Sisyphus in the New Year

When I was contemplating writing a blog, I found myself split between wanting to compose entries about art and wanting to post entries about teaching and learning. In striking a balance between, I have come to see that each (art and education) requires a mindfulness that (in)forms the work I do, fail to do, refuse to do, and desire to do. Mindfulness occasions deep living and profound pain. Consider Camus.

Towards the end of Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus," he notes:

"The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."  

Sisyphus.

My work as an artist and a teacher requires a mindfulness of what cannot be named earlier than the present moment will allow and at the same time often requires a rehearsal of possibilities, as well as deep reflection.  As an artist-educator, even when I work deliberately, I know that the present when traded for a prescribed truth, often yields something cliched. It takes me time to understand what I have created and to assign it value--value that sometimes changes alongside reflection and a passage of time. All things reveal themselves in time and being mindful allows me (sometimes) the opportunity to come to know and understand an insight and to (re)present that insight in the work I create. Insight, as Camus suggests, is accompanied by pain that redresses absurdity as tragedy. The dilemma associated with consciousness is old. It is the dialogue that Socrates and Malcolm X might have had: Socrates says that the unexamined life is not worth living and Malcolm X  writes that the examined life is painful. Living deliberately as artist and teacher requires both. Avoid such dilemma and little of value is left.


When I reread Camus's essay, I thought about how tragic US education feels. 30 years into a career as a teacher, learner, and leader and I see that so much of the rhetoric reported in popular press and touted by those with significant power is blatantly foolish, situates learners (teachers, administrators and students) as widgets, and is based on a belief of certainty. In these days, certainty trumps thoughtfulness. Consider how certainty is privileged in the recent post by The Christian Science Monitor, Education Reform: Eight Chiefs to Watch. With the exception of the first educator, Jason Glass, the remaining school chiefs' agendas, as represented in the article, suggest certainty as the logic that informs their positions and ideas. These leaders' views are posited as representing the singular and truthful perspective, as if meaning could be determined before the utterance. In the article, it states that these leaders want to:

1. Reward effective teachers (What does "being" effective mean? Is being a singular state?  What is effective? Effective for whom? By what measures? In what context? Across what time period? In what subject areas? At what grade levels? By whose standards? Is it possible to be effective in one context and not another?)

2. Give greater school choice to parents (The word choice means a variety of things from choice within a public system to choice beyond the public system. What choice do these chiefs want? Who gets privileged to make a choice? Who does not?  What happens to our democracy if choice weakens public education? Is separate by equal okay now? Does a democracy require public education? Is there any correlate that suggests "choice" of schools yields higher student scores on state mandated test?  What do higher scores on state mandated test mean to a learner, parent-guardian, teacher, employer...?)

3. Get "tough" with teacher unions (Are the ills of public education [whatever those "ills" actually are] directly related to teacher unions? Are all unions the same? What is tenure?  How is tenure represented in states? What happens in the absence of tenure? In the presence of tenure? Can tenure be singled out as a factor of anything? Is the presence or the removal of tenure related to a student's achievement and if so, achievement at what?)


Mikhail Bakhtin writes that the word is overpopulated with the intention of others.  We seem to have failed to understand this and instead act as if a word had a singular and agreed upon meaning. This seems to be the case today as the understanding of "education terms" such as achievement, excellence, effective teacher, school choice, funding, toughness, unions and so on are offered with little substance and less context.  Yet, meaning is always tied to the utterance.  Separate it from the context and we have little to offer and less to know.

The "discussion" about public education in the United States is a lesson in hegemony. Select people with power tell the rest of us what is truth. Their truth is uttered often enough and it is repeated by other people of means, politicians, TV and print commentators, business leaders, writers, speakers, educators, parents, bloggers, tweeters, until the words are meaningless and a position becomes a given truth. No need to understand what we mean by a given word, the task is to just continue to babble the rhetoric, like some long forgotten Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill. No wonder we feel so tired and oddly stuck. This is the tragedy about which Camus writes;  the naked awareness that allows us to see ourselves and our situation at this moment in time.  Our situation is not only absurd, it is tragic as it is impossible to discuss anything without offering alongside some definition of term and intention. Discourse is dead.

