It's not "High Tech," it's "Possibility Tech"

Dateline: Digital Learning Day, 2014

A few images came together for me this past weekend. One was a Twitter conversation via #ATchat - the hashtag for "assistive technology" in which a tweeter suggested that we always start with the "simple," not, "high tech" when looking to help students. And then the Super Bowl came on, which I only barely watched, but from which I caught a couple of commercials.

I had suggested on #ATchat that when we seek to support students with disabilities, or really any students, we look for "appropriate technology," which is the heart of my "Toolbelt Theory." "Appropriate technology," for anyone, might be a pencil for certain people doing certain tasks, or might be a mobile digital device (a tablet or a "smartphone") for most people doing a task. Whether one is perceived in school as "high tech" or "low tech" is a nonsensical question - the question must always be, "what's the best answer for this student for this task?"

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Duracell

I said on #ATchat that "It's not "assistive technology," it's "Possibility Technology." And then I said, "It's not "high tech," it's "Possibility Tech."

And then I realized, as Digital Learning Day approached, that we just need our schools to catch up with the world.

Who else would have a "Digital Day"? Who else would need a "Digital Day"?

Microsoft

The world is digital. Out of 245 million Americans over the age of 13, 147.9 million owned smart phones in September 2013, which might be more than could find a pencil in their homes for all I know. A year ago there were 1.5 billion smart phones in the world, one for every 5 humans. This technology isn't "high tech" anywhere but in school. Everywhere else it is "technology" - as normal at this moment in time as books and pens were 40 years ago. 70% of US homes had broadband internet access as of 2013 - again, its the norm. 78.9% of US homes had a computer and almost 95% of those were connected to the internet in 2012 according to the US Census Bureau.

This "digital age" has been embraced because it works for people. It works for businesses. It works for the young and the old. And it even works for those who have often been, in the Gutenberg Era, powerless.

We write on digital devices and we read on digital devices. We create on digital devices and we consume on digital devices. We use our digital devices to help us overcome our inabilities and our disabilities. We use them to connect to people, information, and resources globally, even if we can't get to much of the world from where we physically are. We use them to communicate in ways rich and deep and in ways shallow and silly - yes, much like books or film or television, much like human conversation. We use them all day and much of the night...

That is, everywhere but in our schools. Which begs the question - what century are we expecting our students to graduate in to?

On this Digital Learning Day perhaps the most important thing for us to do is to promise ourselves to do our best to bring our schools into the present. It's not "assistive technology." It's not "high tech." It's not even "1:1." Rather, it is 2014, and that stuff we're not using? It represents possibilities we are refusing to offer to our students.

- Ira Socol

Where does space begin?

There's a really cool weather balloon experiment video going around...

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

This is truly an awesome thing... but here's the question - did this balloon "reach space" as the Twitterverse and news commentators often suggested?

Let's look at another vision of this zone above the earth - 19-21 miles (30-34 km) above sea level...

"On Dec. 10, 1963, while testing an NF-104 rocket-augmented aerospace trainer, Chuck Yeager narrowly escaped death when his aircraft went out of control at 108,700 feet (nearly 21 miles up) and crashed. He parachuted to safety at 8,500 feet after vainly battling to gain control of the powerless, rapidly falling craft. In this incident he became the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights. "

from Wikipedia [cc]

How can our students decide? What does "space" mean? What does "atmosphere" mean?

And how can you introduce this discussion, a discussion with no clear answers, which you probably don't really know how to answer, into your classroom?

NASA's site has a couple of great resources - a flight data simulator and this little video, but maybe we need to challenge everyone in the classroom - a classroom of any age kids - with a few questions:

If, at 122 km above earth (75 miles) the Space Shuttle can begin to switch from using hydrogen thrusters (space control systems) to "aero surfaces" - that is, the wings begin to function, what does that suggest?

If the International Space Station flies at 278 km above the earth (173 miles), what does that suggest?

If meteors are burning up at about 90 km (55 miles), what does that suggest?

Pause here: Was the balloon in the top video a homemade spacecraft?

MIT students - who might be more exacting in language - called 93,000 feet "near space" a year ago...



...which was also the term Mr. Clapper's Chemistry class used...



Let's ask more questions then...

Is it oxygen which defines the line between atmosphere and space? Is it particles which reflect sunlight (giving earth its blue glow from space)? What does friction mean when we are speaking of "air"? Does a parachute depend on friction?

Can we experiment with friction from air, with aero surfaces, out on the playground?

What does friction look like outside the "atmosphere"?

And who began to figure this out? Where?

Pause again here: Was the balloon in the top video a homemade spacecraft?

The X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne went a bit over 100 km (62 miles) above the earth. Alan Shepherd, the first American "in space," went 116 miles (187 km) high. Yuri Gagarin, the first human "in space," went 105 miles (169 km) up. In the early 1960s the U.S. Air Force X-15 planes flew above 50 miles (80 km) 13 times and above 62 miles (100 km) twice.

What is 19 miles from your school? What is 50 miles from your school? What is 62 miles from your school? What is 116 miles from your school? Go out on the playground, create a 1 meter = 1 mile (or 1 km) scale, and look at the distances. Does that matter?

Now, you've got all sorts of math happening, atomic chemistry, physics, geometry, history, geography, and you've got to take advantage of all that.

But most importantly, you've let your students know that questions really don't have "right answers." That we humans are investigators. That we seek answers by looking widely. And your class will not be the same.

- Ira Socol

thanks to Mike Thornton for the question which began this conversation

The Tool Imperative or A MacGyver Complex

"ddraper You really think that school exists primarily to teach kids to use the tools? http://post.ly/10zuH @irasocol stars as #MacGyver."

 Darren (not Don) Draper [1] had said this...

"But you're not really buying this, are you Scott? You really think that school exists primarily to teach kids to use the tools? Whatever happened to student-centered pedagogy? Whatever happened to creativity? Whatever happened to thinking?

"Show me a kid that's learned how to learn, one that can think, can process, and critically evaluate. Show me a kid that's learned how to analyze reality, with or without the use of technology...

And I'll show you the kid that will master the tools of the future, simply because they invented them in the first place."

