I don’t know why we have to keep rediscovering the wheel in education. I guess it’s because the reformers keep imposing bad ideas that teachers know will not work and that violate their professional ethics that it becomes necessary to repeat again and again what used to be common knowledge.
Bill Boyle wrote a lovely reflection on the key ingredients in the classroom: human relationships and affection.
Big data can’t take the place of a caring teacher.
He writes:
“I continue to wonder, why do we attempt to impose technocratic solutions on contexts such as education that require the nexus of human relationships? To be more specific, why do use a market driven model of corporate education reform imposed from the top that uses data abstracted from context?
“It’s kind of like arguing for a first down in the game of basketball.”
He quotes the poet Wendell Berry, who said,
““I will say, from my own belief and experience, that imagination thrives on contact, on tangible connection. For humans to have a responsible relationship to the world, they must imagine their places in it…By imagination we recognize with sympathy the fellow members, human and nonhuman, with whom we share our place. By that local experience we see the need to grant a sort of preemptive sympathy to all the fellow members, the neighbors, with whom we share the world. As imagination enables sympathy, sympathy enables affection. And it is in affection that we find the possibility of a neighborly, kind and conserving economy.”
This is why efforts to replace teachers with machines will not work. And it explains why class size is important. Too many students reduces the time for relationships.
Boyle writes:
“The hard fact of the matter is that this corporatist reform movement and the market fundamentalism that drives it will run their course. And then we will be left all that we’ve ever had from the beginning; each other, and what’s left of the land that we depend on.
“The more we practice affection in the meantime, the better prepared we will be.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Your audience must know Diane that in several schools instructors are using “only” software online programs to assist their ELL students with reading and writing skills. If you have ever taught a child with learning disabilities or a child who is learning English for the first time you know that eye contact and facial expression is key in inspiring their learning. In fact being animated and making it fun and enjoyable works wonders. I would not eliminate the software programs but I would caution parents that this has become a crutch for administrators and teachers who don’t want to or feel they have time to extend emotional effort toward ELL learners. The thing that ELL students need most of all is personal and emotional connections to English speakers. This builds trust and a desire to assimilate into American culture. Without that personal connection there will be no end to the growing sense of alienation immigrants feel. Teachers are not entirely to blame for adopting these methods. It is being pushed upon them by school boards and administrators who have been brainwashed by software marketing companies.
Roxanne, I totally agree with you. As and ESL teacher for over three decades, what I recall the most is the relationships with the students. From the number of visits and invitations I got from former students, I think my former students valued our time together.
In addition to having serious academic needs, many ELLs carry serious emotional baggage from war torn countries or extreme poverty. The ESL or bilingual teacher is often a lifesaver and link to the new culture. Without that connection, some of these fragile students are at risk of failing or even worse. Computer instruction cannot emulate the type of emotional support needed during this critical period of adjustment. Why should private school students receive human interaction from a trained professional, but newcomers to our country are stuck in front of a computer screen, when it has been proven to not work?
I did not teach ESL as long as you did, but I could not agree more. This is just my opinion, but it seems that ESL is very political. I used to hear from other teachers should just be mainstreamed as soon as possible. The legislature is notorious for being tightfisted. Some of my ESL students wrote about experiences that made me weep at night. Too many people making decisions in education want to replace humans with machines. This is terrible, but it does not seem to matter if it will work or not; it’s cheaper.
“Cheap is king” for language and ethnic minorities in our country. This is the message we are sending. We want to firmly establish their second class status here. Instead of democracy for all, we want to exploit our most vulnerable to make more money for corporations. What is sad is that these students have the potential to lead to the next great discovery, if given a firm foundation from qualified teachers that can unlock the potential and a fair chance at opportunity, which I always believed, was an American value.
