Alex Ragone, of Learning Blog, made some important comments yesterday (Educational Research and Re-Envisioning Schools) about a recent poll that I conducted on 2¢ Worth. The poll question was:
Ragone begins by describing two books he has read from ASCD, Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time and Classroom Instruction that Works. It seems to me (my interpretation) that Ragone is suggesting that the lessons from these books, their scientifically researched findings, might be expanded beyond direct instructional objectives and influence larger life issues, such as what I ask for, “teachers…who truly influenced who you are today.” He says…
I see this pattern: goals, instruction (conversation), assessment, feedback, in Management books such as Good to Great or Now Here are My Strenghts. It’s amazingly flexible and seems to be a process that is running through many different realms of my life.
I have absolutely no objection to this position, as I suspect that he has made way to much of the survey results by holding them up against the work of Jane Pollock and Robert Marzano. That was probably my fault. I left the survey up too long as it became too disconnected from the original blog post that introduced it — where I wrote…
…these surveys are not meant to be scientific. They are, instead, meant to generate some conversation about teaching and learning in this time of rapid change.
..and the survey did provoke 17 comments, which is big stuff for me, and Alex’s blog post continues the conversation. If I had taken the survey, I probably would have clicked the same 75% measurable 25% not measurable, just like Alex — or at least 50% by 50%. But it’s not those numbers that are important. It is the life of a classroom. I’m concerned that we might just scientifically research the life out of the classroom, if we do not do it very well and with a lot of humanity.
Ragone quotes President John Adams as saying, “There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live.†I think that this distinction has been true for a long time. When I started teaching, I had absolutely no reason to believe that I would ever do anything else or would ever do it any differently than I was in the 1970s. I had no reason to believe my students would do anything else but leave middle school, graduate from high school, some graduate from college, and then simply use what they learned in school to get jobs, perform those jobs, and then retire 30 or 35 years later.
Of course, things have changed, and change has accellerated. What we do, how we do it, the tools we use, what we need to know, it is all constantly changing. Because of this, it seems that the two types of education President Adams spoke of have become inseparably intertwined. Making a living means living to learn. It means a lifestyle that loves to learn. If our goal is merely to assure that our students have learned a defined base of knowledge in a way that they can demonstrate that mastery, then scientifically measured best practices can certainly achieve this — and, no doubt, this is a huge part of what teaching continues to be about and should be about. But if we should also be graduating citizens who are prepared and eager to continue to learn, to adopt a lifestyle of learning, then its going to take a lot more than just best practices. It’s going to take much more than what can be described in research findings. It’s going to require flexibility, serendipity, relationships, and humanity.
I’ve not read either of the books that Alex describes, so I can say that either of them do not address these qualities. They probably do. It’s an ongoing conversation — and that was the point of the survey, to generate ongoing conversations.
Thanks Alex…
You can read the report of the survey and the comments.
I think there is a misunderstanding about what is “scientific” research in the social sciences. It has been well established for decades that quantitative and qualitative data is valid.
Perhaps we need studies that track students as some medical studies do over time. What do students who grow up in rural school (as an example) do when they are 25, 35, 45, etc…
If a student “adapts to change well” as a 5th grader, do they still “adapt to change well” as a 35 year old? That would be interesting.
David,
Thanks for the thoughts. I agree that we need to have humility and humanity in our classrooms. In my original writing, I made reference to Science Leadership Academy, where I believe that we are human qualities of respect and good will, and clear expectations to create lifelong learners are present. This seems to be the golden rail.
It’s great fun to write and wonder about this. I look forward to reading and reflecting more.
Thank you for your thoughts here!
– Alex
David,
You ask whether the goal of education “is merely to assure that our students have learned a defined base of knowledge in a way that they can demonstrate that mastery”.
The recently-released ACT National Curriculum Survey:
http://www.act.org/path/policy/reports/curriculum.html
seems to suggest that postsecondary instructors consider our middle/high school curricula to be far too broad in scope and overly content-orientated. The report raises some interesting questions about how we should prepare our students for life beyond high school.
diane
I like all the points you and the commentators have made. Related to this issue…I was talking to my husband about baseball after hearing a piece on NPR about sports blogs. He was explaining to me about the revolution of statistics in baseball. Statistics used to be in the hands of the few in media who had all the box scores, then Bill James starting a grass-roots movement gathering the data from fans, and publishing it, in paper, for the masses. Then the data became available in digital form, and everyone could and was looking at the numbers. My husband said what became interesting in the next stage was the questions became “what is a meaningful statistic” I wonder if that is the stage we are at in education studies?