Adding It Up

Power School

Questions about Power?

Who has power in a school? Do the kids have control? Do administrators have control over teachers and staff? How is power shared or horded in a school? The questions are not comfortable to ask. Is there a particular position that lends itself to power/sharing/manipulation? Who has the power to stop it from happening? Can individuals disconnect or reject power?

What is Power in a School Setting?

Power is typically viewed as being consolidated with administration and their ability to make decisions--hiring, firing, schedule making... However, dig a little bit deeper and in every school across America you will find people of influence, using power in ways that foster growth or retard learning and collaboration. The faces of people who are perceived as power hoarders and misuser probably come to mind. It is important to look in the mirror. Teachers and students give tremendous amount of control and power to people during the day--the ebb and flow of power shifts daily in classrooms and buildings. "I don't care, just make a decision." "I stayed up all night thinking about what 'you insert a name' said to me in that staff meeting." "I couldn't say no--my ideas don't matter anyway." We give up power by allowing others to dictate our thoughts, ideas, and social heath.

I am thinking about a time when a parent said to me, "Your classroom is a zoo at the end of the day. I am going to put together this system for you. All you need to do is keep track of it during the day, and I'll bring in candy for a reward." Gulp. Power was in flux. As a new teacher, I almost capitulated and allowed a parent to make an assessment about my class, provide a solution (in her mind), and dictate to me how to function. Was her idea bad? No. Was it noisy at the end of the day? Yes. Did I want to fight that battle? No. The morning was more important to me, so I spent my energies working toward a time that mattered more to me and ultimately student learning. A pastor friend gave me a fine piece of advice many years ago, "Jon, if someone has a good idea for you and you are not sure how to respond, sincerely say, 'I'll get back about that.'" So, The next day I sat down with the parent and told her that I appreciated her concern, but I was going to focus more on the morning time and at the end of the day, I'm more inclined to let kids talk and be kids. The parent exploded, "Fine then I'll just not say a word. I'll let you do all the talking and not even give any suggestions!" I was taken back by the response, "I like the fact that you care so much about your child and the class to offer suggestions. Don't stop helping and thinking of ways to make the class better, this idea is just not something I'm going to do right now."

Power in Practice

This parent ended up being one of my best and most reliable volunteers. The help was invaluable and provided me more time to work with kids. However, the flow of power needed to be checked. Could she dominate the classroom? Could I dominate the classroom? Could the students dominate the classroom? Was I the boss? Yes. Did I need all the power? No. I shared my power with her and the students. The situation had the potential to create sleepless nights--why am I doing some behavior plan, when it is not a big deal to me? It could have destroyed the respect I have for parents--they just want to control me and champion their own agendas. What helped me navigate this power struggle? Luck? Maybe. I hate being manipulated, but do I have the courage to appropriately confront it? Teachers typically have no problem dealing with students' power issues. Positional power makes confronting kids easy. But what about power problems with staff members or parents?

Power Eruptions—Mt. Saint Helens

Power is typically not on the agenda for staff meetings. Should staff talk about it? What if the meeting leader said, “Today we are going to talk about power. Raise your hand if you know of someone in the room who has misused their influence or power this week?” Anyone? The staff would uncomfortably shift their eyes from the floor, to the table, to the speaker. Power misuse is not talked about until the negative side of it surfaces.

Take Mt. Saint Helens as an example. I’ve lived in the Northwest most of my life and most people only talk about the last big eruption. People still build in the shadow of it, develop tracks of land in the flow zones, and go about life as if nothing could ever happen again. Power, manipulation, and influence are similar. Teaching staffs tell stories of past “eruptions”, but most of the time don't examine present relationships. We can’t vilify certain staff members for their actions. However, we can look at our “building site” and ask probing questions. How much power am I willing to give away? How will I deal with professional disagreements and challenges? What can I do to prevent myself from manipulating situations and people? Mt. Saint Helens will erupt again; luckily I live far enough away. But, I am faced with eruptions everyday in my school—am I prepared?