What then is needed to challenge the one view truth being passed along as reality? Oddly, on the US Department of State's web page an interesting definition of democracy is offered.

Democracies make several assumptions about human nature. One . . . is that any society comprises a great diversity of interests and individuals who deserve to have their voices heard and their views respected. As a result, one thing is true of all healthy democracies: They are noisy. (US Department of State, International Information Programs, online)

As an artist and a teacher, representation and voice are critical. Agency is critical and requires local discourse.  Noisy would be so much better than the singular drone of "those we should be following." Let's stop following "those in the know"and instead engender local conversations.

Hegemony Or Why I Will Not Talk in Class Anymore

Scene 1
A former graduate student shared that shortly after taking over a class (she's the 4th teacher this year) she reviewed the children's writers' notebooks.  She said she was dismayed to see that a few students had written the following entry:

"I will not talk in class anymore."

Scene 2
Last week a teacher I know discontinued working with a student teacher. She indicated that the student was not ready to teach given her lack of preparation that resulted in significant and consistent errors while teaching. The student teacher was denied a credential and returned to the college.

Scene 3

Some years ago I oversaw the literacy program for a public city school system. A neighboring charter school would hire the city's Reading Recovery teachers to work as after school tutors in order to teach those students who were most at risk for reading difficulties.  The leader of the Charter explained that he could not match the salaries of such senior and well educated teachers, nor could his school pay for the continuing contact and other costs associated with Reading Recovery.  What he could and did do was to pay for after school eduction for children. As he told me then, "Our teachers are too green to know how to do this (prevent reading difficulties).  They can help the Reading Recovery teachers and learn as the students are learning."

Scene 4
Yesterday, I passed by a charter school in an inner city.  It was a beautiful building in a neighborhood of mostly boarded buildings and largely littered sidewalks.  The building was well maintained and attractive with the sidewalks surrounding it, neatly swept. I thought about the number of studies I have read and the plethora of comments from public school advocates I have read all indicating that charter schools are no better or worse than public schools as measured by single test instruments and I wondered if such a measurement makes any difference to the people who send their children to this charter school.

I think of the players (teachers, students, student teacher, administrators) in these minor dramas and wonder about the complex issue that (in)form our understanding of schooling—a topic that ought to be fraught with positions, especially these days. Where one might expect to hear the clamor of different voices chiming, there seems to be just two dominant voices that relentlessly sound and sound again.  Are you pro-public schools or are you pro-charter schools?

Such a query is hegemonic posturing at best.  The current public discourse about teaching and learning is dangerously narrowed in order to position one's perspective and to obfuscate the more challenging realities we fail to discuss:

1. who has consistent opportunities to access high level curricula in this country and who does not and why is that;
2. what constitutes high level curricula (for whom?);
3. how do local values matter;
4. what are the relationships between poverty and learning and how do we create equitable environments for all;
5. how do we reconcile differences (who & what gets valued and not).

Instead of substantive conversations that take longer than the end page in a popular press magazine, we are subjected to smoke and mirrors. Consider the recent Newsweek column, A Case of Senioritis, Jonathan Alter penned. Alter writes:

After exhaustive study, the Gates Foundation and other experts have learned that the only in-school factor that fully correlates is quality teaching, which seniority hardly guarantees. It’s a moral issue. Who can defend a system where top teachers are laid off in a budget crunch for no other reason than that they’re young?

I am curious as to what study he is referencing (no citation was included) and take exception (and hope you do as well) with the syllogistic leap in logic that posits "top" teachers as being synonymous with youth.  Is Alter suggesting that youth and inexperience are correlates for fine teaching?  Is there some juried study that shows that?  The faultiness in such thinking is extraordinary, but no longer unusual in these Shoot Out at the O.K. Corral days. 