Now what I had originally said was this...

"The issue is this -

"In order to be lifelong learners it is essential to understand and know how to function with the information and communications technologies of our world, and to know how to adapt when those technologies change.

"In order to be human successes we also must understand how to communicate what we know, how to collaborate, and how to distribute information.

"This is why Socrates drilled his students on memory. In pre-literate Greece, that was the essential tool.

"This is why we taught “reading” (meaning decoding ink-on-paper alphabetic texts) in school, and why we taught writing with pens and pencils, and why we introduced students to libraries. In the Gutenberg era these were the essential tools.

"I sure hope we didn’t do this to preserve our great grandfather’s skills. I hope we did it to enable our students to function in the world.

"Now, the tools of learning have changed, as have the tools of collaboration, of distribution, of creation, and if our schools do not teach these – and much more – help our students to understand how they must manipulate these tools for their purposes – and the world’s – nothing else we do in school really matters, because our students will not be able to effectively work with what they know.

"So when Troy (below) says, “Without technology an educator can be ‘successful’” I think he is wrong (I note as the spellcheck in Firefox allows me to instantly correct his misspelling “‘succecssful’” – a spellcheck which I can instantly switch between US English, British English, Australian English, Irish, and French). So is the colleague who told him, “I don’t need technology to engage my classes” – who, I bet, uses 15th to 19th Century technologies every day in her classroom (printed books, chalkboards, paper, pens, a clock, lighting, windows, chairs).

"Without the technologies which enable communication and information access, education is simply impossible. And if you choose to refuse to use the technologies your students will use – whichever antique technology you are limiting yourself to: books, carved stone tablets, hand scribed scrolls, or cave paintings, Morse Code or mail sent by sailing ship – you are abdicating your responsibility as educators."

So am I just a MacGyver tech geek? Or do I have a point...

Is learning personal or social?

There is personal, internal learning. You don't need a lot of social interaction to know, as an example, that if you stand outside and it is raining, something will change. You might even, without social interaction, learn that - depending on the season - this will feel good or not. And further, you may learn that if you are uncomfortable and you stand under a tree, you make become less uncomfortable. And I'm not here to discount any of that human learning - it is very important.

But to go beyond that - to know what rain is or to know that standing under that tree may not always be the best solution - we humans need social learning. We need to be able to share information.

And sharing information requires technology, which, as frustrating as it is to bring in an academic discussion of an old German Nazi-collaborating philosopher, brings us here...

"Heidegger found his way back to the Greeks in answering the problem of technology. The Greeks use the word techne for technology. Techne does not only refer to activities and skills of craftsman, but also for the fine arts. This is why techne as craftmaking is also techne as art. More than the idea of making and manipulating, techne is a way of bring-forth something. It is a way of letting something be known. The techne of making a statue for example is a way of bringing forth or showing the nature of the human body.

"Techne in this sense is very much related to the idea of poiesis. Poiesis is the origin of the word poetry. Poetry is an “art” of bringing forth into imagery the reality. Like the basic meaning of its etymology, poetry is a way of “revealing” something.

"Furthermore, both poiesis and techne are connected to the idea of episteme. Episteme means being at home, to understand, and be expert in something. In other words, episteme has something to do with knowledge in the broadest sense of the word. Today words taking its root from episteme, like epistemology, connote “knowledge.” Epistemology means the study of knowledge.

"These three Greek terms (techne, poiesis, episteme), although different, have the same essence; they are all processes of revealing, bringing-forth, and opening up. Thus, going back to the question of technology, what is decisive in techne or technology does not lie at all in making and manipulating, nor in using of means, but in the aforementioned revealing. Heidegger maintains: “Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where aletheia, truth, happens.''

Technology is what allows us to socialize learning. Language (verbal and non-verbal) being, perhaps, step one. Technology also allows asynchronous social learning (step two - languages - pictorial, symbolic, and alphabetic) from the first cave paintings to Twitter. It is through technologies that the world is revealed to us, and that we reveal ourselves to the world.

Lascaux Cave Tour

So, it is a need for technology, not an unquestioning love for any specific technological set, which brings me to insist that technology is the most important set of skills we can help students learn in schools.

We all know this when we remember what "technology" is - our way of manipulating the world. And we all know this when we remember that one of the primary definers of humans is adaptive tool use.

Bonobos use tools, but they don't adapt them like humans do... (cc: Wikipedia)

Yes, plenty of other species use tools, but none adapt tools the way humans do, changing them, developing them. It is what has allowed humans to survive, and significantly, to rise from the middle to the top of the food chain.

Thus, education must be dominated by helping students to understand and adapt the tools of learning and communication. They cannot become lifelong learners without that. They cannot engage the world without that. Their "learning" - without that - becomes limited to the personal.

And we must help them learn and adapt the learning and communication tools of their time. Antique methods make nice hobbies - we still have stonecarvers and scroll artisans, people still make quill pens and papyrus (all awesome YouTube videos) - but none of that is helpful in discovering how the universe works, either mechanically or poetically. And none of that will enable them to voice their thoughts and discoveries to the world effectively.

I stand by what I said... this is not a question of MacGyver theatrics, but a question of human learning.

"Without the technologies which enable communication and information access, education is simply impossible. And if you choose to refuse to use the technologies your students will use – whichever antique technology you are limiting yourself to: books, carved stone tablets, hand scribed scrolls, or cave paintings, Morse Code or mail sent by sailing ship – you are abdicating your responsibility as educators."

- Ira Socol

[1] I had thought "ddraper" was a cute pseudonym, until I realized it was the man's name. When I coached soccer I had a player named "Steve Rambo." His jersey said "Rambo" and he took a lot of heat from opposing players... luckily, he was very good.

Designed to Fail - Education in America: Part One

part two    part three    part four    part five 

"Schools should be factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products. . . manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." - Elwood Cubberley's dissertation 1905, Teachers College, Columbia University

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." - Woodrow Wilson

In a time when our experts in education range from the operator of a software company, to a talk show host, to a Chicago businessman of no great success, to a woman from a wealthy family who went to an Ivy League school and met powerful friends, it is important to understand what the educational system in the United States was designed to do, and why it was designed to do that.

