Michael Hynes is the superintendent of schools in the Port Washington school district on Long Island in New York. He is one of the most creative, innovative, and unconventional thinkers in education today. His new book was just published, offering advice to school leaders and, frankly, to everyone, about what is most important in life.
Mike Hynes is my candidate for the next State Commissioner of Education in New York. He has fresh ideas, deep experience, and values the well-being of children more than test scores.
In this brief essay, he outlines what schools should do after the pandemic.
He writes:
Now is the time for our school leaders to generate a new compelling philosophy of education and an innovative architecture for a just and humane school system. We must refocus our energy on a foundation built on a sense of purpose, forging relationships and maximizing the potential and talents of all children. Let’s take advantage of the possibility that our nation’s attention can shift 180 degrees, from obsessing over test scores and accountability to an entirely different paradigm of physical, mental, and emotional well-being for students and staff.
It is our collective responsibility to foster engaging and meaningful environments when educating our children in the new era of a post pandemic education. As the great philosopher John Dewey stated over one hundred years ago, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” The first sentence in the 2018 World Bank Group’s Flagship Report- Learning: To Realize Education’s Promise states, “Schooling is not the same as learning.” I couldn’t agree more. The report continues to speak about that as a society, we must learn to realize education’s promise.
Now is this the time to revolutionize this antiquated system built on old structures and ideologies. I recommend we change the purpose of schooling to the following core values:
· Emphasize well-being. Make child and teacher well-being a top priority in all schools, as engines of learning and system efficiency.
· Upgrade testing and other assessments. Stop the standardized testing of children in grades 3-8, and “opt-up” to higher-quality assessments by classroom teachers. Eliminate the ranking and sorting of children based on standardized testing. Train students in self-assessment, and require only one comprehensive testing period to graduate from high school.
· Invest resources fairly. Fund schools equitably on the basis of need. Provide small class sizes.
· Boost learning through physical activity. Give children multiple outdoor free-play recess breaks throughout the school day to boost their well-being and performance. We observed schools in Finland that give children four 15-minute free-play breaks a day.
· Change the focus. Create an emotional atmosphere and physical environment of warmth, comfort and safety so that children are happy and eager to come to school. Teach not just basic skills, but also arts, crafts, music, civics, ethics, home economics and life skills.
· Make homework efficient. Reduce the homework load in elementary and middle schools to no more than 30 minutes per night, and make it responsibility-based rather than stress-based.
· Trust educators and children. Give them professional respect, creative freedom and autonomy, including the ability to experiment, take manageable risks and fail in the pursuit of success.
· Improve, expand and destigmatize vocational and technical education. Encourage more students to attend schools in which they can acquire valuable career/trade skills.
In short, if we learn anything at all from this pandemic, we should clearly recognize that we need our teachers more than ever before. It’s imperative that schools focus on a balanced approach to education, one that embraces physical, emotional, cognitive and social growth. We have an enormous amount of work to do, but our children deserve nothing less.
If you agree, please send his essay to every school board member you know and to anyone else who is interested in finding a new way to educate our children, one that develops their well-being and joy in learning, instead of subjecting them to an endless and useless series of standardized tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very insightful. Thanks for sharing 👍
Amen to all this. But let’s not stop with outlawing high-stakes standardized testing in 3-8. This stuff does ENORMOUS damage in high school by leading to the development of devolved, test-preppy curricula and pedagogy and via the opportunity cost (in time and money) of the tests, the test prep, the benchmark testing, the data chats, the proctoring, the data systems, etc.
Agreed. Scrap the testing K-12. Period.
when there truly is no money, HOW can testing, testing curricula and testing personnel be rationalized
This is so important.
In addition, start actually teaching students with significant disabilities. These students are left in the fringes of education and are capable of learning to read, write, and communicate. It’s time we taught EVERY student.
