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4Keywords: Industrial Age; curriculum; GPA; accountability; reform; leaner focused education
Ключевые слова: эпоха индустриализации, школьная программа, средний академический балл; отчетность; реформа; образование, сфокусированное на учащемся.
Abstract: The author analyses the system of school education with the urge for progressive reforms in the latter that could finally give birth to learner focused education, this being the call of the present time.
Аннотация: Автор приводит анализ проблем современной системы школьного образования и обосновывает необходимость проведения коренных изменений в данной системе, что продиктовано требованиями времени. Образование, в частности и школьное, должно быть сфокусировано на учащемся.
Say the word "school" and everyone knows what it's all about—all the labels, all the features, all the practices, and all the expectations. Consequently, anyone who wants to change the fundamental and familiar features and practices of "schools" in any way is up against massive inertia.
At the beginning of The Music Man, a group of traveling salesmen are on a train headed for River City discussing in a staccato interchange the fact that, to be successful, "you have to know the territory."
Indeed we must. To those of us deeply concerned with creating the kind of education that truly empowers and equips our children to live and thrive in tomorrow's fast-paced, complex world, there are two aspects of this challenge. First, knowing the territory of school—the many entrenched and hidden features of schooling that define it as an institution
and that give it its unique character. This requires that we look deeply and critically at familiar aspects of schooling that we often take for granted to see what is really there and what purpose they serve. We'll do that in chapters 4 and 5.
Second, knowing the territory around school—the world in which it is situated and for which it is preparing our young people. There are two major aspects of this issue, and we'll do our best to keep them separate. The first is that the current context that surrounds our educational system is one of mounting frustration. This frustration is manifest in repeated efforts across the United States to give parents "choice" about where their children attend school'—in some cases through voucher systems that would encourage them to pull their children out of public schools to attend private ones, in others through the establishment of alternative/charter schools in their local districts that are funded with district dollars, and in yet others by keeping their children at home and educating them there. While home schooling is an alternative that many families cannot consider, it is, nonetheless, the fastest-growing sector of American education.
This frustration is also manifested in the widespread attempts to reform public schools by making them more accountable to their taxpaying publics, usually embodied in their state governments. The single most prominent expression of these accountability demands involves the standardized testing of pupils in various learning areas and grade levels as proof that schools are doing their jobs. Whether one agrees with them or not, they are dramatically affecting what goes on in classrooms from coast to coast; and they are dramatically impacting the territory both of and around school.
The other aspect of the territory around school has to do with the realities that exist in our world apart from educational policies and pressures. These realities relate to the accumulating knowledge and practice in many different arenas of contemporary life and living. As we address these new realities, we'll see they are fundamentally incompatible with the foundations of our current educational system, which were poured well over a century ago. Think of the radical contrast: Americans went to the moon and back thirty years ago and walk around today with handheld microcomputers that enable them to instantaneously communicate across the globe via networks of satellites. But their children attend schools whose form and functions were established in the days of the horse, buggy, and kerosene lamp—long before the technologies, conveniences, transportation tools, standards of living, and scientific breakthroughs we now take for granted were even imagined.
So as we get to truly "know" the territory of and around school, we need to keep in mind that our current system was created at the turn of the past century to serve the needs of a slower-paced, far less developed world—an era called the Industrial Age. Even though we all recognize that the Industrial Age is over, schools still embody its structural forms and legacy. Why? Because during the course of the twentieth century:
• Educators institutionalized that structure
• Policy makers legalized that structure
• We parents and citizens psychologically internalized that structure because we all went there for years and years
• The media continuously reinforce that structure because it was the only alternative we had
The result:
Say the word "school" and everyone knows what it s all about—all the labels, all the features, all the practices, and all the expectations.
Consequently, anyone who wants to change the fundamental and familiar features and practices of "schools" in any way is up against massive inertia. Despite all the frustration and clamor, do people really want to change schools? No! Well, do they want to "improve" them? Definitely! They want to improve what s there, but they don't want to change what's familiar. It's the paradoxical challenge of making education better while keeping it the same.