Overusing computer assisted “learning” and “tutoring” is really a nightmare. We have found it very ineffective for teaching writing and English competency. ROXANNE WROTE “The thing that ELL students need most of all is personal and emotional connections to English speakers. This builds trust and a desire to assimilate into American culture. Without that personal connection there will be no end to the growing sense of alienation immigrants feel.” As and ELL/ELD and foreign language teacher of many years experience I could not agree more. A school must be “aite moran failtean” -a place of many welcomes. My students made a multilingual poster with that slogan as a gift to me. It is in English, Gaelic, Spanish, Hindi and Punjabi. It is multicultured and joyous. It is surrounded by posters that say WELCOME in the language of virtually every language group that has ever passed through my classroom. Teaching English and assimilation cannot be an angry POW forced march with the teacher taking the place of a tormenting Japanese or Nazi guard. I feel that one can only INVITE students to learn a language or a subject. That’s why I begin the year with the benefits students may get from the classroom and how students themselves can teach the teacher and teach the class. For example, I have taught about the Kennedy assassination for many years. It is a subject that interests and fascinates students as do JFK’s rhetoric and his short inspriing presidency. Yet a student made a connection that I had never thought of and shared it with the class. It is not important (really) but somewhat ironic. JFK was shot by an Italian made rife (probably produced during WWII or shortly before) that was captured by the Allies (probably in North Africa or Italy). Everyone knows that. But my student who had read the story of PT 109 and saw the film pointed out that JFK was killed by an Axis made rife and saved by an Axis made rife in 1943. JFK had only two rounds in his pistol when he was being rescued and his third round came from a captured Japanese rifle. It was a small detail but one I had never thought of. But the most remarkable thing about the story is this. I had shared a biblography of intersting books and films on JFK and the student had, on his own time and dime read JFK’s Nation of Immigrants, the story of PT-109 and had watched the film on Netflix. Encouraging students interest in reading and investingating on their own is a very important role for the classroom teacher or parent. Even if it is not “on the test.” Said, student by the way -can anyone doubt it? – an English learner- passed his English proficiency test the first time. He scored “Advanced” on his US and World History STAR9 test. The key to his success was his strength in reading and his intellectual awakening (he was bored in English class and hated the dull stories they read there but he loved reading science fiction and adventure stories and history and that made all the difference. Students must be encouraged to find topics of interest and have some choice in their reading. I believe once the reading habit develops intellectual growth never stops. So teachers should, if necessary teach the basics of a “test” (be aware of what standards are on the test) but a good teacher always ignores the test and teaches BEYOND the test. The real test is life -our inner life and our public life and careers.
“Overusing computer assisted “learning” and “tutoring” is really a nightmare.”
Especially on credit recovery at the secondary level. Sham, Sham, Sham!! But boy it sure makes those graduation numbers look great.
Which is part of the current system that values “credentialing” over actual learning. What do I have to do to get an A, or a diploma, or an administrators certificate (and I think that most going through admin masters are the worst with that thinking).
” I feel that one can only INVITE students to learn a language or a subject.”
You got that one right, Richard! TAGO!
Richard: In my experience the best ESL teachers respect and learn from their students. The best teachers know when to shelter troubled students, and then gets out of the way when students are ready to fly solo. By connecting with students, good teachers understand what individuals require. While there are rules, management should not be one size fits all. It may be compassion and care, or it may be consequences from poor choices students have made. It is the connection with students that guides the teacher in making wise choices to help the student learn and grow.
Well, duh! Teaching is a social activity. Learning can happen anytime, anywhere, alone or in a group, but if you want teaching to happen it is a social activity … period. Why is this so hard for the reformers to understand. Treating teaching as a mechanism that can be tuned from afar misses the mark completely.
“Why is this so hard for the reformers to understand.”
Because most are ignorant (and that’s being extremely nice) di#$h!ts who only give a damn about there own success and more than well-being.
It isn’t hard for them to understand. Perhaps they are guaranteeing their own children’s future as they do not send them to these kinds of schools.
It’s kind of like figuring out all over again that ALL LIVES MATTER! Geez, when will the human race get it right?
Hope I don’t bum you out Sue, but perhaps never!
Wow . . . I just read the very same piece earlier today in Berry’s book, It All Turns on Affection. It’s related to our use of land and property. How industrialization has changed the meaning of property from land ownership to shares and stocks.
If I may correct your statement, Beth:
“How industrialization has changed the meaning of property from land STEWARDSHIP to ownership and shares and stocks.”
Thanks. I was just trying to paraphrase but to point out how the meaning of property has change, which has affected how people, or rather corporations, view the use of land, when there is no connection to it. Have you read much of Berry?
No, I haven’t read any Berry that I know of. Anything in particular I should look for?
Maybe the Gates Foundation can get Kahn to write videos to teach babies to speak. Of course all children start thinking about Kahn, ‘are you my mother?’, so they’ll have to iron out that glitch. Sorry for being sarcastic.
Hilarious, TC!
