Changing Gears 2012: why we fight

(1) ending required sameness     (2) rejecting the flipped classroom     (3) re-thinking rigor     (4) its not about 1:1      (5) start to dream again     (6) learning to be a society (again)     (7) reconsidering what literature means     (8) maths are creative, maths are not arithmetic     (9) changing rooms     (10) undoing academic time     (11) social networks beyond Zuckerbergism     (12) knowing less about students, seeing more

This is the last of these "Changing Gears" posts. I began this to get myself to think about where I was right now on a bunch of issues in education. Now Matt Richtel, a reporter with a Pulitzer Prize in misusing data, and his New York Times employers, think blogs have little value, but in my mind they beat the "essay" or even the "dissertation" on almost every level of communication. So, I'm happy I've taken this journey, and if you've ridden along, I hope its been interesting for you as well.

I end this way because, all of our changed thinking means little without action, and so each of us has to decide what we will fight for, and how we will fight...

My father never had a good word for World War II. He might have. He might have mentioned a rather glorious if wholly unauthorized flight in a captured German glider over Plzeň, or a few supposedly amazing weeks in north London, or marrying my Ma, but, those were separated in his mind. He never had a good word for World War II, but be thought it was undeniably necessary. He saw this necessity in no other wars. His only involvement with any veterans' organization was with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and he refused any acclimations of heroic service. But he had been among the very first Americans to see a Concentration Camp, rushing his tanks to the aid of the infantry troops who had discovered Dachau. He had seen great evil. And so he had seen his nightmare in Europe as something required.

(above) Band of Brothers: Why we fight

(below) liberating Dachau, April 1945

I do not make spurious comparisons of various evils to Nazism. When those comparisons are due - from Cambodia to Bosnia to Rwanda - they are obvious. But we all know that, whoever we are, there are things we will fight for, things we will take risks for, and things which do not rise to that level of importance for us. My father found his "line," it is up to us to find ours.

There is a crisis in America today, and in England, and in Ireland, and in Australia, and many other places, and I believe it is a crisis caused by an evil, an evil I believe that we must fight. It is a crisis of the future, because it is a crisis of our commitment to our children. And our children are, or are supposed to be, the most important things in our lives.

There are many attacks on our children these days, and those attacks are stripping away our chances to radically improve the lives of all of our children. We live in a moment when global wealth, and technological capabilities, make it possible to give every kid a real opportunity to make the the most of themselves, but greed, pure greed, is ensuring that this will not happen.

US Republicans don't just favor "open marriage," they like the
idea of using poor children as slave labor.

My good friend David Britten - @colonelb - has put together a brilliant manifesto on the concept of educational opportunity - a concept everyone in the leadership of the United States, from Barack Obama on down - refuses to engage with:

"Equity of opportunity is the missing key ingredient to improving public education in Michigan and across the U.S. “…the key driver of education-development policy in Finland has been providing equal and positive learning opportunities for all children (emphasis added) and securing their well-being, including their nutrition, health, safety, and overall happiness.” (Pasi Sahlberg, Finland’s Success is No Miracle, Education Week Quality Counts 2012)"

Equity, not equality. Equality of opportunity, especially in educational institution terms, is not only impossible, it is probably not desirable. Here's The Colonel on the situation in Michigan...

"[E]conomists, elected officials, and policy wonks gathered in Lansing, Michigan to update revenue projections of the past and forecast revenue for the future. Before the ink was even dry on their predictions, legislators and educators started positioning themselves on what to do with large unexpected projected surpluses. My inbox was exploding with news and recommendations from associations (MASA, MASB, and the like) and the mainstream media began reporting out interviews of anyone and everyone running to the bright lights.

"None discussed the need to address the growing funding gap between rich and poor school districts, and the resulting lack of equitable opportunities for disadvantaged kids to achieve the same goals as every other child in Michigan. Of course not, since that would not be self-serving panning to their respective constituencies.

'“The hierarchy of bureaucracy and the power of the status quo are such that, in our country, poor children and communities are treated differently compared to those children and communities from upper class backgrounds.” (Orfield, 2005, as cited in Rios, Bath, Foster et. al., Inequities in Public Education, Institute for Educational Inquiry, Aug 2009)"

So this is why we fight. We fight because every child deserves, not the f-ing chance to President, but the opportunity to do anything that they can do. Not just because without that opportunity the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom (et al) are no more "democracies" than China is, and not just because we are supposed to be ethical societies, but because our future on this planet of eight, nine, ten billion people trying to share our resources depends on our ability to best use the talents of everyone. Not just the kids who now inherit wealth and position.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder: Here, his daughter's private school explains why $21,000 per year
tuition just can't cover the costs of educating rich kids. Snyder cut Michigan  public school per
student/per year funding to $6,846.

And creating that equity of opportunity requires that we not just change funding so that kids who need more, get more, but that we change our schools so that we do not insist that kids from the homes of the "not traditionally successful" begin far behind, and stay far behind.

I talk a lot about "colonialism" in education and the need to embrace a "postcolonial" ethic, and I understand that - especially in North America where "colonialism" usually means funny hats and kind of chalky paint colors - these are sometimes difficult ideas, but the essence is that, in simple terms, we either expect all children to behave and operate as if they are white, protestant, upper middle class, English-speaking, heterosexual, passive, and externally motivated (bribery/punishment), or we do not. And if we do - under the claim that this is what makes people "employable" - that there is simply no way that children who are not all of that can ever catch up.