That's the dilemma that concerned parents, citizens, policy makers, and educators now face. Here we are in the middle of the Information Age with an institutionalized, legalized, internalized, and culturally reinforced icon in our midst that was created from the understandings, needs, priorities, and biases of a century ago. And that cultural icon is supposed to get our children to a future that is transforming with every new breakthrough in every field of endeavor.
What is it about the territory called "school" that we continue to embrace? Let's take a candid look from a more systemic and penetrating perspective than is common.
SCHOOL AS UNIQUE TERRITORY
The territory called school is very familiar. We were there for the greater part of our youth, and the longer we stayed the more familiar it became. But the territory wasn't always so familiar to us because school is really an entity unto itself. Nothing else in "real life" is quite like it, so we've had to learn what it's all about through personal experience. Edu-
cators, however, know the territory extremely well because they've been in school since they were five, and most of them have no major work experience beyond it. For them, school is a way of life.
When we first got to school we didn't know anything about the territory unless an older brother, sister, or friend told us. But we soon learned that the territory of elementary school was very different from our homes. Almost everything we did there happened in a big rectangular room. We had to learn about our teachers, who they were, what they were like, and what they controlled. Almost immediately we learned about the long list of ways we could get into trouble. The list seemed to go on and on.
Boy, did we learn about "classes"! They were the large group of kids we spent just about all day with in our specific room, and all of them, we discovered, were just us old as we were. Most of us had never been with so many kids at the same time for so long before, and that was hard to get used to. It was clear that they and the room and the class "belonged" to our particular teacher.
We also learned about "grades." That's what level you and your teacher were in the "curriculum." And oh, that very big word was a very big part of the new territory because it determined which books you got to read and work with, and which ones you didn't. After a number of years we figured out that the number on our books almost always matched the number of our grade, and that somehow, each of our numbered books took exactly a year to "cover."
As time went on, we had to learn about "report cards" and the "grades" or marks teachers put on them. Obviously some of the marks and numbers the teachers put on them were good and some were bad, because they got very different kinds of reactions from our parents when they saw them. Some made them happy, and some made them sad or angry, so we had to learn which were which and why they were there. To get good marks on our card we had to do what our teacher asked right away, keep quiet, not get into trouble with other kids, and not make any mistakes on our papers. It was hard not to make mistakes, but it was the only way to avoid getting bad marks.
Reading as Intelligence
We also learned how smart we were. That was determined by our first-grade reading group. We had three groups: the Robins, the Blue Birds, and the Parakeets. The readers of this book were in the Robin group. We read faster and better than most of the other kids, partly because we had a big head start at reading before we even got to school. It never dawned on us until much later that it was really our moms and
dads that made us good readers because they could give us so much individual attention. Our teacher had to divide that attention among all the kids in the Blue Bird and Parakeet groups who mostly depended on her to help them learn to read.
After a few years we learned that good reading skills were the key to school success because you couldn't really do much of the other assigned work if you couldn't read well.
Eight years later we Robins ended up in the same high school classes, too, but our teachers changed our name to "College Prep" or "Honors." We rarely saw our Parakeet friends from elementary school after that because we took different classes and had different teachers than they did. Their classes got renamed "Remedial" or "Basic." They didn't go to college like we did, but that was already certain when they got to high school. The "track" and classes they were put in prevented it because the course didn't have the right names or the right content to let them enter college.
Then there were the "special tests" we took, which were printed nicely in big pamphlets. We'd get them once or twice a year. We were told to take them seriously because they determined everything about us: whether we were smart, were good students, had good teachers, would get "promoted" to the next grade and set of books with our class in June, could graduate, and could go to college or not. Our teacher seemed really concerned on those big test days. And something seemed strange because our teacher had to send our score sheets away for someone else—probably in Iowa—to figure out if we got the right answers. This confused us because we thought our teacher was smart and already knew the right answers. But maybe these tests were so special that regular teachers just didn't understand them.