While visiting my daughter in Texas last week, I discovered an abundance of advertisements for Texas Connections Academy, a free online public education program. My hope is that Texas families reject this false equivalency and stay in public schools.http://texas.connectionsacademy.com/tx/geosearch?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&network=g&utm_campaign=Texas_NonBranded_Search&keyword=virtual%20school&matchtype=p&device=c&creative=44388826784&adposition=1t2&random=16087981952520089
“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at one, I will.” I believe this quote is from Mother Teresa, and it’s in the beginning of Nicholas Kristof’s documentary “Reporter,” in which he explains why he has to focus on one individual’s story, not statistics about what is happening to thousands of people, in order to get readers to care about problems in Sudan, Afghanistan, wherever. I think somewhere in the film it is called “psychic numbing” when we focus on numbers (data) instead of individual people. (I’m ignoring for now his recent columns on education, which are off the mark.) It’s what is so wrong about these business people outside of education forcing their policies on those of us who are on the inside. They aren’t looking at particular children, only data. And money. The only time they focus on a particular individual child is when it is a NONrepresentative child who with “grit” or whatever rose above the rest, proving…whatever it is they want to prove. Right now, my district (Clark County in Nevada) is trying to freeze raises, even ones earned by teachers who earned additional degrees. Yet the state gave us funding for these costs. We spend money on technology, testing, administration etc. but skimp on the people in education who most matter in the children’s lives, on the things teachers believe will help these children the most (like, I don’t know, supplies and textbooks and classes less than 35-40?). Do you know what helps me more as an English teacher than my juniors’ PSAT scores from last year? Knowing them. Whose mother died last summer? Who was gang raped by two students at a party last year? Who is horribly shy and needs encouragement to speak aloud to the class? Who is an avid reader but needs more challenging choices? All of this I find out as the year begins, and all of this comes from knowing my students. I teach my English students about how important context is in their writing. “Well, duh,” is right, Steve. It matters in education as well! Thanks for sharing, Diane.
Your students are fortunate to have you, despite all the inequities and hardships you face.
Just how important are human relationships?
Let me cite an expert witness on behalf of “better education for all.”
Bill Gates.
😳
His 9-23-2005 speech to his alma mater, Lakeside School.
Link: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/speeches/2005/09/bill-gates-lakeside-school
He builds to a thundering conclusion of his three R’s—Rigor, Relevance, Relationships—by leading off:
“Finally, I had great relationships with my teachers here at Lakeside.
Classes were small. You got to know the teachers. They got to know you. And the relationships that come from that really make a difference. If you like and respect your teacher, you”re going to work harder.”
Read the rest. In context. And ignore pleas by the rheephormistas to not quote the Chairman against the Chairman.
He’s more than a hoot when it comes to putting his foot in his mouth. He’s a whole hootenanny in himself.
😎
If the so-called reformers are following business models, perhaps they should check out the book Uplifting Leadership by Andy Hargreaves and Alan Boyle. This book contains numerous examples from businesses, sports and education about the role of leadership and, surprise, the underlying message is the importance of relationships.
This is the key ingredient for student independence. I had 28 students last year in a room with 8 home languages and numerous cultural and interpersonal barriers (some want to collaborate, some want to be left alone). The teacher is the binding agent. If you have a relationship with everyone, are trusted by everyone, provide a sense of security for everyone, then you facilitate shared purpose. There is no better mediator than a mutually respected and liked individual. Without mediation, there will be conflict, whether it is distressing all-out hostility or a simple yet time-consuming misunderstanding. We are not teaching kids to listen to us; we are teaching them to listen to each other. If they trust us, they will ignore us. Considering us inherent, they will gradually learn to not need us, and focus on the life-long work of working together. This is, in my opinion, the work that leads to the greatest learning.
Great post. In my presentation for back to school night I don’t talk about the curriculum much. I do tell the parents that I will try to get to know their children and build a strong relationship with them. I like the phrase “make a connection”. If teachers have a connection with each student they can accomplish a lot in the classroom.
Thank you, Diane.
This simple principle was something I learned early on in my classrooms, but the challenge of living it effectively has been part of the necessary growth in my life. I spent years deepening my understanding of the why of it. Here’s the thing: no one can understand the depth of this truth unless they have been a teacher and gotten thru the initial fears about authority and control. It takes time to learn to enact this aspect of teaching. When we’re young, we often lack the emotional maturity to do it. I’ve come to see that emotional growth as equally central to cognitive development in a teaching and more, as the gateway to spiritual development towards a vocation.
