Well, I know how curriculum should not be created – by non-educators who think they have all the answers to “fix” our “broken” public school system. As I watched the TED video (Salman Khan. (2011, March). Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education), I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed. There was some merit to Kahn’s ideas; for instance, I did agree with his assertion that, in a classroom, we sometimes move ahead even though the students may be at varying degrees of understanding. In fact, I am going through a situation like that in my class right now; I am teaching argument writing, and as I was teaching the lesson today, I noticed that several of the students seemed to be staring blankly with their eyes glossed over. However, I try to work individually with students who seem to have problems with understanding the lesson, and I try not to move on until I am satisfied that most of the students have grasped the concept. I still think, however, that those same students might still fall through the cracks if left to fend for themselves on the computer program.
As Khan continued speaking, many questions
popped into my head. The idea of the flipped classroom seems to fit well with
math, but I question how it would work for English. And, even with math, there
is no guarantee that most of the students would watch the lesson at home. Some
of our math teachers tried the flipped classroom last year, and, while they
were intrigued by the method, found that they had the same problems that they
had had before. If students do not watch the lesson the night before, teachers
still end up having to re-teach the lesson.
Khan boasted about the success he was having
in Los Altos, California. However, he failed to acknowledge that Los Altos
students would naturally be pointed toward success regardless of whether they
used his program. Los Altos is an affluent community. A quick check on
Wikipedia shows that it is the 24th most expensive zip code in the
nation with median home prices of 2.5 million dollars. This is in sharp contrast
with my district where not every student has the support at home to ensure
homework is completed, let alone internet access.
Khan talks about the “one size fits all
lecture in the classroom.” This shows how much he does not know about teaching.
Good teachers know that lectures are not, in most cases, the best method for
teaching a lesson because students are generally not engaged with this type of
teaching. Although Khan thinks he has a superior way of teaching, he has earned
some criticism. Silicon Valley’s MercuryNews reports that some educators
have poked fun at his mathematical reasoning.
The final straw for me with the TED talk was
when Bill Gates walked out on the stage beaming about this “revolutionary”
teaching method. There is no question that Gates is an innovator and one of the
world’s richest and most powerful businessmen. However, Gates is not an
educator. His arrogance in thinking that he has all the answers about education
is appalling and unsettling. I have to wonder when he says, “It’s amazing. I
think you just got a glimpse of the future of education!” to what extent he
intends to have TED videos take over in the classroom.
The article, “How Christian Were the
Founders?” further points out the shocking lengths to which some non-educators
will go to transform public schools into vessels for their radical message. Christian
activists sitting on the Texas Board of Education pushed their right-wing
agenda in the classroom, going so far as to influence text books publishers
into changing the wording and historical figures in their books. Dentist, Don
McLeroy, felt that his fundamentalist ways were the only way to teach public
school students. Getting Jesus into the curriculum was one of his, and the
other Christian activists on the board, many agenda items. The activists felt
that there should be no separation between church and state and even went so
far as to assert that our founding fathers never meant for it to be.
Eventually, McLeroy lost his seat on the board, but many of the Christian right
remain.
Cynthia Dunbar, assistant law professor and
Texas board of education member, published a book, in 2008, titled One Nation Under God. In it she states
that, “We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve
as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world.” Her words
are shockingly arrogant. This way of thinking, that the USA is God’s favored
nation, is not uncommon and is sickening to me. While there are many wonderful
things about the United States, we have also committed many errors and, indeed,
atrocities. As a teacher, I will make sure that I teach with a philosophy that
our country is one of many, and that we are not necessarily the best, most
righteous, or always correct.
We are living in a time where legislators,
business people, and fanatics with their own agendas think that they have all
the answers to the perfect education. Sadly, such people have already had a
negative effect on public education. I can only hope that the pendulum will
swing back in the other direction, and soon, so that trained teaching
professionals will once again be considered the experts in education and
curriculum.
I am curious, can educators not learn from outsiders? I have never taught or worked in education. Does that mean my opinions and views are warrant less? I agree that at this time too many people who have no experience in education are trying to create curriculum. Politicians are becoming to involved. However. I think in any position sometimes an outside perspective can how the professionals see things in a different light.
ReplyDeleteI admire your feisty attitude but I think you need to understand why people in the business world are so interested in education. The students you teach will some day be employees of Cisco, Apple, and so forth. They will also be politicians. Thus they have a invested interest in what you teach their future employees. I am not saying they should design the curriculum but rather the schools should work with them to figure out how the world is changing and what types of things students need to know to be successful.
In regards to Los Altos and various other well funded school districts. Not all of the students come from wealthy parents in that city. I live 10 minutes from this city and another rich city of Palo Alto. Both have areas for low income students. Finally, to live in the Bay Area often times requires two working parents to afford the area. The fact is, its a rich area but not every student has the support at home.