In the beginning there were two voices. As the 1840s began, a period when information and communications would revolutionize American society (the railroad, the telegraph, the steam-powered rotary printing press, machine made paper, penny newspapers with mass circulations, steamships), William Alcott and Horace Mann were the two people talking to the young United States about school.

Alcott, author of Confessions of a School Master (1839), was a close observer of students and children. He watched students and teachers and saw what was working for them, what made them uncomfortable, what seemed to make learning go, and what seemed to block it. In the 1830s and 1840s Alcott would re-design the American schoolroom, replacing benches and tables (where children squirmed and fatigued because they could not sit back) with desks and chairs, and he would blow apart the instructional model in use by bringing the "Black Board" and slate into the room, changing the presentation scheme and allowing students to make and correct mistakes.

Alcott saw student needs as central - "That the general arrangement and appearance of even inanimate things around us, have an extensive influence in forming our character, will hardly be questioned. Every object, and every individual we see, either renders us more cheerful and happy, or the contrary. The condition of those objects, therefore, which surround a collection of children, whether the number of those children be five, fifty, or one hundred, must of necessity have a very considerable influence in forming their dispositions, and giving a determination to their future character," he wrote in an 1831 essay on school design.  "Even the slate, if it were at their command continually, would become tiresome. To sit still, at times—entirely still—if not continued too long, is one form of doing something ; and I consider it as much a part of the teacher's duty to form his pupils to the habit of sitting still, as to teach them spelling and reading. Not of course an hour at a time, or half an hour, or a quarter, even. To some children, five minutes would be long enough; and to most, ten minutes would he the full extent of what would be useful," he  added in his book Slate and Black Board Exercises (pg. 11) - because he was working with a view from the ground.

Horace Mann, social reformer and historically proclaimed, "father of the American public school," looked at education from a different vantage point.

Mann looked down from heaven and saw a nation, and a human race, in need of perfection. I like Horace Mann, he's an incredibly eloquent believer in the potential of our children, and our potential to be "better."

“Had God, then, provided no means by which this part of our nature can be controlled, we should indeed say, that we had been lifted up to heaven in point of privileges, that we might, so much the more certainly, be dashed in pieces by our inevitable fall. But we have not been inexorably subjected to such a doom. If it befalls us, it befalls us with our own consent. Means of escape are vouchsafed; and not of escape only, but of infinite peace and joy.

“The world is to be rescued through physical, intellectual, moral and religious action upon the young.” - Horace Mann,  What God Does, and What He Leaves for Man to Do, in the Work of Education (1840) 

Mann saw education from that vast societal view. It was charitable, and of course, missionary in style and substance. He would bring education to all in America in an attempt to correct the social problems of the generations which separated post-revolutionary America from perfection. Yet he remains a humanist, a believer in human agency: "But it is not every child, nor even a majority of children, who, with any propriety, can be compared to mechanical structures, or to those pliant and ductile materials that are wrought into beautiful forms by the skill of the artisan. Children formed in the prodigality of nature, gifted to exert strong influences upon the race, are not passive; —they are endued with vital and efficient forces of their own. Their capacious and fervid souls were created to melt and re-cast opinions, codes, communities, as crude ores are melted and purified in the furnace. To the sensitive and resilient natures of such children, an ungentle touch is a sting; a hot word is a living coal," he says in that early lecture.

Mann is the successor to Jefferson on schools. He is the person who begins to convince the United States that education must be both a birthright and a societal commitment. Yet, almost as soon as he begins to move about the nation lecturing, another voice appears - that of Henry Barnard. 

Before Barnard saw schools as a path to fame and eventual fortune, he was a mercantile-oriented state legislator in Rhode Island with no interest in education. And yet before the 1840s would end he had seized the Public School Movement from Mann and had twisted that father of public education's words into something quite different. In the end Horace Mann became the Geoffrey Canada of the 19th Century. A man who set out to make a real difference, but whose image ended up licensed to people with an entirely different agenda.

Barnard, like Mann, looked at schools, education, and childhood from 'way above.' But his was not the view from heaven of Horace Mann. Rather, his view was from the banker's office and the factory foreman's post, and the mine supervisor.

At first, he sounds a bit like Mann - without the learning. "The primary object in securing the early school attendance of children, is not so much their intellectual culture, as the regulation of the feelings and dispositions, the extirpation of vicious propensities, the pre-occupation of the wildeiness of the young heart with the seeds and germs of moral beauty, and the formation of a lovely and virtuous character by the habitual practice of cleanliness, delicacy, refinement, good temper, gentleness, kindness, justice and truth." But quickly the purposes behind this desired docility are apparent. "By means of such schools, the defective education of many of the youth of our manufacturing population would be remedied, and their various trades and employments be converted into the most efficient instruments of self-culture."

In Barnard's world education was training, not learning. And in pursuit of this he imports the Prussian Model of education to simulate the assembly-line (recently appearing in the gun factories of his native New England) with age-based grades. He introduces rigid time schedules to schools in order to prepare the students for the emerging shift-work of textile mills. He also pushed to lower teacher pay (through replacing male teachers with women) and status, and to standardize both school buildings and instruction. (Mann had brought a dualism to the "women teacher issue" - "That females are better fitted by nature than males to train and educate young children is a position, which the public mind is fast maturing into an axiom. With economical habits in regard to all school expenditures, it is a material fact, that the services of females can be commanded for half the price usually paid to males. But what is of far higher moment is, that they are endowed by nature with a stronger affection for children; they have quicker sympathies, livelier sensibilities, and more vivid and enduring parental instincts." - Common School Journal (Boston), vol. 1, no. 6 (March 15, 1839), p. 85 - Barnard would use Mann's words while emphasizing the savings and ensuring that women never held decision-making positions within the system.)

Why this matters

From this beginning with see two fundamentally different ways of viewing the purpose of education, or, perhaps, two and a half. And these visions persist today and explain our current battles over schools.

