Peter Greene is our greatest debunker of phony ideas. Today he takes on a program called “the Learning Machine,” which big-time thought leaders are promoting. Think of a program that can “build intelligence.” Think of a mechanistic approach to human development. Think of turning out people that meet the specifications of their designers. Think of humans programmed to be corporate tools.
Learning Machine’s website has the phrase “Build Intelligence” right there on their page, which gives you an idea of were they’re coming from. But it’s this post from Natalie Smolenski, “Cultural Anthropologist & Dedicated Account Manager at Learning Machine,” that really captures just how deeply and fundamentally wrong this particular band of education reform is.
In “A DSM for Achievement,” Smolenski lays out how educated human beings can be produced just like toasters or wood screws. And do note– the whole article is not just Smolenski whipping something up on her own, but spinning off of a speech by Arthur Levine, President of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, delivered as the keynote at the 2016 Parchment Conference on Innovating Academic Credentials. This is not just some insane notion from the fringes, but an insane notion that a lot of Really Important People are attached to.
I have a bedrock belief that sanity eventually conquers crazy ideas, no matter who else endorses them.
The fight to beat them back is very time-consuming. But it is a fight that is worth having.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.
Albert Einstein
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Well, my response to cheap credential programs for the middle and lower classes instead of education is what it is always is- let the top 10% go first.
When they stop planning their children’s entry to Harvard in preschool and replace all that with “skill credential badges” THEN we can adopt the theory.
I don’t want to be the experimental population. They should go first. Try it out in your own schools. Let us know how it goes. After Stanford adopts it we’ll “scale up” to community colleges, okay?
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Technology is great, but is not a replacement for the most powerful computer – the human mind. Neuroscientists put a dead fish in an fMRI and it showed brain activity.
“The trouble is, what is “standard” activity can vary from one object to another, or even from person to person. So these software packages and statistical tests have to make a lot of assumptions, and sometimes use shortcuts, in separating real activity from background noise.”
Of course people cannot be standardized, but it will take time to get the public to stop worshiping tech billionaires and to accept the truth. The best teachers are human, professional teachers. Period.
http://qz.com/725746/a-deep-flaw-has-been-discovered-in-thousands-of-neuroscience-studies-so-why-arent-neuroscientists-freaking-out/
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I;m in favor of this:
“Khan Lab School was founded to develop new, personalized practices that center around the student. We create and test learning experiences to share with the world. In keeping with Sal Khan’s One World Schoolhouse philosophy, the school is an extended-year, extended-day, mixed-age program with a collaborative, project-based learning approach.
We do not have homework, grade levels, or grades, and the school is mastery-based. The main focus in all subjects is leveraging world-class teacher-designers to build a community that encourages inquiry and self-direction.”
Let’s use pricey private schools for experiments. I don’t mind being a “late adopter”. The better-off people can take a turn as the experimental subjects.There’s less risk for them,because whether it “works” or not they’ll probably be fine.. It makes sense.
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We should look at Nazi Germany, communist China or North Korea to see how attempts to standardize a population have worked out. Humans are not standard, nor should they be. Standardization stifles creativity and innovation. Why do you think the Chinese keep stealing our intellectual property? They can imitate, but struggle with creation. Diversity is the key to developing individual talents, and there are many different types of intelligence. People can contribute to a society in many different forms. There is no one right path for all of us; we each must find our own path.
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Exacto! Thanks, RT
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Wish I could post a picture of square standardized watermelons here. The picture would be my response. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40LYwPq2sCM
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Oh, how sad to think that this actually IS the big-money tech billionaire educational GOAL.
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Humans are not fungible. Every needs to read “Brave New World” I am happy I am a Gamma and not an Alpha.
You absolutely cannot make this stuff up
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According to Arthur Levine,
“Over time, we really need to build those assessments on analytics and student learning, which are growing so big. We need to embed them in the assessment of curriculum — to function a lot like a GPS — discovering student misunderstandings in real time and getting them back on track.” If you look at today’s testing, our high-stakes testing, it comes too late. The problem with it is, it lets us know who has failed to achieve what it is we’re testing….”
“Imagine if your GPS worked that way? You can’t. You would get readings once an hour. When you started you were 20 miles away from where you were going. An hour later you’re 70 miles away from where you’re going. You’re going in the wrong direction, recalculating. That’s not real useful and neither is testing. It needs to function the same way as our GPS’s do.”
I read Arthur Levine’s effort to justify the statements above as if the endless pursuit of accuracy, correct answers, and efficient paths to known destinations is the mission of education. He also seems to view curriculum as a by-product of assessment. His “future of education” pronouncements implied that everything should be dumped that is not of immediate utility. Let place-based universities become quaint relics.
Then I looked at some features of the Learning machine website. One menu option offered an elaborate rationale for the design process that produced the Learning Machine’s logo. This discussion turned out to be a lesson in mathematical thinking and a great case of over-rationalizing the meanings of various combinations of old-fashioned grid or pixel-based lettering. Add an exalted sense of self-importance achieved by eliminating any bright colors that might be associated with joyfulness in learning. Choose a font based on a hodgepodge of words, use black and white letters, pretending that all this is solid reasoning for the selection of Helvetica, a vintage 1957 font (now the standard for NYC subway signage, also used by SAAB, IBM, BMW, Staples, Kawasaki and Panasonic). The pretentiousness and precise explanation of reasoning struck me as analogous to proposing GPS as a model for thinking about education. https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/our-new-logo-system-2cf07fcd1aa1#.tm1d9efty
In addition to Learning Machine logo, the website includes logos for Stanford and Yale universities (no detail on relationships) and AutoDesk (a multipurpose software for 3D imaging and visual effects, see Wikipedia) and the Space Telescope Science Institute operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under contract for NASA (Hubble and Webb telescope research and imaging) http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-extends-hubble-space-telescope-science-operations-contract
I found it interesting that Levine actually seems to be promoting a form of education that leaves very little opportunity for studies university programs in astronomy and research in astrophysics or collaborations among them.
The Learning Machine website also includes the logo of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I was surprised by the apparent reasons for having SAIC in this mix. It is not for any far-out ideas from faculty or student projects. It seems to be included in order to showcase software marketed by Learning Machine. The software is an information management system—a gateway and repository for processing application materials from students—high school transcripts, standardized tests scores, letters of reference, images from digital portfolios and with modules for the performing arts (audition videos)–huge data dashboards http://blog.slideroom.com/topic/admissions
I am with Peter Greene on this. I have also read numerous future scenarios commissioned by Knowledgeworks.org. The newest one envisions “educator swarms” and “pit crews for kids,” “extreme educators,” “self-improving learning systems,” “new benefactors for education” (a pitch for profit seekers in education). The futurists say we need to “optimized selves,” negotiate “new machine partnerships,” create “self-managing institutions,” consider school financing with “corporate and venture investments as alternatives to property taxes” and so on. Anything to dehumanize education, remove interactions of students and teachers while calling all of that “personalized” learning. http://www.knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/forecast-4-future-learning-education-partners-code.pdf
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Laura,
Thank you for dredging up all that awful jargon and showing it to be empty and without soul or brain.
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