Who’s job is it to teach?

     I volunteer in a second grade classroom at a local elementary school. I had a conversation with the teacher today about why the students were not learning their “math facts”. For those of you that have not been to elementary school in the last few pentades, “math facts” refers to the student’s ability to instantly, by rote, know the answer to any addition or subtraction problem up to 15 +- 15. Kind of like the way some of us learned our multiplication tables. Anyway, this is apparently a critical part of the second grade curriculum.

     Disclaimer: I am adamantly, completely, and fanatically opposed to rote learning. I think people should learn the underlying principles and be able to solve *any* problem in the same category.

     This conversation was preceded by a number of conversations about how to teach math. I have taken an approach that encourages the kids to understand the underlying concepts – my daughter has been able to add and subtract multiple digit numbers since she could write them down, so I’m fairly sure that most of the students can handle the concepts. OK, I know they can, because I teach them. Anyway, the teacher was lamenting the fact that only one of her students had actually mastered the “math facts”. Her biggest complaint: that the parents weren’t doing the 10 minute a day practice drills she had assigned the kids. This brought up one of the tough issues that we face in the classroom today – parents expect that their kids will get everything they need from a public education, and often refuse to allow their kids to do homework (or any other academic activity that would interfere with soccer, girl scouts, piano lessons, or watching spongebob squarepants).

     I explained to the teacher that I wasn’t upset that my daughter hadn’t mastered her “math facts” because I know perfectly well that My Small One (MSO) is perfectly capable of solving any (whole number) addition or subtraction problem with a fair degree of accuracy. The teacher was appalled because MSO’s grade depended on her ability to perform timed math tests – in other words to regurgitate rather than solve. She felt that my casual approach to MSO’s grades was Not Good. I admit that grades do make a difference. But, I have to question how much a second grade rating of “not yet mastered” really matters. The teacher indicated that it was her belief that a student that could not master math facts could not master multiplication tables, to which I responded that MSO already knows her multiplication tables more or less up to 10×10.

So. Who is responsible for teaching? I admit that MSO gets a good bit out of her time at Public School. I also freely admit that I spend a lot of time correcting, de-dumbifying (most of the science, history, and civics taught in elementary school is dumbed down to the point of being just plain wrong), and de-mything a lot of what she “learns” at school (brag: how many second graders do you know that actually read Science? Mine does, and we discuss most of the articles). I also admit that I don’t feel the public schools are responsible for educating my child. Even if they were, they certainly are not capable of doing so – at least not to my standards.

I guess my real feeling is that public schools fall into the same category as many government programs: If you take what they give you, you deserve what you get.

What do you think?

half a million bucks for showing a kid a movie!

First, I have to give credit to the inspiration for this rant. Please read:

http://teacherseducation.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/yes-and-no/

Now for the Rant:

Background: someone made a stupid decision, and showed a group of middle school kids the movie BrokeBack Mountain. Apparently, one of the kids parents were so upset that they felt they had to sue for a half mil in damages.

What the hell are this kids parents thinking? Do they really think any court would actually give them a half mil for letting a kid see a movie? are we really supposed to believe that this kid has never heard of homosexuality? Sure, her parents may think that homosexuality is a bad thing, not OK, etc., but if the kid actually lives in America, chances are almost certain that she is aware that homosexuality exists, and that in a lot of our country is an accepted lifestyle. The only way this child could be completely sheltered from the knowledge that homosexuality is a part of our culture would be to raise her in fairly complete isolation – obviously not happening, because she attends a public school.

So what is the real issue here? I supopse it *is* possible that the parents actually believe that showing their little darling this movie has caused enough psychological damage that their little darling will need counceling for the rest of her life, and has no real chance of surviving in the modern world without an infusion of a half million dollars. Of course, I’d respond to that by pointing out that teaching her that a significant portion of our society (homosexuals) are Evil will probably cause her more damage than showing her the movie ever could, but hey, every parent has the right to screw their kids up as much as they want. The much more likely issue is either: A) mom and dad see a way to some easy cash, or B) mom and dad think that sufficient publicity will cause harm to a movie that has ideas in it they don’t like.

