One Ethos, Open Culture, Many Paths, Many Tools

"Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology."

A Twitter conversation led me to this place. What does a place of learning need to welcome all, to offer all the kinds of paths to the future which our children need?

I settled on a set of four thoughts: One Ethos, Open Culture, Many Paths, Many Tools.

If that is the belief system, I think that the rest - the pedagogies, the spaces, the schedules, the ways we treat each other, and the kind of deep, inspired learning humans deserve - will follow.

One Ethos

High School Math Teacher (1996): "That damn kid, he's rather go to Saturday School than come to my class."
High School Librarian (replying): "Well, you'll have to think about that!"

Why would a student come to your school, if she/he were not forced to? This is a question you must ask every day, as every teacher ought to ask, Why would a student come to my class...?

What does your school, as a whole and in every space inside, offer children? Safety from unsafe families or communities? Food which otherwise be in short supply? A chance to hang out with their friends? Do they come for just one teacher, or only because of music or sport? Is that good enough for you?

These kids of questions are rarely asked in American education, though we fill millions of square feet of wall space with "mission statements" and "learning goals." We just don't ask, "What is this school for?" In fact, we avoid that question so deeply that last January the US President got up in front of the nation and actually suggested that the solution to high school dropouts was to make dropping out illegal. Talk about giving up...

So why? What do you - as an entire school - offer every student that would make them come if compulsory attendance laws and the parental need for babysitting disappeared? Would they come because they understand that your school is a safe and happy place in which they are offered a world to learn in a somewhat less-risky-than-real-life situation? Would they come because they are excited about what they invest in when they walk through your doors? Would they come because they find the push to discovery, learning, and growth to be inspirational instead of coercive? Would they come because you offer a great collection of paths to an independent future? Would they come because you offer a laboratory for democracy and life - that you are - all together - creating a future better than the present?

I cannot tell you why... but you must find this answer, and that answer is the ethos your school must embrace - universally.

Open Culture

I'm not against the"Common Core" because I'm a crazed postmodernist. There are other things I'm against because of that. And I'm not against the "Common Core" because I doubt the need for us to share some commonalities of knowledge.

I'm against the "Common Core" because it is neither "common" in my experience nor is it generally at the "core" of what people need. Instead it is part of a long history of education as Pygmalion - to use George Bernard Shaw's lovely mythological metaphor.

"None of this is new. "Established in 1914, the Ford English School taught the company’s immigrant workers more than just how to speak English. It taught them about American culture and history and instilled the importance of such virtues as thriftiness, cleanliness, good manners, and timeliness." There has always been a tension in the United States between the expressed ideal of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society - you know, that brilliant combination of ethnicities in any World War II film - and the reality on the political ground, which is that "our leadership" would find things "much easier" if we were all "white, protestant, straight, northern Europeans,"' I wrote more than a year ago, while pointing out that even that belief is a lie, a cover for something else, that is, if school is about being a "white, protestant, straight, northern European," it guarantees that those now in power will watch their children begin school with an insurmountable lead on everyone else, thus assuring social reproduction.

People think the "Common Core" is inclusive because teachers can choose books, but in this, they miss the point. The "Common Core" is "white protestantism" because of the values it suggests while pushing all children to meet Middle Class Age "Appropriate" Learning Targets - or in their carefully crafted words - "provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn. Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live."

What if it doesn't really make a f---ing bit of difference to my kid's, or my community's, life, if my 7-year-old doesn't... "by the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range"?

Pygmalion, why are you superior? 

Could my 7-year-old spend that year investigating physics with balls and paper airplanes and by building bridges instead? Or learn to speak the languages which might surround her in our community? Or learn measurement concepts by learning to cook? Or might he just want to listen to, and tell, stories? Or, as was the case of my kid at that age, was he far more interested in adult reading and music than in the "grades 2-3 text complexity band"?

In Finland, much of Scandinavia, kids don't even begin school until they're 7-years-old, and since the "Common Core" claims to be built on "best practices," and Finland tops those international comparisons, maybe the alphabet is the best cultural target. In Ireland I watched 7-years-olds from all over participating in classrooms with kids up to age 12, with all that subject matter, but mostly... participating by listening and talking.

