The high-tech learning “platform” called Summit has been controversial, but nowhere more than in Brooklyn, where high school students walked out of school to protest the amount of time they spend online.
Susan Edelman writes in the New York Post:
Brooklyn teens are protesting their high school’s adoption of an online program spawned by Facebook, saying it forces them to stare at computers for hours and “teach ourselves.”
Nearly 100 students walked out of classes at the Secondary School for Journalism in Park Slope last week in revolt against “Summit Learning,” a web-based curriculum designed by Facebook engineers, and bankrolled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.
It’s annoying to just sit there staring at one screen for so long,” said freshman Mitchel Storman, 14, who spends close to five hours a day on Summit classes in algebra, biology, English, world history, and physics. “You have to teach yourself.”
Listen to the students. They make more sense than the adults. Not always
Summit stresses “personalized learning” and “self-direction.” Students work at their own pace. Teachers “facilitate.” Each kid is supposed to get 10 to 15 minutes of one-on-one “mentoring” each week.
Mitchel said his teachers sometimes give brief lessons, but then students have to work on laptops connected to the Internet.
“The distractions are very tempting,” he said. “I have seen lots of students playing games instead of working.”
Kids can re-take tests until they pass — and look up the answers, he added: “Students can easily cheat on quizzes since they can just copy and paste the question into Google.”
Listen to the students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m thrilled the students are speaking up against this computerized-teaching. It’s obvious that starting at a screen based on a binary system will be brutally boring, and frankly, shame on the grown ups for pushing this. It’s a cheap, below-par, substitute for a real teacher, who is engaging, understands nuances, and creates community in the classroom. So-called “personalized learning” is the opposite, and shouldn’t be allowed as a substitute for top-notch curriculum and actual teachers.
👍👏👍
Ed Deform Newspeak
Personalized learning: Learning that does not take place in a transactional relationship among persons
Pearsonalized learning: “learning” that takes place in a CONtractual relationship with Pearsons.
LMAO. Exactly.
I’m surprised at Chan-Zuckerberg. Wasn’t she a teacher for a long time? Didn’t she notice that her teacher-student relationship was a huge part of “personalized” learning? They act as if they have never researched a thing about children’s psychological, social, cultural, or even spiritual development. Most move towards “learning on their own” only gradually and even in college most of us do better when we are in a context of learning with other human beings.
Someone needs to do a study about what happens to people, and what life qualities become stripped away, when they become rich and powerful. How distressing.
“Someone needs to do a study about what happens to people, and what life qualities become stripped away, when they become rich and powerful.”
Someone has: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/
Whoa! An extremely powerful article. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are brain damaged! Now I know why it has been noted in the past that Gates’ behavior has an autistic flavor to it. Thanks for that link, dienne.
dienne77 So glad to get this referenced article. I love the Atlantic, but don’t read it as frequently as I should. Hubris, indeed. Thank you. Now we need to make a list of what to look for in ourselves, for instance:
I am suffering the effects of hubris overload if I . . . .
I am greedy if I . . . .
I commonly separate the means from the ends if I . . . .
I am involved in transactional-ONLY relationships if . . . .
I have self-destroyed my humanity if I . . .
CBK
There is an important question here.
Was the brain damage a result of becoming rich and powerful or did they become rich and powerful because of the brain damage?
The authors refer to the power paradox: once powerful, we lose some of the capacity that allowed us to become powerful in the first place.
I think it is far more plausible that it was precisely the lack of empathy that facilitated the rise to power. Lack of empathy is key in cases of sociopathy and psychopathy, which also tend to be overrepresented among CEOs, politicians and others in positions of power. The fact that many of these people used unscrupulous means to get where they got to is an indication that the brain damage preceded the power.
SomeDamPoet and Dienn77 I followed the links in that article on hubris and found that there IS a list, and also a short video that WOWS. Here are both:
The below is copied from the site and the link to the video is below that:
“14 Symptoms in Full
This is a full version of the symptoms originally put forward by Owen and Davidson2.