I agree 100%. Dr. Michael Hynes is the face of education for the future. Dr. Hynes is one of only a handful of leaders to have the courage, backed by many years of experience, to shake the tree of education in this country. His “Whole Child” concept should be the “new normal “. His essay and book are a must read for any educator or parent who wishes to improve the lives of our children for the coming years in education. Meet “THE NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN”.
I was prepared to read about a paragraph and walk away.
Whoa….
Refreshing? Good lord, how about RESURRECTION?!
I have a child about to enter junior high school and I will be honest, NY State does very little to get me excited about education. However, Michael Hynes vision for education just gave me hope. I wish it had come sooner.
I attended a private LIFE school for my early elementary education and it was incredible. I still return to even basic pieces of information I learned there. The model was “Whole Child” and democratic classroom. Learning was open and elective with milestone requirements. Each student was expected to reach their milestones, although not at the same time or with a numbered point system. We did not cull out those with learning delays but certain lessons were tailored to their strengths while other lessons helped them to reach class speed and reinforced our skills. I loved school because school loved me.
When I was switched out to a standard school it was devastating. Not simply because the structure was so rigid but there was no room for the individual which crushes personal responsibility to the group. That is a serious injustice. Aren’t we raising individuals who will become responsible, compassionate members of a free society? Why do we wait for them to “Think outside the box”? Why do we even have a box?
It appears this type of LIFE /democratic classroom model is only available in the private school sector for those who can afford to pay for a superior educational experience. I like most families utilize the public school system and it is lacking in all but the very best districts. We are building our tomorrows but our current education model does little to foster individual strengths often until high school which is far too late.
How a new type of vision and structure can be applied to a state education system would require an upheaval in educations focus of always reaching 100 regardless of what must be abandoned in order to get there. Testing is excellent to assess progress but what is the purpose of so much standardized testing? When it comes to the individual is curriculum adjusted for them to become more proficient or to match their learning style? Or are they pushed to work harder not smarter or demoted into a remedial class? Even the iReady testing system is tricky. I was told it was self-adjusting but my 5th grader called it sneaky, “If I answer too many questions right, it doesn’t make them more difficult, it gives me 3 questions about work we never learned how to do.” How is that fair or encouraging?
I love what I have read so far from Michael Hynes but I need to read more. If this is his vision for the future of education in this state he has my vote!
.
When I started teaching in New York in 1975, there were no student tests other than The Regents Exams. Soon after The Regents Competency test arrived with each year becoming more challenging. Soon it was the Regents Exam for all, and “all roads lead to college.” In the elementary grades testing in grades 3 and 8 was expanded to every grade except K-2. Then, the elementary tests were expanded to every grade, and special populations like ELLs and special education had to take all the tests and additional specialized tests. By the time I retired I lost more than a month of mornings in testing. The “standards and accountability” obsession took on a life of its own despite its dubious value. It became a giant snowball so large that it crushed students and teachers under its weight as tests became more high stakes. Time for change is long overdue.
So true from another retired teacher. Different names for tests, but all the same.
“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”
Quotes like this always stick in my craw. In a general sense, I understand. It’s 2020 not 1950. Things have changed. For the most part, I think quotes like this are used to justify the use of technology in teaching. Technology is the new shiny thing the cure-all to everything that ails us. I think of some of my favorite people – Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sarah Alden Ripley, Albert Einstein, and so many others. How did they learn? How did they come to be so brilliant? No tech there. No videos, no Khan Adacemy. No flashing lights and bells and whistles. I have my own answers but I’ll let you think about it.
Agreed, Mamie!
I agree with the post that teachers, not industry, should control the direction of education, but I also cringe at some of the ‘innovation’ language. Tech creep in schools is dangerous and the quote sure does sound like a techie’s sales pitch. Robbing students of the future? George Orwell just called me to say that smells fishy. The quote is widely attributed to John Dewey. However, “as Tryggvi Thayer points out, ‘it doesn’t sound like something that Dewey would say in his writings; neither the sentiment nor diction.’” (https://longviewoneducation.org/are-we-robbing-students-of-tomorrow/) I wonder what Dewey would think about high stakes testing, and about “college ready” Pearsonalized learning. I think he would have abhorred today’s top-down education politics. He believed in democracy and in standardized quality of school buildings, not innovative curricula.