A culturally diverse school is not about flags in the hallway or "welcome" written in a bunch of languages, its about being a learning space where kids get to negotiate how their culture meets the others around them. Where, say to begin, holidays are shared on equal terms, without pressure to either "opt in" or "opt out." Where time is respectful of cultural differences, whether it is Ramadan and Yom Kippur or "on-timeness" or "appropriate speed." Where communication is accepted and developed because it is authentic, not because it meets E.D. Hirsch's cultural expectations, and as it is developed, we all learn to communicate more widely, and we learn far more about communication choices.

A culturally diverse - a culturally "open" - school also refuses to grade by compliance to Anglo norms. It is not a question of why read For Whom the Bell Tollsinstead of The English Patient, but rather, the violence you will do to The English Patientif you try to analyze it and write essays about it "the common core way"?

Many Paths

Where is the student now? Where does the student want and need to go? What are the possible ways to get from point A to the much more nebulous point B?

There is really never one way to learn anything, to read anything, to write anything, to calculate anything. There are always choices, and there must be choices - unless we plan to never improve as a species. "Why is fastest better?" I once heard James Gee ask. "Why is the shorter proof better in Geometry? Why is it better to finish an assignment faster?"

Or why is a five paragraph essay better than a one paragraph argument? Or a ten page rant? If this were true Tom Clancy would be a better writer than James Joyce or Virginia Woolf or Colm Toibin, and (let me just assert this truth), he is not.

If all the rules were true, this wouldn't be great literature

Or, why should addition come before calculus? Or biology before physics? Or why is music composition less important than reading about Abraham Lincoln? Or why can't soccer practice count as math class? Is it about "rules," or is it because educators are not imaginative enough to help students pursue the world their own way?

It is way past time to stop imposing single solutions on our learners, Neil Postman and Charley Weingartnerrecognized the choices created by (then) new media in 1968 required teaching practice to radically change. You are now over 40 years late.

And that lateness has been horribly destructive. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the majority of students leaving American schools at the end of 12th Grade (or before), will describe most of their education to that point as an irrelevant waste of time. That's because it is not "their education" at all, but something imposed on them by people who appear to have nothing in common with them.

Many Tools

"Most of us lack all kinds of powers. I can't lift my car by the bumper in order to change a tire. That's what jacks are for. I can't add long columns of figures in my head. That's what calculators are for. Tools give us the ability to make up for what we lack in native powers." John Perry in the Wall Street Journal.

I believe in Toolbelt Theory, which begins with the concept that we humans are, perhaps above all, toolmakers and tool users, and that thus, in the education of our children, the most important thing we can help them learn is how to be very good at both. "After all," I tell people, "without tools humans are a very long way from the top of the food chain."

It is human to make, choose, use tools

Schools need to stop limiting tool use and equating tool use with "cheating." The tools of today are incredibly powerful, incredibly diverse, and create never-before-seen opportunities for so many students failed, consistently, by our one-size-fits-all education system, that we must embrace these tools, and help students learn to get the most out of the technologies which sit - or will sit - in their pockets. We can't do that by limiting, filtering, and blocking.

Right now, right from the first day of school, every student can read from paper, from a computer screen, from a tablet screen, from a mobile phone screen, or listen to their computer, tablet, or phone read to them, or some combination of those things. Right now, right from the first day of school, every student can write with a pen, a pencil, a stylus, their finger, a big keyboard, a little keyboard, a touch screen, or just by speaking. Right now, right from the first day of school, every student can communicate through text or speech, audio or video, music or art, with much of the world. Right now, right from the first day of school, every student can pull in information from anywhere on the globe, at any time - and truly - that is a skill you must help them learn to do well. And we can't do that unless the tools are present every day, all the time, so that we can all learn what works for each of us.

One Ethos, Open Culture, Many Paths, Many Tools. Because if education matters, it matters enough to do the right things for our kids.

- Ira Socol

The Four - or Six - Freedoms

My dad used to tell me about "The Four Freedoms" - Franklin Roosevelt's goal for a post-World War world and his reason to fight.

Freedom of Speech and Expression.
Freedom of Religion.
Freedom from Fear.
Freedom from Want.

"The Russians," my dad would say, "took the last two seriously. Everybody ate and invading armies were kept away [not that fear was wiped out]. The Americans worried about only the first two - and even then - not if you wanted to say you were a communist. The Europeans," he argued, "tried to do it all." This is part of what made my dad a classic "Social Democrat," me too.