They will begin school "behind," and - unless all those rich, "normal" kids stop dead in their tracks - they will remain "behind" no matter what they do.

It doesn't take an accredited scholar to know the "bullsh**" spouted by those trying to keep
the colonial educational apparatus in place. Above, John Wittle on YouTube, below,
Rashaun Williams of the Science Leadership Academy.

Thus, along with funding solutions, our classrooms and schools must transform, so that the culture of our educational spaces becomes inclusive in real terms, accepting that we will not all be the same and that we should not all be the same, which includes rejecting the structures of "learning" which limit who we are and how we communicate.

"[M]y students always write more than they think they are writing because the context is so urgent, compelling, and interactive that they enjoy it and it doesn't seem like drudgery.  They work so hard to articulate and defend ideas about which they have strong convictions that it does not feel to them like the exercise of "writing a term paper."   When I put their semester's work into a data hopper, even I was shocked to find out that they were averaging around 1000 words per week, in a course about neuroscience, collaborative thinking, the technological and ideological architecture of the World Wide Web, and the "collaboration by difference" method that I prescribe as an anecdote to attention blindness, the way our own expertise, cultural values, and attention to a specific task illuminates some things and makes us blind to others.   I argue that the open architecture of the Web is built on the principle of diversity and maximum participation--feedback and editing--that gives us a great tool for compensating for our own shortcomings." - Cathy N. Davidson

What came before this post in this series are my ideas about how to transform schools into places of universal opportunity, but this is neither a comprehensive nor authoritative list, we all keep thinking together, and the list will build, grow, and improve. But - to use a phrase I use far too often when I speak - my version of "ummm" - "Here's the thing": I was at my friendly local Ford dealer last week getting my oil changed and talking to the chief salesperson who has become a valued friend. He told me a story about a "severely" autistic boy in his wife's classroom. He cannot handle the classroom, but he told me about how the parents described to her that he is a remarkable skier, who loves the sport and becomes - well - entirely different on the slopes. I said, I know. I hated classrooms, I still hate most classrooms. "Back then" my escape was in swimming ("a great sport, you can't even hear the coach"), now it is other things. The "disability" is not with the child, it is with the system and the environment.

This is what I fight for. This is what I ask you to fight for. Fighting, of course, involves risk - not the fake risk of Wall Street or people who begin corporations (the corporation itself is designed as a means of avoiding actual risk) - but the facing of true danger. There are the dangers of losing your job, of not being promoted, of exclusion from certain communities and honors, there are real dangers in terms of time involved (and thus costs to families and in terms of other life opportunities), there are real dangers to comfort. I will not minimize any of this. Yet, I ask you to fight anyway.

We will not change the future of our children through passivity or by waiting. But if it was not this important, the forces arrayed against us would not be either so powerful or relentless. They would not include both American political parties (both Australian political parties), the richest guys on the planet, the biggest banks, the biggest corporations, and they would not have the capabilities to co-opt and bribe seemingly anyone.

These people want the poor and the different to fail, because they have done extremely well with the planet just as it is, with social stratification just as it is, with inequitable opportunity just as it is. They have no real desire for David Britten's kids to be able to compete with Barack Obama's kids or Bill Gates' kids. Those private school kids have, pretty much, a free ride to the top right now, and - parents being parents - they are defending that free ride with everything they've got.

Which means we need to be stronger than they are, better than they are, and take the kind of real risks they do not have to.

We fight for our children. And unlike Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and friends, when we say "our," we mean it in the most inclusive way imaginable.

- Ira Socol

Adult Communities and School Bullies

A few years ago while I was the soccer coach at one American high school I was doing a technology project at another. The two districts were next to each other. One was a fairly wealthy and very small district with a reputation for great results on state achievement tests. The other was a much more diverse and much larger district with a middling reputation.

What I noticed, walking the corridors of both, was something very different. I noticed a radical difference in social and especially bullying behaviors.

Twitter can often get me thinking, and @nsharoff did this recently posting thoughts on her readings on school bullying. I responded to her thoughts by suggesting that perhaps the biggest impact on bullying behavior is created by the environment built by the adults who work in and surround the school. That is, the teachers, administrators, and parents.

And I said this because of what I saw in these two schools.

The bigger, poorer, less acclaimed high school was the far safer environment for kids perceived as "different." And this has no connection to size, or wealth, or academic achievement in my observed world. I've been in terrible big schools, and great small ones. Great diverse schools and awful diverse schools.

So, what makes the difference?

First, yes, environmental control. Better schools control stress environments better. Schools that are "safe" always have faculty in the corridors when kids are. Not just there, but "actively there," engaging the kids around them. Schools that are "safe" often also control noise, carpeted corridors seem really important, so that the din does not build its own chaos. They also often have natural light, and fewer student traffic "choke points" - those narrow doorways and stairwells which create chaotic physical places. In this case the big school had something else wonderful - a full 10 minutes between classes - which made the whole class changing experience a "safe time," rather than a desperate rush. And one more thing, the big school had its cafeteria at its core. Rather than being "off somewhere" everyone moved through this space, which was bordered by the office (the principal's office actually looked down on the cafeteria from the second floor), and the library. All of this meant that adults were far more engaged with students at leisure, and that students were far less stressed.

