Linking life, laughter, and learning

This morning, I've pondered writing the serious academic critique valued in the Academy.  And I'm not going to do it.  There are far too many (easy) opportunities to find fault with education in general, my academic institution in particular, and, while we're going there, anything and everything.  It always seems helpful and instructive to point out what could be better, which, in fact, is the rationalization of choice used by curmudgeons.  I'm not arguing whether the commentary of curmudgeons and critics on the human condition has value; I'm just not all that interested in seeing what's wrong today.

Finding the way(s) in which we resonate with our world, so that we can be productive, is one of the goals of education.  For many of us, joy and laughter (kin to optimism) are required for maximum productivity. From Norman Cousins' belief in the value of positive thoughts and behaviors on human healing, to the amazing Raspyni Brothers (whose 2002 Ted Talk is laugh-out-loud funny), to myriad poems, cartoons, puns, and ad libs, I need the occasional reminder that combining learning, life, and laughter creates a near-magical confluence of joy and creativity.   And therein is the source for taking the next step, forging the next river, climbing the next mountain....and writing the next blog.

Choosing to see the positive in my students, my colleagues, my university, and my life does not mean I am unaware of the ways those things fall short of some ideal.  It does means, though, that I believe we make choices about our focus.

Maybe better folks than I can focus on the things that need to be improved without feeling overwhelmed, as it's pretty strong medicine.  With that particular strong medicine, a little goes a long way.

A jinx on both your classes

I wrote a few weeks ago about the oxymoronic exhortation to be spontaneous.  Closely related is the conundrum of being labeled "creative," a surefire way to create a self-consciousness that rarely co-exists with creativity.  Next semester, I have the opportunity to take all of this to new heights by teaching a class entitled Innovation and Creativity for which I will be "perfect" because I am "so creative."  Oy vey.

Honestly, I like marching to a different drummer, singing my own song, taking the path not traveled, and seeing things from a different perspective.  But the minute you label them as unique or try to teach them to others....well, they kind of become mainstream and defeat the intended purpose of expressing uniqueness.  So, I tend to let others teach it and write about it ("it" being "how to be different") and just do what seems to work for me in any given moment or situation.  Now, however, I'm supposed to teach a group of graduate students how to be "it."  Oh my.

Yes, I love to teach.  Yes, I love a challenge.  Yes, I think it's important to find a unique contribution to the world.   I'm just not sure I know how to teach something I've never stopped to analyze or study and which seems to be nothing more than how I make my way in the world.

I have textbooks and a syllabus from the previous semester, both of which I am devouring in the hope that I will discover some magic formula for teaching something that seems both ineffable and idiosyncratic.  Perhaps it wouldn't be so daunting if I didn't feel the pressure to BE CREATIVE in front of 30 students who assume I know this stuff.   If chaos is in any way linked to creativity, then I'm feelin' real creative about now.  And that real creative feeling is temporarily getting in the way of preparing for both my Spring classes, as I'm having trouble with the focus part of creativity.

I started writing this blog to remind myself how it feels to be the learner; I am considering myself reminded.

A license to tech

I touched on related topics recently and the technology-privacy connection keeps bouncing around both in the media and in my head.  We are giving our youth access to technology and tools they don't understand and they--our youth--are reaping consequences...consequences which often have public and far-reaching implications.  Why are we doing this?  And why aren't we more concerned?

We are concerned about responsible use of an automobile.  My state places restrictions on the learner (at age 15) and removes the restrictions gradually until the age of 18, understanding that the highest likelihood of a fatality is when a teenage has limited driving experience combined with less-than-optimal emotional maturity.  In other words, less experienced, younger drivers make more lethal mistakes.  It's pretty high stakes.

And at an even earlier age, we have children using technology (text messaging, cell phone cameras, social media, as just a few examples) without the emotional maturity or life experience to understand the repercussions of many of their actions.  Is it as high stakes as a driving an automobile irresponsibly?  Maybe not.  But I'm not sure the difference would be all that compelling to the parents of teenagers who've committed suicide over images that went viral.

