revenge of the nerds

Had never heard of this video and am guffawing as I watch. I LOLLed, literally, when I reached the part where one of the math guys says Salman Khan "really ought to do a handwriting video, too."



Karim Kai Ani (Khan Academy: The Hype and the Reality) says Khan replaced the video, but quotes Khan's reaction as: “It’s kind of weird...when people are nitpicking about multiplying negative numbers.”

Question: Why is Salman Khan a rock star?

Seriously.

Because that's what he is. He was the keynote at this year's so-called Celebration of Teaching and Learning, and he was a rock star. They had to post guards outside the room where he gave his workshop to keep the crowds out.

I blame the multi-verse.

which century is it?

Heard at the "Celebration":

"We have 21st century students, 20th century teachers, and 19th century schools."

This witticism was a special favorite of the empaneled Celebrants, though how exactly a sweeping condemnation of the entire U.S. public school system and its teachers jibes with the theme of Celebration, I don't know. Each time I heard it (we heard it often), I was reminded of Ed's observation, lo these many years ago, that since schools are teaching the 21st century skills, it falls to us, the parents, to teach the 19th century ones. True.

In any event, according to the panelists, the solution to our 3-century mix-up seemed to be, variously, more technology, less content, much less testing, Finnish levels of respect for teachers, accountability for parents, a focus on equity instead of excellence (Finland again), and taxpayer funding of college degrees for teachers. Plus lots and lots of Salman Khan videos for students to watch at home, freeing teachers to do the fun discussions and group projects at school. Whoopee!

I'm sure that will work.

project-based assessment at the "Celebration"

The lead presenter in the Workshop on "project-based assessment" told us that, in college, half the knowledge a "technology major" learns freshman year is obsolete by the middle of sophomore year, so "content doesn't matter."

That is a direct quotation. I wrote it down.

"Content doesn't matter."

Also "technology major."

Look it up

Have just this moment realized I forgot to post an account of my exchange with the WNET staffer at the "Celebration."

Unfortunately, I'm fresh out of energy.

Boiled down, the encounter began with the WNET person saying Salman Khan should not be "allowed" to teach in New York schools because "he's 19th century."

It ended with the WNET person saying there's no reason for people to memorize things because—and here she held her cell phone aloft—"I can look things up on my phone."

When I said, "Can you look up calculus on your phone?" she made a face.

Barnes & Noble: no discount for adjuncts or school volunteers

Dear Ms. Hjulstrom:

I am contacting you to follow up on the email exchange below, which includes your paragraph citing teachers who “pay for classroom materials out of their own pockets.”

I am an adjunct instructor at a small 4-year college. I attended last weekend’s “Celebration of Teaching and Learning,” where I was denied a “teacher” discount on books for sale in the Barnes and Noble exhibit.

At my college, I teach the most remedial English composition course. Students are placed in my class because, after 13 years of schooling, they need a college instructor to teach them how to write a 5-paragraph essay. Many of my students are low-income; most have taken out loans to pay for their education.

I have no job security, no health benefits, no pension. I pay out of pocket for all books, journal subscriptions, and travel related to my teaching.

Colleges everywhere in the country are experiencing budget cuts, as a quick glance at the newspapers will confirm; my department has nearly exhausted its copier budget mid-semester. I make my own copies at home. I pay for my own paper, printer, and supplies.

At the Celebration, the Barnes and Noble book tables were laden with works by Charlotte Danielson, Linda Darling-Hammond (who appeared on a panel and conducted a book signing), Douglas Reeves (ditto), and other assorted high-profile names in the public education world. These works are not intended for classroom use, and it is disingenuous at best of you to say so.

Catherine Johnson, Ph.D.
Irvington, NY

My purchase: ACTIVATE: A Leader’s Guide to People, Practices, and Processes by Douglas Reeves and John Hattie

Major sponsors of the Celebration of Teaching and Learning:
MetLife
National Education Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In the same email chain, Ms. Hjulstrom also refused discounts to school volunteers and school board members. (School board members are not paid in New York state.) Only "teachers, principals, and select staff" are eligible for the book discount.

My district, where average teacher compensation is approximately $130K including pension and benefits, sent a delegation of teachers and principals to the "Celebration." We funded their registration ($175/day), and we paid the cost of any substitute teachers needed to replace them in the classroom.

I don't know whether any of them bought any books, but they received a Barnes and Noble discount if they did.

mixed-level classrooms in high-SES districts

During her workshop on "Project Based Assessment," one of the presenters at the misnamed "Celebration of Teaching and Learning" made a comment that struck me.