“Some symptoms could be associated with other conditions such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So the stipulation is that “in making the diagnosis of Hubris Syndrome, three or more of the defining symptoms should be present, at least one of which should be among the five components identified as unique.
“A propensity to see the world primarily as an arena in which to exercise power and seek glory
“A predisposition to take actions which seem likely to cast the individual in a good light – taken in part in order to enhance their image
“A disproportionate concern with image and presentation
“A messianic way of talking and a tendency to exaltation in speech and manner
“An identification with the nation or organization – to the extent that they regard the outlook and interests of the two as identical (unique factor)
“A tendency to speak of themselves in the third person or use the royal ‘we’ (unique)
“Excessive confidence in the individual’s own judgement and contempt for the advice or criticism of
others
“Exaggerated self-belief, bordering on a sense of omnipotence, in what they personally can achieve
“A belief that rather than being accountable to the mundane court of colleagues or public opinion, the real court to which they answer is much greater: history or god
“An unshakable belief that in that court they will be vindicated (unique)
“Loss of contact with reality; often associated with progressive isolation
“Restlessness, recklessness and impulsiveness (unique)
“A tendency to allow their ‘broad vision’, especially their conviction about the moral rectitude of a proposed course of action, to obviate the need to consider other aspects of it, such as its practicality, cost and the possibility of unwanted outcomes (unique)
“Incompetence in carrying out a policy, where things go wrong precisely because too much self-confidence has led the leader not to worry about the nuts and bolts of a policy.
** ‘Hubris Syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years’, David Owen and Jonathan Davidson, Brain 2009: 132; 1396-1406 (article available on this website)”
BRIEF VIDEO TALK:
http://www.daedalustrust.com/about-hubris/how-hubris-syndrome-arises/
Origins & causes | Daedalus Trust
Hubris Syndrome is an ‘acquired personality change’ ie. brought on over a period of time. It is sparked by a specific trigger – exercising power.
http://www.daedalustrust.com
CBK
Priscilla Chan is a pediatrician. She was never, to my knowledge, a teacher.
However, she always thanked her teachers in public schools she attended for believing in her.
Apparently she doesn’t make a connection between her experience and what CZI funds
I apologize if I shared this before. I sold cars in a summer between school years once when I was teaching (the best job I’ve ever had to learn about human nature) and was miserable at the job. My wise supervisor, who had been selling cars for 40 years, pulled me aside one day and said, “You know what’s da hardest thing [New Orleanian accent] about our job? Every sumbitch dat walks through dat door thinks dey know more bout your job den you do!” I’ve learned since that this is doubly true for teachers, politicians and government officials.
dianeravitch Thanks for the correction about Chan-Zuckerberg’s experience. I remember now: pediatrician, not teacher. I think also the common thread is a lack of self-reflection, and at least the kind that is steered by other-than a principle of self-appreciation.
Why do they continue to think that teaching is not a PROFESSION and that education is not a RESEARCH/THEORY-RICH field? Are they still laboring under the ignorant and FALSE IDEA that, if you work with children, you must be childlike?
And I say that knowing that, like ANY field, there are many problems an in-house disagreements–which is why the field is RICH in the real sense. CBK
CBK, my retentive side has to comment on one thing. In my view, calling someone childlike is one of the highest complements you can give anyone. To me it means one has a fascination, curiosity, and optimism about the things they do and want to experience. It’s very different, again in my view, from being childish or immature.
GregB Yes–I agree. However, in this context of professionalism and field autonomy and excellence, it’s a term of contempt and diminishment of value by those who think teachers ignorant and teaching as a lesser profession. CBK
“compliments” doggone spellcheck and poor proofreading
We have personalized learning for all science classes in our high school. My son is in one of the classes. They are tested constantly- I mean constantly- I estimate they must spend about half of each class period taking online tests.
They just take the tests over and over until they get a “7/10” – that’s all they talk about “5/10, 6/10, 7/10”
The whole program is like an elaborate, over-hyped standardized test.
