Rethinking Educational Strategies

I have been following, working with, wondering about, impressed by, and confounded by what happens in our educational systems for about forty years. The confounded by response has never been greater than in the past ten years or so. We have put a system in place, in most states, where young people have to be tested frequently, and the quality of our educational system is based on those tests. This has been our national answer to quality improvement, and the primary metric we use to assess whether or not our children are doing well. I have never talked to one teacher during the time this has been in place who believes this is a good and valid metric, but all teachers are stuck trying to make all children (except for a very few who are exempted) fit into one testing model.

We have put incredible political energy into raising these test scores, and sometimes they have improved. There are schools which do quite well at getting most young people to pass, and schools which don't do well at all. A small raise of perhaps 5% on the scores is celebrated.

Meanwhile, in virtually every major urban area in the nation, young people are leaving our schools without graduating at a level above 50%. Once it was boys who did well in school and graduated, and we had to design special classes for girls to improve their achievement. Now, girls are outperforming boys significantly, but in urban areas, they are still not doig well.

So, in the highest population areas, as we have been focusing on testing, young people have opted out of our schools as soon as they have had the option. I personally believe that the annual or every other year rite of failure of taking and doing miserably on tests might have something to do with that. A young person trying to feel capable, significant and influential might find the process of spending a week every couple of years having no choice but to take and fail again on a test devastating. I have actually talked to several children in upper elementary who have shared that exact experience. So instead of increasing engagement and motivation to learn, the tests actually, for these young people, convinces them they are unimportant failures. I believe this is an unintended negative consequence of positive intentions, but shallow thinking.

If dedicated classroom teachers supported the tests, and I mean the ones who do a good job, I might have a different opinion. But I have become convinced we are measuring the wrong things the wrong way and, in the process, devastating the very youth who need to connect to the schools and become excited about education.

Instead of tests, I believe we need to focus on demonstrated competencies, evidenced by portfolios of the achievements of young people. Very concrete. measurable products which demonstrate skills are much better measures of learning than standardized tests. The tools are there now to go to this approach. Of course, that would mean treating each child as an individual and would be much more difficult for people with political agendas to take credit for successes, and/or scapegoat educators as a way of getting elected.

Whether or not this is the metric is debatable, but the current process has been going on for several years now, and there is no evidence it is improving education, and we would have a difficult getting teachers, students and parents to testify in support of the current strategies. Let's rethink our one size fits all approach and see if we can do something that might actually improve the lives of young people.

Let me know what you think.

The Yes We Can report

Click here to download:

schott-2010-black-male-report.pdf (2.48 MB)

(download)

Given my two previous posts, I thought I should upload the schott report for your access.

Schott Foundation, Yes We Can Report

A few days ago I posted about an article referencing the Schott Foundation Yes We Can report, which outlined the horrible high school graduation rates for black males in the country. Since that post, I have downloaded the report, and have continued to be saddened by our failure with the graduation of black males. Also, as I reviewed the report, it became obvious that Indianapolis Public Schools is second to Detroit Public Schools in having the overall lowest rate of male, (black and white) high school graduations. Detroit graduates 27% of black male students and 19% of white male students. Indianapolis graduates 36% of black males and 26% of white males. In fact, while states have much higher rates of graduation for white males than black males, the urban picture is one of schools that can't graduate males of either race.

While the report makes an incredible case that we under invest in black males across the board, another obvious conclusion is that many of the urban school districts do an abysmal job of graduating males, period. Only one urban area, Newark New Jersey graduates as high as 75% of its black male students.

One interesting part of the study is Fort Bend Indiana. It has pretty good numbers, but I can't figure out if it is Fort Wayne Indiana, or Fort Bend County Texas. If it is Indiana, then the contrast between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis is striking.

The authors draw their conclusions, and I would like to see the graduation rates for black and white females added to the report. It is a wakeup call for many of us. In an economy in which 60% of the jobs require post secondary education, and almost all of the ones that support a middle class standard of living are included in that list, we can't afford this problem. Of more importance we don't need to have over 50% of the males in our urban areas unable to enjoy their lives, support their families and contribute to our cities.

What are We Really Teaching in School?