Lost in such binary advantaging (get rid of senior teachers and keep young teachers) are the necessary conversations about privilege, quality, relevance, context, opportunity, and empowerment we need to be having.  This us vs. them drama distracts and keeps us from addressing our shared responsibilities regarding democracy and schooling.  Recall John Dewey who wrote, “We naturally associate democracy, to be sure, with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos.”  

I can't help but wonder what sense Dewey would make of the repeated calls for action (get rid of tenure, stop health benefits, do not pay for teachers' higher degrees, employ beginning teachers, privilege youth) by bureaucrats and billionaires who seem to make such utterances with mindfulness that makes me wonder to what end our democracy is secure.  Their posturing (employ young teachers, build charter schools) leaves not only public schools in chaos by undermining public trust, but our democractic system as well.  

I will not talk (in class) anymore may well be the first volley in this grand monologue about public schooling, especially as we seem to be running headlong into a two class system populated by those who have and those who serve those who have. Makes me wonder if all this posturing is a prelude to a return to serfdom.

Schools as Settled Households: Musings about Excellence and Teaching

The Way Home. Ringwood, NJ 11.6.10

When I was a child, I often wondered about the lives of the people who had previously lived in the house where I grew up.   I recall talk of a boy who battled leukemia and how his father worked off the tension and perhaps some of the fear by restoring every piece of wood (all walnut) to its original luster.  At that time, cancer was a much hushed illness, perhaps similar in tone to the previous generation who spoke of someone going to a sanitarium because of tuberculosis.  

By the time I came to America and settled into that house—the boy and his father were long gone. Yet, the stories I heard and now recall some 50 years later continue to inform the way I live and love, the people and understandings I value and trust. Home is often so much more than location—be that time or space.  Recently I have been thinking about home and what it might mean and to whom.  I was traveling the other day, heading towards home, and snapped the photograph that tops this post.  Home to me has often been both a location and a presence of mind. Even when the location was not as solid as it is today, the presence of mind has never been fleeting, shabby, flimsy or forgotten.  Home allows me to recall what I cannot forget: that every human matters, that the course of actions I take and fail to take imprint me in ways I will not be able to distance myself from at some later moment, and that each small moment offers the opportunity to demonstrate the ideals I value and have learned in the company of others.

In the course of my professional work, I recently have been asked to think about the question, "What is excellent teaching?"   I know instinctively this excellence is not housed in the single body of the teacher. I think we spend far too much time wondering about the excellent teacher and not enough time wondering about the conditions that gives rise to "excellence".  This is not to say there are no teachers doing valued and fine work, but rather, all of the fine work I have been involved in has occurred in the context of a more extended group and that "excellence" has been locally determined.  

Wendell Berry offers a description that is helpful.  In an essay I recently had published ("Dressing the Corpse: Professional Development and the Play of Singularities"), I made use of Berry's concept about the differences between the technical farmer and the good farmer.  Earlier in the article I had discussed observing a fairly new primary school teacher (Ms. Sheridan) in an inner city. Ms. Sheridan had been "developed" by the school system to deliver a product, not teach. This professional development was done to her in an effort to make her excellent.  I wrote:

Months after meeting Ms. Sheridan, I have occasion to think of her again. It’s quite late at night and my husband and son are each asleep. In the quiet of the house, I sit at the kitchen table reading Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America. His description of the technical and the good farmer momentarily distracts me and I find I am thinking of Ms. Sheridan again. The technical farmer, Berry says, can be made by training, while the good farmer, “is a cultural product; he is made by a sort of training, certainly in what his time imposes or demands, but also he is made by generations of experience” (1977, p. 45).
Berry explains that the essential experience of the good farmer is “tested, preserved, handed down in settled households, friendships, and communities that are deliberately and carefully native to their own ground” (1977, p. 45).  In what ways, I wonder, might schools become similar to these settled households; places where teachers, like Ms. Sheridan, are able to learn from generations of experience so as to inform, invent, complicate, question, redirect, and revise their work native to their own ground?

