The Thrust presentation in the theater is one which marks a more modern interpretation of dramatic presentation of productions. One of the more difficult challenges that performers, as well as teachers, face are maintaining active audience engagement throughout the entirety of the production. Along with this dealing effectively with any disruption, or hecklers, that may arise during the staging of the drama. One of the more practical means of achieving this is by physically altering the shape of the stage.

In this production of a dramatic work, the stage is something of a “T” shape. Added to the traditional proscenium is an additional portion of the stage jutting out into the actual audience. This particular additional portion of the stage literally “thrusts” out into the audience dividing them into somewhat equal portions. Looking at a thrust stage could remind an individual of a cat walk stage used in fashion shows.

Similarly, looking at the methods many classroom teachers use, the majority of us will pivot into the students from the front of the classroom bringing the lesson to them in a certain sense. Technology has made this presentation and lesson delivery much easier. However, it is also a two-edged sword in this setting as well. When it comes to technology, the classroom is no exception…technology is merely a tool.

But, this particular presentation of a lesson in the classroom can be both beneficial and limiting at the same time. A remote “clicker” in hand combined with a laser pointer frees the teacher from being anchored to the computer at the front of the room during direct teach episodes in the classroom. Yet, there are too many times that this has become the destination rather than a way station on the instructional journey.

With this particular presentation, some classroom teachers have leaned unnecessarily upon technology in order to overlook audience interaction. While the thrust presentation in the classroom does afford the teacher with the opportunity to literally thrust into the student area, it is still limited. As mentioned earlier, the Thrust Presentation generally forms a “T” shape stage or teaching arena for the teacher to present the material in.

While this opened new possibilities for the actors and audiences in the theater realm, it seemingly has an opposite effect in the classroom to some extent. For the classroom teachers which have a history of staying put giving instruction from only one, or a few, locations at the front of the classroom, this presentation is beneficial. However, it should not be a destination, but rather a mile marker on the journey towards a flipped classroom.

On the other hand, for the teachers which have a solid history of regular movement around the classroom, the Thrust Presentation will not be beneficial for the most part. For these teachers, this particular presentation is more of a starting point to begin experimentation and modification. It is a form that variations can be added to regularly, in fact, with the changing of each class similar to an improvisation exercise.

Regardless, the primary objective of the Thrust Presentation in the classroom is to increase student engagement and interest. By moving the teaching into the midst of the students rather than sequestering it to only in front of them, the students at least feel they are in the middle of the action. Doing this begins to move learning from a passive to an active experience for the students. As such, transferring the direction from the teacher to the students begins to take place as well. This is one of the key objectives to cultivating lifelong learners which is the ultimate goals of any educational endeavor, regardless of grade level or content area.

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Note from the Editor: While this piece is related to business practices and targeted to managers and business leaders, the parallels to education and student learning are striking. Teachers, curricula developers, and education leaders can find plenty herein to ponder, reflect on, and apply in practice.  It was originally posted at Switch and Shift. 

Managers cannot make work meaningful for employees. Managers, however, can shape the workplace environment to let meaningful work become possible for employees. With a context set to let meaning be experienced, employees can leverage the environment to derive meaning from their work.

Meaningful work is vague. What exactly is it? Assuredly it begins quite selfishly. But this is out of necessity. For work to be meaningful, it is the employee who must label it so. This requires a belief that meaningful work is a desired outcome from managements’ actions. And employees believe managements’ intentions and see actions aimed to let meaning emerge.

To explain what meaningful work is, let’s look at its characteristics. In short, however, meaningful work is employees’ perceived positive value of what they are doing. It’s a source of joy in their overall life. In the words of Max Depree, “[it’s] maturing, enriching, and fulfilling, healing, and joyful.”

Basic needs are met

Think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Employees physiological and safety needs must be met. It’s a base requirement for meaningful work to emerge.

Strengths are leveraged

Don’t confuse strengths with competency. Strengths are what energize you. Employees must experience work that energizes them. Otherwise all work is draining and meaning is absent.

Pull personal satisfaction from work

Employees’ perceive their work to be fulfilling.