Yesterday, there was an article in the Indianapolis Star about graduation rates for young men in Indiana and, more specifically in Indianapolis Schools. It was really sad to read. I wasn't surprised to find that young black men had a 36% on time graduation rate. I was surprised to find that young white men had a 26% on time graduation rate. That means that 64% of young black men and 74% of young white men in this urban school system will be looking for jobs with no high school diploma.

The state numbers aren't very good either, with 42% of young black men and 71% of young white men graduating on time. Nationally, 47% of young black men graduated, and the national numbers weren't quoted for whites. This is from a study by Johns Hopkins University.

What is amazing to me is that these numbers, especially for white men are getting consistently worse in urban areas, and seem to be degrading at slower rates in many rural areas. The study indicates that the fate of black men and their engagement in school depends on the "systemic opportunities provided in your state and community". This seems to me to be a very high level oversimplification of the problem.

Yes, the economic opportunities available in a state and community are major determiners of whether young people can see reasons to stay in school. If the elders in my community who have high school educations are unemployed and hanging out with those who dropped out, then this is discouraging. However, this is far from the only, or major reason for school failure by men, and, for that matter, women. We really need to look at this from a different perspective.

Actually, it might be interesting to look at education as a product, and to young people as consumers. As an industry, schools are at a major disadvantage in trying to cater to their customers, primarily because their product offerings are largely determined by politicians. In my opinion, they run around like elephants in china shops setting policies about something they know little if nothing about and create really strange strategies.

Then, they hold the schools accountable for failing while trying to implement poorly conceived, sometimes insane, product mixes. In my opinion, there are an incredible number of unintended negative side effects of the political dictatorship of educational processes. We are finding that over half of the consumers of the product of Urban education walk away as soon as they have the opportunity. On the average, about 30% walk away, even in areas where opportunities do exist.

An any other service industry, service companies keep a close pulse on the satisfaction of their customers with their product, and are able to adjust their offerings based on direct customer feedback. Of course there are some governmental regulations in most industries, but not enough to undermine customer satisfaction significantly. So here are some questions we might want to consider:

For boys, what is the effect of spending many hours a week for the first six or seven years of my customer experience being taught by someone of the opposite gender?
For black boys, what is the effect of being taught by someone of the opposite gender, and for the most part, another race?
For Everyone:
How motivating is it for me to have to go to school for 7 hours a day, perhaps be on a bus for another 1.5 hours, then have to complete 3 hours of homework at night?
What is the effect on my connection to the school and the educational process to have to sit down for at least a week a year to take a test to see what I have learned so far?
- What is the additional effect if I have done poorly on one or more of those tests.

- What happens as the result of my having to do extra work to pass it next time, especially if I don't?
What is the effect of my having reduced opportunities for self expression in the areas of music, art, and physical recreation as the result of school budget priorities focused on getting me to pass that test?
What is the effect of my having little or no choice about my time during my adolescence when I need to develop my abilities to choose?
What is the effect of my being trapped in this kind of system for 12 years of my life?

The first two questions are specific to boys. The others aren't. I think we also need to consider three other questions:

How does my being involved in the system described above affect my perceptions of being a significant human being?
How does it affect my perceptions of being a capable human being?
How does it affect my perceptions of being an influential human being?

I ask these three questions because I like H. Stephen Glenn's definition of health self esteem as having high degrees of perception of being significant, capable and influential. I personally believe that our current approach to education has the potential to undermine these perceptions and produce young people with perceptions of " I don't matter, I can't succeed, and I am a pawn in the universe.

Just some thoughts for us to consider....

Personal Coaching and Young People

In my personal coaching work, I find that young people often benefit most. The earlier you can focus on your dreams and goals, clarify them and begin creating the life you want, the greater your chances for having a meaningful life. Of course, the younger you are, the more challenging it is do do all those things. The original dreams and goals we develop at 13, 16, or 19 will evolve and change based on our life experience.

However, establishing dreams, goals and plans earlier in life help us explore our life themes, review what we want and get on the best path for ourselves faster than we would without that early exploration and practice. In my early life I wanted to be a musician and performer. I was a pretty good singer, and, in that context, not a very good performer. My goals evolved, and I sing for my own enjoyment now and do some performance as a presenter on a variety of subjects.