This weekend this exchange appeared among friends of mine on Twitter:

"Spent last night with cousins, three of whom are teachers - never heard of KIPP, Rhee, or Waiting for Superman. Surprising conversation." Karen Janowski on Twitter

"@KarenJan doesn't surprise me one bit. The vast majority of teachers, for better or worse, are blindly focused on their classroom and kids." Jonathan Becker on Twitter

Teachers, and most teacher educators, are, as Dr. Becker says, "blindly focused on their classroom and kids." From Linda Darling-Hammond to Lisa Parisi, Dan McGuire, Patrick Shuler, Punya Mishra, Pam Moran, Dave Britten, Dave Doty, and tens of thousands more, are working with students every day, trying to make the changes we can in the lives and learning of our students. "We" are the William Alcotts of today, the Maria Montessoris of today.

At the other end are today's Henry Barnards (or Andrew Carnegies). Those building careers or reputations by making education work for American capitalism. Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, Eli Broad - they look down from corporate suites and see that education is not producing the kinds of compliant worker/citizens their businesses need. These are education's industrialists, with absolutely no sense that a student is different than any other industrially processed part, and no sense that a teacher is any different than any industrial worker. For this group, education is measured as industrial processing is measured, parts (students) which are not successfully processed in any industrial step (grade) are re-processed (retained), and unions for the line workers (teachers) interfere with cost structure.

These two groups cannot conceivably understand each other because they simply do not see the same thing when they look at "school."

That half step - Horace Mann or Geoffrey Canada or Cory Booker or African-American leaders who sign-on with the industrialists - are the missionaries. Their heavenly view, however well meaning, plays into the industrialists hands, giving moral cover to brutal capitalism.

And brutal it is. We cannot really understand why American schools use age-based grades and standardized tests, and why two-thirds of students do badly - consistently - unless we understand why Barnard and his successors built the system they did. Because the system they built endures, operating, as Cubberley noted, "factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products," and discarding "defective" raw materials along the way.

Next: How Barnard's system became an unchangeable institution... Part Two

- Ira Socol

Blogging for Real Reform

The conversation about education has been hijacked by a small group of people whose interests may not coincide with the needs of our students.

This group, including a bizarre mix - Oprah Winfrey, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, many Ivy Leaguers, and a bunch of ultra-rich hedge fund managers - have proclaimed themselves the saviors of our schools, and with their vast resources, they have squeezed all opposition out of the national media.

The essential idea is that, education being an industrial process, if it is not working, it must be the fault of some combination of the raw material(the students) or the production line workers (the teachers).

This presentation of the problem ensures that the system - which has always worked well for the rich and powerful - does not change. Plus, as a side-benefit, it destroys unions and forces unsuccessful communities onto a treadmill which guarantees that they will never catch up.

But there is another narrative - a narrative of student-centered systemic change. We can't get NBC or Oprah or The New York Times or even Barack Obama to pay attention yet, but we can start the conversation from below.

So, I'm asking you, those who seek real reform, to blog with me and others on Monday, November 22, 2010. Describe the change you think education needs - in America, in the UK, in Australia, in Ireland, in Canada, wherever. The date is "American" - it is designed to push the conversation as those in the US gather with their families for Thanksgiving, but the idea is globally important.

If you add a link to your post in the comments section of the "Blogging for Real Reform" post which will appear here on November 21, I will link to it - whether we agree or not - no matter what you say - short of hate speech.

Please. Let's take back the discussion, let's take back the agenda.

The "saviors" - what are they selling?

- Ira Socol

Teaching Citizenship: We have to do better. Part II

As a follow up to my recent "Teaching Citizenship" post, I want to share a few important resources, and to repeat Mayor Michael Bloomberg's[1] remarks at the Gracie Mansion Ramadan Dinner.

I do believe that, in many ways, the argument over the Park51 Cultural Center is a struggle over the very definition of democracy. Can, as in California, the "majority" vote away the rights of a minority? This is the question, and an odd coalition, including the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, opportunistic right-wing politicians, Manhattan's Catholic Archbishop[2], and a blind African-American Governor, have joined together to say that irrational "majority" fears trump individual and small group rights.

As the Toronto Globe and Mail notes, this is a serious failure of critical thinking skills (thanks to George Couros for this piece).

"They and their ilk have behaved completely contrary to the tenets of critical thinking: Using a few selective passages from the Koran, they have incited fear, generalized and tarred every Muslim living in the U.S. and the West.

“I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,” declared Diana Serafin, one of the protesters in Temecula, a small city between Los Angeles and San Diego. “But Islam is not about religion. It’s a political government and it’s 100 per cent against our Constitution.”

"Such a statement is tailor-made for the classroom. There are many holes in Ms. Serafin’s viewpoint, which ignores the fact that most North American Muslims are assimilated and have absolutely no intention of taking over the U.S. government in the name of their religion. They are loyal Americans and Canadians who cherish the freedoms in the countries they have adopted or been born into, no different than their non-Muslim neighbours.

"From a critical thinking perspective, Ms. Serafin has made a classic leap in logic. The media have reported (and frequently sensationalized) a handful of serious incidents in which American, British and Canadian Muslims have indeed embraced jihadism. But any Grade 11 student could argue that it is intellectually dishonest to make sweeping statements against all Muslims."

As you bring this into your classroom, you may want to prepare with Alan Shapiro's Teaching on Controversial Issues as well as his Teaching Critical Thinking. And then you may want to post this list: 

Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad (45 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and 3 children)
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah (40 years old; Fiduciary Trust Co.; ICNA website team member; leaves wife and 2 children)
Touri Bolourchi (69 years old; United Airlines #175; a retired nurse from Tehran)
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury (30 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Mohammad S. Chowdhury (39 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and child born 2 days after the attack)
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani (35 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha (54 years old; Pitney Bowes)
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani (50 years old)
Salman Hamdani (NYPD Cadet)
Aisha Harris (21 years old; General Telecom)
Shakila Hoque (Marsh & McLennan)
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan (Marsh & McLennan)
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta (MAS security)
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan (32 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Taimour Khan (29 years old; Karr Futures)
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah (36 years old)
Mubarak Mohammad (23 years old)
Boyie Mohammed (Carr Futures)
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja (28 years old)
Ameenia Rasool (33 years old)
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child (28 years old; American Airlines #11; wife of Michael Theodoridis; 7 months pregnant)
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid (25 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald; engaged to be married in November)
Mohammed Shajahan (44 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
Naseema Simjee (Franklin Resources Inc.'s Fiduciary Trust)
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami (40 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Michael Theodoridis (32 years old; American Airlines #11; husband of Rahma Salie)
W. Wahid

This is a list of the Muslim victims of the World Trade Center attacks - and one of these names belonged to an old friend of mine. So, to me, yes... this is somewhat personal. But it is an important list for your students to see, because it reminds us of how our collective memory is often constructed in exclusionary ways, where we have distinct villains and distinct heroes. Of course, humanity is more complicated than that[3], and so is democracy.

