Yahoo! Throws Schools a Curve

Will virtual teaching replace classroom teaching?

This week, in Austin, at SXSW, the eponymous Music-cum-everything-Festival, edupreneurs are presenting, attending, and probably drinking-a-lot-at seminars.  (I hyphenated that last bit so it would work as a noun in the series.  I don’t think it worked.  But that’s such a good way to attend an education seminar.  I’ve heard.) At one of these seminars at SXSW, the founders of virtual classroom biz standouts InstaEDU, Udemy, and Course Hero will be discussing the future of online education.  These companies are all vying for the opportunity to shape the future of how—and where—students learn.

There’s a lot of excitement (and fear) in schools about the future use of technology in education.  The impact of innovation could (and, I think, most definitely will) dramatically change our national school landscape.  Union reps, politicians, property owners and—always last and always least—teachers are all very interested how the virtual classroom will continue to improve or diminish instruction.

SXSW.edu, as the Fest is called, comes one week after Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer announced that there would be no more telecommuting at her company—and it set the blogosphere aflutter.  Her claim, basically:  distance working ain’t working out so good.  So, naturally, I wondered about the serendipity of it all. Can online classrooms—teleteaching/telelearning—replace the classroom, brick and mortar stuff, that teachers have been doing since Socrates?  If Mayer thinks that Yahoo!’s productivity is a victim of distance-working, might she also think that school’s productivity will also suffer with distance-teaching? 

Teleteaching and Telelearning:  The State of the Art

SXSW.edu, sponsored and backed by Bill and Melinda Gates (which means something politically, for those of you keep track), will be exploring how technology is already impacting pedagogy.  The seminars this week include a particular focus on what I call “teleteaching:” when teachers record lessons or lectures and distribute them online. Teachers have been offering online education for years, of course, but teleteaching seems poised to become a real competitor to “in the classroom” teaching.

Last year, Stanford University professor Daphne Koller got a lot of press when she rolled out Coursera.org at TEDGlobal 2012. The site offers “online course enrollment” in MOOC's from places like Standford, Harvard, and Yale—if you’ve ever heard of such places. You can get credit from these schools without ever going into any classroom at all—a big deal given some of those university names.  Coursera’s website boasts all kinds of wonderful things, mostly the democratization of education.  That’s a good thing.  But do students learn? 

Colleges, high schools, and elementary schools across the country have been expanding their online campuses for years, of course—but rarely as a complete replacement of actual classroom experience.  A couple of years ago, TED shined a spotlight on online teleteaching pioneer Kahn Academy (another Gates beneficiary). At Kahn, students download specific lessons on things such as Algebra, History, and Chemistry. Kahn seems to be working towards the supplemental rather than replacement model.  It has been collaborating with schools across the country, helping teachers “flip” the classroom: the students teach themselves at home with the online instruction then come to the classroom for practice and specific instruction from the actual teacher.  This is right up my alley-- and I have spent some time on Kahn's website.  The model looks pretty good and where I'd put my money for where things are headed.

But does the online instruction work?  The University of Phoenix has long been the butt of many jokes—but it’s been there for years, offering online courses. People get degrees from there and, I suppose, opportunities and raises from the accreditation.  It ain’t Harvard, but a degree is a degree.  But let’s get to the nitty gritty:  do people learn from a virtual instructor?  A couple of years ago, I took an online driving course to lower my car insurance.  Did it make me a better driver?  Heck, I don’t know. 

For years, the internet has been offering free education on places like YouTube and eHow. Many of my students are teaching themselves using online courses of all sorts, learning everything from how to play songs or do dance steps to how to write a better analytical essay.  I have seen students teach themselves ukulele on YouTube.  I’ve taught myself how to chop vegetables, install lights, and how to order grilled meat in Rio during Carnival. So the argument for online video instruction certainly has a foothold in the practical world. 

The Virtual Classroom Is Here To Stay

The lingering question in EVERY conversation about innovation in education is: does this stuff work?  The problem is that there isn’t enough data that we can reliably crunch to lean one way or the other.  But it doesn’t matter.  Like so many other changes in education made in the last 20-30 years (the ubiquity of standardized tests, the use of teacher evaluations, experiments with the length of a class period), it doesn’t matter if it works.  It only matters if people (politicians, school boards, customers, etc) buy into it.

