is that children should and must spend many years... http://tl.gd/8qifi7less than a minute ago via Twittelator


"One of the fundamental ideas behind most of what we do in school is that children should and must spend many years memorizing a lot of dull facts before they can begin to do interesting things with them. This is a foolish way to go about things, and it doesn't work." John Holt

"Most children get so fed up with learning the dull facts that they quit before they get enough of them to do, or e... http://tl.gd/8qigejless than a minute ago via Twittelator


I am beginning to see a little bit of this in my own daughter, who is in kindergarten.

"It seemed as if their schooling had been for so long so far removed from reality that they were no longer able to ... http://tl.gd/8r8vbdless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"the matter of freedom, to choose how to do this, or to choose not to do it, is all important." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"We thought we had set up in our class a laboratory in miniature, and that the children would accordingly act like ... http://tl.gd/8r9cmdless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"until their mental models of the world had enough pendulums in them so that talk about pendulums would mean someth... http://tl.gd/8r9t7fless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"We teachers like to think that we can transplant our own mental models into the minds of children by means of expl... http://tl.gd/8r9uaaless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"When learning is at the most fundamental level, as it is here, with all the abstractions of Newtonian mechanics ju... http://tl.gd/8ra0ntless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"Not only must we cross that line many times, but in the words of the old spiritual, nobody else can cross it for u... http://tl.gd/8ra2h8less than a minute ago via Twittelator



"If you once let children evolve their own learning along paths of their choosing, you then must see it through and... http://tl.gd/8ra56lless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"We must recognize that there are some teachers who like being 'leader-draggers.' They like to feel that they are a... http://tl.gd/8ra99dless than a minute ago via Twittelator


Them are fighting words. Anyone want to dispute this? I would love to hear what you think:
"We must recognize that there are some teachers who like being 'leader-draggers.' They like to feel that they are at every moment in control, not only of the child's body, but also of his mind. They like to feel themselves the source of all knowledge, wisdom, and learning in the classroom. Some such teachers are moved by a love of power, of which the classroom gives them plenty; others, by a deep and sometimes desperate need to feel useful, necessary, and even indispensable to their students. Both kinds are strongly threatened by any suggestion that children can and should learn on their own." John Holt

"Many other teachers would like to give their students more independence and self-direction but are held back by fe... http://tl.gd/8raaliless than a minute ago via Twittelator


This seems more palatable. I know I have encountered teachers of both breeds:
"Many other teachers would like to give their students more independence and self-direction but are held back by fear of the standardized tests by which their pupils, and they themselves, will be judged." John Holt


"When children have no autonomy in learning everyone is likely to be bored." John Holtless than a minute ago via Twittelator



"in a small class you may be able to maintain at least the illusion that you have complete control, and that everyo... http://tl.gd/8racvoless than a minute ago via Twittelator


Pay attention Detroit teachers to these quotes, they may be what you will have to live by very soon:
"in a small class you may be able to maintain at least the illusion that you have complete control, and that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time; in a large class it becomes impossible." John Holt

Detroit Public Schools: proposed budget cuts result in half of schools closed, class sizes up to 60 students http://tinyurl.com/4n5comaless than a minute ago via web



"Many people talk as if our problem was to make the city schools as good as the ones in the suburbs. This is not th... http://tl.gd/8rafbkless than a minute ago via Twittelator


"Many people talk as if our problem was to make the city schools as good as the ones in the suburbs. This is not the problem at all. We have been able to afford boredom and miseducation in the suburbs because the children have been willing to put up with it—though we may not be able to afford it there much longer." John Holt


@anderscj Holt is interesting... otoh, what is the answer when there is no spark to learn? For some it burns out really earlyless than a minute ago via web


@mnphysicist I don't believe that. If you sit downwind you can always feel the heat from a flame.less than a minute ago via Twitterrific



@mnphysicist problem has to do with whose learning objectives are really important and whose are addressed.less than a minute ago via Twitterrific



@mnphysicist How often do we ask students what they want to know?less than a minute ago via Twitterrific


@anderscj is it perhaps that systemic issues block what little bit of flame that remains?less than a minute ago via web


@mnphysicist systemic issues are pt of the problemless than a minute ago via Mobile Web



@anderscj roger on the learning objective thingless than a minute ago via web