One benefit of whole class instruction is that it is communal. Kids share the experience with each other. They get something meaningful they can talk to each other about. I love hearing kids talking to each other about the lesson as they leave my class. Chan-Zuckerberg casually destroys this.
So the reading or viewing short instructional content is one part of “personalized learning” and then the huge amount of testing is another part, but what they SELL to parents is “hands on” learning. That’s supposed to be the benefit- in return for all this time spent online the kids will do group projects.
What this means in practice is your child will spend 95% of time reading or viewing short pieces online and testing. and 5% of time doing group projects.
If they goal was kids doing group projects for 5% of the time why didn’t they just add the projects and skip the “blended learning” program altogether?
It goes back to the solid fact that computer learning is really an adjunct…it is not the main course and never will be…it has its place but should not be thought of as a be all. It has its limits and we need to acknowledge that and work with it as an adjunct.
I agree.
The computer is a tool, not a teacher.
The second the computer is viewed as anything more than a tool in any discipline is the second it is being misused.
In science, for example, when the computer (and program) is viewed as a sort of Oracle to predict the future, one runs into the same sort of issue.
The EU has passed a law protecting people from the data mining that Facebook and Google do. There are no such laws for Americans. We are merely rats in a maze waiting to be exploited by corporate interests. Corporations and billionaires continue to undermine any democratic rights including authentic, free public education. We fail to protect our young people from Silicon Valley’s array of products. Bravo to young people standing up against what they know is wrong. I hope they serve as an example to other cities that believe that poor urban students should get what corporations decide they should have, a faux digital education.https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2018/05/24/613983268/a-cheat-sheet-on-europe-s-sweeping-privacy-law
My son says even the “group projects” piece doesn’t work because they’re put into groups and all the kids are at a different place in the material. So they can’t work together as a group because some are 3 sections ahead and some are 3 sections behind.
He says the kids who haven’t moved thru the material yet and are given a project honestly say they haven’t covered the material yet, which means the project has to be geared to the students who are moving most slowly thru the material, which is exactly the issue “personalized learning” was supposed to address.
Also- I don’t mean to be a cynic but ed reformers must be aware that the oldest marketing tactic in the world is the “free!” offer that hooks the customer and then once you’re roped in and dependent on the program they start billing.
Ed tech didn’t invent this. It’s- I don’t know- 500 years old?
I don’t understand why people aren’t more wary of “free”.
There is a line in the tech world: If something is free, you are the product. (I.E., your data, which they collect and sell)
I think even teachers commonly want to hurry things up in a way that betrays a common forgetfulness of what it took for them/us to get to where we are. It cannot be hurried, and (as some are finally finding) it must include experienced dead-ends and failures to move beyond. I think these “helpful” rich people forget that authentic education is a full thing–it’s a LONG build-up of human experiences; scaffold-like; and organic. There is of course better and worse educational organizations. But you cannot reach into an acorn and grab-out an oak tree; and the seed won’t grow well without appropriate timing and a regenerative context.
But that’s what they seem to want to do. I think, the REALITY of hubris aside, even the well-meaning rich are also infected with the impatience and forgetfulness that also inflects most of us. The only difference is they can afford to make those faults systematic and to impose their narrow-minded influence on others. And THAT, coupled with hubris, makes them dangerous to us all. CBK
These students are our future!!!
Marian Cruz Yes, our future; and let’s “sing” their teachers. CBK
So how much did this curriculum cost? Why weren’t parents consulted. What does the Superintendent have to say for himself and his executive staff of do nothings. Hasn’t Facebook done enough to harm America already. There phony 1 million dollars to help the schools in Newark New Jersey. That money went to everyone but children because it was a marketing pitch. Oprah, Corey Booker, Bloomberg and the rest of wall street allowed to destroy our children’s future.
. Facebook doesn’t even fix their own vicious posting done by the hateful Right. Reporters inform them when postings need to be removed so so much for there new war room that was suppose to be in charge of the hate posting.
.