(Note: some of the examples are compilations of parents or staff members--no one person is represented in the anecdotes)

Rational Mathematics Education: Wolin, Democracy and The Math Wars

Rational Mathematics Education: Wolin, Democracy and The Math Wars: "Sheldon S. Wolin"

What is School?

What is School?

Merriam Webster
1: an organization that provides instruction: as a: an institution for the teaching of children




I am using this little triad to think about school and would like some help.

Learning is
We use what we learn
We organize what we learn

The school is
-what is school, should be the filter for everything schools do...
The schools does what it is
-schools attempt to do what it is...
The school organizes what it does
-the way school insitutionalises what it does...

It seems that most schools reorganize themselves and tend to assume everyone knows what "the school is." I'd love to have a conversation about this.

Question?

What does it mean to count?

Immigration?

I recently posted a video on my facebook page. It briefly tells the story of a modern day internment camp--in Texas. I thought it would inspire some action and it did. I got the following response from a person--it shocked me. Before you read the response, please take a second to view the video:

"...Why should I give a *&#@ about the &*%$! who get caught coming into our country illegally?! If life is so bad down south, what makes them think it'll be any better here?! If you want my sympathy, Try coming into the country legally and get rejected. Then I'll care."

Does the response seem typical of American sentiments? What role should our government play? How should we treat people with an unresolved immigration status? How does past immigration policies inform our present policy? How is the current immigration trend different from that of the early 1900s? Please consider the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty---it gives away my position.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Squelch

A conversation with a friend caused me to visit my beliefs about the role of research and data in public education. Data driven decisions about student learning and researched based instructional practices are on many teachers minds. I like this development. It helped me serve students in different ways. For example, teachers assumed that I needed to serve the lowest students from each class (about four students per class)--sounds fair and reasonable. But, what if one of the four kindergarten classes had a higher percentage of students in need? The data helped me explain to the other teachers that I did not need to see all of their "low" kids, because they preformed better on the developmentally appropriate assessments. The data provided me a clear list of students to see. But, what gets lost in the data. As the year developed, I found myself looking at numbers, charts, and spreadsheets. Enter a student to my room and hear my thoughts, "She's ranked in the 5th percentile in 1st grade. Or walking down the hallway, "Hi James--12th percentile." It is easy to get cold. I hate feeling cold and sterile, which caused me to think about inspiration and squelch. Squelch is defined by Wikipedia:

a circuit function that acts to suppress the audio (or video) output of a receiver in the absence of a sufficiently strong desired input signal .


Scouts and CBs

In my long gone 1978 Scout 2, I had a CB with a 12 foot whip antenna. I used it to play with old truckers, talk with friends, and coordinate various social functions. Squelch was important--it filtered out the unwanted white noise or weak signals of other CB users. If I wanted to talk to someone close, I would turn the squelch up. If I was stuck in the mud, in the middle of the forest, I would turn it down to allow me to hear distance replies to my calls for help. The line between hearing too much and too little was sometimes hard to find.

Education and Squelch

What is squelch in public education? I not sure yet. The squelch is difficult to find. Take reading for example, there is research that "proves" that direct instruction impacts student learning more than any other method and research that "proves" cooperative learning does the same. A reading program recently broke my squelch. One teacher said, "I could teach a rock to read with this program. Its just boring for students and the teacher. If you want it I'm sure we could find it--I am sure a lot of districts have it in their storage closets." Really--rocks to read? Are we teaching rocks? How do I adjust my squelch to hear what she really said. Maybe it would have sound like this, "We have a lot of kids who need help in reading--I am willing to try whatever it takes to help them." Did she say that? I don't know, but hope so. My squelch wasn't adjusted properly when she said that to me, so I responded, "That program doesn't align to my philosophy, so I'll try something else." I lost an opportunity. Not to use the program, but to collaborate and find multiple solutions to a complicated problem.

Tension

The tension must continue--I don't want to find balance, but the squelch. What should I use to filter daily conversations about data and research? What is the role of inspiration--teachers creating and solving specific problems that are unique to their populations? Using squelch requires that we keep our hands on the dials of our minds, ready to adjust on a moments notice--ready to hear what we need.