Being in on things

Employees believe they are trusted with important, inside knowledge. This includes knowing that there is important information but it must be kept confidential from employees for the benefit of the organization.

Treated with respect by peers and managers

This doesn’t say liked, but respected. There is a difference. At its core is employees’ believe they can speak their ideas and be in action to achieve the best possible outcomes.

See how one’s work fits into the bigger picture

Really, what hasn’t been said or written about this. Enough said.

Personal sense of independence and interdependence

Autonomy in completing one’s work has always been important. Collaboration is vital in the 21st century given the internet and globalization. These raise the importance of interdependence in today’s workplaces.

Employees believe they are valued by the organization, by management

To be viewed as a replaceable cog in the proverbial wheel is antiquated management. Organizations thrive or die based on human actions. To that end, meaningful work is marked by the belief that employees are the means to a profitable end.

Opportunities to know self

Let’s look back to Max Depree’s words. For work to be meaningful, there must be a maturing nature of work. Such an evolving awareness of the nature of work is best met by an evolving, deepening awareness of one’s self. Coaching, feedback and awareness of one’s place in the universe are vital to make sense of meaningful work. Such opportunities are humbling.

Promotion of other’s satisfaction

Immanuel Kant, philosopher, placed our ability to be concerned for other’s wellbeing and humanity as important to meaningful work. Such a belief places an emphasis on a strong, united team supporting others’ ability to flourish.

Recognized, give recognition for good work

For meaningful work to emerge, employees’ efforts are recognized in manners important to the person. Furthermore, giving recognition is believed to matter, creating a cycle of reciprocity that is genuine.

In today’s workplace, meaningful work is radical. For some managers, to influence a meaningful workplace environment is heretical. This is precisely what our workplaces need.

Image: Shawn Murphy

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The Economist article, “In praise of misfits,” lays out the business-related benefits of what the author  calls “creatives,” “anti-social geeks,” “oddball quants,” and “rule-breaking entrepreneurs.” While the entire article is well worth the read, we have pulled out a few quotes to help frame the idea that we should work tirelessly to help our school system to support these “misfits.”

Rather than treat their uniquenesses as deficits, we would do well to build on their actionable strengths and affinities — qualities that are proving to shape our present, and will surely impact our future.

From the article:

Recruiters have noticed that the mental qualities that make a good computer programmer resemble those that might get you diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome: an obsessive interest in narrow subjects; a passion for numbers, patterns and machines; an addiction to repetitive tasks; and a lack of sensitivity to social cues.

Additionally,

Similar traits are common in the upper reaches of finance. The quants have taken over from the preppies. The hero of Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short”, Michael Burry, a hedge-fund manager, is a loner who wrote a stockmarket blog as a hobby while he was studying to be a doctor. He attracted so much attention from money managers that he quit medicine to start his own hedge fund, Scion Capital.

The article goes on,

Entrepreneurs also display a striking number of mental oddities. Julie Login of Cass Business School surveyed a group of entrepreneurs and found that 35% of them said that they suffered from dyslexia, compared with 10% of the population as a whole and 1% of professional managers. Prominent dyslexics include the founders of Ford, General Electric, IBM and IKEA, not to mention more recent successes such as Charles Schwab (the founder of a stockbroker), Richard Branson (the Virgin Group), John Chambers (Cisco) and Steve Jobs (Apple).

All that said, however, there must be balance between the “creatives” and what the article refers to as, “The Organisation Man,” or the “‘well-rounded’ executives.” The writer goes on to explain,

Where does that leave the old-fashioned organisation man? He will do just fine. The more companies hire brilliant mavericks, the more they need sensible managers to keep the company grounded. Someone has to ensure that dull but necessary tasks are done. Someone has to charm customers (and perhaps lawmakers). This task is best done by those who don’t give the impression that they think normal people are stupid.

All of this hints at the need for the real career-ready skill of knowing simply how to get along — to not just tolerate differences, but to appreciate and leverage these differences as opportunities to innovate and become more than the sum of our parts. Our learning communities can be (and already are) incubators of the social relationships that, in part, define a student’s path beyond graduations, for better or for worse.