I think we, especially we in America - even as we celebrate the iconic Thanksgiving holiday - often forget the whole of what FDR was suggesting. These were not independent ideas, these Four Freedoms. They are interlinked parts of what makes a society whole. A person who is hungry lacks the essential ability to be free in other ways. A person in fear lacks the same. A well fed person who cannot speak her mind is a prisoner.

"For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple." Roosevelt said, "They are:

"Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all."

We live in a world where too much fear, and too much want, are accepted. We also live in a world where expression of one's loves, thoughts, and intentions, are too quickly curtailed because they do not conform to some majority viewpoint. And we live in a world in which - in too many places - from Basra to American towns - systems of belief are imposed by those who believe that their religion is "the right one." And in every one of those cases, diminishing one freedom, diminishes them all.

But there are other freedoms, implied in Roosevelt's great address but not explicitly named, and I would like to name them.

Inherent in the Four Freedoms is freedom of opportunity. Not "Freedom of Opportunity" the way US Republicans would describe it - the right to be as rich and irresponsible as you want. But Freedom of Opportunity as the right to use your potential in a way that is yours. The right to make the most of yourself and be comfortable in your society. That implies freedom of human movement. It implies freedom live one's culture without intruding on others or being intruded on by others. And it implies two other things:

Freedom to Learn - this seems so essential. People must have, as a right, access to the tools and information they need for their own education - at every stage of their life. And the must have, again, as a right, access to environments which support their educational needs.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it this way, "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit." and, "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace."

I'll put it another: Education must meet the student, and the student's needs. It must be accessible in every way - physically, by proximity or transportation, technologically, emotionally, intellectually, and strategically. Students have a right to have their learning needs treated as at least as important as the school's needs or the teacher's needs. They have a right to learn in the way that is most effective for them. And a right to develop at their own rate. They have a right not to be labelled, and a right not to be abandoned.

Without that "Freedom to Learn" many of the other freedoms will remain permanently out of reach.

Freedom to be Other than "Normal" - Humans must have an inherent right to be who they are. To not be forced to undergo unwanted "cures" for societally-imagined "disorders." To not be drugged for anyone else's convenience. To not be forced to waste vast amounts of time working on skills which are not just impossible, but are avoidable. Humans have a right to be "disabled" if that is ok with them. The human race need not be entirely white, English-speaking, Protestant, conventionally literate, walking, driving, passive learning, long - single-strand - attentional, "emotionally balanced" for best consumption, and with an IQ of 100 (+/- 10).

"We" have a right to be a wheelchair user, and still move through our society. A right to be dyslexic, and still have information and communication available to us. A right to be deaf, without being forced to have implants in our brain. A right to have "an IQ of 70" and still be treated with respect - or the right to have "an IQ of 140" and not be bored to death and humiliated by school. A right to see differently, attend differently, learn differently without being separated from our peers and denied other basic rights and privileges. A right to be different and to not be treated as either a "nothing" or as an infant.

And (why I have my Toolbelt Theory), humans have a right to know which tools exist which might help them lead full lives, and the right to access those tools, and the right to choose their own tools, based on their own needs and preferences.

It is Thanksgiving (here in America) in a tough time (around the globe), and we might be tempted to lower our aspirations. But this Thanksgiving I'll remember that Franklin Roosevelt stood up - yes - he stood up, which wasn't easy - at a time when much of the world was shrouded in horror, and articulated a vision of a world, of a global society, that was worth fighting for. Let us do the same.

- Ira Socol

Most of FDR's speech in RealAudio (31 minutes)
Last part of FDR's speech - The Four Freedoms - in RealAudio (4 minutes)

The first four images are Norman Rockwell's paintings of The Four Freedoms. The fifth is by William Ayton for the the United Nations. The sixth is from the Center on Human Policy, and is a T-shirt that Adam introduced me to.

Alert! Please Vote! I'm trying to make the case to President Obama regarding investing in educational technology and universal design as part of the economic stimulus. It's not just great for schools, but "broadbanding" our schools and making them ICT-accessible would provide jobs and opportunities in every corner of the United States. Go to ObamaCTO and vote for Universal Technology for Schools (make it "3 votes" - you're allowed to do that), and keep this issue on the front burner.