Many teachers cannot reach this place in teaching. Most leave, but others stay, angry and frustrated, and envious of their peers that can find the identity of a caring teacher and harvest the consequences. But just as no one that isn’t a parent should make policy for parenting, no one that cannot or has not found this central joy and purpose in teaching should decide what teachers can/cannot do. When such a person conceptualizes teaching, s/he is partially blinded – denied what Emily Dickinson called, the missing all. I wish those folks would have the decency and humility to hear those that have this all and to learn from them. Their arrogance stifles something of mystery and beauty and ambiguity.
I once had an idea for a story (unfortunately all I can do is imagine plots, haven’t a clue how to tell a story) where a young boy (or girl) is being raised by robots. It seems the parents went white water rafting and disappeared down the river never to be seen again (it is up to the reader to decide if they perished in the river of had just grown tired of the technological world in which they lived and disappeared to create a new life in the wild). As the parents never return the boy’s only relationships are with the robots that are raising him (you have probably figured out this is something like Tarzan and the Apes transplanted to a different kind of jungle). Because he is being raised by robots the boy grows up speaking digital and is totally unaware of the world outside his suite in some high-rise apartment building in some high-rise city of the world. The robots do all the shopping, pay all the bills, buy all the food and clothes, and provide the only “human” contact he has ever known. In some ways he believes he to is a robot. One fine day he gets curious about what lies outside his apartment building. So one day, though his robot told him not to, he wanders outside his apartment and into the world at large. He meets lots of people, but of course speaking digital no one can understand him and he cannot understand anyone else. Of course the boy eventually learns to communicate with real people and at some point relations break down between the humans and the robots and the peace is seriously threatened. However because the boy can speak digital and the language of the land (I am assuming it is English, but it does not have to be) he is able to arbitrate between the two sides. A second reason he can arbitrate between both sides is because he has affection for both sides and relationships with both sides. He brokers the peace.
My point in context of the posting is that relationships and affection do not only provide an avenue for learning and growing intellectually, it teaches us how to negotiate a hostile world without having to be hostile ourselves. Because we care about those we live around achieving peace is more important than getting our way. The more I listen to the political speech that surrounds me the more convinced I am that tyranny is being defined as not getting our own way and because when we do not get our way and as a result see ourselves as victims of tyranny we are justified in our anger and our less than peaceable actions towards those that stand between us an our own way. Everyone who thinks different is an enemy and a tyrant and deserving of whatever consequences befall them. This is no way to run a country let alone a school district. The children see how the adults behave and they are very likely to grow up emulating that behavior. One thing I learned in school is that intelligent people disagree and that those we disagree with though they may be wrong according to our lights they are still honorable people. This is where everything has to begin.
I also teach two online courses and I always respond to students, I discuss the literature with students and maintain a give and take inside the online course room. I have recorded some of the materials so they hear my voice, and there are pictures of me in the course (I used an iPad app to turn a photograph of myself into a cartoon character). Others have commented on the lack of human Interaction in other online courses they have taken and unfortunately I fear that may be true. One of my students in a closing reflection said mine was the first online course where a human being actually read and comment on his essays, actually talked to him (metaphorically of course through emails) the first that felt like a real classroom. I was saddened by this because I see enormous potential for the online course room. In a few of my classes it has enabled students from the Mid-Western United States to interact and discuss things with students from other parts of the world, Asia, South America, and Europe.
Sometimes I think educationally we are still in the Middle Ages where most people never saw the world beyond their village. I think used properly the online class room can help to make a global class room where people from different parts of the world (and here in Massachusetts sometimes Mississippi feels like another part of the world) get to not just learn together but get to know each other as people. It is much easier to hate a group (those Americans, those Chinese) than it is to hate another human being (James or Murasaki). Richard Rodriguez in an interview with Bill Moyers (many years ago) said that the first time he read William Saroyan he realized he was Armenian and the first time he read James Baldwin he realized he was Black. He wasn’t of course, but what he realized by entering into these people’s imagination is that as a human being he had a lot in common with William Saroyan and other Armenians and James Baldwin and other Blacks. I do not think you or I can have this kind of experience with an informational text.