What if we were so bold as to decide that each student is a learner, learning changes lives,  learning happens in different ways, and learning empowers, and therefore we need to ensure that each student feels the work of schooling matters to them and that their strengths and affinities are not only valued, but embraced and employed as essential to the success of the community?

Do we need to wait until these “misfits” graduate and enter the workforce to change the following?

Those square pegs may not have an easy time in school. They may be mocked by jocks and ignored at parties.

Because, after all,

. . . these days no serious organisation can prosper without them. As Kiran Malhotra, a Silicon Valley networker, puts it: “It’s actually cool to be a geek.”

We, as educators and advocates of all students, have the power to change this trend. There is no need for students to wait until adulthood to find that their strengths matter, and no research suggests this is in the best interest of students, especially those “creatives, oddballs, and/or square pegs among us.

Photo Credit: BrittneyBush via Compfight cc

This post was originally published on the All Kinds of Minds blog. 

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The NYTimes recently published a piece on teacher evaluation. I submitted the following comment (which they did not post) to the online forum:

I searched through NYTimes’ archive of medical / law / finance / congressional / military reform articles looking for pieces that fail to quote a doctor / lawyer / banker / policy-maker / enlisted soldier, and I found zero. Yet, here is an article — printed above the fold on the front page of the Sunday Times — about teachers, teacher evaluation, and education reform that quotes not a single teacher.

While this has been par for the course in policy circles and lesser publications, the perpetuation of this trend in a publication of the Times’ gravitas has become routinely disappointing.

One of the first rules of managing change is to enlist, engage, and involve vested parties, especially those for whom the change impacts the most. A shared vision and buy-in are key to implementation that lasts. However, before either of those can be realized, we must ensure that teachers are actually a part of the visioning and, at a minimum, a part of the conversation.

The Times can be a part of this solution by simply doing what they typically do well: quality journalism. When you write about K-12 education, quote a K-12 educator, just as you do when it comes to other professions.

Upon realizing that the Times was not going to publish my response among the 600+ others, I wrote to the Public Editor expressing my concerns as follows:

The quote was never published and I wonder why. I was not malicious or untruthful. As a long time reader of the Times, I feel I offered a legitimate concern that should be a (however minuscule) part of the conversation.

That the Times seems to lean in favor of reformers is neither here nor there for me (we all have values we communicate, even when we strive for objectiveness), but when there is neglect to even include the voice of a teacher who is subject to the evaluation, I think there may be an editorial bias that may have negative consequences on students, in the spirit of trickle down disenfranchisement. And, as a former classroom teacher, when I think about teachers feeling disempowered and potentially translating that to their students, I feel the need to speak up.

Would the Times ever publish a piece about the evaluation of doctors without quoting a doctor? The evaluation of lawyers without a quote from a lawyer? Finance without a quote from a banker? It would be raked over the coals if it did.

The assistant to the public editor, Meg Gourley, responded as such:

Thank you for writing. Including quotes from teachers would have helped broaden this story, but this is a journalistic issue, not an issue of journalistic integrity. We appreciate the feedback and will continue to keep an eye on this coverage.

It is on this point that I continue to take issue, as I did in my initial response. How do we distinguish between “journalistic issue” and “journalistic integrity”? The matter remains, teachers are the subject of the article, yet their voice is unrepresented. How is that not an issue of integrity?

If we want to change the outcomes for students who are marginalized by our education system, the answer lies in the intentional engagement of educators, rather than in the journalistic exclusion of teachers. It is time for media outlets to see educators as necessary and integral to this national conversation about education, not optional inputs. In my humble opinion.

Photo Credit: Spreading Wings Photography via Compfight cc

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Every year in the United States, an estimated 500,000 teachers leave their schools, with only 16% of the departures the result of retirement. The bulk of teachers leave for a variety of other reasons, including whether or not they perceive their school’s leadership to be effective.

Without strong leadership, it is much easier for good teachers to walk away, either to another school or another career. Let’s take a look at some of the leadership qualities that teachers most desire in a principal.

Builds a sense of community

Perhaps the single most important quality a principal can have is the ability to create a sense of community. Effective principals understand that the adults and children in their schools need a healthy, safe and supportive environment in order to thrive. A community-building principal works to avoid teacher isolation, negativity and resistance; instead, he or she encourages an upbeat, respectful and supportive professional environment. Positive solutions and growth are the norm, not the exception.