Susie,
ReplyDeleteYours was an interesting post to read. Like you, I was disgusted and appalled by the NYTimes article, and hate how much non-educators are mandating education. I really feel, and I stated so in my post, that educators are professionals. Just like I'm not going to tell my plumber how to install new pipes in my home, I also am not going to tell my child's teacher how my child should be taught. I trust professionals to do their jobs right, and expect the same courtesy in return. In fact, if I had a student's parent try to tell me how to teach their child violin, I would suggest they find a different teacher. So I agree with you that non-educators need to get their noses out of education, and leave teachers be.
However, what was especially interesting to me was your dislike of the Khan Academy and the TED talk about it. I was fascinated by it, and intend to use it to supplement my own children's education (which I will be homeschooling only because of the top-down mandating). To be fair, while Salman Khan might not have started out in education, he is, undoubtedly, in education now. I did do a quick google search on him to find out, unfortunately, that he has no formal education in teaching, according to Wikipedia (which we all know is so very accurate). But on the same token, experience can be a valuable teacher, and between tutoring his cousins and now creating all these videos, he certainly has some experience.
It is true that some students will succeed no matter how you teach them. I was one of those students. I remember, when my high school switched to a block schedule, my classmates asking me why I wasn't angry about it. They would tell me, "You're so successful now, why are you okay with them switching what works for you?" And the honest truth was, I would figure out how to be successful no matter what they threw at me, and found the block schedule to be not much different than a straight 6 period day. Many students, however, may struggle in one environment but succeed in others. I think it is the mark of a great teacher to help those students succeed. I don't think our current system is perfect, but I also don't think that politicians, businessmen, lawyers or activists have a place in deciding how our system should be run.
On the flip side, like Sabrina argued, valuable insights can be gained from those outside your field. Input can be sought from non-educators, to help provide a different perspective, but I do think that non-educators have too much say right now. As a private strings teacher, I learn a lot from many people - other strings teachers, school orchestra teachers, general educators, piano teachers, business people, and others. But I don't let anyone dictate to me how I teach, and public school educators should have that same right.
Ashley
Susie,
ReplyDeleteWhile reading your blog post I found myself nodding often in agreement. One topic I can definitely identify with is when you brought up how Khan discussed teachers that move on to new topics before mastery is achieved. As a history teacher I feel like I experience that on a daily basis. When you are required by state content standards to get from point A to point B in a set amount of time, you are often going to have to move on before each of your students have varying levels of understanding. There is so much history content to cover that there is not enough time to go too far in depth and going in depth can allow more mastery of the content and not just temporary memorization. I especially experienced this when I was teaching world history in the high school. The high school world history course had 64 content standards (and that does not even include the common core). These 64 content standards needed to be covered in one 12 week trimester. A task that felt darn near impossible. With this amount of content to cover, we were doing the entire history of Japan in 1 week, a plan that most definitely does not do anyone justice. It was a race to the finish line.
I also enjoyed the fact that you called Khan out on his affluent community setting. Good for you that you had the insight to look up that information and use it in your argument. I teach in a mostly working class community with a high poverty rate. I also believe that the community affluence can have a large impact in your success in the classroom as teachers cannot control the home life of their students as much as we may wish we could. I personally, have an immense number of students who do zero homework because their home life does not promote it, support it, or provide the right environment for it. Different method work for different communities and teaching is not a one size fits all approach.
You are also correct when you say that many of the people today who are trying to “fix” education are no longer educators or never were. They are so far removed from the classroom that their legislation, mandates, and recommendations receive no respect from actual educators and do not actually fix anything at all. I agree with you in the hopes that one day, teachers will be treated as the professionals they are and will be considered experts in their own curricular field. Here’s hoping!
Hi Susie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. One of your respondents called it "feisty"--probably fits about right. But I like the spirit and the clarity here. It's well done.
First off, I agree with you. Teachers need more respect and need to be given more space to do their thing. To respond to the needs of their students. We need some scope and sequence frameworks, and we need a plan that makes sure all teachers are working in the same direction. But we don't need all this content mandated to the degree it is right now. At least that's how I'm feeling.
I personally "feel" a big difference between McLeroy, Gates and Khan. There is some hyperbole in that TED video, but I find Khan very likable. I assume he would be a good supporter of teachers, and would encourage them to experiment with his ideas and videos and see where it gets them. In reality, he doesn't have any great answers. Just some resources, that obviously still require a teacher. Though perhaps a teacher in a different way--facilitator, coach, director, not sure what.
McLeroy seems to want to undermine teachers and schools to promote his own agenda. He scares me quite a bit. I can't imagine enjoying a conversation with him.
Gates is probably the scariest of the three for me. His arrogance is shocking. His TED talk is just awful. Gates is the mirror image of McLeroy--cock sure of himself, ready to offer answers to problems that are themselves distortions of reality (is the problem really that teachers are not watched and ranked enough?).
Of the three, Khan offers teachers something they can use. I appreciate that. Quite different than the other two, which offer mandates and money with strings attached to them. We've tried mandating and penalizing our way to success. It clearly isn't working. So I say let's go back to creating resources that as many teachers as possible will want to use. And let those who don't find them helpful develop and share their own!
Thanks for your post,
Kyle