Glasgow educator and blogger, David Muir, wrote yesterday about the product of education versus the process. It’s not an uncommon topic, even going back to my days in education school more than 30 years ago. However, it is probably more relevant now than ever before, as product seems to be THE measure of success today, as students are marched in each year to be measured against some blueprint on what all children at that age must know.
He quotes George Seimens, which I’ll repeat here — but please do go and read David’s perspective. George writes in How Things Change…
“We have designed education to promote certainty (i.e. a state of knowing)…we now need to design education to be adaptable (i.e. a process of knowing).”
This reminded me of something that I’ve been thinking about ever since I watched the movie The Lake House a few weeks ago. I remember thinking, throughout the movie, what a great couple the Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock characters are going to make, when they finally get together. You come to love them as individuals. It’s what makes the movie enjoyable. But, do you get to love the couple that they become. Noooooo!
Last night I watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and you’re rooting for Smith and Saunders, and, at the end, they are an item. But do you get to see the pair that they make. Noooooo!
It’s one of the things that’s hard about teaching. You see the kids. You watch them struggle and succeed, and struggle and continue to struggle. You see them at their best and you see them at their worst. You the character that they are building and you know this is going to be a great person one day. But do you get to see that person — the product. Noooooo!
It is about product, but the product is never a part of the movie. It rarely happens in the classroom either. It happens after — long after your teaching is over. Believing that we can find the success in teaching by measuring what students have memorized in their classes is the height of arrogance, in my opinion. Yet, preparing our children for a future that we can not even describe requires of educators more than we have ever expected before.
We need teachers who do, indeed, have eyes in the backs of their heads. But not so they can watch for flying erasers — but so, while they attend to their students in the classroom, they are simultaneously observing the world in which they live, and from which they are teaching.
We need teachers who will spend the time to grade the papers, or what ever that entails in a digital world — but also teachers who are willing and able to reflect on their assignments and on student responses in a rapidly changing world, where the answers are changing, and there are more and more new questions.
Teachers will continue to call the roll, but what does classroom management look like when geography (where the learner is) means so much less than what their attention is connected to, where the walls are invisible, and the textbooks live.
It is not a time for teacher-technicians, trained lab clerks who observe a deficiency, and prescribe a scientifically researched strategy. It’s a time for teacher-philosophers, who love their world, love what they teach, love their students, and who love what their students will be.
Image Citation:
Ctd 2005, “Pupil and Teacher.” Ctd 2005’s Photostream. 1 Nov 2005. 3 Sep 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/kikisdad/58678055/>.
I’m not sure I totally agree with you Dave. Yes, for the most part we don’t the the product at the end of the movie, but the movie is long and there are sequels in which you do get glimpse of the product assuming you are in the theater long enough.
After 30 years of teaching I get to see many of the products I helped to shape. Just last week I was pulled over by one of them in a policeman’s uniform, my accountant was one of my students, all the trees on my property were trimmed by people who work for one of my ex-students. (Incidentally, his business number is one digit off of my home phone number, so I am also his part-time secretary.)
Both of my children went through the school and I see the products that are called their friend. Occassionally, one of my ex-students while see a reference of me online and I’ll get an e-mail. As I read the paper, I see letters to the editors and news articles about ex-students.
Granted that the number of products we see are small compared to the number who passed through our classroom door, but the representation is there and the knowledge that we do make a difference is there.
Of course what we see in our products and how they perform in the world is in part a reflection of our teaching an karma… When I got stopped, I didn’t get a ticket.
Art
Art, you are absolutely right. We do, finally, get to see the product. In fact, I’d planned to write this in the blog, but it got to be too long — so I’m glad that you brought it up.
I think that another place where we see the products of education is in ourselves. What is it in me or you that makes us successful in any way that I percieve success in our lives. What teachers ignited that part of our characters? What learning experiences shaped it?
Certainly part of it was those teachers who taught me the multiplication tables that helped me to succeed. But it was also that teacher who challenged us to make a rocket that would fly more than 10 feet in the air. Alas mine lifted off three times before becoming too shattered to fly again, and none of those liftoffs in his presence. Still, even though I got no points, that was a learning experiences that I remember.
Thanks, Art!
— dave —
David,
Good Labor Day Monday to you! Thanks for swinging by “think:lab”, btw, and for the continual challenge to rise to the occasion whenever I read your work.
While I’d adore the opportunity to avoid dichotomies (product vs. process), since at the end of the day nobody wins…and people tend to believe what they did the day before. That being said, however, I agree with Art (as well as your later echo of his words) in his statement that the products of our teaching/mentoring exist everywhere we turn, but to be fair we MUST imagine that our role is but a fraction of that student’s eventual identity/skill set. The rest of his/her life (and schooling, on occasion) has a little to do with the form they eventually embrace and become. Thus while we can see the product, it is rarely a linear progression from what transpired in our individual class. We MUST also accept that the process is from day one nebulous and tangential and something best described out of our periphreal line of site. There is much faith and hopefulness in this area as well. Because even if you provide a rich and rigorous and adaptable process, it’s like a Plinko ball in that it will follow its own path in time.
For me, the sweet spot always lies in between. For short-term goals, I’m quite comfortable with product and process. You can for the most part narrow down the boundaries when the time frame is minor. And if you stay with it, you can pretty much guarantee that a kid will deliver within the goal posts. Longer view, however? Well, that’s when I shift to empowering kids to be “response-able” (rather than “responsible”) in ways we can never predict (which you say over and over and over again, my friend). And by being “response-able”, I’m clearly leaning more towards the process side…but even that is not enough.
You speak boldly and passionately about a future that we teachers/adults cannot imagine or predict. Yet, we also must prepare our kids for such a future today. The ONLY way to do that, I believe, is to teach them the reasoning skills (product + process must come together here, rather than divide up the resources and our time) that allow them to adapt to an ever-changing future. Adapting. Adapting. Constantly…infinitely…and routinely. This is Daniel Pink ‘Conceptual Age’ business. This is ninja training in the dark. This is blind man walking the Appalachian Trail risk-taking and Tom Brown trail marking. This is Mark Prensky video game thumb blurring. This is for the first time in human history having a little faith that the young may have something to teach us first.
In any event, the rain is falling here in Texas on a Monday morning, the coffee is beginning to do its magic, and within the next 24 hours my wife and I will head to the hospital to begin officially welcoming our first child into the world. Talk about learning how to be “response-able” instead of narrowing it down to product vs. process!
Be well…and keep up the good fight, David!
Cheers, Christian
One more thing, David. Your statement about philosopher-teachers reminds me of being in the 11th grade and learning about Plato and his philosopher-kings.
“Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while many natures who at present pursue wither one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils…nor, I think, will the human race.”- Plato
Let’s try a re-mash in edu-speak:
“Until philosophers [guide] as teachers who those who are now called teachers and leading [educators] genuinely and adequately philosophize, until [educational] power and philosophy entirely coincide, while many natures who at present pursue wither one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, [schools and learning communities] will have no rest from [complacency]…nor, I think, will the human race.” — with all due respect to Plato’s inspiration
You are in good, good, good company, my friend! Cheers, Christian