Yesterday I posted a critique of the Khan Academy videos.
Salman Khan responds here, on Valerie Strauss’s blog in the Washington Post, where the criticism first appeared.
But now that Khan has become so high-profile, the debate intensifies.
Two professors of math education review the Khan Academy videos and conclude that they are not good educational tools.
If Salman Khan responds to the latest analysis above, I’ll post that too.
The voucher legislation in Louisiana will send millions of dollars to Christian academies that repudiate evolution and teach creationism. Their students will never learn about evolution other than to hear it ridiculed.
At least 20 of the religious schools that receive voucher students teach creationism, and as this researcher shows, that may be only the tip of the iceberg.
This is a descent into ignorance.
But in the eyes of a group of state superintendents called Chiefs for Change (the state superintendents of Florida, Oklahoma, New Jersey, New Mexico, Maine, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Tennessee), this is called bold and visionary “reform.”
We are in deep trouble if we continue in this direction.
The Louisiana reforms should be recognized for what they are: An embarrassment to our nation.
Louisiana has made itself an international joke.
But for the children, it’s not funny.
Last night, I watched the PBS Frontline program and saw “Fast Times at West Philly High.” It is a wonderful documentary about the teachers and students at this inner-city high school who entered an international competition to create a hybrid car. It follows them as they build their models, then take them to the competition. Theirs is the only team of high school students. All the others in the competition are adults, and many are professionals.
This is real reform, unlike the phony schemes to privatize public schools and hand them over to for-profit entrepreneurs. This is real curriculum, instruction, teaching and learning, where students are eagerly learning and applying what they learn. This is real teaching, where the teachers are fully invested in what they are teaching and respect their students as partners in the learning.
When people ask why it is so hard to motivate high school students to care about their work, tell them to watch this documentary. These students are highly motivated. They are learning the “soft skills” that employers say they want. They are learning self-discipline, teamwork, cooperation, initiative, responsibility, and hard work. They show up on time. They care. They are using computers. They are learning and practicing reading, math, science, technology and engineering.
The title of this post is ironic. I bet these same students would be turned off if the same amount of time was devoted to test prep for the next state exams.
Yet in this endeavor, they are all super stars.
And so are their teachers.
PS: A reader points out that the Chicago Board of Education recently killed the automotive tech program at Lane High School. Perhaps Mayor Rahm Emanuel or Board member Penny Pritzker might arrange a showing of “Fast Times at West Philly High” for the members of the Board.
A reader responds to our discussion about the importance of content and explains how administrators matter in relation to content. If they are indifference to content it shapes their vision and their behavior:
I am a professor of educational administration and I’m struck by how little content area knowledge is required to become a principal or superintendent. Standards related to administrator certification seldom (if ever) include anything related to the need for developing even a basic understanding of math, science, reading, etc. Most preparation programs do not include any instruction at all in this area, and are instead committed to an organizational perspective rooted in a very specific kind of business-thinking that emphasizes efficiency and equality over a sensitivity to difference and equity.
This makes administrators particularly susceptible to the sirens of standardized “accountability” because focusing on the “bottom line” of student achievement “shows them” who is a “good or bad teacher” and they can avoid completely the difficult work of learning that leadership and instruction can and should look different in a high school science lab, a Kindergarten classroom or a middle school composition course. Also, since the reformers use leaderlingo like all children can learn, a shared vision, we must change for our students’ sake, let’s focus on the bottom line, they are speaking in a language they understand. Unfortunately it isn’t the language of schools or the language of learning.
I would love to see administrators taught that content areas matter and that each is supported differently. I would love to see them taught that both processes and outcomes are equally important. I would love to see them taught that excellence in education has never been standardized because everything is dynamic–content areas change, students’ needs and talents evolve, teachers improve and develop new skills and expertise, family situations fluctuate, etc.