Instead of inquiring about the excellent teacher (I think this is a hold over of the same mindset that believes in superheroes) as if some prototype might exist, I want to suggest that we ask how we might engender schools to function as settled households native to their own ground.  Excellence, regardless of the mania about standards, is a socially compose construct and does not exist in some finite,  singularly "truthful" manner. What we name as excellent is connected to who we are and are not. 

I deeply believe that excellence, as defined by people in a common place and time, rests not in a single person, although it may find expression through a single person, but is part of a collective experience that is locally realized. Those who have come before us and those who teach and learn alongside us influence the work we do.  The culture of a place is more important than any single individual.  We would be wise to not mistake the "excellent" teacher from the place(s) s/he has worked and the stories that have (in)formed the culture of that work.

What Value is there in Using iPod Touches, iPod Nanos, FlipCameras, and iPads in School? Answering the Bureaucrat

14 months ago I left behind a professorship at a private college in NY and joined a public school PreK-12 system in NJ.  During this time period more than 700 Internet ready devices (iPod touches, laptops, netbooks, iPads) have been added to the high school, all of the district schools have been made wireless, and technology restrictions regarding what technology middle and high school students can bring to school and use (such as smartphones and other Internet ready devices) have been lifted.   These purchases, infrastructure changes, and policy revisions represent a commitment of public funds and public trust.  As such, the reasoning behind these acquisitions ought to be transparent.

I have found that it is not unusual then that I am asked by someone (such as auditors and state government types) to justify the purchases of iPods (Touch and Nano), flip cameras, and now iPads.  These are not mean spirited requests, but rather inquiries asking me to explain the purchases given the volume I have purchased and the funding sources I have used. I always dash off a response to satisfy the request as I am often in the middle of something that feels more pressing.  Tonight though, I have some time and thought a more thorough response might be in order, along with a request to those of you who read  this blog post to add your thoughts.

So how do we make use of iPod touches, iPod Nanos, iPads, e-readers (Kindle, Sony Reader) netbooks, laptops, flipcameras, IPEVO USB document cameras, as well as net-based services such as Web Design, software such as  Mathematica and Read-Write Gold, and many, many apps to name but a few?

We have dynamite administrators/supervisors, librarians/teachers, students, and computer techs/teachers who work collaboratively to try out hardware, apps, and software and then formally and informally teach one another.  Their work helps us to consider which apps we might want to ensure are on all devices (or most) and which ones will be reserved for more idiosyncratic uses. Some common uses of the iPod touch and iPad include serving as Internet ready devices that students use in the course of their learning. These on demand devices allow students to consume information and to use Web 2.0 apps and software to produce work.  They also allow for students to connect with others in the class and beyond the class through iChat, skype, twitter, ning, wiki, and email.

In weeks to come several teachers and supervisors will be guest bloggers and provide a more detail accounting as to the ways they engage learners and the technology they use to do so.   For now, I am going to simply list some of the ways these technologies are used to enhance, deepen, and complicate learning.

Students & Teachers use:

1. Internet ready devices to connect to others.
2. iPod touches and MacBooks to make podcasts.
3. iPod touches, iPads, Sony Readers, and Kindles to read/listen to text and use Read,Write & Gold to create readable texts to hear.
4. iPod touches in world language class to record dialogues in the target language and share the audio files with peers and their teacher who respond in the target language.
5. many, many different apps on the iPod touch and the iPad such as: DropBox, Evernote, Star Walk, Tweet Deck, iBooks, Kindle App, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Google (docs, gmail, calendar, blogger, etc.), Dragon Dictation, Dragon Search, Brushes, SoundHound, Pandora, Civilization Revolution, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Flipbook, Side by Side, The Elements A Visual Exploration, Free Books, You Tube, TED, Good Reader, Google Earth, History: Maps of the World.
6. netbooks, iPads, and laptops to blog.
7. laptops (and desktops) to edit film/images, produce weekly television broadcasts, make digital stories and Animoto films & post finished work on the Internet.
8. any handheld device to access podcasts in order to review and/or strengthen learning.
9. any handheld device to access how to videos and use jing to make videos.
10. laptops to access Mathematica.
11. any Internet ready device to access Web Assign and Moodle.
12. iMacs to make music.
13. MacBooks to run business simulations, make slideshows, iMovies, iBooks, run Final Cut Pro for film making.
14. iPod Nanos to film, listen to music.
15. Flip Cameras & digital cameras on field trips to record impressions, make walking poems, create art, record sights and sounds, record interviews.
16. netbooks & laptops to video conference.
17. Internet ready devices to watch film.
18. Internet ready devices to check email.
19. Internet ready devices to surf the web.
20. Internet ready devices to send and receive tweets.
21. iPods/iPads to record lectures.
22. MacBooks to create digital portfolios (upload to iTunes)