THE NUMBERS GAME
The older we got the more important "points" became as a critical part of the territory. At first, school was fun because we just did a lot of interesting things and our teacher helped us learn and improve. But after a few years things changed. Suddenly everything we did was "worth" points. In every assignment, test, paper, or project, we either gained points or lost points. Nothing was overlooked because points were our achievement. If we wanted perfect achievement, we had to get 100 points the first (and only) time we were required to do something. But once in a while we could be even better than perfect by doing something called "extra credit." Extra credit gave you points you could add to your 100 if you wanted to.
But the scales weren't balanced. There were many more ways to lose points than to gain them—be late, talk without permission, chew gum, behave rudely, and, most of all, make mistakes. Mistakes meant "points off," and the only way to get some of those points back was good old Extra Credit, but it didn't come along that often. We had to be perfect the first time around on the right day— usually Friday—or some points would simply be taken away and be gone forever, even if we learned it and could do it perfectly later.
Naturally, the teachers controlled all the points, and each had his or her own method of doling them out. Some gave you lots for how you wrote, but little for homework. Others gave more for tests and assignments. Some had very elaborate point systems, and others had simple ones. But the basic dynamic was clear: they were their points and it was our job to "earn" them however each teacher set the rules. The rule: "Do what I want when I want it and you get points; don't and you don't." It was usually pretty clear and consistent, except when it wasn't.
Yes, when you think about it, everything we ever learned or "achieved" in school came down to getting points, and the more points the better! Why? Because, even though those points stood for very different things and got calculated in totally different ways, eventually they all got added and averaged and added and averaged by every teacher again and again until our ultimate set of points was determined. They gave it a code name: GPA. All we had to do was look at our report cards to see that GPA had replaced those other categories and marks on our earlier cards as the real indicator of how good and smart we were. We all knew kids who were so desperate for points that would improve their GPA that they manipulated and bribed their teachers—and they were good at it, too. Some didn't bother with bribery; they just cheated. Others took the easiest courses they could during their senior year to "protect" their GPA.
GPA was critical because the colleges wouldn't know whether to admit us or not unless we had one, and our teachers made it very clear that the colleges would be very particular about how high our GPA was. The higher the number the better, of course, because the colleges also wanted to know if our GPA was higher or lower than that of our classmates. To cooperate, our high school counselors ranked all of our GPAs and assigned us a "class rank." The higher our class rank, the better a student and "candidate for admission" we were, they said. Colleges clearly held kids with very high class ranks in very high esteem, even paying some of them to come there. Whether we liked it or not, we were all compared and ranked against each other based on our points.
That's probably why all that our parents saw on our high school report cards were the names of the "subject" we were "taking," the average number of points we got during a given block of time, and the ultimate average of all the points we had ever "earned." Alas, if we did something special or outstanding that didn't translate into points, it was never calculated in our GPA, shown on our report card, or included in our "permanent record." Only a specific set of abilities and performances related to our course work got points. Our other abilities were pretty much ignored—except in sports.
So eventually, the real territory of school revealed itself to those of us who figured it out as a "numbers game." Some of us took the game very seriously, but many didn't. In this game, the only learning that really "mattered" had points attached to it. The territory called school encouraged us to do assignments on time and study for tests so that we would get enough points to pass our courses, make our parents happy, and get into a "good" college. The controlling factor seemed to be something called "deadlines." You were given a certain amount of time to learn or do something, and if you couldn't or didn't, you lost the points for that time block, no excuses and no exceptions. Points were clearly about doing things on time.
Interestingly, once the points were safely entered in the teachers' record books, we really didn't have to pay more attention to whatever it was that earned us the points because the record was "permanent." In fact, we often couldn't remember things on Monday that had earned us points on Friday, but we were safe because the points for that week were safely recorded in ink.
Anything we learned or did with more depth and integrity than this "points minimum" was the result of our parents' expectations, our own motivation, and the dedication and extra effort of our highly professional teachers. Otherwise, our points were our achievement, and our achievement—our GPA—was who we were in the system's eyes, for better or for worse.