A) mom and dad see a way to some easy cash: Well, mom and dad are about to learn a lot about the American Legal System. First, lets take a look at what *should* happen:

Lawyer for mom and dad: “the Evil School showed my kid this movie with Bad Stuff in it”

Judge: ” The ”Bad Stuff” was homosexuality?”

Lawyer: “Yes”

Judge: “and you actually think that your child has never heard of or seen homosexuality presented as an aceptable lifestyle on TV, in a movie, or discussed with her freinds?”

Lawyer: “Absolutley your Honor. My Clients have sheltered their daughter from any exposure to such Evil Concepts as Homosexuality.”

Judge (speaking directly to parents): “is this true?”

Parents: “Of course your honor. Homosexuals are sexual deviants and are the root of All Evil.”

Judge: “O.K. I’ve reached a decision: the parents are going to pay all of the defence legal fees, all of the costs of having this trial, and an additional $100,000 for wasting everyones time. In addition, the parents and the child involved will undergo complete psychological evaluations to ensure that the parents are not causing any lasting damage to this little girl. Case closed.”

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that anything like this will happen. Our society encourages people to file stupid lawsuits like this. It is unheard of (and probably illegal) for judges to actually hold the folks that file these insane lawsuits accountable. A much more likely outcome will be that the local schools are forced to pay a bunch of legal fees, and will probably end up settling to simply cut costs – it will probably be cheaper for them to settle than to actually go to trial. One would hope that the school will actually stick it out, and either make a non-cash settlement (an apology and some sort of disciplinary action to whoever decide to show the movie without parental consent should be appropriate), or take it court. Of course, if they take it to court, the school should counter-sue the parents for the full cost of defence – whats good for the goose, and all that…..

B) mom and dad think that sufficient publicity will cause harm to a movie that has ideas in it they don’t like. Unfortunately, this is about as possible as option A. Any parent that would start this sort of stupid lawsuit is probably the type of parent that supports Banned Book lists (Scarlet Letter, Harry Potter,  Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, etc see: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm for a more complete list), censorship, and any public discourse that doesn’t agree with their own narrow view of “right”. America has a long history of suppressing controversial or unpopular dialogue – not just on social issues, but also in efforts to suppress simple fact. The unfortunate truth is that a small well-funded minority of people can make it almost impossible to teach anything that they don’t like. There are currently school districts in the United States that do not teach the Holocaust because it might offend students who are taught at home and at home that it never occur.

Take a good look at Intelligent Design (creationism) and the continuing lawsuits that are cropping up about teaching evolution on schools. The reality is that a sufficiently well funded group of nuts can make it insanely expensive to actually teach something that they don’t like in a public school. I chose to use creationism as an example because I used to be a research biologist. When I attended international meetings, non-americans frequently asked me to explain how it was possible that the american schools could seriously consider not teaching evolution, or teaching creationism as a viable alternate. Most of the folks that need to have this explained to them couldn’t understand why the parents that did not want their kids taught evolution didn’t simply enroll them in a private religious school, where they would be taught whatever fiction their chosen religion chose. The concept of a fringe minority controlling the teaching of facts in public schools was completely alien to them. Lets face it folks, we’re the laughing stock of the first world on this issue.

School Accountability

Alright, I’m on a roll on the whole school thing. Cope.

Today, I think I’ll rant about the crappy state of our public schools. I know that this is an incredibly easy target, and almost everyone has some sort of gripe about public schools.

Today, the gripe is accountability. Public schools get handed wads of cash – federal, state, and local – and are expected to use it to educate our kids. The problem is, no one seems to know what “educate” means. To some folks, it means their kid goes to school most days, and at the end of the year gets promoted to the next grade. This goes on until the kid finishes high school, at which point (s)he is awarded a piece of paper that acknowledges that said kid managed to actually be at school most of the time for the past 12 years. Other folks actually expect schools to do something other than provide a babysitter, but they can’t seem to agree on what the schools should be providing. One point that the two groups seem to have in common is that – no matter what – MY kid is certainly smart enough to go on to the next grade. If he hasn’t learned the skills that he’s supposed to have to go n the next grade, it is obviously the schools/teachers fault. Because my kid is a genius. (Side note: for all you rad fems out there: I will use “he” for mixed sex, or non-determined sex groups – the non-gendered, plural use if you don’t like it, take it up with the folks that invented Latin.)