The small school had none of this. No carpets in the hallways which were lighted with buzzing and flashing old fluorescents, no teachers in the corridors either. A cafeteria hidden at the far end, far from everything, and many tight choke points that produced insanity on the stairs.

Still, none of that mattered most - at least in what I observed.

Now, this being the American Midwest, both schools had enormous football stadiums and very large gymnasiums, and both strongly celebrated their varsity athletics. But there were huge differences. The school which was "safe" also had a dramatic "performing arts center" and a huge library, these features held equal status architecturally with the sports facilities. The "unsafe" school had a small hidden library and no space at all for its acclaimed music and drama programs to perform (they usually did so off campus).

In the "unsafe" school only three of the district's many sports were celebrated - Boy's football and basketball and girl's volleyball. Before every one of those games parents would come into school and decorate lockers and there were frequent school time pep rallies. In the "safe" school every athlete pretty much got the same treatment, wrestling, soccer, the golf team. And there were also pep events (usually in the cafeteria during lunch periods) for the band, the Odyssey of the Mind team, Science Olympiad, etc.

I can't tell you that equal crowds watched boy's football and girl's soccer at either school, but I will tell you that at the "safe" school the principal and many teachers attended almost every sports event, and came to the OM competition as well.

In four years of coaching boy's soccer the principal at the "unsafe" school was at one half of one game. No one came to the Odyssey of the Mind event (I coached a team there as well). Teachers avoided "minor sports" events as well.

These might seem like small things, but they are not. Adolescents pick up their social clues not just from their peers, but heavily from the adult environment which surrounds them. In one school the adult message was all about social hierarchy: the district began this in Kindergarten when photos of those boys on the youth football teams and those girls on the youth cheerleading squads were put up in the primary school's entrance. And it reinforced the message constantly that some students were more prized than others. In the other school a very wide range of accomplishment was celebrated at every age level, and this was made very clear at the high school level.

Adults, when speaking of bullying, love to discuss peer pressure and child and adolescent communities. In my view this is much like those running America's educational system choosing to blame teachers, students, and parents - it is blame shifting - away from those who create the matrix - to those who must live within it.

Bullying behavior among those of school age is based on children reading - accurately - the adult world around them. If the President of the U.S. gets to bully smaller nations which he dislikes, if adult bosses are allowed to bully employees, if people on adult reality shows are celebrated for their role as bullies, kids imitate those behaviors.

And if the community of adults surrounding a school declares that certain students are more valued, more prized, than others, a template for bullying has been formed.

It is a fascinating observation that in a survey of bullying in Toronto students noted that they were twice as likely to be bullied in a supervised school situation as they were in unsupervised locales. That survey also noted that the further into the school year the students traveled, the less likely either other students or adults were to intervene. In other words, school seems to encourage bullying, and to develop an acceptance of bullying.

Of course. Education-as-we-know-it is about building hierarchies - among athletes, with grading, via teacher preferences, according to inherited wealth and parental power. When schools rank students, schools create unbalanced power relationships among students, and unbalanced power relationships are the cornerstone of bullying.

Making safe schools for all is not the work of children. It is the work of adults. And the most effective way to limit bullying among students is for adults to build a world which does not model that behavior.

- Ira Socol

Universal Tools for Global Learning

essentially the PowerPoint from my presentation at the PacRim Conference at Illinois State University yesterday...

Ubiquitous Systems, Global Education, Universal Design

I begin with what I view as the essential purposes of these new technologies:
Technologies which Disrupt…
Understandings of what “school” means.
Concepts of Ability and Disability. Not not Disability - Inability.
Systems of “Authority.”Boundaries and Borders.
Definitions of Nations and Cultures.
Roles of teachers and students.

and what those tools might do:
Universal Tools for Education
Universal ICT Tools
Shifting Control.
Enabling different paths.
Enabling different “winners.”
Expanding the universe of educational “winners.”

These tools are selected because they are:
Community-Based – Community Cognition grown from the largest, most diverse possible “community.”
Support Fluid Roles – for all participants.
Create Unfinished Artifacts – continually under development, never viewed as “finished.”
and are developed via a system of Common Property, Individual Merit – shared knowledge, new definitions of status and intellectual authority.

"They ‘occupy a hybrid, user-and-producer position which can be described usefully as that of a produser’ which can be seen to be characterised by the following: Community-Based – produsage proceeds from the assumption that the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified they may be. Fluid Roles – produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project proceeds. Unfinished Artefacts – content artefacts in produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths. Common Property, Individual Merit – contributors permit (non-commercial) community use, adaptation, and further development of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital they gain through this process. (Bruns, 2007, p. 4)" Kress, G & Pachler, N. Thinking about the ‘m’ in m-learning (2007)

These are:
Free Technologies – Using commercially based services for our own needs.
Ubiquitous Technologies – using multi-purpose commercial and/or open source systems that are already widely in use.
Collaborative Technologies – systems which allow non-hierarchical “student” relationships.
Multi-Modal Technologies – which allow for multiple representations. 
Lifespan Technologies – learning technological paradigms that will support learning and communication outside of “school.”

and they operate in specific ways:
An open definition of literacy and “reading” and “writing” – “web 2.0” means students should be allowed access via whatever system works best for themselves.
Flexible Communication – multi-modal structures that allow varying participants to participate various ways.
Options – Synchronous/Asynchronous – systems which allow communication across time zones and cultures.