So please, do not avoid this subject when you meet your classes this year... engage it, struggle with it, contextualize it, most importantly, force your students to struggle with it. We will be a better society for your efforts.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg - 24 August 2010 (click for pdf download)

“Well, good evening, and Ramadan Kareem, and I want to welcome everyone to our annual Ramadan Iftar at Gracie Mansion.
   “We call this ‘The People’s House,’ because it belongs to all 8.4 million New Yorkers who call this city home. And people of every race and religion, every background and belief. And we celebrate that diversity here in this house with gatherings like this one.
   “And for me, whether it’s marking St. Patrick’s Day or Harlem Week or any other occasion, these gatherings are always a powerful reminder of what makes our city so strong and our country so great.
   “You know, America is a nation of immigrants, and I think it’s fair to say no place opens its doors more widely to the world than New York City. America is the land of opportunity, and I think it’s fair to say no place offers its residents more opportunity to pursue their dreams than New York City. And America is a beacon of freedom, and I think it’s fair to say no place defends those freedoms more fervently, or has been attacked for those freedoms more ferociously, than New York City.
   “In recent weeks, a debate has arisen that I believe cuts to the core of who we are as a city and a country. The proposal to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan has created a national conversation on religion in America, and since Ramadan offers a time for reflection, I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on that very subject.
   “There are people of good will on both sides of the debate, and I would hope that everyone can carry on a dialogue in a civil and respectful way. In fact, I think most people now agree on two fundamental issues: First, that Muslims have a constitutional right to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan and second, that the site of the World Trade Center is hallowed ground. And the only question we face is: how do we honor that hallowed ground?
   “The wounds of 9/11 are still very much with us. And I know that is true for Talat Hamdani, who is here with us tonight, and who lost her son, Salman Hamdani, on 9/11. There will always be a hole in our hearts for the men and women who perished that day.
   “After the attacks, some argued – including some of those who lost loved ones – that the entire site should be reserved for a memorial. But we decided – together, as a city – that the best way to honor all those we lost, and to repudiate our enemies, was to build a moving memorial and to rebuild the site.
   “We wanted the site to be an inspiring reminder to the world that this city will never forget our dead and never stop living. We vowed to bring Lower Manhattan back – stronger than ever – as a symbol of our defiance and I think it’s fair to say we have. Today, it is more of a community neighborhood than ever before, with more people than ever living, working, playing and praying there.
   “But if we say that a mosque or a community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom.
   “We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.
   “Islam did not attack the World Trade Center – Al-Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American. Today we are not at war with Islam – we are at war with Al-Qaeda and other extremists who hate freedom.
   “At this very moment, there are young Americans – some of them Muslims – standing freedoms’ watch in Iraq and Afghanistan, and around the world. A couple here tonight, Sakibeh and Asaad Mustafa, have children who have served our country overseas and after 9/11, one of them aided in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero. And I’d like to ask them to stand, so we can show our appreciation. There you go. Thank you.
   “The members of our military are men and women at arms – battling for hearts and minds. And their greatest weapon in that fight is the strength of our American values, which have already inspired people around the world. If we do not practice here at home what we preach abroad – if we do not lead by example – we undermine our soldiers. We undermine our foreign policy objectives. And we undermine our national security.
   “In a different era, with different international challenges facing the country, President Kennedy’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, explained to Congress why it is so important for us to live up to our ideals here at home. Dean Rusk said, ‘The United States is widely regarded as the home of democracy and the leader of the struggle for freedom, for human rights, for human dignity. We are expected to be the model.’
   “We are expected to be the model. Nearly a half-century later, his words remain true. In battling our enemies, we cannot rely entirely on the courage of our soldiers or the competence of our diplomats. We all have to do our part.
   “Just as we fought communism by showing the world the power of free markets and free elections, so must we fight terrorism by showing the world the power of religious freedom and cultural tolerance. Freedom and tolerance will always defeat tyranny and terrorism – and that’s the great lesson of the 20th century, and we must not abandon it here in the 21st.
   “Now I understand the impulse to find another location for the mosque and community center. I understand the pain of those who are motivated by loss too terrible to contemplate. And there are people of every faith – including, perhaps, some in this room – who are hoping that a compromise will end the debate.
   “But it won’t. The question will then become, how big should the ‘no-mosque zone’ be around the World Trade Center site? There is already a mosque four blocks away. Should it be moved?
   “This is a test of our commitment to American values. We have to have the courage of our convictions. We must do what is right, not what is easy. And we must put our faith in the freedoms that have sustained our great country for more than 200 years.
   “Now, I know that many in this room are disturbed and dispirited by the debate. But it’s worth keeping some perspective on the matter. The first colonial settlers came to these shores seeking religious liberty and the founding fathers wrote a constitution that guaranteed it. They made sure that in this country government would not be permitted to choose between religions or favor one over another.
   “Nonetheless, it was not so long ago that Jews and Catholics had to overcome stereotypes and build bridges to those who viewed them with suspicion and less than fully American. In 1960, many Americans feared that John F. Kennedy would impose papal law on America. But through his example, he taught us that piety to a minority religion is no obstacle to patriotism. It is a lesson I think that needs updating today, and it is our responsibility to accept the challenge.
   “Before closing, let me just add one final thought: Imam Rauf, who is now overseas promoting America and American values, has been put under a media microscope. Each of us may strongly agree or strongly disagree with particular statements that he has made. And that’s how it should be – this is New York City.
   “And while a few of his statements have received a lot of attention, I would like to read you something that he said that you may not have heard. At an interfaith memorial service for the martyred journalist Daniel Pearl, Imam Rauf said, quote, ‘If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind, and soul: Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ehad; Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one.’
   "He then continued to say, ‘If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one.’
   “In that spirit, let me declare that we in New York are Jews and Christians and Muslims, and we always have been. And above all of that, we are Americans, each with an equal right to worship and pray where we choose. There is nowhere in the five boroughs of New York City that is off limits to any religion.
   “By affirming that basic idea, we will honor America’s values and we will keep New York the most open, diverse, tolerant, and free city in the world. Thank you and enjoy.”