Educational Phrenology

I am fascinated by phrenology--the defunct pseudo-science of the 1900s. It has some interesting parallels to education, but first some background. Franz Joseph Gall developed a "scientific" procedure to determine personality traits and cognitive abilities based on the characteristics on the human skull, which came to be known as phrenology. His rational was that a person’s skull mirrored bumps, concaves, and the shapes of their brains. Ultimately, brain shape indicated potential--sounds great. The graphic to the left shows a sample of a phrenological diagram used to map or chart areas of interest. I imagine that the people who "scored" well really loved the science and the people who didn't...well it affirmed their worst fears.

Educators use tools like this all the time. They just have different names. DIBELS, Quality School Indicators, and the lists go on. Many tools are useful, however as people we tend to generalize and extract correlations that do not exist. For example, in a recently published article about small high schools, David Hoff writes,

High schools receiving $80 million in annual federal funding to support “smaller learning communities” can document that they are taking steps to establish learning environments more intimate than found in the typical comprehensive high school.

But, according to a federal study , such smaller schools can’t answer the most significant question: Is student achievement improving in the smaller settings?

He goes on to say that student achievement is defined as grade level promotion. Is grade level promotion a true indicator of student success? Is it an indicator of student engagement? Is it an indicator of students being valued and inspired? Maybe, maybe not. Studies turn into phrenological maps if we don't question there validity. Do assessments, diagnostic indicators, and curriculum maps show us the way? Sometimes they do--when coupled with common sense and research, I think we can find appropriate indicators of student success.

I am challenged with the temptation to use the maps available and accepted by today’s educational experts. Some of them work well, but I'm jolted to reality when I notice myself viewing kids as cars with engine trouble, instead of creators and learners with needs. All students can learn--it sounds cliché--but I've seen it happen. For example, a student with an I.E.P. who didn’t seem to care or have the ability to learn was given the chance to engage a course of study, found she could learn, and made huge gains. Did she advance a grade level? No. Did she make more progress than students in her class? Yes. Educational phrenology is dangerous. It gives us the false sense of knowing--it helps us wrongly say, "I got it all figured out."

Power School

Questions about Power?

Who has power in a school? Do the kids have control? Do administrators have control over teachers and staff? How is power shared or horded in a school? The questions are not comfortable to ask. Is there a particular position that lends itself to power/sharing/manipulation? Who has the power to stop it from happening? Can individuals disconnect or reject power?

What is Power in a School Setting?

Power is typically viewed as being consolidated with administration and their ability to make decisions--hiring, firing, schedule making... However, dig a little bit deeper and in every school across America you will find people of influence, using power in ways that foster growth or retard learning and collaboration. The faces of people who are perceived as power hoarders and misuser probably come to mind. It is important to look in the mirror. Teachers and students give tremendous amount of control and power to people during the day--the ebb and flow of power shifts daily in classrooms and buildings. "I don't care, just make a decision." "I stayed up all night thinking about what 'you insert a name' said to me in that staff meeting." "I couldn't say no--my ideas don't matter anyway." We give up power by allowing others to dictate our thoughts, ideas, and social heath.

I am thinking about a time when a parent said to me, "Your classroom is a zoo at the end of the day. I am going to put together this system for you. All you need to do is keep track of it during the day, and I'll bring in candy for a reward." Gulp. Power was in flux. As a new teacher, I almost capitulated and allowed a parent to make an assessment about my class, provide a solution (in her mind), and dictate to me how to function. Was her idea bad? No. Was it noisy at the end of the day? Yes. Did I want to fight that battle? No. The morning was more important to me, so I spent my energies working toward a time that mattered more to me and ultimately student learning. A pastor friend gave me a fine piece of advice many years ago, "Jon, if someone has a good idea for you and you are not sure how to respond, sincerely say, 'I'll get back about that.'" So, The next day I sat down with the parent and told her that I appreciated her concern, but I was going to focus more on the morning time and at the end of the day, I'm more inclined to let kids talk and be kids. The parent exploded, "Fine then I'll just not say a word. I'll let you do all the talking and not even give any suggestions!" I was taken back by the response, "I like the fact that you care so much about your child and the class to offer suggestions. Don't stop helping and thinking of ways to make the class better, this idea is just not something I'm going to do right now."