"In the emergent literacy view, aspects of language — both oral and written — develop concurrently rather than sequentially (Goodman, 1986). According to this view, literacy learning does not happen only in formal classroom settings, but also in informal settings, in both oral and written modes, and in collaboration and interaction with others." Ryokai, K, Vaucelle C, and Cassell, J. Virtual peers as partners in storytelling and literacy learning

"Alternatively, novel computational paradigms, such as pervasive and ubiquitous computing, may create new possibilities for interactivity, enabling designers and technologists to create novel hybrid artefacts and environments, which combine digital and physical properties in novel ways. Consequently, this may allow new forms of learning to emerge." Hall, T and Bannon, L. Designing ubiquitous computing to enhance children's learning in museums

Basics
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Firefox plus Add-Ons
Skype
SMS
Blogs
Social Networks
Mobiles

Cool Additions
VoiceThread (non-synchronous multi-modal conversations)
Webspiration (online visual organizer)
Ghotit (the best spellcheck system)

On-Line Text-To-Speech
http://vozme.com/
http://spokentext.net/
http://www.yakitome.com/

Phone Speech-To-Text
http://www.dial2do.com/
http://jott.com/

Phone Text-To-Speech
http://www.abbyme.com/

Phone Text Conversion (Mobile Phone Camera)
http://www.scanr.com/

Simple, Free Windows Text-To-Speech
http://www.naturalreaders.com/
http://www.readplease.com/

Free Microsoft Office Text-To-Speech
WordTalk
PowerTalk

Microsoft Reader (still a powerful, free tool)
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/pc.asp (laptop/desktop PC)
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/tablet.asp (tablet PC, with "write notes in the margins!")
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/tts.asp (Text-To-Speech)
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/rmr.asp (RMR, creates one-click conversions from Microsoft Word)
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/dictionaries.asp (Dictionaries)

Books for your Mobile
http://www.tx2ph.com/

Audio Software for Book Creation
Audacity

CLiCk-Speak for Firefox (of course)
http://clickspeak.clcworld.net/downloads.html


Mobile Web Site Builders
http://www.ubik.com/
http://www.mobilemo.com/main.php

Mobile Web Educational Tools
PollEverywhere (throw those clickers away and get true interactivity)
MobileStudy

There is, of course, much, much, much more to say, but I only had 20 minutes.

- Ira Socol

How Inclusion Works

This past weekend Lisa Parisi put up a remarkable post...
The Successful Inclusion Program,
which you should go and read on her site.

But I wanted to lead you through some of what this teacher is describing, as she has found a path to student success in a Universally Designed Classroom.

Let's begin with teacher training, Lisa and her co-teacher have been lucky enough to be trained in working with every student, not just "regular" students or "special students:" "Although I teach regular education," she says, "I do have my Masters' in Special Ed and have always believed in differentiating instruction to help all students succeed."

This is so vital - the false distinction most teacher preparation programs make between "Teacher Education" and "Special Education" is incredibly destructive to student success. It encourages the worst mass-teaching practices of "regular ed," and the isolation of "special education." You can not say that you believe in either universal design or in the idea that "every student is gifted, every student has special needs" and operate of college of education which proclaims that these programs are separate.

We can see the impact of these flawed teacher training programs in what Lisa says next about co-teaching. "I truly believe that a perfect classroom is one in which two teachers work toward a common goal. So I have had many co-teaching situations. Two have been quite successful, most have been very unsuccessful." "Some co-teachers (both regular and special ed)," she continues, "believe that "you have your students and I have mine." I have worked with a teacher like this. She would come to the room and say, "Ok, my students come with me." I would then watch as the children, with mortified looks in their eyes, would slink out of the room."

Yes, these teachers are at fault for being inhumane. But surely the fault lies with the university that trained them, and the state which licensed them. If a teacher thinks like that it is evidence of systemic failure. A failure to believe in educational equity. So Lisa states, "Rule #1: Do not separate the children. They should not stand out for being classified. Remember: inclusion means to be included, not separated."

But the fact is, we can only include everyone if we accept the idea that we are all different and embrace the technologies which allow all of us to be different.

Lisa puts it this way: "There's also that belief that we should be so private as to not speak about the needs of the children. Don't embarrass Johnny by telling him to put on his glasses, hearing aids, etc." This is essential because we do not try to hide the fact that, for example, we use a ladder because we are not good enough at leaping to make it to the roof unassisted, and we do not try to hide the fact that we take a car to get to the next town because we can't run fast enough to get there on time via foot. And if we treat any particular student assistive need differently than we treat our own assistive needs, we are separating, humiliating, and diminishing. "In our classroom," Lisa says, "fidget toys are in a box for all the children, glasses are mentioned frequently, students are encouraged to move to the front of the room, grab a spell checker, use the computer or alphasmart, pull out the E.Z.C. Readers, etc. The difference? These tools are demonstrated to and available for everyone. So when a lesson begins, up jumps the classified student along with the gifted student. They both gather tools they need to be successful. So... Rule #2: Don't hide special needs. Point out that we all need assistance at times. Make it available to everyone." This, of course, is the heart of both Universal Design and Toolbelt Theory.