When Everybody is a Public School Expert is it a Null Set? Take the Test.

The list of experts about public education seems to include almost everyone.   How about you?
See if you can pass this easy test that measures if you are an Educational Expert. You only need to get one right.

1. Are you a national or state level politician hoping to get re-elected or elected in November? You're an expert.
2. Have you ever visited a school to pose for a photo op? You're an expert (and perhaps you got # 1 right too). 
3. Did you make your first million (legally or not) by the age of 30? You're an expert (and perhaps you got numbers 1 and 2 correct).
4. Do you or have you ever hosted a TV show (any will really do)? You're an expert.
5. Are you a mayor or perhaps want to be a major of a town, hamlet, village, or city and think you'd like a crack at running the public schools? You're an expert.
6. Are you a news, TV, or Hollywood celebrity? You're an expert.
7. Are you or have you ever been a CEO of anything or perhaps married to one? You're an expert.
8. Do you have $100,000,000 to give away to a school district or perhaps your favorite charter school? You're an expert.
9. Do you have a degree in education that is honorary only? You're an expert.
10. Have you been teaching for under a year in a charter school somewhere in USA? You're an expert.
11. Did you play school when you were a child and then resist actually teaching as an adult? You're an expert.
12. Have you read a newspaper article about "the crisis in public schooling" in the last month? You're an expert.
13. Do you watch NBC? You're an expert.
14. Do you like to drink tea? You're an expert and could perhaps make a break into politics (see Tea Party. Remember, the education crisis could be your platform).
15. Are you a parent and not an actual public school educator? You're an expert.
16. Are you an educational consultant or technology whiz kid who has never actually taught or did so long ago for a brief amount of time? You're an expert.
17. Have you taken a quick route to the classroom via a summer teaching immersion course and have landed your first teaching job only to find yourself being interviewed about education? You're an expert.
18. Are you a commissioner of education who is formally a lawyer, a politician, and/or a CEO of something? You're an expert.
19. Do you offer commentary on crisis situations on TV (any crisis will do) or in a newspaper column? You're an expert.
20. Are you a columnist, TV Pundit, comic, or super hero? You're an expert.
21. Do you like to use words or phrases like pedagogy, standards-based, or 21st century skills or acronyms like NAEP, RTI, or NCLB, but can't really say what each means in practice? You're an expert.
22. Do you spend a lot of time talking to anyone about the crisis in "public" education, bad teachers &  administrators, and everything going to hell at dinner parties, your corner bar, soccer practice, or at the school bus stop? You're an expert.
23. Is your opinion about public education based on TV shows? You're an expert.
24. Have you never read or participated in any actual educational research? You're an expert.
25. Are you making or hoping to make your first (or second...) million selling your scientifically based research program to a school in need of improvement? You're an expert. 

Bonus Question: Even if you got none of the above correct, you can become an instant expert if you answer yes to the following:

Do you sometimes dream that a superhero (of your choice) is coming to rescue you and your community, and perhaps your country from the evil clutches of public school educators in order for all of you to race, race, race to some elusive top that only the superhero knows? 

Wow, move over Arne Duncan. You could be the next Secretary of Education.

No Lemming Left Behind. Image by Mary Ann Reilly (2009).