- Ira Socol

[1] You know I'm no fan of Bloomberg, especially on all things education, but he has been the one consistent true American leader on this issue.
[2] Doesn't this prove the failure of the Catholic hierarchy during the Holocaust? If a local archbishop can sell out a minority religion's rights so easily... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/pius.html 
[3] As the controversy over the "9/11 Gap Looting" suggests http://college.cengage.com/psychology/resources/students/shelves/shelves_20021016.html

Reversing the Curriculum

How might a six-year-old describe the way a dropped ball bounces?

How might a five-year-old describe the way water pours?

And what about a kid telling a story?

When kids come to school at five (if kids should come to school at five in the first place) they have certain fascinations - hearing and telling stories, understanding signs, the physics which make their world work, hot and cold, animal behaviour. And great teachers do embrace much of this, but our school curriculum never does.

Instead of running with this natural learning curve, instead of meeting our students where they are, we focus all of our attention through the age of eight on a certain set of formalized learning systems which disinterest most kids, and are essentially impossible for many. We spend all of our time on complex symbolic codes (the alphabet, the numeral system) and on the operation of those code systems (phonics, spelling, arithmetic).

And, within three years, we have taken kids thrilled to start school and turned them into kids who'd rather be anywhere else.

Last night on Twitter I had a conversation with college professor Michael Walters - @rugcernie. At one point he was troubled when I said that we had to, "meet students where they are." "by making the practice "meeting them where they are," you may lower standards. Balance must be struck," he said.

When he said that I thought of the classic scene from Francois Truffaut's film Les Quatre Cent Coups (400 Blows). A teacher takes the boys out on a physical training run through Paris. Two by two, three by three, they vanish from behind him, running off into shops and alleys. By the time the scene ends the teacher is no longer being followed by 40 students, but by one.  "You can't bring anyone anywhere if you start where they are not," I suggested.

Imagine a tour leader waiting on a corner ten blocks away from where the group going on the tour has gathered. This is what most education looks like. We're frustrated because students are not following along, but the students can not follow because we are beginning where they are not.

And thus, the one-third who succeed are those who either somehow luck out into being at our starting point or who, essentially, don't need us in the first place, and the other two-thirds muddle along in failure, year after year after year.

Green percentage are students proficient in reading at grade four, according to US National Assessment of Educational Progress through 2009

And it never gets any better. The students aren't following at the start, and so they can never catch up.

Green percentage are students proficient in reading at grade eight according to US National Assessment of Educational Progress through 2009

This creates not just overall failure, but creates disability as well. Because we do not want to admit that our system is flawed, we label our children as flawed. We don't look at the charts above and see a system which is ignoring children, rather, we describe those falling in the orange zones as "retarded," whatever polite words we choose. Thus, it is the kid's fault, and we can go on and on as before.

But what if school began differently?

I'm not promoting Montessori specifically, but they surely understand the idea

So do many hands-on museums (here, the New York Hall of Science)

What if school began with where kids actually are? With the bounce of a ball, the spin of a playground ride, the stories of their mornings, their obsessions with cars, planes, boats, or dolls? What if we allowed kids to create their own paths from their own starting points? What if letters, numbers, reading, counting, multiplying were only introduced as it appeared as a problem-solving solution for the student's interest?

Then that learning wouldn't be the worthless chores they now appear to most kids, but rather, as a route to where the student wants to go: Wouldn't you like to read this story about Nascar, Arsenal, the Titanic, knights, off-road-vehicles? Let's start with text-to-speech, so you can listen and watch...

And if the student wants to go there, the learning is motivated. And motivated learning is effective learning.

In 1865 the New York State Board of Regents cranked out the first standardized test of general education. About one-third of students did well. Today, 145 years later, our school curriculum system is the same, and so are our results.

So, do we keep insisting that our students change? That our teachers change? Or do we change our system?

- Ira Socol

everything we do...

Information and debates rolled across my Twitter landscape Friday night. Powerful questions and divergent answers. I was so struck by the quality of the conversation, and the fact that so many educators were up late on a Friday night worrying about how to improve on what is happening in and around their schools that, well, I could only be embarrassed for the likes of Arne Duncan, Christopher Christie, David Cameron, Wendy Kopp, even Barack Obama - those who make money or score political points demeaning teachers.

As I "listened" though, I began to think (again) about asking all the questions. Why do we do do everything we do?

Christian Long, Pam Moran and I began discussing school architecture, and the idea of classroom shape and the "teaching wall." And I asked why classrooms were rectangular, "didn't that shape," I wondered, "pulled from the architecture of the Protestant Church, create certain 'facts' in the classroom?'

Christian, a brilliant school designer, who tries to challenge everything, said, "all people/clients like "rectangles".  No example in nature.  Entirely a man-made concept. Suggests 'balance'/'focus'."

Yes, there is no example in nature. Yes, to Protestant Europeans and certain East Asians, the rectangular room does indeed suggest balance and focus. But is it a universally preferred shape for learning and gathering?

I've already written about a school which chose to switch to square classrooms with no "teaching wall." They even skipped the Interactive White Boards because they seemed to "focus" the classroom in one way. In human habitation around the world the square is much more common than the rectangle, or surely was. Squares are less "hierarchical." The point of focus is less obvious. And that may have had real advantages for human relationships and human learning.