Power in Practice

This parent ended up being one of my best and most reliable volunteers. The help was invaluable and provided me more time to work with kids. However, the flow of power needed to be checked. Could she dominate the classroom? Could I dominate the classroom? Could the students dominate the classroom? Was I the boss? Yes. Did I need all the power? No. I shared my power with her and the students. The situation had the potential to create sleepless nights--why am I doing some behavior plan, when it is not a big deal to me? It could have destroyed the respect I have for parents--they just want to control me and champion their own agendas. What helped me navigate this power struggle? Luck? Maybe. I hate being manipulated, but do I have the courage to appropriately confront it? Teachers typically have no problem dealing with students' power issues. Positional power makes confronting kids easy. But what about power problems with staff members or parents?

Power Eruptions—Mt. Saint Helens

Power is typically not on the agenda for staff meetings. Should staff talk about it? What if the meeting leader said, “Today we are going to talk about power. Raise your hand if you know of someone in the room who has misused their influence or power this week?” Anyone? The staff would uncomfortably shift their eyes from the floor, to the table, to the speaker. Power misuse is not talked about until the negative side of it surfaces.

Take Mt. Saint Helens as an example. I’ve lived in the Northwest most of my life and most people only talk about the last big eruption. People still build in the shadow of it, develop tracks of land in the flow zones, and go about life as if nothing could ever happen again. Power, manipulation, and influence are similar. Teaching staffs tell stories of past “eruptions”, but most of the time don't examine present relationships. We can’t vilify certain staff members for their actions. However, we can look at our “building site” and ask probing questions. How much power am I willing to give away? How will I deal with professional disagreements and challenges? What can I do to prevent myself from manipulating situations and people? Mt. Saint Helens will erupt again; luckily I live far enough away. But, I am faced with eruptions everyday in my school—am I prepared?

(Note: some of the examples are compilations of parents or staff members--no one person is represented in the anecdotes)

Dogma Campfires

What form(s) of school is best for kids? Should public schools continue to reform themselves? Should other systems be embraced? Free Skools, home schooling, unschooling...? I love this conversation; however it tends to end quickly and people of like minds end up sitting around their dogma campfires. The free skool folks vent about those nasty teachers and oppressive systems—everyone in the circle nods. The traditional school folks don't even know that other models are viable and complain about funding, unruly kids, and absent parents—they reach for another cup of coffee. Let's look for a 3rd or 4th alternative which may embrace or reject parts of both. As a teacher in the system, I feel like I can sit down at either campfire, strike up a conversation and find some theoretical or philosophical agreement. But I loath the dogma and group think. Granted it is human to befriend and/or communicate with people we agree with, but really—what about the kids. The conversion becomes so much about structure and rules the kids get left out.

Should I leave public school system because I disagree with it? I’ve wrestled with this idea a lot—especially as it relates to the Church. Do I leave a church because its public image and hierarchy is something I don’t want to be associated with? Aren’t the relationships worth something? In my case, I left a big church. The system is/was beyond saving (at least the kind of help I could offer).

So is my little public school worth saving? Should I leave it like the “c”hurch. The students need me to work for them. Not just be a good teacher, but advocate for their autonomy and brilliance. I look to people like Freire. He said it well in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “…the humanist revolutionary educator cannot wait for this possibility to materialize. From the outset, her efforts must coincide with those of the students to engage in critical thinking and the quest for mutual humanization. His efforts must be imbued with a profound trust in people and their creative power. To achieve this, they must be partners of the students in their relations with them.” I can’t wait to start something new or find something amazing happening in the world. It must start now at my little school. Who knows I may get expelled from my “country” as Freire was from Brazil—but not today. I think it takes everyone putting down their pitch forks and personal memories of school to envision what today might look like if we truly saw kids as people, creators, and teachers.