Frederick Lane, the author of American Privacy, describes it this way in a recent CNN article:

We're putting very powerful tools in the hands of children who don't have a frame of reference on how they should be used.  There are obviously very serious consequences when people break these kind of ethical and moral boundaries associated with privacy.

Lane goes on to say that education is the key.  Education may very well be the key, but I'm not sure what lock it's intended to open.  Cognitive development occurs in predictable stages.  We design our schools (and our driving requirements) accordingly.  Maybe it's not education that's needed as much as attention to how and why we are putting these technology tools into the hands of children who cannot possibly understand the implications of their misuse.  Perhaps the fallacy of composition in my own premise is that adults DO understand...

Just relax...and be spontaneous

Some of the least helpful advice I've ever been given is in the subject line.  It's well-intentioned and may, in fact, be quite sound.  But the exhortation to "be spontaneous" strikes me as something of a Catch-22.  For me, thinking about spontaneity pretty well guarantees its absence...and it's already far too easy for me to forget (in the midst of what we'll just call Life) that being the best version of who and what I am makes me the best teacher I can be. 

Education is a landscape rife with landmines, a reality we (the educators) can't ignore and can't escape.  Why we do the political equivalent of circling the wagons and shooting in, I can't answer.  But Bud the Teacher (in his recent comparison of teachers to Superman) offers this perspective:

I’m interested in those of us who are not invincible, who can only take so much, and who bleed, suffer and break when the rocks get tossed.  I want human beings in our schools.  I want kind and compassionate mortals working with our children, people who know what it means to hurt and fail and to rise up and succeed in spite of the foolish words from high places. 

I've been spending some time lately discovering how many educators (elementary, secondary, higher education, college, and beyond) write and/or read blogs.  The sharing of ideas, the call to courage, the support of radical creativity are a goldmine for me, but I am wondering why so many of my peers don't seem to find that support from the colleagues next door or down the hall.  Or from the parents of our students. 

As I begin my preparations for a 9-hour teaching load next semester, I am faced with a new Blackboard system, a class I've not taught before, a not-insignificant revision of a course where I had (finally) felt comfortable, and new departmental alignments.  Though I am fortunate to have supportive colleagues and administration, there are inherent risks when I bring my genuine, spontaneous (and, yes, well-prepared) self into the classroom.  It's much harder some days than others.

Calculating the odds that we'll figure this out...

Many of us remember the dark days before ubiquitous calculators, as well as the uproar when they were being incorporated into mainstream education. "If we let them use calculators, they'll never learn math!" was heard throughout the land (or at least that's how it seemed).  What was once feared has become an important learning tool, required for many junior high and high school courses...and beyond.  We teach students the requisite math skills, teach them how to use the tool, then weave both (the skills and the tool) seamlessly into educational delivery.  Though math aptitude is still a bell-shaped distribution, the assignments being completed with the new tools are far beyond what some of us were able to do in college, given our antiquated tools.  Were the concerns about calculator use unmerited?  Or did they actually help shape a better outcome?

So, what about ubiquitous social media?  From the July 2010 New York Times article about privacy issues, by George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen:

Facebook, which surpassed MySpace in 2008 as the largest social-networking site, now has nearly 500 million members, or 22 percent of all Internet users, who spend more than 500 billion minutes a month on the site.  Facebook users share more than 25 billion pieces of content each month (including news stories, blog posts and photos), and the average user creates 70 pieces of content a month.  There are more than 100 million registered Twitter users, and the Library of Congress recently announced that it will be acquiring--and permanently storing--the entire archive of Twitter posts since 2006.

The sheer volume of information being generated boggles the mind, as well as wondering who is viewing it.  A University of Southern Indiana doctoral student writes about hearing in her interview that her Facebook profile had been reviewed as part her social media internship application and found more acceptable than another candidate's page with a photo of eight shot glasses surrounding the candidate.  Her question in a social media guest blog seems fair:  "Why are today's students held accountable for not knowing how to use social medial professionally, yet they haven't ever been taught formally?"