THE FIVE AGENDAS CALLED LEARNING AND ACHIEVEMENT
A key part of knowing the territory of school is recognizing that just about anything and everything that moves in schools is called, or is treated in some way or other as, learning and achievement. Why? Because those things get mixed into your points and grades, and grades are—you guessed it—the alleged "measures" of learning and achievement! Researchers have used terms like Official Curriculum, Real Curriculum, Ideal Curriculum, and Hidden Curriculum to ferret out the mish-
mash of what's real learning and what are "other agendas" that distort any true measure of learning.
Keeping these various factors straight isn't easy, but you'll find that the contest over points and how many you get ultimately comes down to five very different things which all happen to start with the letter "C": Custody, Compliance, Competition, Competence, and Content. Let's start at the end of the list and work forward.
Custody as Achievement
Custody is the school's ultimate agenda because, at the turn of the past century, schools were made a safe haven for young people who were being exploited in the streets and workplaces of the day. Great efforts were made to see that children were protected from physical, financial, and social harm until they were deemed mature enough to deal with life responsibly on their own. Today we know the vehicle for assuring their safety as "compulsory attendance"— young people up to a given age are legally required to be in school, and parents and employers are obligated to honor that mandate.
As you explore the territory, note how much of the school's resources and attention are given to this Custodial function. Virtually every school has personnel assigned to monitor and enforce attendance. Why? In part because school funding is based on average daily attendance. The more students there are in seats each day, the more the district receives from its state in operating revenue. Absent students are lost dollars!
Grades, credits, and diplomas are students' official tickets out the door and their passports to the future. In a credential-dominated society such as ours, the more official documents you can accumulate showing what you've "achieved" educationally, the better. How do you get a diploma? By accumulating enough credits in the right subjects. How do you get a credit? Two ways: first, by getting a "passing" grade—enough points—from the teacher of the subject. Second, by being in attendance the right amount of time. No attendance, no credit—no matter how good your learning is.
Why is this? Because credits are based on "seat time": 120 hours of sitting there gets you a full "Carnegie unit" of credit. Sixty hours of sitting gets you a half credit. Credits only come in multiples of sixty hours, and they are not based on your learning. If they were, you could get them at any time. They're based on your seat time—being "in custody" the right amount of time. Just try getting a credit because you can do the stuff without being there. It's rarely allowed. Furthermore, in many districts if
you're absent or tardy so many times in a grading period, your grade automatically gets lowered by so many points. That's about Custody and control, not about learning.
Compliance as Achievement
The school's Custodial mission is, in turn, the key driver of its second most important agenda: compliance and control. Because they have to attend school for a specific amount of time, students' participation is inherently involuntary. Like it or not, they have to put up with the school, and the school has to put up with them. Clearly, most schools do the best they can to interest and motivate their students, but when all else fails, schools control the ultimate carrot/reward/stick that assures Compliance: credit. No credit, no diploma.
As we explore the territory, keep your eyes peeled for how often and in how many ways points and grading, the key elements of credit, are used to gain student Compliance and maintain control. Bad attitude? Five points off. Throw a spit-wad? Ten points off. Mouth off to the teacher? A zero for the day. And remember, these points are tallied up as your overall grade.
Is social control in some form or other necessary? Yes, definitely. Are Compliance and control learning and achievement? No. But you'll be hard pressed to find grading systems that don't have Compliance and control factors mixed right in with everything else. It's often what researchers call the school's "hidden curriculum," and it's a potential element in all classroom interactions.
Competition as Achievement
Competition is the third factor that distorts the meaning of learning and achievement in schools. It is both the philosophical cause of the school's numbers game and the psychological result of it. If we explore in more depth in our educational institutions, from graduate schools on down, have decided—based on a worldview of privilege and scarcity— that there are only so many goods and valued objects (e.g., 100s, As, 4.0s, places in elite colleges) of any kind to go around. Valued resources are simply scarce, so if you want them, you'll have to outdo your peers in some way or other to get them. This, in short, is the essence of the contest over points described earlier.