I guess what I’m saying is that the standardization of education in the form of some kind of ostensibly objective and measurable outcome sees flawed at the core as a way of thinking about (and forming policy for) schools. It is out-of-touch with the dynamic world in which we live and the dynamic schools in which our teachers work. The diversity in US public schools, coupled with the high level of expertise among our teachers, makes them among the richest educational environments in the world. They shouldn’t be the same because they can’t be the same. I would love to see us developing new ways of thinking about schools that are more grounded in what we know about various content areas while also acknowledging that there simply is no one best way to teach, only best practices, research-based practices that necessarily need to evolve. Standardization moves us, unfortunately, in the opposite direction–toward a vision of the world and of teaching that is static.
Carol Corbett Burris posted a critique of the Relay Graduate School of Education here. Robert Pondiscio questioned Burris’ metaphor about “lighting a fire” rather than “filling a pail,” on the assumption that she does not care about the content of the curriculum.
My view: Curriculum matters; resources matter; poverty matters; and teachers should be free to use the teaching style that works best for them. And I still doubt the validity of a “graduate school of education” that has no scholars on its faculty and no curriculum other than data analysis and classroom management.
Burris responds here to Pondiscio, followed by Pondiscio’s response to Burris:
| If Robert is a believer in enriched and challenging curriculum, he will find a great friend in me. This year every 11th grader in my school with the exception of the severely disabled who need life skills training, took IB English….our special Ed students, Black students, Latino students and White students (we are 22% minority). The 16% who receive free and reduced price lunch with the majority who do not, sat side by side, without tracking, to study the rigorous curriculum of the IB. At the end of the year they tool the Regents. All but one (an ELL special education student) passed. 77% reached mastery. In our IB English classes, No fingers wiggled, no responses were cut off. The conversation focused on analytical questions and challenging literature. I watched many videos on the Relay site and others on Doug Lemovs site. If a teacher used that regimented drill style in my school, they would be asked to leave. If they did a demo lesson like the one on the site, they would not get a job. The idea that the ‘urban’ (which is a polite code for Black and poor) child cannot thrive with respectful instruction that includes thank yous, think time and open ended questions horrifies me. Every prospective teacher deserves an enriched teacher preparation program that exposes them to a variety of teaching styles.
This is from Robert Pondiscio:
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I am a fan of Core Knowledge as a concept. I believe in a rich and deep curriculum. I would love to see all students immersed in the study of the great ideas in history, literature, science, mathematics and other fields. I understand that a curriculum doesn’t teach itself. It needs teachers who are well educated and knowledgeable to make the ideas come to life. Some years ago, when I researched the implementation of Core Knowledge, I discovered that many of the most successful sites were applying the concepts in a progressive, constructivist way. Talented teachers were engaging students in real-life projects and activities to make the knowledge into an experience.
I am also an admirer of Robert Pondiscio, who writes wisely and edits the Core Knowledge blog. But I disagree with Robert’s takedown of Carol Burris’s post on this blog. Carol criticized the militaristic style taught to charter teachers by the Relay Graduate School of Education, and Robert for some reason took her post as an abandonment of knowledge. I think that is wrong. Nothing she wrote disparaged the content of curriculum.
If anything, the militaristic style that she criticized is the antithesis of teaching a great curriculum. No one learns Shakespeare by command and by wiggling fingers. No one reflects on history by shouting out answers when called upon.
In my ideal school, students would read, discuss, debate, question, and thirst to learn more. They would take the received wisdom and pull it apart. They would ask why it is wise and why it might not be wise. I don’t see how this kind of lively reflection can happen if a teacher commands obedience and silence at all times. It’s not that classrooms need be noisy. It’s that students need to care. They need to think. Compliance may get obedience, but can it create caring? Do students think on command?I don’t think so.
So while Robert and I are on the same page about curriculum, I think in this case he picked the wrong battle. Burris did not make a case against curriculum. She made a case against a teaching style that does not support the rich curriculum that Robert and I both admire.
Diane Ravitch's blog 