Facebook is involved in education just like the rest of the fake educators are. I am so proud of these children. Stand up for yourself because no one else in authority will. Children are just pawns in the destruction of America and all that is good for this country
However we voted on Tuesday and we will hold every last one of these corrupt politicians responsible going forward…
Silicon Valley and other vendors like Pearson buy the people at the top so they may decide what happens to those at the bottom. What they decide is not evidence based. They get to make money and use young people as guinea pigs. This is a corrupt system in which our politicized system is allowing commercial interests to be inserted in our schools. I hope you can hold so called representatives accountable as this is reckless policy. It is not based on the needs of students. It is based on cronyism and payoffs, not education.
I just read a great book that everyone needs to read. It’s written by 2 veteran teachers. It’s filled with research as well as a strong understanding around learning.
The book is “Screen Schooled” by Joe Clement and Matt Miles
Chan-Zuckergerg have two daughters, both too young to be in grade school. Nevertheless, the test I am always looking for is that if these philanthropists will enroll their own kids in the education initiatives that they promote, then I’ll start taking them seriously. But for now, theirs is more of a patronizing attitude toward ‘commoners.’
CZI, I expect, will either put their own children in a Waldorf school where technology is banned, or have tutors at home of the highest quality. For fear of kidnapping.
Many Silicon Valley executives put their own children in tech-free schools.
I just read a PR article about Zuckerberg. He’s called a genius. HUH? He’s NO genius. All Zuckerberg did was use what was already in place paid for by us, Tax Payers. He didn’t invent the Internet and neither did Gates.
HOORAY for the students.
They too don’t want to: Drink poison to quench thirst.
Well, the first thing Suckerberg did was steal Fakebook from his “best friend”. Then he used what was already in place paid for by the taxpayers….
I suggest educators close their FB accounts and use another platform to keep in touch with friends and family. Make it known to Zuckerberg and advertisers that you stand up for public education, not for warehousing children in front of computer screens. I promise you Zuckerberg, his wife and his co-conspirators wouldn’t tolerate the expensive private schools their children attend replacing real live active education for this garbage.
Can you imagine an exclusive private school telling new parents that their child will be in front of a screen for most of their instructional time ?
I suggest educators close their FB accounts and use another platform to keep in touch with friends and family. Make it known to Zuckerberg and advertisers that you stand up for public education, not for warehousing children in front of computer screens. I promise you Zuckerberg, his wife and his co-conspirators wouldn’t tolerate the expensive private schools their children attend replacing real live active education for this garbage.
Kids subjected to personalized learning are already experiencing what abject boredom really feels like. Clicking the days away is gradually transforming them into silicon zombies. Any old-school teacher who actually teaches their content with interesting and meaningful presentations, discussions, and activities will be a beacon of enlightenment compared to these crappy, brain deadening programs that will take up most of their dreary day. The pendulum will swing swing back sooner rather than later on this fad and PL/CBE will join the very long list of reform FAILURES.
How have they failed us, let us count the ways:
1> NCLB
2> RTTT
3> CCSS
4> VAM
5> PARCC
6> SBAC
7> TFA
8> NGSS
9> SLOs
10> Marzano/Danielson
11> PL/CBE
12> ESSA
13> Charters
14> Vouchers
15> Duncan/DeVos
16> Discovery/Constructivism
17> 21st century skills
18> Rejection of content knowledge
Why aren’t education schools preparing teachers to resist such fatuous fads? Why aren’t they steering prospective teachers toward tried-and-true approaches to education? This may hold a clue:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/academia-is-a-cult/2018/10/31/eea787a0-bd08-11e8-b7d2-0773aa1e33da_story.html?utm_term=.f404fa5981eb
All I had to do was see “The Social Network” (Jesse Eisenberg is totally convincing as jerk Suckerberg {according & props to Dienne!}–told me all I had to know and to NEVER, EVER use Facebook.
& everything else he’s done since is also BS, lethal to the 99% & to be avoided at all co$t$. &…$hame on hi$ “pediatrician” wife. Didn’t $he take the oath “First do no harm..?”
(No, she took the Hypocritic Oath.) For $hame, Priscilla $ham!!!