Schools: More Walls than Windows

I was chatting with a colleague of mine the other day about why schools are so slow to embrace change. He said something I found amusing after I got over being annoyed and I am paraphrasing here, but it went something like- Sheryl you will always be out on the edge of change. You thrive in an environment of innovation and creativity. Everywhere you go you leave a wake behind you. But you have to understand that schools will always be the last, by design, to ride that wave. (As I listened I wondered if he meant I leave schools drowning in my wake)

The Purpose of Education
My friend, much like David Sarasohn, feels that the purpose of schools is the transmission of culture. Schools are about creating informed citizens that will continue a democratic society. David says, "Thomas Jefferson, who knew most things, knew exactly why Americans should be educated...to diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the people." Over on Daily Kos a similar idea is touted, "The purpose of public education is to prepare the next generation of citizens, a task that requires us to offer them knowledge based on rigorous scholarship and scientific research." This is made even more clear when we look at the reasoning behind the push for service learning in K-12 education.

• Citizenship Education: Teach students to understand and agree to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the principles and practice of democracy, and the importance of being active citizens.
• Civic Values: A balanced approach to civic values education includes teaching the core values on which our democratic government was founded and teaching critical thinking.
• Service Learning: With clear connections to the core curriculum, teachers guide students to practice responsible citizenship by solving real problems in their school or community.

If the primary responsibility of schooling is indoctrination and to preserve democracy, then schools have to be about control and very conservative in their approach to curriculum. They have an investment to protect in making certain that only that which has been deemed helpful in accomplishing this goal is let through the gates of the school house. This is why school are cautious and slow to adopt change. They have to make certain the change is in the best interest of keeping the status quo.

Economic Purpose
I also believe the most desperately advanced educational goal of our time is to produce taxpayers - people who won't have to be supported by the society. Again schools see their role as sacred and not a place to be experimenting. Globalization is a real threat, so teaching technology skills are encouraged so businesses can have workers who will help them be competitive, but only behind a wall- in a safe place, where things can be controlled and agendas can be assured.  No risks, no mavericks, no meyhem-- just another brick in the wall.

Transparencyin a Culture of Control
Technology, especially as we envision using it with School 2.0 is threatening to School 1.0 because of the social nature of the Web. There is no way to control it or wall it in. Plus, technology can truly make public schools transparent. I think that’s the real objection. What would happen if everybody could see what was taught and emphasized in classes? What would happen if the public could see when biased, one-sided supplementary information was being forced on students? What would happen if the public had access with a mouse click to  contracts, budget, and disbursement checks? Things would be very different. Teachers, parents, students, and interested stakeholders would all have an informed voice.

A culture of control in schools worked nicely when knowledge traveled in linear paths. But not so much now that citizen journalism has arrived. Not so much when teachers are able to connect with others from around the world to develop curriculum that is meaningful and relevant (which often develops organically from student passions) without school board approval. Not so much when students are able to learn through self-directed exploration, often outside of the classroom on their own and sometimes in spite of their teachers well meaning standards-based instruction.

Is it Already too Late?
I have heard murmurs in the blogosphere that it is too late for schools. That they are already irrelevant and don't even realize it. That change agents need to look beyond the classroom to what is coming next. Some are asking...what if School 2.0 is not a school at all?

Socrates - Way Before His Time
What if School 2.0 is much like school was with Socrates? Making connections with expert learners. Asking more questions than giving answers. Spending part of our day in deep reflection, collaboration, self directed exploration, and conversations with "just in time" mentors.  I see the read write Web providing the infrastructure to support taking us back to our rich educational heritage.

Socrates was irritated by the Sophists and their tendency to teach logic as a means of achieving self-centered ends. Much like many of us feel today about the direction conventional education is going. Socrates said that he did not teach, but rather served, like his mother, as a midwife to truth that is already in us!  Making use of questions and answers to remind his students of knowledge is called maieutics (midwifery), or the Socratic method. The spirit of Socrates lives in the connections I am making on the Web. 

Socrates on blogging for scholarship...

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for." Socrates

Socrates on unlearning...

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Father of Public Education
I found this description of Horace Mann's vision for public school:

Horace Mann felt that all children should learn together in common schools. He lived at a time of tremendous social change when immigrants were pouring into the Northeastern states, farmers were leaving rural areas to work in factories, and cities were growing rapidly with crime and poverty on the rise. Some historians believe that Mann and other reformers were alarmed by the upheaval, and promoted state regulated public education as a way to bring order and discipline to the working class in this rapidly changing society. Threatened by the growing population of urban poor, Mann and his fellow reformers placed a major emphasis on "moral training", standardization and classroom drill.

Let's Rethink It
Order and discipline in a time of tremendous social change in the 19th Century. Well, It is the 21st Century and once again it is time for social reformers to rethink the reasons and ways we are educating our young. 

Socrates knew that learning has never been linear. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” We simply all bought into it out of convenience.

He was quoted as saying I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” Oh if only schools felt that way. We would give up the culture of control and get on with the facilitation of learning.

Comments

[Miguel Guhlin]

Great post, Sheryl! I enjoyed it very much because it expressed an idea I had mentioned before but didn't know enough to articulate well (society indoctrinating our children through schools).

I have written a brief response here:
http://www.mguhlin.net/archives/2007/03/entry_2916.htm

With appreciation,
Miguel Guhlin

[Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach]

Thanks Miguel.

Noah Webster, often called the father of the American Dictionary, defines education from a four point perspective:

"The bringing up, as a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline, which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations."

At least in 1828, we saw our role as educators as civilizing, taming, and preparing citizens for their place in life as tax payers; lots of discipline (control) with a little enlightenment thrown in for good measure.

Education of the masses, where we bring age specific peers together for the purpose of getting them off the street and out of the gangs and assimilating them into the mainstream of society is still attractive to many, but at what cost?

Principled changes in education will do several things in my opinion:
1. Empower teachers to move beyond widget making (through scripted curriculums) to growing as professionals themselves.
2. Unleash the potential and passion of students who not only are trapped by their circumstances at home, but are controlled in a way that just perpetuates their station in life.
3. Create a more caring, secure population who understands how to love, grow, and coexist as they go about living together on our ever shrinking planet.

[Carolyn Foote]

Sheryl,

I was very interested in your comments about web 2.0 and the transparency it brings into schools.

I recently visited High Tech High in San Diego--where even the walls are transparent (or moveable), and even the teacher's offices are encased in glass. The building seemed like such a metaphor for a 2.0 world.

Students moved from room to room as needed, worked purposefully on building projects in the hallway, and teamed with a combination of art, physics, and engineering teachers to create a real world product.

Walking through the school was both exhilarating and unsettling--exhilarating because you could see the learning possibilities, and unsettling, because in your mind, you'd keep questioning how it could work, even though it was right before your eyes, working.

Your analysis was fascinating and I plan to spend time thinking about it and rereading it. Thank you for helping us ponder the dilemma of what school could become.

[David Truss]

Sheryl,
I have re-read this post a number of times, referenced it, and will reference it again!
I can honestly say that it is one of the best, most thought provoking posts I have read in a long time. I know that there are many people 'out here' in the blogosphere that feel the same as you, but few have been so eloquent.
Thanks you for this wonderful post!