When I was interviewed on the Charlie Rose a while back, the interviewee who preceded me was the CEO of a major corporation in the high-tech sector. As I listened to him, I headed him say again and again, “We have to constantly re-invent ourselves. We re-invent ourselves every few years, or we die.”

I understand why that would be true in the fast-moving, ever-changing world of high technology.  If you don’t come up with new products, faster ways of doing things, new applications, new paradigms, etc., you are left behind, you lose, you disappear.

But this way of looking at the world and adapting to the moment is not right for every form of human endeavor.

Schools, like families and religious institutions, evolve to meet new social demands. None of these basic institutions look precisely as they did a century ago. We have new configurations of all of them. But none changes overnight. None reinvent themselves very 2-3 years. Basic human institutions require stability to function well. There must be a measure of predictability, not constant upheaval and churn.

Some people think that the unceasing changes in society promotes mental illness. I don’t know if that is true, but it sounds plausible. We are all under tremendous stress: economic, societal, environmental. We need solidity and stability in parts of our lives, not planned disruption and engineered chaos.

This teacher wrote a thoughtful comment about the need for stability.

An excellent school runs like a finely-tuned engine. There are literally hundreds of formal and informal procedures that make a school environment positive and efficient.  These procedures have been developed over time and what works in one building may not work in another, depending on such simple things as physical layout of the school, the number of staff available, the scheduling of things like lunch, recess and bathroom time, the scheduling of specials such as art, music and physical education (IF you have these), and the storage and access to teaching materials. It also depends on more complex items such as the positive behavioral intervention strategies that are used to ensure a positive learning environment in a school.  It is veteran teachers who know these finely tuned procedures.  You cannot write them down and hand them on a list to a teacher new to a school.  They have to be learned little by little with the help of experienced teachers.  Teachers are dependent upon each other.  Cooperation takes an understanding of these procedures and it takes personal knowledge and trust in other teachers. This takes time to develop and energy from both the new teacher and the veteran teachers. The higher the teacher turnover, the more energy and time spent learning, revising and teaching these procedural strategies.

One simple example from last year:  I was assigned a different classroom.  The change was from a relatively isolated room on the second floor to a room off the main entrance hall to the school.  As a teacher of students with cross categorical special education needs, I am in and out of my room often.  Many of the students need a learning space that has few distractions.  It took many extra hours and experimentation to develop a classroom layout that met the needs of the children and was also welcoming to parents and other visitors to the school.   I need my materials at my fingertips and my students need stability.  Each rearrangement of the classroom meant re-teaching procedures to students and some trial and error with materials placement.  Was educational time maximized last year?  No.  Was my stress level higher?  Yes.  Was my work load larger?  Yes.  Did it all work out OK?  Yes, because other teachers had my back, I knew all the other hundreds of small things that make this school run well, and I knew my students and they knew me.  This small change made a difference.  Imagine changing numerous teachers from school to school.  You don’t need research to answer the question of why high turnover decreases learning.  Just ask a veteran teacher.

A reader responds to a post about Rollerball and Brave New World and what we learn from dystopian fiction.

It is useful, I find, to step away from informational text and to view a society that operates on totally different principles. We can do that to some extent by reading history, but the contrast becomes even sharper when you explore a fictional society through the eyes of a deeply insightful writer.

Sometimes we can learn more about society by reading fiction than by reading informational text, even sociology. This is why we read classics: They teach us about ourselves and our society. They are classics because they have stood the test of time. You read them, and they read you.

This reader understands that we live in a world today where there are forces out to destroy the basic educational values that he (and many of us) hold dear. He sees the anti-intellectual and anti-educational and anti-child policies proclaimed as “reform” and then praised by the media. He gives us much to think about, and he needs to be reminded that he is not alone.

I asked a question about the value of online learning, and this teacher responded somewhat off-topic. But what he says raises an interesting question. Are public officials and their cascade of programs making it impossible for teachers to teach? Are they destroying the last vestiges of professional autonomy? Do they talk “respect” but act top-down? Why won’t they let teachers teach? What do they expect to accomplish by their constant interference?

This teacher wrote:

Well, as part of Reading First, all the K-3 classroom/reading/special education teachers and assistants in my school had to complete all the online modules in the New York State Reading Academy.  Why, it worked so well that the following year New York State made us complete all the online modules of Voyager: Reading for Understanding.  Of course, after studying a topic online we had opportunities to try things out with our students and then meet to reflect and discuss everything in study groups.  Since then, we’ve made AYP every year and always managed to stay off the SINI list, so I guess you could say it was successful, but that was under NCLB where at least everything was clearly defined.  Now, with APPR, CCSS, RTTT and waivers, everything seems to be about as clear as mud and we’re all sort of stumbling along trying to figure out just what it is that the powers that be actually do want.  Consensus opinion is that there really isn’t much of a plan, that they’re winging it and making it up as they go along, and that seems to be validated by the constant updates and questionable quality of the materials and guidance offered by NYSED through the EngageNY website.  When I was in the private sector, we called this “discovery based learning,” which meant just keep trying until you finally figure out what the boss wants.  How well you can learn from any course, online or otherwise, would have to start with the quality of the course design.