Exactly. Technology has its place, but even the tech biggies do not utilize to educate their own offspring,
Also, I think many many people believe the purpose of education is to get a good job. It’s a means to an end. I guess that’s the way it has to be in a society where most people are just struggling to survive.
Even in ancient times, when people lived in small bands that depended on hunting and foraging, and in modern societies that live largely in this manner, the purpose of education has never been entirely about meeting immediate survival needs. It’s always included history (the stories of the tribe), art (dancing, body painting, enactments, storytelling again)–the stuff that inspires people and binds them together. A note on this: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/play-and-the-origins-of-art/
A few things I hope we will learn from this pandemic:
Distance learning is a crock, and teachers are really, really important.
Close confinement of animals meant for food (not only in wet markets like the one in Wuhan but factory farms, from which most meat comes now) breeds viruses and bacteria that cause disease, and in the latter case, giving over 50 percent of the total amount of antibiotics we produce to those farmed animals creates antibiotic-resistance in humans who eat that meat and forces the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria).
We must have in place rapid-response systems for pandemics, including stockpiles of PPE and ventilators; mobile field hospitals that can be set up at a moment’s notice; a national, online portal for pandemic related information and for disease reporting and contact tracing; and emergency plans for dealing with economic impacts on quarantined sub-populations.
The enormous and ever-increasing economic inequities in the U.S. have to be corrected, including lack of a national, single-payer, universal healthcare system. We desperately need to convert to a Social Democratic system that serves the needs of all the people. This is a very serious matter. However, ofc, that didn’t prevent me from penning this not entirely tongue-in-cheek piece:
Are you Socialism-curious but ashamed to let anyone know the thoughts you’ve been harboring while watching Mitch McConnell loot the treasury to engorge the rich? Then you’ve come to the right place. Act now and we’ll send, for the S-curious only, the complete regulations of the national healthcare and parental leave systems of Denmark, discretely packaged in a brown paper wrapper! The first 25 callers also get, absolutely free, our red T-shirt with Che Guevara’s name stitched on the label, and only you will know it’s there! Wear it with your MAGA hat. Just know that you are not alone. Others have these urges, too! Who knows, maybe that guy next to you at the gun range or the NASCAR rally! Also try in the privacy of your own home our phone foment service! Our bevy of beautiful young comrades will whisper sweet sedition about equity and racial justice into your ear and even call you a commie libtard pinko snowflake! Oh, yeah, baby! Sing me a little of that “Union Maid” song! or “Joe Hill!” Long distance and roaming charges may apply.
My daughter and I have come to the conclusion that distance learning is little more than worksheets and games without much instruction or understanding. Teachers in his district are literally announcing videos and on-line segments. Then, the teacher disappears. The sad aspect is that there are about four or five different on-line programs, and my grandson knew how to log into each one.
Each one is ultimately boring and tedious. I am wondering if there is any instructional coherence at all. If we keep going in this direction, teaching will become a lost craft, and teachers will be replaced by a load of cyber cr@p.
If I were teaching in this hostile climate in the middle of a pandemic, I would be working to ensure that parents understood the value of a real, human teacher. Teachers need parent allies. I sincerely hope that many teachers are driving the instruction in their schools, and not ceding that responsibility to machines. If they are not, there are many politicians and billionaires that would be happy to eliminate them.
“little more than worksheets and games without much instruction or understanding”
I have reviewed hundreds of online courseware and testing products, and this is an extraordinarily accurate characterization of them. Most lessons have almost no content and what little there is of a trivial nature, lots of inane graphics and games intended to be motivating but actually annoying the students.