But we can go back further. Humans really tended to start with circular spaces, from Bronze Age round thatched cottages, from North American tipis and kivas, to African village houses and Irish "beehive" monasteries.

What might a circular classroom suggest that a rectangular classroom does not?

What about a square?

What might those room shapes do to student perception, student participation, pedagogical form, student and teacher behavior?

There are, of course, other "learning environment" shapes. The Catholic Cathedral is a complex idea, filled with the kinds of "distractions" so despised by a certain (and self-admittedly completely uniformed) Protestant-trained power elite. "You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter," he told the students. "And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy." - Barack Obama

But then, the Catholic Mass has always been about teaching to the many intelligences in many ways - words and image, art and scent, movement and taste, and the mysteries of what lies behind that corner or that pillar. A style of teaching specifically rejected by America's Protestants, who built simple, hierarchical, text-centered and single "teaching wall" rectangles for both worship and education.

The rectangular room embraces one notion of focus... stair straight ahead, put down everything but that book, listen to one voice, there is only one way to learn. It was conceived - in education - for that purpose. And the rectangular classroom, like the notion that, "with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction," is a control system, and part of a method of limiting human potential.

We live, in most of our schools, with a system built on a few fatal assumptions. These assumptions are largely based in Reformation view of human development and the path to heaven. Children are, in our school design, inherently evil and ignorant - and so they must be controlled, managed, focused. Humans, in our school design, are inherently sinful and slothful - so, if their vision is not tightly controlled, they will do the wrong things. There is only one true path to salvation, in our school design, and so we must carefully lay out both the steps and the procedures - or our students will slip into perdition.

And we have lived with these assumptions for so long, we have - far too often - accepted them as "natural" instead of as the 16th Century political invention that they are. Of course. These assumptions define our educational environment, from our room shapes to our age-based grades to our grade-level-expectations and tests to our schedules, our blackboards or whiteboards, to the way - perhaps - that student seats rarely face the windows.

There are those who believe that the way to change schools is to change their management system to one based on profit. There are those who believe that the way to change schools is to stop training teachers. There are those who believe that the way to change schools is to go "back to basics." But for me, the way to change schools is to alter the assumptions which underlie them.

Because there is a counter-narrative. It is not unknown, rather it runs from Rousseau to Montessori to Dewey to Postman to Kohn. It runs from the Catholic Mass to the developing world village circle to the few field left where children play and learn on their own. This narrative understands human attention in a pre-Reformation, pre-Gutenberg way - when "multitasking" was, simply, being human. This narrative understands that we are all learners, and all instructors. This narrative understands that hierarchical spaces are not necessarily the best learning structures, and understands that human learning rarely effectively occurs "on schedule." This narrative thinks less about "molding" children into useful adults, and more about embracing human potential.

About five centuries ago Protestant leaders began building churches in simple rectangles. They stopped installing storytelling stained glass. They skipped instrumental music. They dropped the use of scent as an important sensory tool. The number of people moving in the front of the church at any time shrank from many, often to one. And they began to pass out books, as the essential learning tool. Books in which you were instructed which page to turn to.

And in our classrooms we too often live with all this still. We accept all this still. America's president is sure that information which comes from something other than a book or a teacher is "a distraction." Our architects assume classrooms must be rectangular. Our school administrators worry endlessly about students being "on time" for school and our teachers worry about assignment deadlines. We continue to expect children to sit still in far too many classes. And we rank reading and writing as more important than viewing art or creating music.

So, if you want to change schools - stop playing ball in John Calvin's court. Tinkering has gotten us nowhere. Perhaps changing assumptions will bring about change.

- Ira Socol

"I run one of the worst Middle Schools in America..."

"...and I'm famous."

Tony Orsini of Ridgewood, New Jersey's Benjamin Franklin Middle School has decided to become a celebrity. When I first wrote about Mr. Orsini I simply thought him foolish and clueless (well, I said, "crazy" but I have been - quite effectively - told I should not have phrased it that way," and friends on Twitter who live in Ridgewood and have children in the schools there tried to assure me that "Tony" was not a bad guy, just desperate and out-of-ideas.

But some things have become obvious to me in the days since: First, the comments on my previous blog from parents and students in Ridgewood have shown me that Mr. Anthony Orsini has presided over the creation of an unbelievably toxic middle school environment. Despite all the benefits of a fairly wealthy community, Orsini's school is one continuous, 24-hour-a-day bullying-fest, with angry, uninformed, poorly communicating adults modelling the worst possible behaviours for their children.

Bullying, in my view of the world, is not a "kid issue," but an adult-created environmental issue. As studies have shown, schools typically make bullying worse, and more acceptable - not the opposite. So, if there is a problem in Ridgewood, and there sure seems to be a problem, it is not with Facebook, but with Orsini and the community's other adults.

Second, this, though not a crisis like many impoverished middle schools face, is an apparent disaster - a disaster built by an uncaring and disinterested suburban community. Listen to this parent:

"I'm a parent at Orsini's middle school and I can tell you -- he's not afraid that kids know more than him or whatever else your theory was...he's afraid that some kid is going to commit suicide or another violent act. He's afraid that a kid is going to be harmed emotionally and so badly that she never really recovers. He has been called-on by parents who are beside themselves with their children being targeted and nowhere to turn, no easy way to get "authorities" involved (he's the closest they have to an authority who will take it on). And I'm certain that he's afraid for how all this is impacting his students' learning. Personally, I think those are worthy things to be afraid of and I do not blame him for reacting. His tone was guaranteed to rile some up, but for god's sake people, give the guy some help! What else would you have him do, realistically, there all alone on the front line, with another kid crying in his office and unable to attend class?"

Yes, bullying at Benjamin Franklin is so bad student suicide has become a real threat, the community's authorities (I assume this means the police) are refusing to assist (despite the case in Massachusetts), the parents are no help - leaving this principal "all alone." Charming place, this Ridgewood, New Jersey. Combine that with a school so uninteresting in pedagogy that the principal declares that no homework requires research or outside learning ("Over 90% of all homework does not require the internet, or even a computer. Do not allow them to have a computer in their room, there is no need"), and there is a recipe for disaster which should have been addressed by parents and community long ago.