And the most important tool we can train our students to choose is the combination of learning style and learning environment which works best for them. This is wildly counter to school tradition which assumes that the teacher always makes these decisions. And Lisa points out that it is also counter to how most "special educators" operate in co-teaching situations: "[T]here's the idea that a special educator is only there to work with the special ed children. This leaves a lot of other children behind and makes the classified children really stand out. We believe that we both are there to teach all of the students. We group children for various subjects and rotate who teaches the groups. When class tests are given, volunteers leave the room with one of us to go to a more quiet setting or to have tests read to them. Amazingly, the children, all of them, really do choose what they need. Some leave the room for the novelty but most choose the setting in which they work best."

Student choice, what a remarkable idea. Lisa's "Rule #3: Mix the teachers up and allow students to choose their style of learning."

Which goes directly to her next point. "This year," she says, "we also eliminated reading pull-outs. Students remained in class during reading and ended up receiving much more reading service time than they would have in the pull-out program. And keeping students in the classroom as much as possible is helpful for having them not miss content. Next year, we are going to do the same for math pull-outs. Note: This was not an easy goal to achieve. Reading and resource room teachers may feel it threatens their jobs. If necessary, try to make your pull-outs push-ins instead." I remember my sister - a long time teacher - saying how she never used ability grouping for reading. There were four or five books to read, kids picked the book they were interested in. That, of course, gives a student an actual reason to read. And it encourages students to reach beyond their limitations. And if encourages peer tutoring. And with technology, it is easy. Even if "Student A" can not possibly decode "Book C" we can offer it to him or her via iPod or CD, or via text reader with a dictionary built in.

This is great for reading instruction, it is even better for eliminating the humiliations we visit on children. Lisa's "Rule #4: Keep students in the classroom as much as possible. Eliminate as many pull-outs as you can."

Lisa goes on to mention Project-Based Learning and truly Differentiating Instruction, two hallmarks of education which actually educates rather than divides and trains compliance. There's a lot to discover on her blog. It is worth your time.

But what is most important here is this. When "we" attack "education as we know it" we are attacking it because we know that something better exists. Everyone with minimally "open eyes" knows that what really works is flexible, universally designed education which responds to student needs, and encourages student independence and self-determination. When we see the success of a classroom like Lisa's what are we to say about teachers, administrators, school systems, universities, and legislatures which refuse to embrace - which often actively resist - these methods?

True inclusion is a decision we can make. Not choosing true inclusion is another decision.

- Ira Socol

"So I had my ranking, which was pretty good, cause I could climb really well and was OK at baseball and good at hockey; plus, I had slot cars and a dad who played sports. But once the teacher made the reading groups there was a different kind of ranking. Once the teacher made reading groups, I was officially a “dumb kid.” This started as a small thing, but school gets more and more important as you get older. And the more important school gets, the more important the school’s ranking system gets. Eventually, the very first thing people know about you is that you’re a “dumb kid.”' - The Drool Room - page 29

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

US $16.00 on Amazon

New! Digital version available through lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

Doctors for America

Many of those in poverty in America really need better access to medical care.

"At Doctors For America, we are working with a great sense of urgency to build the movement to eliminate medical inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. We recruit aggressively to attract outstanding recent college graduates of all majors and career interests to commit two years to serve as doctors in urban and rural communities, and we invest in the training and professional development necessary to ensure their success as doctors in our highest-poverty communities. Our doctors, also called corps members, go above and beyond traditional expectations to lead their patients to significant health improvement, overcoming the challenges of poverty despite the current capacity of the health care system."1

"We have found that the most successful doctors in our communities are those who operate as a successful leader would in any context. They set big goals for where patients will be physically at the end of the year, invest patients and others in working hard to realize that vision, plan purposefully and work relentlessly with a sense of urgency to maximize medical services in pursuit of the vision, and continuously increase effectiveness to reach the vision in spite of the multiple challenges and obstacles along the way. Knowing this, we carefully select those individuals who we believe have demonstrated strong leadership and therefore have potential for success in the examination room and the operating room."2

In order to create these new doctor/leaders: "We operate rigorous five-week summer preparation institutes in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. Through opportunities for practice, observation, coaching, and study — as well as careful planning and thoughtful reflection — corps members develop the foundational knowledge, skills, and mindsets needed to be highly effective beginning doctors."3

"Corps members (during that five week summer program) provide medical services to patients for approximately two hours each day, under the supervision of experienced doctors. For the first hour, most corps members work directly with four to five patients with significant health issues, which also builds the doctor's skills for patient interaction. For the second hour, corps members take charge of an operating theater, which also builds the doctor's skills in delivering the highest levels of medical care."4

Are you excited now? Your child just got sick, are you ready to rush them to your nearest Doctors for America hospital?