We have recruiters and employers checking Facebook pages as part of the hiring process, personal information being shared without any (or with limited) awareness of the immediate loss of control over that information, and permanent records of what we create.  And, for the most part, we are not teaching students basic writing skills nor the proper use of social media tools.  We did far better with the calculators.

Education is the only place where students try so hard not to get what they pay for.

It's a bit long for a title, but Teddi Fishman nailed it with that comment during her recent presentation to our faculty.  Though her topic was academic integrity, she broadened the discourse (as any English professor would, by the way) to inquire whether "cheating" is the problem or a symptom.  And somewhere in the time she spent with us, she made the comment in the subject line.

I've seen steaks returned to kitchens, products returned to stores, service bills disputed, and a host of other examples that demonstrate the expectation of getting what we ordered, purchased, or otherwise paid to receive.  We don't even have to think about the concept of receiving full value for payment.  So, why would it be any different in education?

Once I started thinking about spending thousands of dollars for an education, then thwarting the process at every turn (which, of course, makes no sense...Teddi's point), I realized that we may not all be talking about the same students.  I want to teach students who want to learn.  And some of them do.  But what about the students who are getting exactly what they paid for--a degree?

Somewhere, we--educators, parents, legislators, business leaders, and administrators--have treated education and a college degree as fungible.  It's another variation of means versus ends and it's creating all sorts of unhealthy behavior.  And misinformed decisions. 

Part of our discussion of academic integrity touched on the reality of cheating.  Implicit in the behavior of many students is "Degree now; integrity later."  It becomes a far more interesting discussion when you remind students that the people who may hire them, recommend them, or be their coworkers are the same students with whom they are in classes...the ones watching the cheating.  I'm not sure most students believe that professional communities are virtual small ponds, shrinking daily with technology.  And while fellow students may have limited recourse now, that tends to change dramatically when the classroom becomes the workplace or the community.

If students are paying for education, the alarming declines in academic integrity (increased cheating, plagiarism, free riding) make little sense.  If students are paying for degrees, those same behaviors make much more sense.   But the more difficult question to face is who created the degree-for-pay market...and why.

Our evaluation system is broken

Being the Secretary of Education has to be a difficult job.  But Arne Duncan seems up to the challenge.  And, frankly, I'd love to be on the bus when he visits teachers in our state (as well as in seven other states), because he's not afraid to say the things that need to be said.  From his August 25 remarks at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, here are my favorite quotes:

• In just one generation we have fallen from first in the world to 12th in the percentage of young adults with college degrees.
• As a country we will stop lying to our children and dumbing down standards.
• Nothing is more important and nothing has a greater impact on the quality of education than the quality and skill of the person standing in the front of the class -- and there is so much that needs to change in the way that America recruits, trains, supports and manages our teachers.
• Singapore selects prospective teachers from the top third of the class and in Finland only one in ten applicants is accepted into teacher preparation programs. They only pick the very best.
• The issue of teacher evaluation is especially important today for a number of reasons. First of all, everyone agrees that our evaluation system is broken.
• (T)he vast majority of teacher colleges in this country are doing a mediocre job at best.
• As a country we must stop highlighting only ballplayers and rock stars and start highlighting teachers who are our true heroes and role models.

Read the text of the speech, agree or disagree, chalk it up to politics, if you must.  But don't sit on your laurels, ignore the declines in our system, and decide that you can't make a difference.  The very least we can all do is to stay informed.  The most we can do is make conscious decisions to be a constructive force in our own sphere of influence.

I may not make a difference in my state, my country, or the world, but I make a difference to the students who sit in my classes, who ask me to serve as their thesis advisor, and who look to me as a role model for how teachers should teach.  I'm no Arne Duncan, but that's no excuse for overlooking the opportunities I have to make a positive impact in my small corner of the world.  That's my seat on the bus.