They remind me of the nature documentaries on public television. You watch the entire hour-long piece of inane drivel and come away with almost no knowledge that you didn’t have before: “Where would we be without our magnificent forests? They supply us with pulp for paper and timber for homes. We go to them for walks and solitude. In them, trees spread their magnificent branches toward the sky. Both resource and retreat, they delight and inspire us and provide habitat for an enormous number of fascinating species of animals.” In other words, something like diet soda. Of no nutritional value whatsoever.
Here’s what I am doing. On Zoom (ugh), I read poetry and short fiction to the students and talk about it. My students ask clarifying questions questions and I answer them (nowhere near as good as the group activities we do in class to make the literature meaningful and memorable). I give them creative writing assignments based on the literature to be turned in online. Many of them delight me by writing on paper and uploading pictures of their work. I post little comments when I grade their writing. That’s it, just two websites. No videos, no worksheets, no multiple choice, no AI scoring. Just me with a camera and a microphone instead of a podium. The way I teach is unique at my school, though. Most teachers are using “instructional” web products that take the human touch out of the equation.
I was IM-ing with my friend Sheila Resseger about this recently. She had shared with me her experience with the godawful questions and lack of context setting in a lesson she had had to deal with for one of her tutoring students. The lesson dealt with Saki’s delightful short story, long a standard of the lit anthologies, “The Open Window.” OF COURSE, the study apparatus for the selection had devolved into a series of tortuous, inane questions modeled on those on the high-stakes standardized ELA tests. I said to Sharon that accompanying every literature selection with questions like these is like serving every dinner with a steaming plate of excrement as a side dish.
The courseware and textbooks that follow this model could not be more perfectly designed to put kids off ever wanting to read anything.
Well, they sure are “scaling up” right now.
My grandson already was in front of a screen during the majority of his free time and rebelled when his mom tried to limit him to an hour after school. Now he is required to use his tablet to interact with his teacher and complete assignments on various apps. When I work with him it’s one on one, sometimes with worksheets, but other times with various activities. Last week we read a story about a pet show so I had him create his own pet show collage using old magazines. We had a bear, a bug, a lizard, a pig and various other animals in his menagerie. I had him label each one and his mom hung it on the refrigerator. He is six.
While some “computer” time is okay, it doesn’t take the place of in person instruction. That’s why I’m confused about all those online schools – can the average child get a decent education without a “real” teacher?
Online instruction is just an electronic version of teaching by “packet” minus the much needed distraction of friends and other peers. It was a rare teacher who did what their title implied. Kids were generally bored with classroom requirements but generally enjoyed all of the social aspects of school and the extra curriculars. Now that all the fun stuff has been stepped away parents are getting to see the dirty little secret of teaching by paper or cyber packet.
It’s probably impossible to do, but a real step forward would be to break up the rigid idea of ‘Higher Education’. Abolish college degrees, and replace them with Certificates of Competence in all the subjects taught there, expanding those subjects to include ‘vocational’ subjects. So you could earn a ‘Certificate of Competence’ in ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, and another in ‘Advanced Cabinet-making’. Given the low quality of so-called ‘higher education’ in the US today, this would be a gain. It would also save a ton of money otherwise wasted on bloated college administrations ‘administering’ ‘diversity’ and similar nonsense.
The notion of schooling being something we undergo at the beginning of our lives is absurd. We need as teachers to aim to create life-long learners, and we need for credentialing to accommodate life-long learning and to reflect it. If a person doesn’t know much, much more at 50 than he or she did at 25, that person hasn’t been a learner. But we don’t have sufficient means for reflecting such learning in credentials. I don’t have an answer to this problem (testing alone is insufficient, but it needs to be available), but it’s one that needs to be addressed.