Here lies the root of the problem. No matter what the schools do, they are destined to fail. Because a significant portion of the population just plain old doesn’t care what their kids are taught in school (as long as its not sex ed, evolution, or some other subject that a vocal minority has managed to blow into the press), there really aren’t any expectations. The minority of parents that *do* care about what is taught can rarely see beyond their own kids. If my kid is finishing first grade and still can’t read, the school has obviously failed to teach him in the way that he needs to learn. Or maybe he’s just not sufficiently “developed” to learn to read yet. Doesn’t matter. All his friends are going into the second grade, and it would cause Irreparable Harm to have the little snot repeat first grade.

So now we’re in the second grade. We’ve got a mix of kids with skill sets all over the map. Some are accomplished readers, some have mastered addition, subtraction, maybe even multiplication. Some still don’t know their ABC’s and count to ten without help. How is a teacher supposed to teach a class with no common skill set? The answer is simple: the teacher is expected to teach to each individual child’s skills. This means that a second grade teacher with 20 or so kids is expected to provide one-on-one instruction for each kid. If the teacher is lucky, he’ll be able to do some clumping and group together kids that are at about the same skill levels, but if hte teacher is not lucky, he’s just plain old screwed. Ever wonder why kids spend most of their time in elementary school doing art projects? Its so that the teacher can turn the class loose ona  pile of paper, glue. paint etc., and while the kids are self-entertaining, the teacher can work with one or two students and actually try to teach them something.

So what is the answer? its really pretty simple. Instead of assuming that a kid at age X belongs in grade Y, simply base promotion from grade to grade on a skills matrix. To go from 1st to second grade, the kid has to be able to count to 20, add single digits, know the alphabet and the sounds the letters make, etc. If the kid has mastered enough of the skills, he goes on to the next grade. If not, he repeats until he *has* learned enough of the skills.

But wait! what about those kids with special needs? its not fair to hold them back, because they simply may not be capable of learning those skills. In todays classroom, these kids are promoted regardless of skills, and (if they can get labeled as “special” or title 1, or whatever the current buzzword is) they get a special tutor to work with them. One on one education. Kind of like a private tutor, but on the taxpayer’s nickle. Of course, if a kid is excelling, most schools will leave him to plod along with the rest of the kids his age. If he’s really lucky, now and then he’ll get a teacher that manages to squeeze a couple of challenging projects in for him to keep him from being too bored, but for the most part, he’s going to get the same pablum as the rest of the class.  Of course, if he gets bored enough to start acting out, he’ll get labeled as a problem kid, and will get shunted off to special ed – with all the kids that couldn’t keep up with the normal class. Se we end up with the “normal” class – those kids that are capable and content to simply plod along and so just enough to get by, and the “special” class where we put all the impaired learners and the smarter kids that are bored. Of course, the special ed classes are aimed at teaching the slow kids anything at all, so the smart kids are left with even less than they had in the “normal” class.

I’ve left one thing – probably the most important thing – out of the equation so far. The parents. Any parent that really expects their kid to actually learn something had better be ready to provide on hell of a lot of education at home. Either themselves or through tutors, private education, private programs or whatever. If you can’t afford it, it pretty much sucks to be you (or at least your kids). Of course, many parents that can afford private tutors, enrichment programs and such simply yank their kids out of public schools and find a private school that meets their needs. In any case, if parents aren’t actively involved in their kids education, they have essentially abdicated the responsibility for education to the schools. Everyone knows that the government really does know what is best for you, and is the most efficient and best organization for getting anything done, right?

So, we have schools that have been given free reign to teach nothing – the only measure of success is if kids can pass some pathetic standardized tests every few years. Of course, they only measure the schools ability to make sure the kids can pass the test. And if the kids don’t pass the test, either the testing standards are lowered, or the school is warned that they have to make sure something changes. Of course, if nothing changes, there are no repercussions.

