A subtractive education

If you are not a member of Phi Delta Kappa, you should join for no other reason to get the always delightful Phi Delta Kappan professional journal.

Herb Childress's article, "A Subtractive Education" alone make the whole issue worth obtaining. He writes:

My dream is that I will live to see the day that the modern high school will be considered the counterpart of the mission, the orphanage, and the poor farm - an institution that was taken for granted and considered beneficial in its time but has since been judged to be inhumane and unthinkable.

He lists the ideal outcome measures for high school:

• Graduates of  my ideal high school should love to read.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should enjoy numbers.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should enjoy physical exertion and activity.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should have some well-developed outlet for their creative desires.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should know how to work in groups, and they should know how to teach a skill to someone else.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should be brave and take risks.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should understand and take an interest in their community.
• Graduates of my ideal high school should be compassionate and care about people they don't know.

Not a bad list. Wish I'd written it. 

I've long been cynical about what society/business says it wants in terms of skill sets and attitudes from workers and what it really wants. Karl Fisch at the Fischbowl blog writes, "Everything I've read indicates that they want what we are trying to help our students become: creative and critical thinkers, problems solvers, producers of information, innovators, knowledgeable of and participants in a global community, expert navigators of 21st century technologies." You seem to be reading the same stuff I am, Karl.

But on the flip side, take a look at Kathy Sierra  "Knocking the exuberance out of employees" on her Creating Passionate Users blog who suggests employers are looking for robots, not "bold, creative, smart, passionate, independent" workers. She lists the advantages of hiring "robots."

Why Robots Are the Best Employees

1. They don't challenge the status quo
2. They don't ask those uncomfortable questions
3. They're 100% obedient
4. They don't need "personal" days.
5. ... because they don't have a personal life
6. They never make the boss look bad (e.g. stupid, incompetent, clueless, etc.)
7. They dress and talk the way you want them to
8. They have no strongly-held opinions
9. They have no passion, so they have nothing to "fight" for
10. They are always willing to do whatever it takes (insane hours, etc.)
11. They are the ultimate team players
12. They don't complain when you micromanage (tip: micromanaging is in fact one of the best ways to create a robot)
13. They don't care what their workspace is like, and don't complain if they don't have the equipment they need
14. They'll never threaten your job
15. They make perfect scapegoats
16. They get on well with zombies

My sense is most teachers prefer robot students as well.  Hey, as a supervisor I have to admit that there are days I'd trade some of my folks in for a few robots! And my sense is that NCLB is a lot more about creating robots than it is about creating 21st century learners. Standardized tests on very basic skills? Yup, robot manufacturing.

I'm guessing most of us would be happiest knowing that any independent thinkers we create would eventually come around to thinking exactly like we do. True independence and creativity is really pretty frightening.

 Does society really want creative, divergent thinkers?

A great quote by Tom Robbins

If little else, the brain is an educational toy. While it may be a frustrating plaything – one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them – it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled; you don’t have to put it together Christmas morning.

The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it too. Sometimes they’d rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated.

Tom Robbins

No surprises

While scrounging around in old files yesterday, I came across this from Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Learning to Give, Take & Use Instruction by Richard Saul Wurman -  another fascinating writer. (His Information Anxiety is also a classic.)

Life on mahogany row is complicated further by the reluctance of most employees to bear bad news to their bosses. No one wants to be responsible for delivering disagreeable tidings to a superior. So lower-level employees will tend to gloss over negative information. As the information moves upwards in the company hierarchy, it tends to be cast in a more positive light.  Information may get so filtered or distorted by fear or even just by retelling that if it ever makes it to the top, it is likely to be out of date, exaggerated, or patently wrong.

improving...
needs adjustment
needs fixing
problematic
bad
Very Bad
Terrible
HORRIBLE
CATASTROPHIC

I think CEOs ought to have a placard behind their desk that reads No Surprises.  No surprises means getting the bad news as well as the good. ... The lack of computer knowledge fosters isolation. Computers used to be for engineers. Ten years ago, people could afford the luxury of being technologically illiterate. They could brag about not being able to turn on a computer, work their answering machines, or program their VCRs. Now they find themselves isolated from their most effective and up-to-date source of information. And while the capabilities of their employees were enhanced by computer literacy, their own are diminished.

This observation really hit home after having just finished reading Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and listening to continuing new stories on NPR in which the death toll in Iraq continues to mount while the Bush administration continues to say how much better things are getting there. Is anyone telling President Bush the bad news?

Enough politics - that's not what this blog is about. But I've long been advising library media specialists that one key to a good relationship with their principal is the "No Surprises" rule.  Keep your supervisor apprised of both your program's problems and successes. A principal never wants to feel left out of the loop. S/he should never hear about what is happening in the library from someone before s/he hears it from you.

No surprises this year, OK?