I agree with everything Michael suggests in his excellent essay, and would just add that “arts, music, civics, ethics, home economics and life skills” are, indeed, basic skills, and deserve a central place in the school curriculum. I’d also add physical education, library and media instruction, foreign languages, and much more.
These classes should also not be relegated to “after or before school” time slots, “zero hours”, “activity periods”, “enrichment blocks”, or restricted in any way by students’ GPA, parental income levels, special education status, or any other arbitrary criteria.
Denying a child the opportunity to study music, for example, because of struggles in math or science, makes about as much sense as limiting a student’s access to reading instruction because they aren’t doing well in a studio art class.
The truth is this sort of “policy” has been used in schools for years as a form of punishment or motivational tool, using a class or subject the child enjoys (music, art) as a “carrot” to attempt to force the child to work harder at a subject they don’t enjoy (math, reading). All it really does is send the very clear message that the school doesn’t truly value all subjects offered in the curriculum, and that students’ personal interests and passions are not valued either.
Thanks again to Dr. Hynes for helping us imagine a silver lining to our current dilemma, and giving our dreams for our kids a shape and purpose.
“..and require only one comprehensive testing period to graduate from high school.”
What would this look like?
“Reduce the homework load in elementary and middle schools to no more than 30 minutes per night, and make it responsibility-based rather than stress-based.”
What does this last part mean?
For everything else he said, I agree wholeheartedly.
https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napa-public-school-enrollment-continues-to-drop-as-spending-is-reduced/article_495ec85d-3420-5faa-96b9-77aea63875b7.html. Despite a booming population, enrollment drops, yet those in charge never ask why. With deadly worksheets and a factory-like mindset, chanting “rigor,” poor teachers will lose jobs and children will lose vibrant and creative public education.
I was lucky enough to go through school before someone thought up the idea of high school exit exams. We took final exams in every subject after every semester. The thought that someone would then retest me on every academic course I took for four years is horrifying to me. Why are two exams written by teachers and taken while the material is fresh in your mind not enough?
My experience was exactly the same. A final exam at the end of the course, written by the teacher. No graduation exam. We had to pass enough courses to graduate.
Thank you for sharing the many stimulating thoughts, outlined above, at this critical juncture in our history! I would like to view this moment in time as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Teachers must be at the core of whatever changes we explore. Change is not a simple choice at this time. We must use this opportunity to our advantage for the sake of our children, their future, and the world.
As an educator of 60 years, I continue to learn. My lens for touching base was formed from the perspective of initially being a kindergarten and other elementary teacher as well as a special education teacher. Later in my long career I held a number of administrative positions from Elementary Principal/ Director of Elementary Education to BOCES District Superintendent including a Shared Superintendency.
Though I nearly succumbed to some serious medical challenges a year ago, I have just been re-appointed to my second 5-year term as a member of the NYS Board of Regents. My driving passion has always been children and learning. That passion has kept me alive along with my courage to provide a voice for all students, teachers, and parents. I still believe that together, blending our many voices, we can make a difference.
Please know I have also had the rich experience of bearing three sons and now am grandmother to six young adults and one great granddaughter. My cup runneth over.
Congrats on the grandkids and great-granddaughter! Such joy!
This is so very true. School has become a stresser for children and parents.way to much homework.children should enjoy being home with little or no homework. Home ec. was my favorite subject. It taught me how to cook and sew. I have ADHD and there was no such thing in the 70 s. I did become a successful adult. I retired as a teaching assistant. I taught life skills and I was really good at it.please put this in every school
My students believed that these life skills classes were really valuable. How do I do taxes? How do I buy a home? they would ask. Kids ask these questions and we say, “Be quiet and line up for the square dance.”
I believe Illinois has a requirement that you take a consumer ed class. They didn’t in my day. When I got my first checkbook (for college), I didn’t know you needed to save your canceled checks. My kids were all much more aware than I was with that course under their belts. I still have a piggy bank kind of mentality. Once it gets saved, it stays saved. It makes it really difficult to spend it when it’s necessary.