Well, you might be, assuming that your choice is no medical care for your child. Assuming that the real doctors in your community won't take patients on Medicaid or won't take uninsured patients. When your choice is bad or nothing, people will often choose bad. But imagine that you run a hospital in the kind of neighborhood where people like this live and work:

Stephen Bollenbach Retired Co-Chairman & CEO Hilton Hotels Corporation Don Fisher Founder & Chair Emeritus Gap Inc. Lew Frankfort Chairman & CEO Coach, Inc. David Gergen Professor of Public Service Director of the Center for Public Leadership Harvard University Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies Princeton University Leo J. Hindery, Jr. Managing Partner InterMedia Partners Walter Isaacson (Chair) President & CEO The Aspen Institute David W. Kenny Chairman & CEO Digitas Inc. Wendy Kopp Chief Executive Officer & Founder Teach For America Sherry Lansing CEO Sherry Lansing Foundation Sue Lehmann Management Consultant Michael L. Lomax, Ph.D. President & CEO United Negro College Fund Stephen F. Mandel, Jr. Managing Director Lone Pine Capital Anthony W. Marx President Amherst College James M. McCormick Founder, CEO & President First Manhattan Consulting Group Richard S. Pechter Alumnus, Teach For America Maxine Clark Retired Chairman, DLJ Financial Services Nancy Peretsman Managing Director Allen & Company, LLC Alma J. Powell Chair, America's Promise Alliance Paula A. Sneed (Vice Chair) Retired Executive Vice President Kraft Foods, Inc. Sir Howard Stringer Chairman & Group CEO Sony Corporation Lawrence H. Summers Charles W. Eliot University Professor Harvard University G. Kennedy (Ken) Thompson Chairman, President & CEO Wachovia Corporation John Thompson Chairman & CEO Symantec Corporation Gregory W. Wendt Retired Partner Goldman Sachs & Co. Lawrence J. Stupski Chairman Stupski Foundation Senior Vice President Capital Research Jide Zeitlin (Treasurer) Company Founder and Chief Executive Bear Build-A-Bear Workshop [the Teach for America Board] 5

In that case, your hospital probably hires people who have actually been to medical school, who actually have more than five weeks of training. (In World War II US Navy corpsman went through four months of training.6) In your neighborhood's hospital you probably wouldn't imagine that because, say, a person ran the Sony Corporation or was the grandchild of someone who ran the Sony Corporation and could thus get into a prestigious US university, that she or he could instantly be a great doctor due to leadership skills. You would expect more. You would demand more.

The value of great teachers

Who does more damage? The bad doctor or the bad teacher? Well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure in terms of individuals and I'm not sure in terms of society. I have seen great teachers save the lives of students, including, perhaps, mine. I have seen bad teachers destroy the lives of students - lots and lots of students.

But because I am not sure I am demonstrating how much I value the role of teacher. How much I respect that as a profession. I know that being a great teacher, even a good teacher, is incredibly difficult. It takes massive commitment, a tremendous knowledge base regarding how humans learn and develop, significant content knowledge, a lot of observation, and, in almost every case, substantial experience. (I've had a number of jobs in my life. In every case I might have thought I was doing a great job in my first year, but by my third year I realized that had not actually been true.)

There is the fact that in Cuba teachers are among the highest paid people in society. That suggests something about the value that nation puts on education. In the US we value bookies above all others. No profession earns more than those who place bets on the stock markets and other exchanges for others. Those in charge of preparing the next generation for our collective future? Even when we pay then decently, we complain about it, and whine about their amount of "time off."

We don't value teachers. And Teach for America's people - well, they despise teachers. Hell, anyone born rich can be a teacher the way they see it, or at least anyone who can get through Harvard or the University of Michigan. Teaching requires no particular skill set, at least no more of one than it might take to learn a hobby. It is easier (and faster) according to TFA, to learn to teach than to drive, or become the grill person at McDonald's.

This hatred of teaching is rooted in a belief in American education as missionary work. Skills, individual capabilities built from experiences, knowledge base, none of that matters. The best missionaries are the truest believers, and TFA people? They are true believers. "Just behold us, for God loves us, and we are blessed," they say, followed by, "Just act like us, and you too might be eligible for (at least a tiny bit of) God's love." An understanding of who they are teaching? Not important. An understanding of pedagogy? Equally ridiculous. Attention to special needs? Who cares. We believe and we offer them the word. And when we measure them our way we find that they are "improved" above the jungle condition we have otherwise consigned them to.

While poor kids in America's poorest communities get Teach for America, these leaders of society have something different in mind for their own children. the same weekend that The New York Times praised Teach for America, the paper's Real Estate section said this about Scarsdale, New York's schools, "The school system remains tough to beat and is clearly doing all it can to stay that way. SAT averages run more than 100 points higher than the nation’s, and the level of the high school curriculum is such that this year the faculty has begun phasing out Advanced Placement classes and replacing them with a more demanding homegrown version."7

I wondered if the students of TFA teachers outperformed the students of Scarsdale teachers - where teacher pay averages six figures, or 40% higher than even the communities which surround it in Westchester County. The Times called teacher preparation programs "diploma mills," but I guess somehow those "mills" are working - according to the same newspaper - for the children of the Times's editors and their friends and anyone else who can afford a school district with an average house price around $1.4 million (US).