So if a teacher only has so many high marks to distribute, and they get distributed week after week based on assignments and tests, who will be the students who get them? The most motivated, you might guess. Or the most diligent. Perhaps. But also consider these two likelih-
oods: (1) those who already knew a lot about it before they started; and (2) those who learn faster than others—often because they already knew a lot about it too. The worst thing you can be in a competitive situation is beh/nC—behind in learning level, behind in rate of learning, or behind in points. Is being a fast learner the same as successful learning? Not at all. But it is in school when there aren't enough points to go around, and they're distributed on a tight schedule.
Competence as Achievement
Competence is one of the "official" components of learning and achievement. That's the good news. The bad news is that the official curriculum that really counts in schools isn't organized around Competence development, it's organized around Content. To develop Competence, students need to do things: plan, design, organize, write, produce, perform, and so forth, and on a continuous basis. These words are what Language Arts teachers call "action verbs"—you actually carry out a process and do something to execute them, and doing requires Competence.
But as you explore the territory of school, look at the verbs that describe the school's curriculum and course goals, and you'll be hard pressed to find verbs other than "know," "interpret," and "understand." Even worse is the current emphasis on test taking. What are the dominant verbs there? "Remember" and "recognize." So be aware of how much lip service schools pay to developing Competence, but then compare it to the extremely narrow range of performance abilities that they actually develop and evaluate. Why?
Content as Achievement
Because Content is king! For centuries educators have equated education with acquiring, remembering, and mentally processing Content. That's good and necessary, but "knowing" Content doesn't make you Competent. Nor does "understanding" Content. Competence is the ability to apply Content in some useful way.
With that in mind, examine the course offerings in your schools. You're likely to find two things: (1) the courses are almost all labeled according to the kind of Content they contain (e.g., social studies, biology, etc.), not the kind of Competence they develop (e.g., Systematic Planning, Effective Communicating, etc.); and (2) the courses are almost all divided into two categories: academic and applied. Look closer and you'll find that "academic" is about "rigorous Content for smart kids." "Applied" is about having "dumb kids do practical things." This profoundly false, counterproductive, and misleading myth has been driving education for-
ever; and it is limiting our vision of education, ignoring the talents and shortchanging the opportunities of countless learners, and jeopardizing our future as a nation. It's a dominant feature of the territory, so watch for it:
Academic = Rigorous = Smart Applied = Practical = Dumb
It's everywhere, today's reforms embrace it, and it's hogwash!
Other Cautions
As you continue your explorations of the territory, you'd be well advised to keep your eyes peeled for three other things. First, the standardized, assembly-line nature of curriculum delivery that has all children of a given age in the same grade level working on the same page of the same textbook on the same day. It's a sure sign that the learner is not the focal point of instruction, the curriculum is.
Second, a heavy emphasis on children performing on state-mandated standardized tests that have serious consequences attached to them—at the expense of other kinds of learning and development. It's a sure sign that the learner is not the focal point of instruction, the state mandates are.
Third, report cards that only have tiny boxes next to the name of subjects for fixed blocks of time. It's a sure sign that the learner is not the focal point of instruction, the numbers game is.
The big question, of course, is what should you do if you come across all of these things in your explorations? Ask "Why do we do this?"—and don't stop asking because the explanations are hidden in our long-forgotten past.
The chances are that they'll begin to understand that the familiar territory of Industrial Age schooling must change, not just improve, because the gap between what we know as a people and a profession and what we continue to do in the name of education has never been wider.
How wide must it be before the entire foundation shatters? And if it does, what should replace it? The answer to the first question is that it's intolerably too wide already, and today’s counterfeit reforms are widening it even more!
The answer to the second offers a vision of a learning system that focuses on the future, empowers all learners, and elevates the meaning of education far beyond its traditional constraints. May this vision inspire and motivate all of us to move beyond counterfeit reforms to forge an authentic future for all learners.