I love your comments on testing and homework. The other day I heard someone talking about that we should teach more trades in school. How do you feel about that?
I’m interested in learning more!
Read Michael Hynes’ new book “Staying Grounded”
I agree with you 100%!
Our children are our # 1 priority .
They are our future
Show them kindness love and compassion and they can change the world 💕
I am crying as I read this. This is how I know we should be. This is what strive for in my daily life with littles. Thank you for writing and sharing this.
Excellent article- as a retired educator/ administrator for over 30 years , Michael js certainly on target. Thanks Michael
I agree 100%. I taught for 33 years and by the end of my career I hated what I saw happening, especially all of the testing crammed down the throats of young children. The pressure put on teachers (as well as students) and the constant time wasting demands were incredible. I miss connecting with the students and teaching them my passion for reading, but there were too many things I was forced to do that I didn’t agree with.
I love this guy!
Yes!
I’m in, let’s make changes for the better. We need to start with allowing educators to reframe schooling. Basic life skill and vocational eduction. Please, please allow our kids time to play. They come back refreshed and ready to learn!
You’ve got my vote…Check Check Check! I couldn’t agree more!💕😊💕😊💕
I wish this would Go viral and be adopted by nyc doe In Addition to Long Island!
Well said!
I’d only add the important of each learner having their own Personal Learning Plan and take greater responsibility for showing what they know and asking for assistance for what they yet need to know.
Teachers need time to prep and assess, while students work from home or school, but on their own or in small groups, online if necessary.
Our common goal must be that: “More Shall Learn More.”
WOW! I’m an old-school teacher that is now working as a para and I agree with your ideas, especially about less formal testing and more of a balanced approach to helping children learn not focus on school work.
I’m on a school board and I’m all in for these changes. However, I don’t know how to go about implementing them. When I have suggested such changes in the past, I was met with the insistence that it is not the board’s place to make educational decisions or that we will never be able to do such things because of the teachers’ contract. Where and how does a board start to create this change?
Yes, we can re-think the opportunity to encourage the actual pleasure, or joy! in learning – I went through school distaining the idea of working real hard for an ‘A’ – I’d say what’s that about? It’s the material, the learning, that’s important to me –
And then, when I wanted to get into college, ZI realized, the ‘A’s made a difference –
So we need the joy, but we need to look at how college admissions fits into this –
Can someone send this to Governor De Santo and Betsy DeVos?
Yes, yes, yes. And absolutely yes to the idea of multiple free play recess times for elementary students. It is in play that they socialize and learn and try new things that they want to try.
Couldn’t agree more! Thank you
As a retired teacher, I completely agree with
Mr. Hynes assessment of what changes should be made to maximize the abilities, and well- being of all students.
Interesting thoughts!
I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Michael Hynes as host of This Weeks Long Island News on the radio station at Nassau Community college. (90.3 WHPC) I found him to be a sincere and insightful
person who is very plugged into his environment. He knows the issues he’s facing not only in the educational sense but also those that arise because of a pandemic and the politicized environment that situation brings. I think Dr. Hynes will be a truly positive force in education and I wish him all the best. I also had the opportunity to hear Diane Ravitch speak at a commencement ceremony at Queens College a few years ago and she made quite an impression. I thought at the time and still do that she should be appointed secretary of education. If both Dr. Hynes and Diane Ravitch were driving the education train I for one would be thrilled but so should every parent of school aged children.
If we are suggesting for kids/families to opt out of the standardized tests, we also MUST be able to opt out of the Test Prep – this includes test prep in school and test prep homework! What is the true value for our children to Opt Out of a test that they were forced to prepare for over the course of several weeks to months during school hours and after school (HW). They should have the ability to opt out of the test and receive an enriching education, instead of countless hours wasted on prepping for these tests. I will continue to have my children take the test until we are able to opt out of all.