Of course, as you'd expect with the medical analogy I began with, the higher the needs of the students involved, the worse Teach for America hurts: Linda Darling-Hammond: "It is common for these teachers to create a setting in which the kids are under very, very tight control. Special education students and non-native English speakers had the lowest academic growth rates when taught by under-qualified teachers."8

Maybe every 22 or 23-year-old university graduate I've met is a moron compared to the geniuses chosen for TFA, but perhaps, just perhaps, five weeks isn't enough for anyone to learn everything one might need to know about second language acquisition, about the range of cultures in American classrooms (a range not likely to be encountered on the campuses most TFA recruits come from), plus Aspergers, plus ADHD, plus dyslexia, plus dyscalculia, plus CAPD, plus Autism, plus EBD, plus the spectrums of all of these "issues" and the deep variety within each... well, we can't really expect these five-week wonders to do positive things for every student. I think it is a crime that many teacher preparation programs devote only one or two semester courses to the kinds of special needs students who will make up between 25% and 50% of many classrooms. And TFA with just five weeks for the entire study of education? I'm guessing those "teachers" might be missing a few facts about human difference and how those differences mesh with learning needs.

Lowering that bar

I had an email debate about 18 months ago with a dean at an Ivy League university. He's a big TFA fan. Many of the Ivy League elite are. He's not a fan of teacher preparation programs. But then, his university doesn't offer one. They don't really want to think about what teachers need as they enter the classroom, or about how students learn. They don't want to do the work of preparing better, or better equipped teachers. They, like Teach for America, want to create "leaders." Oh good.

I said to the dean, "It seems to me that an MSU teacher ed student spends almost as much time in high needs schools before certification - before beginning to teach - than TFA teachers spend in total." And he told me that was, "probably true," but MSU wasn't 'the norm.' "Wouldn't that make them at least somewhat better prepared?" I asked. He said, "TFA teachers do better than other badly trained or unqualified teachers." Yup. You can't possibly set the bar much lower than that.

Outside of the Republican Party ("You can't expect government to work!" "You can't expect leadership to be competent!") and the TFA-related KIPP Foundation, no one in America sets the bar for success lower than Teach for America.

Here is the key phrase in Teach for America's Mission Statement: "...the training and professional development necessary to ensure their success as teachers in our highest-poverty communities."9 Obviously that is not the "the training and professional development necessary to ensure their success as teachers" in the schools of those who run Teach for America. Those schools, those students, require something more. Of course those schools are filled with wealthy white kids.

Because here's the other key phrase: "The most rigorous study on Teach For America shows that corps members are having a greater impact on students than typically would be expected in a year."10 Than typically would be expected. Yes, they're doing better than a bunch of rich white elitists might expect from a bunch of stupid minority kids. Not - of course - what they'd expect from their kids, but, remember, we're devoted to the idea of "good enough for these types of children."

Let's go back to the hometowns of that TFA Board. Want to become a teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts? "Teachers are required to have a Bachelor’s degree and to hold appropriate Massachusetts teacher licensure/certification."11 Stamford, Connecticut has certification requirements and approved course lists. Tom's River, New Jersey says, "All applicants must possess a NJ LDTC Certification."12 Funny, rich white kids deserve trained, certified teachers. Of course, because rich white districts want to compare their student successes with those of the best districts in the nation. TFA and KIPP don't need trained, certified teachers. Of course they only compare themselves to the worst schools they can find.

This is colonialism at its worst. Imperial reductionism. Just as Iraqis should shut up about conditions created there by American idiocy because, "Saddam was worse!" and Black Rhodesians in the old British Empire were told to shut up because life was, "worse in the Belgian Congo," the students (and parents) offered TFA and KIPP are told to shut up because, "otherwise you get nothing at all."

Social Reproduction

TFA and KIPP embrace these very low expectations because those behind these organizations believe in elite divinity. As inheritors of wealth and privilege in America's Protestant mindset they believe that they must colonize and convert America's poor communities. Scratch the surface of the TFA and KIPP argument and you'll find these assumptions: (1) In order to become truly useful in America minority groups must become as much like white Protestant Americans as possible. (2) There are two ways to speed this conversion, through the forced compliance of repeated ritual (the KIPP school), and through appearing before these poor folks as magnificent white leaders who the poor can emulate (Teach for America).

We shouldn't be surprised. Both these efforts are standard colonial liberalism. Yes, the kind of liberalism associated with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton and Lawrence Summers. Those born rich and powerful who will come down from their summer places to toil and sweat on behalf of the poor, who will give them the gifts of white culture, who will teach them to dress and speak and act in ways unthreatening to those in power. These people could put their efforts into the struggle to alter the circumstances of poverty - re-writing the tax code or equalizing education funding or eliminating the affirmative-action-for-the-rich which dominates Ivy League admissions and corporate hiring - but those are tough things to sell. It is so much easier to givet charity to the poor than to grant them rights.

Alternatives

None of this is to imply that I think America's teacher preparation programs are good. In most cases, they are not. Nor is it to imply that I do not believe in alternative certification programs, I do.

Teacher preparation programs must get much better. They must begin by revolting against the tyranny of a political system that destroys their ability to individually support learners. They must also revolt against a research funding system which defines success by measurements of industrial processing. Then they must help their future teachers to understand the vast, individually-variable world of cognition and child development. They must help them know the fullest range of possible learning routes. And they must help them to know how to fight against the ways in which schools demean and limit children.