There have been many things that I have learned to enjoy that I couldn't have dreamed of when I was young. Most of those were discovered while in pursuit of other things that were meaningful. I was lucky enough to have proactive people in my life early in my career who coached me, much as I coach others today. It was those experiences that led me to my training in NLP and other areas and my interest in personal and organizational coaching.

The greatest challenge with coaching young people is to get them to choose to participate. I get calls about young people having problems in school, behaving badly at home, and other issues, and I hesitate to immediately work with the young person. I often choose to coach the parents or other referral source instead. In order for coaching to succeed, the clients have to have dreams and goals they want to achieve. If they don't, and you try to work with them, you aren't coaching, you are coercing. That isn't much fun and only produces a positive outcome about a third of the time.

Coaching isn't primarily about solving problems. It is about generating options and creating the life you want, often in such a way that problems resolve as a side effect. It is generative work, and often difficult for people to understand in this society so oriented towards fixing things.

If you are trying to interest a young person in getting a personal coach, talk with them about their long term futures, not the short term problems you see now. Helping them get what they want in the long run will be much more attractive than trying to get them to see someone about improving their grades. Once they know what they want, and see the connection to their school performance, the grades may improve, or not. Either way, they will have clarified long term vision and started on the strategies important to them. It won't be perfect, but our process wasn't either. If the coach has the requisite skills, however, it can be a very valuable investment.

Not Knowing We Don't Know

Lao Tzu: To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty

I have an inspiring quotes app on my new Android phone, and this quote showed up yesterday evening. It cuts to the heart of so much of my frustration lately in many areas. "Not to know, yet think that one knows will lead to difficulty."

This truth is at the heart of so many issues we face today. We are a nation of people who are convinced we know, based on very short, biased snippets of information coming from various sources. Yet, we are a nation of overwhelming ignorance when it comes to in depth information about important issues. We have a wide knowledge base that is about as deep as a mud puddle. It leads us great difficulty.

For example, many of us know enough about Global Warming to hold very strongly held uninformed opinions both pro and con, and will engage in strong debates while never taking the time to really learn about the issues related to Climate Change. This plays out socially, and politically. We are most likely to vote for the politicians who parrot, and perhaps share, our ignorance on this and many other issues. The truly frightening thing is that we have no way of knowing we don't know because we are convinced we are right. Once we form beliefs, we defend them, no matter how shallow our evidential basis for the beliefs.

In my life, the issue of not knowing, but thinking you know has played out in my work with several states and client agencies. It has become a trend in government to appoint very bright, ambitious people to supervise areas of government in which they have absolutely no in depth expertise. These people often replace people who have put many years of hard work into building imperfect systems, but systems which have strengths. When the new people come in, with a mandate for change, they destroy both the strengths and challenges of existing systems by making wholesale changes which fail to build on the practice wisdom of people with both years of experience and in depth knowledge.

Some of the examples have been appalling. The fiasco in my own state when it turned over all traditional welfare services to IBM, a company obviously very knowledgeable about the needs of people with no money. Those of us who had worked with people in poverty immediately knew the system wouldn't work, in fact couldn't work, but the people who could have guided the State in the process were marginalized and it has led to hardship for families and extraordinary expense for the state.

However, it isn't just Indiana, it is a widespread governmental practice, especially at state levels, to put the bright and well intentioned, but ignorant in control of areas impacting all of us. Then, those people are challenged to make changes far more rapidly than is possible without destroying the strengths of the systems they supervise. In large part this comes from the fact that we are electing bright people with knowledge of how to get elected, business, and perhaps law, but who have no education or knowledge in governing. Since they don't know what they don't know, they hire others like themselves and the well meaning ignorance is propagated down the levels of the system. When people who have knowledge and experience challenge the new people, they either learn to be quiet or are replaced with yet another new person with little expertise.

Lao Tzu said to know, yet think that one does not know is best. The second best option is to not know and think that one does not know. So it seems it is best either way to assume we don't know and ask a lot of questions when we are navigating the world. I think this is especially true if you happen to be someone who is in a leadership position with little experience in your current areas of responsibility.

The older I get the more I realize that I know little. I have several opinions within my areas of experience and training, but those are just my perspective. We need people in leadership to show less blind, ignorant certainty, and more wide eyed curiosity. It is only by believing we don't already know that we concern. All learning starts with a question.

Ray Hoskins Blog

Personal Life Coaching, Youth Development, General Youth Advocacy