Knows how to hire good teachers

One of the best things a principal can do for his or her school is to hire the right teachers. In addition to making sure a candidate has a strong educational background and excellent references, principals can use behavior-based interviewing techniques to get a realistic idea of how well a candidate will perform in the classroom. Behavior-based interviewing operates on the premise that past behavior best predicts future performance. Typical questions begin with, “Tell me about a time when …” or “Describe your experience with …” and can be highly effective in determining how a candidate will handle real-life situations.

Fosters growth and professional development

When teachers are presented with a clear path to advancement they are more apt to stay at their current school. By providing in-school leadership opportunities – as well as by making professional development accessible, affordable and rewarding – principals demonstrate their commitment to helping staff members grow professionally and excel in the classroom. Also, good principals build on their teachers’ strengths, encouraging them to share knowledge, experience and skills with each other, as opposed to turning a blind eye to unhealthy competition or seniority-based inequality.

Advocates for the school to stakeholders

Nearly every educational framework policy depends on strong community involvement, so much so that the National Association of Secondary School Principals identifies community engagement as a core element of its leadership development agenda. Because a lack of resources is one of the leading catalysts for teacher attrition, principals need to be powerful advocates to their school’s stakeholders in order to gain greater access to necessary resources. Increasingly, schools understand that there is a direct connection between community and parent involvement and improved academic performance.

The primary stakeholders in any school community are families, staff, business partners and the public. Each of these categories requires different styles and approaches to engagement. For example, families may have language and cultural differences or an earlier negative experience with school officials. In order to encourage continued involvement and support, principals need to make a concerted effort to understand the priorities and preferences of the various categories of stakeholders.

Communicates Effectively

Good communication is one of the most crucial components of teacher satisfaction; the best principals will routinely examine their communication skills then apply a variety of styles through the school day. There are a few things principals can ask themselves in an ongoing effort to improve in this area:

• Who did I communicate with today, even if it was for just a brief moment?  (List every single person from kindergartener to visiting teacher.)
• Are my reasons for communicating helping lead my school through positive changes and improvements?
• Do I communicate in a way that contributes to meaningful problem solving?
• Does my communication style help to strengthen working relationships among my staff?
• What areas of communication are the most difficult for me? How can I work to improve in these areas?

Great organizations of all types require great leadership and this is especially true in education. In today’s evolving educational landscape, it is more critical than ever for principals to demonstrate to their staff, students and community that they have what it takes to guide their schools to success.

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Below is the speech Matt Damon gave at the Save Our Schools March on July 30, 2012 in Washington, DC.

I had incredible teachers. And as I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all of these things came from how I was parented and taught.

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am … can be tested.

I said before that I had incredible teachers. And that’s true. But it’s more than that. My teachers were EMPOWERED to teach me. Their time wasn’t taken up with a bunch of test prep — this silly drill and kill nonsense that any serious person knows doesn’t promote real learning. No, my teachers were free to approach me and every other kid in that classroom like an individual puzzle. They took so much care in figuring out who we were and how to best make the lessons resonate with each of us. They were empowered to unlock our potential. They were allowed to be teachers.

Now don’t get me wrong. I did have a brush with standardized tests at one point. I remember because my mom went to the principal’s office and said, ‘My kid ain’t taking that. It’s stupid, it won’t tell you anything and it’ll just make him nervous.’ That was in the ’70s when you could talk like that.

I shudder to think that these tests are being used today to control where funding goes.

I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test. If their very survival as teachers was not based on whether I actually fell in love with the process of learning but rather if I could fill in the right bubble on a test. If they had to spend most of their time desperately drilling us and less time encouraging creativity and original ideas; less time knowing who we were, seeing our strengths and helping us realize our talents.

I honestly don’t know where I’d be today if that was the type of education I had. I sure as hell wouldn’t be here. I do know that.

This has been a horrible decade for teachers. I can’t imagine how demoralized you must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you: As I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up. And I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me.

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything. … Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.

You can see the youtube of that speech here.