And that’s why this is just more evidence that edupreneurship is the future of education.  Teachers need to think like entrepreneurs because the market forces simply win the day.  As a supporter of public education, it’s a tricky reality to get my head around.  But teachers MUST be on the ground floor of innovations like virtual instruction.  We need to be making the content, testing techniques and strategies, and adapting our models for online consumption.

Will Yahoo!’s Mayer be seen as a visionary for her call for a return to the workplace?  In the end, I think not.  She’s trying to tighten a ship and send a signal to her company—but I’m sure that Yahoo! will still retain a strong telecommuting model.  The future will have us working everywhere, connected online.  Heck, that’s the way it is now.

Online education is a natural extension of the Socratic model:  students learn best when they are exploring things and teaching themselves. Socrates famously used questions. Today, and especially tomorrow, we’ll most certainly be asking most of our questions online.

My hope? That good teachers will be the ones running the sites, making the videos, and managing the process.

 Citations:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/02/27/get-to-the-office-or-get-out-why-marissa-mayer-has-made-a-smart-move/

http://www.sxswedu.com/

http://blog.ted.com/2012/07/18/completely-free-online-classes-coursera-org-now-offering-courses-from-14-top-colleges/

America's Got Talent

Exxon Knows Teachers

I’ll bet you’ve seen the Exxon Mobil commercials that are about teachers.  On standardized math and science tests, according to the commercials, students in the US are faring poorly against those from other countries.  In the New York television market, I saw the spot at least a dozen times in November and December.

Pretty amazing, really:  good advertising IS education. 

By almost any measure, American public schooling is in trouble.

We need better teachers—almost everyone agrees on this point.  How to get and keep great teachers, however, remains a sticky wicket.  And—it’s the single most important problem plaguing education.

Exxon’s point appears to be that we need better training for teachers.  Apparently, they've put some money into doing it, too, which is commendable, even if you're not crazy about that company.  Again, a lot of people seem to agree about that—I certainly do.  I have a lot of experience in teacher training:  I've been through graduate programs, seminars, professional development, staff meetings... I've seen what people in my profession are doing to train us.  It is not good.  I hate to say it but, if you're a teacher reading my blog, you know what I'm saying.  Every once in a while, you actually learn something in PD.  But most of the time, it is dismal parody of itself.  It's bad teaching about good teaching.  It'd be funny it weren't so bloody sad or frustrating.

The Billion Dollar Question

How do you train a teacher into being a great teacher?

My answer is simple:  you can’t, basically.  Or, at least, it takes a really motivated person to do it.  I talk about it in detail in an earlier article "The Great Ones" which you should read right now.  Go ahead, I'll wait here.

You can help a lousy teacher become less lousy. With a lot of work, you can take a decent teacher and make them better, certainly.  But you can’t-- without an incredible amount of work in a culture that is really hard to build-- make any old person a great teacher.   It’s like thinking you can take the bassist of any band and make him into Paul McCartney.  Or taking a decent pitcher from a team in the majors and make him into Babe Ruth.  It's incredibly difficult to make someone great at anything. 

So where are all of the great teachers?  Some of them are in the classrooms.  But I’m willing to bet there are many, many more who aren’t teachers by trade.  They’re making money doing something else.

The bottom line:  we don’t have a skill problem.  We have a talent problem.  Exxon Mobil, I'm glad you want to help out teachers.  You guys over at your company know how to attract talent, right?  I'm not trying to be cute or anything, but it's not complicated.  

Mostly, it's just expensive.  

Theatre, the Beautiful

My director's notes to my high school's production of 1776.

This is the story of who we are.

Every person has a birth story. Your parents, no matter how present or involved after you were born, have a tale of how you came to be. The day you were born, a group of people gathered to help make it so, and that story remains a part of the great archive of everything in the history of the world.

Every culture has a birth story, too.  The creation of the United States is a Great Story of “Almost.”  It almost didn’t happen.  In fact, when you take the time to study the historical record, it’s easy to see that it probably shouldn’t have happened.

The colonists simply fought with each other too much.

In places like Facebook, Twitter, and in the media, the arguments of this past Presidential election are, actually, not unlike the kind had by the colonists 200 years ago. What should the government be in charge of?  How powerful should political officials be?  What should and shouldn’t taxes pay for?  These fundamental questions of our nation are enduring and essential; your kids and your kid’s kids will likely be arguing them still.

Our Great Story of Almost added a chapter last week with the reelection of President Barack Obama. When we vote, argue, serve our nation, we are doing the same work as those who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Its future chapters will be written in the courage, strength, fears, and resolve of those of us who continue to pick up the legacy of the Founders of our Nation.