And then they must demonstrate it. Every teacher preparation course needs to operate via universal design and differentiated instruction techniques. You can't not model these structures in every course and think that you'll ever change perceptions and practice. And every teacher preparation institution should be running at least one school which demonstrates what is possible, and must stop relying on student teaching apprenticeships which reproduce the system that we know does not work.

And every teacher preparation program must also reach out. If Teach for America actually wanted to improve the schools it is involved in, it would offer alternative routes to certification via community-located teacher training to those from those communities who have proved their commitment, but because of opportunity limitations are now working in the schools driving busses, or serving lunches, or working as classroom para-pros. Yes, I know, if they did that, Gregory's grandson wouldn't have this great line on his resume that proved how much he cared about the poor. But then, the school might have a twenty or twenty-five year teacher, a teacher who would get better and better with support and experience. And a teacher who would actually prove possibility to the children of that community.

It might also be important to note that if 5% of the endowments of the universities at the top of the contributors to the TFA corps was spent annually on actually trained, certified teachers, about 25,000 teachers costing about $150,000 per year could be added to America's schools (in other words, they could do it with a bit of their investment income). And they might be able to pay off the student loans of those teachers as well. In other words, the same people most in love with the TFA idea could solve the problem instantly, if they were willing to make a sacrifice. But that would be, a sacrifice. Instead, they choose the minimalism of charity.

So, the kind of people who now think Teach for America is "good enough for those kids," could be giving all kids the same things they want for their own rich kids. They could. But if you try to point that out they will scream at you, "This is all that's possible right now! And you want to take it away and leave the kids with nothing!" They will never actually start to discuss other ways of using the money which they control. This is important: Teach for America builds dependence - as all charity does. Re-directing resources can, on the other hand, alter the social order, and that has damn little appeal for those who currently sit at the top.

If it is a problem, it demands an actual solution

Teacher training in the United States is not good. It is almost universally conducted in ways that reinforce traditional practice - the kind that doesn't work. In-service teacher education in the United States is not good. There is not the time allotted, nor the money, nor is it situated in place and adapted for each teacher. Teacher pay - and thus teacher recruitment - in the United States is not good. If you want to attract and hold the best you must combine great pay (at least in capitalism-worshiping America) and good working conditions and a bit of status, and we rarely offer any of that. School funding in the United States is awful. The schools with the highest needs consistently have the least money, a system which guarantees a lack of social mobility.

With all those problems, Teach for America and its cheerleaders will tell you that the best solution all of their money and power can deliver is a bunch of untrained bright college graduates sent to be teachers of poor kids for two or three years.

"They" could do different things. "They" - those who fund and run TFA - could fight for real change, or they could use their own wealth and the wealth of the endowments of their favorite universities to fund real change. "They" - those young academic stars who join TFA - could volunteer or accept VISTA-like positions in schools across America, working in classrooms with small student groups, serving as one-to-one student support, providing curriculum extensions in schools which do not have a variety of extra programs, painting and repairing the buildings, driving students without dependable parental transportation to charter schools which might be better individual fits, watching playgrounds, supporting teacher and classroom technology use. But none of that would fit the political or social needs of those involved in TFA. Those actions might not be proof of their inherent superiority, and those actions might not look the same on a resume.

But I think there are better solutions. Just as I know that KIPP is "just good enough for the poor" because Greenwich, Connecticut's schools don't operate that way, I know that TFA is "just good enough for the poor" because Scarsdale, New York doesn't pick teachers that way. And I just don't believe anything that actually encourages the gap between rich and poor in America to be any sort of solution at all.

I think that Teach for America hurts the most vulnerable students in America, not just because it asserts that untrained short-term teachers are "good enough," but because it pretends the easy solution. A solution without sacrifice for the haves in the United States.

But if you feel differently, I'll happily sign you up for the nearest Doctors for America hospital. Trust us. We're bright, we're committed, we've got a bachelors degree in economics - I'm sure your operation will go just fine. Or if not that, perhaps you'd like to drive across the bridge built by our new Engineers for America. You could get there by flying with Pilots for America.

If it's good enough for you to recommend it, shouldn't you risk your life, our your child's life, to prove your point?

- Ira Socol

1 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/mission/mission_and_approach.htm with a few words changed.
2 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/teaching/becoming_exceptional_teacher.htm with a few words changed.
3 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/training.htm#institute_overview with a few words changed.
4 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/training.htm#institute_overview with a few words changed.
5 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/about/our_boards.htm
6 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_Corpsman
7 - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/realestate/18livi.html
8 - http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/4/15/studyRaisesQuestionsAboutTeachForAmerica
9 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/mission/mission_and_approach.htm without changes.
10 - http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/teaching/becoming_exceptional_teacher.htm without changes.
11 - http://www.cpsd.us/HR/Emp_Overview.cfm
12 - http://www.trschools.com/administration/employmentops.asp

Blog Alert! On BBC-Ouch! Goldfish sums up this year's Blogging Against Disabilism Day.
at Schooling Inequality there's a look at some of the recent blogosphere Social Justice debates.
Paul Hamilton on Flypaper. Lon Thornburg on the new text-to-speech phone from Kurzweil.
Karen Janowski's essential Thought for the Day. James Hollis has a great new IWB application.

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

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