Third, Tony Orsini really likes attention. At first I thought he needed Google Mail Goggles - that pause before you send option on your email account. Why else would someone send out such a foolish email? But after seeing Tony's act across every media form this weekend, it becomes fairly obvious that this is a guy bored with his job, and looking for fame (and perhaps a spot at the right-wing propaganda mill, the Heritage Foundation).

This is always disappointing. When Orsini's letter first came to light, I encouraged community members to offer him help - help in understanding the research around all these issues - pedagogy, bullying, social media, help in coming up with strategies, help developing solutions. But as you listen to Tony, he's now no longer an educator, but a talking point. And that is really bad for the kids who must show up Monday morning at a school adults have allowed to turn toxic.

So now this comes down to Superintendent Daniel Fishbein (201-670-2700, ext. 10530). Dr. Fishbein, please relieve Mr. Orsini of his position, allowing him to become a regular on Fox News, CNN, and ABC. And please bring in a team of adults seeking real solutions. They are right there in your community - and many of us from other places will help, if asked.

Ridgewood, you have a serious problem, and Ridgewood, you need a serious solution. And that solution needs to be based in talking to your kids, not the media.

- Ira Socol

at least one New Jersey principal understands. He's not on TV...

Reading is NOT the goal

All across America schools are desperately concerned with teaching what are often disturbingly referred to as "the 3 Rs" - Reading, Writing, and [A]rithmetic.

All across America teachers, administrators, parents, politicians from Obama to the Lunatic Right, are worried about whether children are learning to read - and to write - and to add and subtract.

And, all across America, this is wrong.

I was presenting at the CSUN Conference on Friday evening, and as I spoke, I realized that what I need to say first, every time, is that we are asking the wrong questions, we are focusing on the wrong things. And by focusing on the wrong things we have turned school into a self-defeating loop, which makes kids miserable and leaves our educational system a failure.

So, I need to begin here: If we define "reading" as interpreting little Roman alphabetical designs inked on to paper (or even "pixeled onto a screen), I don't care if kids learn to read. And if we define "writing" as learning to form those alphabetical codes with 19th and 20th Century "writing tools," I don't care if kids learn to write. And if we define "arithmetic" as memorizing "math facts" or filling a piece of paper with scribbling to divide one number into another, I really don't care if kids learn that at all.

In schools, we treat all of these skills as a "goal," and none of these should ever be a goal. Because when we treat these things as a "goal" we convince kids - and we convince them of this quickly - that all of these abilities are nothing but school chores, with no connection to their lives. And, in the incredibly short space of a couple of years, we take five-year-olds who are dying to come to school and turn them into eight-year-olds who'd rather be anyplace else. Eight-year-olds who hate "reading," who hate "writing," who really hate "math."

And that is a damn shame.

Let me say it this way: There is no reason, in and of itself, to "read." We read to access the information in written form. There is no reason, in and of itself, to "write." We write to distribute informationto others. There is no reason, in and of itself, to do "arithmetic." We manipulate numbers to help us understand and share a series of concepts we call mathematics.

And if kids want to access information, to distribute information, and to work with all the worlds which involve numbers (et al), they will have a reason to find a way - with our help - to make that work. But if we begin with the "chore first," we will have the schools we have right now.

Or, as I said Friday afternoon, "Reading is defined as getting information from a recorded source into your head, Writing is defined as getting information from your head into a form which others can access." And to which I might have added, "Arithmetic is defined as having a common system for sharing quantifiable data."

Toolbelt Theory 2.0

View more presentations from Ira David Socol.

Reading matters because we want our students to have effective and efficient ways to access stories and information. Writing matters because we want our students to be creators and distributors of stories and information. Arithmetic matters because we want math concepts to be within the reach of our students. But you know what? How they get to these things, should matter a whole lot less to us.

For some kids alphabetic decoding will be a quick and efficient method of grabbing that information. For some kids, writing with a pen will be a great, fast way to get ideas down into recorded form. For some kids, writing numbers and/or remembering "the times table" will be a short route to manipulating numbers.

And for others, those routes will not work, or they will not work well enough to really give them access.

For all those kids, we need to find other routes to get them content, to get them involved, to get them excited, to get them communicating.

Which is all easy now. We have the technology, from Click-Speak to WYNN, from WordTalk to Windows7 Speech Recognition, from audiobooks to mp3 conversion, to switch to access systems that work. We can use calculators (free ones) and Word's Equation Editor.  We can get kids in, connect them right now.

See, there's a reason US standardized test results collapse after fourth grade. Fourth grade tests simply ask kids to regurgitate the processes we've been banging into them for their first four years of school. They do that well enough. But the processes really don't connect to most on a functional level, so that when they take later content-driven evaluation tests, they fail, because they are not accessing the content. They only know how to "read" to "read." I see this all the time, quick, "fluent" readers who have no idea what they've just read, or why. Kids who form letters perfectly but who can't express themselves. Kids with memorized math facts but no ability to leap into algebra or beyond.

And that's stupid. I, for example, have read James Joyce's Ulysses five times. Yes, five times. I can argue with the best of "'em" on this literary classic. But I have never even held an ink on paper version. I have read the book on cassette (or something like 64 cassettes) twice, on CD, and twice with WYNN the digital literacy system. Likewise I have read hundreds of books from The Great Gatsby to Frankenstein to really boring textbooks without ever "decoding" a single alphabetic word.
 
I have written two books with substantial parts of both dictated via speech recognition. I have done really well in structural engineering classes without being able to subtract on paper well enough to keep track of a checkbook. I blog and tweet to the world without beingable to write about half of the alphabet legibly, unless I am copying already printed text.

So please, when your kids have trouble with the "skills" of school, offer them the way around, the path to the "why." Give them a digital reading system and let them access what's of interest to them. Turn on the speech recognition in windows and let them communicate with the world. Give them a simple way to create math symbols and perform calculations, and allow them to see what math can mean.

These "skills" are not "ends." They are "means." And we should be opening the world to our students by any means possible.

- Ira Socol