As I write this amidst the broken timbers, shredded power lines, and long gas queues of the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I can’t help but see our huddled community as not very different than that of the colonists. We are beset by challenges, split by ideology, and worried about the unknowable future. It’s been a challenging and bleak Autumn for many of us here on the Island.

But there is a hope. The students in 1776 have pulled together and endured. They lost power, hot water, stability, and Halloween. But they met in living rooms to run lines, practice dance steps and harmonies, and support each other. They’ve learned how to fix broken set pieces, verify historical facts about powdered wigs and military dispatches, and remain strong in the face of challenge.

These students are our colonists to the future.  From what I have seen in these past weeks of trial and tribulation, our American future looks bright.

We will endure.

Welcome to the Masquers’ 50^th Anniversary Season: The Season of Power.

Performances:

Friday November 16, 730pm

Saturday, November 17, 2 and 730pm

North Shore High School

Glen Head, NY

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

northshoreartsangels.org

The Great Ones

It’s the Teachers, Stupid

Think about the greatest teacher you ever had. 

There’s nothing quite like a truly Great Teacher.  If you were lucky to have one, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  

The Great Ones were cool, man.  They seemed to have effortless mastery of the content.  They knew how to manage the class; they made jokes sometimes but always at the perfect time.  They were occasionally terrifying, but you killed yourself for their approval.  They might have looked horrible—no fashion sense, homely, downright ugly or bizarre—but you didn’t care.  At times they may have pissed you off, at times they may have made you cry:  but they changed you.

Like great athletes, mechanics, doctors, or pilots, they acted in the moment, made split-second decisions, and had access to great instinct and skill.  

And they made you want to be a better version of yourself.

Greatness Is Invisible To the System

You ever notice how little official "love" the Great Teachers got at your school?  The Great Teachers were often off on their own, doing their own thing, while other Good Teachers (and sometimes Lousy Teachers) were carried around on shoulders, having parties thrown in their honor, t-shirts made about them and crap like that.

In fact, Great Teachers were often scary or annoying to other teachers and staff.  Some of the kids didn't get them or even hated them.

I always turn into Holden Caufield when I talk about this stuff.  Celebrations of teachers often just feel like a Festival of Phonies.

It’s kind of gross.  Our educational system, of course, does practically nothing to attract, develop, or sustain Great Teachers.  Great Teachers exist IN SPITE of the constantly changing weather of education: the movements, the swings, the trends, and the political fray.  This is because Great Teachers are not managed, supervised, or led into being Great.  

         How does a Great Teacher "happen?" 
         There are only three ways-- and none of them are 
         addressed by our school systems.  
        Great Teachers are...

            1.  BORN great-- all the talents are there
            2.  MAKE THEMSELVES great on their own

            3.  are coached or mentored by an 
                 OTHER Great Teacher

            

That’s the problem.  Even though almost everyone in any school knows who the Great Teachers are in it, school managers have no “official” way of identifying them.  Administrators, generally not great teachers themselves, lack the skills or tools to even recognize Great Teachers.  They look at test scores, student behavior, and parent feedback—none of which consistently identifies Greatness in teaching.  

Squandering Resources

We don't spend any time actually talking about Great Teachers.  Like so many other teachers, I have sat through hundreds of hours of "professional development" that are not only insulting, they're ridiculously devoid of anything that can help me get better at my job.  Mind-numbing, soul-crushing, pencil-stabbing-your eye stuff.  And when I look at the few Great Teachers on my faculty (everyone always knows who the Greats are), I can't believe how ignored they are.  It's a sad and deplorable waste of time and resources. 

Our goal is to raise test scores?  Are you serious?  What are you smoking?  We don’t need better tests and test scores, better tutoring systems or education models, happier parents, happier students, better computers…

We need Great Teachers.  It's the whole thing, man.  

The Art of Triage

Winning doesn't mean not losing

I used to love watching M*A*S*H*. As a kid I'd sit on the brown, short pile rug in our TV room, back against the sofa, watching reruns. Hawkeye and Trapper, elbows deep in surgery, would make jokes about hot nurses, stupid generals, or bootleg martinis-- whatever really-- and, by the end of the show, make some sincere point about how awful war is. They were flawed but honorable people, stuck in a terrible situation and with awfully limited resources, trying to keep people alive.

My favorite thing about the show was how the members of the 4077 stayed human despite how bad things got. You had to laugh to keep from crying.