A radical new idea has been floating around for a bit. Its been touted under a number of labels, but what it boils down to is that each kid represents a certain number of education dollars. Instead of automatically giving all of those dollars to the public schools, let the parent decide what school they want their kid to go to, and give that school the money. Kind of like “Free Market”. The schools that meet the parents expectations and needs will have plenty of students (and cash), and the schools that don’t will go bankrupt and go away. There are a couple of arguments against this concept that I’ve heard that actually hold water. The most common is that parents might want their kids to go to a school that is run by a religious group, and the separation of church and state means that those schools can’t get government money because they are religious organizations. I admit that this is a tough nut, but if we rephrase the argument a bit, it suddenly makes sense. Here we go: A parent pays taxes to the government so that kids can be educated. The government is expected to spend that money in a way that actually educates the kids. In other words, the government is being trusted to spend the parents tax dollars (at least the education portion) to support education. Instead of having the parent pay the money to the government so the government can pay for the kids education, simply let the parent keep the money (either through a tax reduction, or through a a tax credit for each kid in school) and spend it as the parent sees fit. Imagine this: you fill out your tax forms, and there is a section that simply requires you to prove the name and tax ID of the school your kid attends. For each kid you have that is in school, you get a tax credit of X. Suddenly, the parent actually gets to choose the school their kid goes to, and the whole church and state thing goes away. For all you folks that are getting your hackles up about the poor folks that don’t earn enough to actually pay taxes, they would get the credit as tax return. The school that the kid goes to makes no difference – each kid is worth X education dollars regardless of what school they go to.

The other argument that I’ve heard (a lot) is that this type of program would kill the public schools. There’s no way that a public school can compete with private schools.  Of course, that’s the problem – the public schools are ensured an ongoing revenue stream without any accountability or deliverables. If the dollars that the public schools use were suddenly available to be spent at schools that actualy perform, the public schools would either learn to perform, or go away. Is that a problem? Of course, some folks say that if the public schools go away, there won’t be enough schools for the kids to go to. Remember that whole “Free Market” thing? If there is money available to pay tuition, there will be schools to collect it.

Would competition result in some cheap crappy schools? Probably, actually, almost certainly. But it would be the parents choice as to what school their kids go to. If I decide that I want my kids to go to a school that will simply promote them every year regardless of their performance, I’ll be able to send my kid to a school like that. If I want my kid to go to a school that actually requires he learns some skills, I would actually have to choice to do so. In other words, *my* money would go to support the education programs that I feel are good. What a concept. Letting someone actually decide how to spend their own money instead of letting the government do it for them. Of course, that would mean that a parent would have to take responsibility for raising (or at least educating) their kid, but parental responsibility is a rant or another day.

Public school beurocracy

I have to start by saying that most of my education was in public schools. I did a short stint a Catholic school, because when bussing started, some yahoo was taking pot shots at the school bus, and my folks decided that it made more sense to go to the local private (Catholic) school than ride into the inner city. Oh yeah, and the public schools sucked. Despite all of that, I manged to come out more or less OK (twitch, twitch), and had a successful career as a research biologist and then as a high tech executive…

This Rant is about a series of events that have been going on for the past year or so. I volunteer in the local elementary school, and I’ve noticed that the kids are pretty much taught entirely by rote. It doesn’t matter if you understand how addition or subtraction work, the goal is to memorize all of the addition and subtraction problems up to 20 +- 20, and be able to snap out the correct answer as fast as possible. This is called “Math Facts”, and is apparently an extremely good way to really crank up the scores on the standardized math tests (which are used to measure how “successful” a school is). The teaching methods employed in our public schools will be the subject of another rant some other time.