She said she had been a teacher in an affluent community, and as a result she had had an extremely wide variation in her students' instructional levels. The reading levels in her 6th grade class ranged all the way from first grade to college level.

That enormous range made group projects more or less a requirement, in her view. When students whose reading level ranges from 1st grade to college work together, the differentiation handles itself. (Her actual words may have been: "They differentiate themselves," perhaps. Unfortunately, my iPad erased my notes.)

It had never occurred to me that affluent districts might have substantially more variability inside the classroom than less affluent districts, though as I think about it, it makes sense.

If it's true that teachers routinely see extremely wide variation in ability and instructional level in high-SES schools, this is another case where the use of group means as the only measure of success is particularly deadly in affluent districts.

parents need a union, part 2

I saw a comment from March 2011 (on the occasion of last year's Celebration of Teaching and Learning) remarking on the number of accusations of "teacher bashing" compared to "parent bashing":

Joe Nathan 24. Mar, 2011 at 2:34 pm #
John, when is questioning and challenging legitimate, and when is it “teacher bashing.” I ask because the term “teacher bashing” is used constantly.

What I also see a lot of is criticism of parents for doing a bad job, and students for being apathetic, disinterested, difficult to teach, rowdy and on and on. But I don’t see anyone using the words “parent bashing” or “students bashing.” Why not?

Seems to me that many educators regard any questioning or challenging as “teacher bashing.” The term is used constantly. A quick google search found more than 1.6 million references.

That got me curious.

Status of "teacher bashing" meme today:

Google search for the phrase teacher bashing sans quotation marks: "About 6,330,000 results"
Google search for the phrase parent bashing sans quotation marks: "About 3,790,000 results" (the first couple of pages have nothing to do with schools or foundation executives bashing parents)

Results with quotation marks:
152,000 for "teacher bashing"
22,800 for "parent bashing" (and, again, parent bashing is not something done by school personnel or education foundations)

Parents need a union.

And a meme.

21st century skills: back to the future

email from a friend:

21st Century skills are nothing but the rehashed SCANS skills.

They are workforce skills translated into Outcome Based ed. The Ed Establishment changes the name of OBE to Competency based ed, Standards Based Ed. ect. It's easier to throw parents off the track if they change the name and re-sell it as new. Hard to find the failures on the Internet with a different name.

It all goes back to Marc Tucker's vision and transforming the schools to become Polytechnic schools.

Wow.

Live and learn.

Here are the SCAN skills, invented in 1992:

SCANS Workplace Competencies: knowing how to allocate time, money, and materials; interpersonal skills such as working on teams, teaching others, and negotiating; using, evaluating, and communicating information; understanding social, organizational, and technological systems; and effectively using technology.
U.S. Department of Labor, Learning a Living: A Blueprint for High Performance, Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, April 1992

The 21st century skills people took out "allocating time, money, and materials" and put in "creativity," but otherwise these are essentially the same thing.

at the Celebration

The "Celebration of Teaching and Learning" was such a miserable experience that I refused to return for the second day. Instead, I'm spending my Saturday recovering my equilibrium & trying to find words to describe the scene.

"Aggrieved and angry" come to mind.

The teachers are aggrieved and angry; the union leadership is aggrieved and angry; the poo-bahs and the toadies are aggrieved and angry. The lady from Scholastic was downright offensive (see below) in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way. I will not be making purchases from Scholastic book fairs in the near future.

The worst of the lot was Gene Wilhoit, who is angry at all of America. "Americans don't value education," he said, his face hard. "Americans are complacent."

He went on at length, but iPad ate my notes, and I didn't think to get out my cell phone to film him. I hope someone did because the country needs to see what these people say (and how they say it) when they think parents are out of earshot. "Americans don't understand that education is important to the future," he said.

Yes, indeed. That's why we have 21-year olds graduating college with a lifetime of student loan payments to look forward to. Because we don't value education. (Speaking of college loans, the unions want taxpayers to fund college tuition for teachers and are clearly mobilizing opinion among the rank and file. So that's on the horizon.)

Wilhoit and the others had just come from a two-day meeting with leaders from countries that have good schools, and their experience at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession seemed to be the source of their anger. Each panelist offered up his take-away (e.g. free college for teachers), and all of them speechified about "systems" and "support for teachers" and "respect" and the like.^* None of it made much sense. They all agreed that although our schools are terrible, our teachers are great, or as great as they can be, considering.

It was Wilhoit who came closest to voicing the thought they were all managing to convey without speaking the words: We would have better schools if we had a better country.

Some celebration.

^*Obligingly, Arne Duncan's person told the gathering that the White House is launching a new initiative with the acronym RESPECT. She looked miserable, sitting there amongst the RttT haters.