I learned a word watching that show: triage. In the world of MASH, it meant that some people might have to lose a kidney or a leg in order to live. It also meant that some people wouldn't die while others would. Everything would hang from the surgeon's choices based on impossibly limited options.

Triage is built on a deficiency model. What DON'T I have? What CAN'T I do? People working within it must make the most of what is available. There is one bottom line. Survival.

It's the model at work in most of our public schools.

Surviving, not thriving

We live in a country where it somehow makes political and economic sense to have a high pressure, under-resourced school system. Teachers work in a constant deficiency model, focusing on boundaries instead of goals. Instead of focusing on growing fantastic students, pushing them to heights not yet known, we are busy with saving academically sick and dying students.

When you are a public school teacher, picking what and how you teach has almost nothing to do with what you WANT to do. It's all about what you CAN do given your many immutable limitations. It's not “no child left behind.” It's more “try to screw the children over as equally as possible.” No matter how much I want to like it, there's no “race to the top.” It's only “make sure you're not stuck at the bottom.”

Our slumping education system is preoccupied with not falling apart. We are playing like a team trying not to lose by too many points. We aren't teaching like champions; we are sawing off limbs.

The Art of Triage. It's the construct of war refugees, natural disaster victims, battlefront surgeons, and public school teachers.  

The next time someone tries to tell you that we need to spend less on education, don't argue.  Just tell them about triage.

I think I'm going to make myself a martini. Do we have any olives laying around, Hawkeye?
To listen to this blog as a podcast, click here!

The Ant and the Grasshopper

And now, an allegory.  A first for iBlog America.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

An American Tale

OLD SKOOL VERSION:

The ANT works hard in the

withering heat all summer long,

building his house and

laying up supplies for the winter.



The GRASSHOPPER laughs

and dances and plays

the summer away.


Come winter, the ANT

is warm and well fed.



The GRASSHOPPER

has no food or shelter,

so he dies out in the cold.

OLD Moral of the story:

Hard work deserves respect.

Cutting corners leads to ruin.

-------

NEW SKOOL VERSION:



There is a beautiful land

named “America.”

It is a wonderful place,

filled with natural treasures

and opportunity.

In it lives two citizens:

the ANT and the GRASSHOPPER.

THE ANT

The ANT is born into a family

with money and connections.

The ANT goes to private schools

and his uncle helps him attend Harvard.

By age 35, the ANT has a great job,

a house in town and one at the beach,

drives a great car, and investments.

He vacations in the Caymans.

The ANT

believes in the “Wealth Filter.”

Those who have or make money

are strong and worthy of respect.

Those who do not

are weak and deserve to fail.

THE GRASSHOPPER

The GRASSHOPPER is born into a family

with debt and obligations.

He goes to public school

and attends any college he can get into.

By age 35, the GRASSHOPPER has two jobs,

a big college loan and mortgage,

and two kids.

He vacations at the pub

or on the weekends.

The GRASSHOPPER

believes in the “Value Filter.”

Those who show value to others

should be respected and protected.

Many things of value

never generate wealth.

This is the story of the ANT and the GRASSHOPPER,

in THREE PARTS.

PART ONE

After a string of beautiful summers,

a hard winter surprises everyone

in the land. One icy day,

the ANT calls a press conference

And blames the cost of the cold weather

on the GRASSHOPPER.

The ANT

goes on TV and says

“The GRASSHOPPER laughed

and danced the summer away

while we ANTS were busy working.

Now, the silly GRASSHOPPER

wants to raise taxes to pay for

the lazy people during this

terrible cold weather.”

The ANT raises his fist and says,

“No one should have to pay

for other people. If you can't

heat your house,

that's your problem!

We should stop helping people

who aren't strong enough

to make a profit

to keep themselves warm!

The strong should win

and the weak should lose!”

The GRASSHOPPER,

who doesn't really follow politics,

sips a beer after his long day

at work and thinks the ANT is crazy.

The GRASSHOPPER turns to his

wife and says,

“Everyone was chilling this summer.
Even the ANTS were partying.
That's ok!  We all work a lot."

The GRASSHOPPER went on,
"But this winter is hard.

People need to help each other out.

Not everyone is born rich and healthy.

How about the elderly?

Retired and injured veterans?

Some things that never turn a

profit are important, too.

Firehouses and police stations

don't make profits,

neither do bridges and schools.”