Cordially,
J. D. Wilson, Jr.
JD Wilson: Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimove did write stories about robots teaching students. I think what you do on your online class is wonderful. I have taken only a few classes online (just for fun via American Military University) but the teachers there took phone calls and answered emails and corrected and commented on all the book reviews and essays. By the way I rated the teachers there as good or better than any of the teachers I had at NYU or UVA. I had teachers at UVA who were, let’s be honest, quite a disappointment. I don’t think they ever read a newspaper or a real book (by that I meaning classic literature). A person like that cannot inspire learning they can only indoctrinate. You are quite right that informational texts have their place but they cannot communicate certain experiences. Many historians rarely or ever quote poetry or fictional works (a great mistake in my opinion). However, Andrew Roberts in his masterfull book STORM OF WAR made use of fictional works such as KAPUT to give a perspective of the Russian front that I had never read anywhere. It is a perfect example of what you are talking about. Other examples would be to read Dickens to learn about child labor or the industrial revolution or the days when there were debtor’s prison and steal bread may have meant transportation or even the death penalty. Events like the Irish Potato Famine or the Highland Clearances cannot be told by “biography” or “history” alone. The true story is found in the songs, poems and in the fictional accounts of the dispossed, the exiles and the emigrants. The conquerered and dispossed do not write the histories -the winners do. But their suffering and their travail was very very real. Understanding the suffering of the defeated, the poor, the dispossed teaches us imporant lessons about justice. Something to think about.
“The hard fact of the matter is that this corporatist reform movement and the market fundamentalism that drives it will run their course. And then we will be left all that we’ve ever had from the beginning; each other, and what’s left of the land that we depend on.
Unfortunately, Bill Boyle has described a region destroyed by tornado, tsunami, hurricane, flood, volcano, avalanche, fire or some other natural disaster. Sadly though, this one is self-inflicted.
Reformers are not a monolith.
Some want to be able to eliminate less effective teachers without doing the work due process entails.
Some want to eliminate unions and privatize schools, part of their free-market ideology. Some are married to their vision of religious schools that in their minds are more efficient at reaching everyone, in denial about the selectivity of these schools and the economic situations of the teachers in some cases;
Some do not want to spend good money on children who refuse to take advantage of schooling, having no patience with the mental framework from which these students operate.
Some are interested in using technology for their own aggrandizement as well as efficiency.
Some are interested in providing an escape from schools populated by violent students and rules that protect these unsocialized kids.
All are caught up in the mantra I first heard in 1998: the teachers/unions are the problem.
But once the problem is eliminated, it will be business as usual. Hire cheap (teachers should work for love not money.) It’s the kids fault they don’t learn. Keep taxes low. Every individual for himself.
These cheap teachers won’t save money because most charters make profit and pay for administrators at the top six figures. The splintering of services and fixed costs could be rolled into existing public budgets. Instead, taxpayers are paying for duplicate services in more sites. Charters also spend money lobbying and advertising. The system is highly inefficient.
As far as students attending unsafe, under sourced urban public schools, this should be a national shame. The states should not have been allowed to get away with such blatant inequities and discriminatory practices for decades. Instead, the states and feds are scapegoating the teachers that are willing to work under such inhospitable conditions. Most of the problems in urban schools are not the fault of the teachers. The way we fund schools is institutionalized discrimination. This is not the fault of unions or teachers.
Reblogged this on Creative Delaware.
““It’s kind of like arguing for a first down in the game of basketball.””
TAGO!
““The more we practice affection in the meantime, the better prepared we will be.”
Another TAGO!
(Although I personally find it impossible to “practice affection” with those who seek to destroy/privatize the commons that all are a part of.)
Lately, it seems as I’ve been noticing more and different commentators responding on the “site to discuss public education for all”.
I hope that trend continues!!!
Especially if they have differing thoughts/opinions/theories/ideologies and idiologies than what the “mainstream” of us long time posters do!!!
Though a connection with students is imperative in student motivation and gives comfort in the learning environment, we cannot disregard the knowledge of pedagogy and other skills that must be balanced in order to have a successful classroom. I’ve been in education for over 15 years. I’ve worked with all kinds of teachers. I’ve worked with lovely people who know their students well, but do not have a clue about pedagogy. These kids are failing. They may have a high self-esteem and love coming to school because of their classroom community facilitated by a very caring teacher. But they are not learning. They are failing. This is unacceptable too. Why can’t we have it all? A caring teacher who gets to know his/her students as “whole children,” but also has a deep knowledge of pedagogy, can prioritize all of the crazy expectations from state and district, AND can manage a safe, productive classroom? We cannot simply focus on one of these. A teacher has to have a secure knowledge of how to manage it all. THAT’S why we keep going over and over this. It’s not ONE thing. It’s many things and the balance of all of it. Keep in mind, people making decisions in education are not in the classroom and can only make judgments based on THEORY. THEORY isn’t reality. With no realistic perspective of this balancing act from decision makers, we will never move forward.