Being a scientist, engineer, and overall geek type person, I feel rather strongly that the kids should be encouraged to explore problem solving and critical thinking. It turns out that the Lego companies agree (or at least see an opportunity for large profits in this area), and have a whole line of products specifically designed for schools – preschool through high school – that teach the kids the basics of engineering (gears, levers, etc) and some simple programing (from a drag and drop GUI for the little ones to a full blown C interface). The Lego Education stuff is incredibly popular in schools, and the little bit that exists in our local elementary school is a huge hit with the kids. Problem is, there really isn’t anyone dedicated to the whole program, so its done on a more or less part time basis, on a shoestring budget. Does anyone see an opportunity here?

After a bit of legwork, talking to some friends, and the normal “what can we do to improve this situation” type thing (remember that bit about problem solving and critical thinking?), I find myself discussing possible solutions with the powers that be in the local schools. Turns out that they are extremely excited about the prospect of having someone who would be willing to work with teachers, after-school programs, etc. and make an entire Lego curriculum available to the kiddies. Fast forward a few months, throw in an anonymous benefactor, and I’ve got three pallets of Lego Education materials sitting in my living room. The next time I stop in to chat with the local school folks, I’m told that its great that I’ve got all this stuff, and they really appreciate that I’m willing to let them use it for free, but you see, in order to actually work with the kids, you need to be a State Certified Teacher. And if I want to work with different age groups, I need to be Certified for each age group. And because this curriculum covers science and Technology, I need to be certified in both subject areas. “Why don’t you go talk to the local University and see what it would take to get your teachers certificate?” I guess that as long as all I’m doing is “volunteering” in the classroom, anything goes. As soon as I want to donate more than my time, I need to be Certified (there is some irony to that. Certified. Yep, that would be acurate).

Well, it turns out that despite the fact that I havea  Masters in Neurobiology and spent 15 years teaching at University, none of the work or classes I took would count, so I’d have to go back to school as an undergraduate and get a BA in teaching, them get another Masters. Once I’ve got that done, I can spend a year working (for free) at a school to get my internship done, THEN I can start taking the battery of tests needed to make sure that I actually know the material I’m going to be teaching. Kind of a lot to do just to do so that I can make about $15,000 worth of resources available to the local school. Not to mention the 6 years or so it would take to get all those degrees and tests and such taken care of. What’s really ironic, is that when I’m volunteering in the classes, I typically teach the kids while the teacher is doing something else. If the kids ask the teacher a question that (s)he doesn’t knowthe answer to, I’m the one the teacher asks. So even though I’m already teaching in the school (for free) if the school decides to actually use all this stuff that I managed to make appear (for the school), I have to go deal with all this crap.

Feh.

Lets see, problem solving and critical thinking. There is an after school program fun by a local day care. One quick phone call, and I’ve got a two afternoon a week program set up for next year. 1st grade through 7th grade. If it is successful, they’re going to want to pay to continue to the program. The goals of the program are to encourage critical thinking, problem solving, and to do everything we can to get the girls hooked before the third/fourth grade social pressures convince them that math and science are “for boys”.

Word gets out. There are fourlocal churches that are interested in summer programs. Would I be willing to come see them and see if I could fit them into my schedule? All of them want to try and keep the girls involved in science and engineering type things, and want to see the kids learning about how things work. Oh yeah, and there are a couple of local private school (which aren’t required to have state certified teachers) that are fighting to get me to some teach.

So the end result is that in order to provide a service that will help the local school meet their stated goals of teaching critical thinking, technical literacy, and preparing the kids for the real worl work place, I have to go through a ton of bureaucratic horse shit – even though all I’m trying to do is make a (very expensive) service available for free. However, the local non-public school programs are fighting over the chance to *pay* me to provide these same services.

What was particularly frustrating was that everyone at the local school really wanted to make this happen. I can’t tell you how many hours we spent trying to think of ways to get around the insane bullshit that was making it impossible. The teachers, principle, computer lab folks – everyone at the local school was excited, supportive, and looking for loopholes. I think that many of the teachers at the school really do want to teach (not all, but some), and they are trapped by the stupid bureaucrats and state regulations.

End result: A local non-profit will now be providing a highly rated, very sought after k-12 technology program through local private schools, day care centers, churches, and children’s museums, but not at the local schools. Ever wonder why our public schools suck so bad?