The GRASSHOPPER turns on the

baseball game and opens

another beer. He goes on,

“Even an ANT needs help

when things get bad or go wrong.”

“One day, I'm going to become an ANT,”

says the GRASSHOPPER's son.

“Not unless you win the lottery,”

says the GRASSHOPPER's mom.

“Or marry somebody rich!”

says the GRASSHOPPER's daughter.

But the winter ends and summer comes,

and everyone is happy

and stops talking about it.

PART TWO

The next winter, things get even worse.

It snows for two weeks straight

and everyone's pipes freeze.

One particularly cold and gray day,

the ANT calls a

press conference.

“GRASSHOPPERISM is about

giving handouts to those

who do not deserve it.

Our society should stop paying

so much for schools, health care,

regulation, and safety for the lazy

GRASSHOPPER.

If it doesn't make money,

it should fail!”

The ANT raises his fist and says,

“We need to lower taxes!

Your mistakes are YOUR fault!

The ANT Way is simple:

every ANT for himself.”

America is stunned

by the ANT's brilliance.

It is easy to understand

how the strong should win

and the weak should lose.

The MEDIA gets

high ratings showing video

of GRASSHOPPERS

who commit crimes,

do stupid things, and are lazy.

The MEDIA also gets

high ratings showing video

of ANTS

who spend lots of money,

do exclusive things,

and hang with cool people.

The MEDIA gets

the best ratings

when an ANT fails at something.

Everyone on TV says

“look at how that ANT

ended up failing

like a GRASSHOPPER.

What a loser!”

Books fly off the shelves

to become best-sellers:

-Pinheads and ANTS

-Godless: The Church

of GRASSHOPPERISM

-The Audacity of

the GRASSHOPPER

-The Secret Connection

Between the GRASSHOPPER

and Islamic Fundamentalism

- God Helps ANTS

Who Help Themselves

The GRASSHOPPER,

shivering in the winter air,

listens and thinks,

“Maybe the ANT is right.

Life would be better if

I had more money.

I hate taxes. I'm tired of

taking care of other people.

IT'S MY MONEY!”

The GRASSHOPPER gets mad

at other grasshoppers.

“GRASSHOPPERISM

is ruining our country.”

PART THREE

The Winter Election shows

grasshoppers

talking like ants.

The ANT Party wins big!

Taxes drop to historically

low levels for everyone--

but especially for the ANT.

The ANT uses his money

and connections

to lobby Congress

to rewrite the tax code so that

ANT spending and expenses

can be deducted.

Regulations are lifted

on businesses so that profits

can soar.

The ANT hires an

accountant buddy from

Yale to shelter

ANT family money in

offshore accounts.

The ANT laughs at

how silly

the GRASSHOPPER is

to not know how to do this.

After the election, the

GRASSHOPPER buys a

big house. He takes

out a loan

to act more like the ANT.

“The ANT Way is awesome!”

the GRASSHOPPER's family

tells him.

“Our car sucks! Can we

get a cooler one?”

the GRASSHOPPER's son asks.

The next winter is

one of the coldest and iciest ever.

Foreclosures sweep the nation.

It turns out that

the savvy ANT has been

selling bad mortgages

and loans

to naïve grasshoppers

who can't afford them.

Everywhere, GRASSHOPPER

businesses go bankrupt.

When Big ANT Business

goes bankrupt,

the ANT uses his connections

in Congress to get a bailout

that he doesn't have

to pay back.

The ANT laughs at

how silly

the GRASSHOPPER is

to not know how to do this.

The GRASSHOPPER

gets laid off.

He finds out his mother

has cancer

but insurance won't cover it

because they call it a

“pre-existing condition.”

The GRASSHOPPER

applies for unemployment

and moves in

with his mom to take

care of her while she dies.

“You're and pathetic, Dad”

the GRASSHOPPER's son

tells him.

“You are too weak to be an ANT!

You deserve to fail!”

The story ends with the ANT,

sipping a cocktail in The Caymans,

watching TV from his hot tub

in his luxury condo.

The MEDIA gets high ratings

showing stories of

schools, firehouses, and hospitals

closing down.

There are pictures

of bridges collapsing

and veterans and the elderly

not getting health care.

“Another gin and tonic, Jose”

the ANT politely asks the

GRASSHOPPER he hired

to be a housekeeper.

The ANT shakes his head

and thinks about

how silly the GRASSHOPPER

is to not know how to work harder.

NEW Moral of the story:

Everyone for him/herself.