Image: HuffintonPost

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Painting a picture that was both harrowing and hopeful, Van Jones titillated the gathering of educators on the final morning of ASCD’s 2013 Annual Conference with both the peril and promise of tomorrow. In short, despite the copious challenges we find ourselves in today, we can look to the generation currently in our schools to lead the way to a brighter future – if we capitalize on their potential.

He opened with three fallacies (or unsustainable practices) that shape our economic present and near future:

Fallacy 1: Focus on consumption, not production. We need malls, not factories.

Fallacy 2: Build through credit, not savings (buy a flatscreen tv to cover up the holes in your life). By and large our consumption patterns are financed on credit – not savings like our grandparents.

Fallacy 3: We can have endless ecological destruction without ecological restoration. We are living as if we have a couple other planets somewhere. But we don’t. We live on this little green salt bubble in space.

It would have been easy to spend the next 45 minutes focused on a central theme: WE ARE ALL DOOMED! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Instead, he focused on the emerging trends at the intersection of technology and youth that, if we navigate them right, portend prosperity. (The below quotes are as near verbatim as my stenography allowed.)

The generation we are teaching are going to be and already are very aware of these fallacies. This generation in your classroom, don’t count them out. There’s a reason you are struggling with them and they are struggling with you. They know stuff we don’t know. And they know that we don’t know. And they know that we don’t know that we don’t know.

He went on to theorize,

The challenge is the dichotomy between learning that matters and learning for testing. Much of our current system is built on questions and ideas that the students can google. But students are failing b/c the tests we are giving them are failing them. What if, instead, we asked them questions they can’t google and stimulate with them a dialogue around ideas, challenges, and solutions? As the most “tech sophisticated generation ever,” the trick is to figure out how to help them utilize and leverage the skills, talents, ideas, and behavioral norms that shape their generation. They are “more self aware, socially inclusive, and ecologically conscious” than today’s leaders.

Essentially, Van is arguing for a strengths based approach at a broader, more systemic altitude. What kind of projects, activities and experiences will both engage this generation’s unique qualities and take advantage of their tendencies while simultaneously preparing them to be the social and ecological entrepreneurs of tomorrow?

It is in shaping his vision that he became most animated and passionate. One could almost get the sense that the possibilities were so inevitable that they were there for the taking, or even so far as to be ours to squander. Which is not case.

If we want to realize this future – one in which our budding entrepreneurs engineer a better future more in keeping with the limited resources of our planet – we have some to-do’s.

Our learning environments need to model and provide opportunities for doing three things, which may seem contradictory at first, but reveal the need for balance in our production, consumption, and application of ideas toward today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

1. Production:  Students need to create and bring their ideas to reality. As an example, 3d printers can help turn students into entrepreneurs. We want 3d printers so students can get out in the front. Consumption can be a good thing if balance with a production ethos.
2. Conservation thrift: Young adults today are sharing more than ever, and creating niche economies in the process. Their cars, homes,  and what they know, all the while using technology to solve problems. Combined with being more ecologically aware, they can lead the way in rethinking our use of resources.
3. Economy of creativity: Today’s self starters are getting creative with how they bring about their vision. Kickstarter is a prime example. We need to continue to encourage such innovative problem solving.

In many ways, it comes down to this: “You want your bored kids to be involved? Offer them courses that matter to them!” This is a central tenet of any effort to disrupt the predictive characteristics of race, gender, socio-economic status, and cognitive profile: When there is a disconnect between the student and the environment, we need to change the environment.

It is at this point that some visionaries fail the legitimacy test. Educators weary of the near constant stream of “you should be doing this” wonder, “Do you have the creds to make such programmatic suggestions, or are you just another arm chair theorist with sweeping ideas and a bone to pick with teachers who don’t actualize them?”

While Van was never a teacher, his mother taught and his father was a principal at what today would be labeled a turn around school. Throughout his career, he has championed the needs of the under-served. He is clearly empathetic with the trials, tribulations, and realities of the classroom “trenches.”

He peppered his talk with a series of well placed jabs against the larger forces negatively impacting educators, and more importantly, students’ experiences in classrooms.

Policy makers, legislators, pundits want to grind you down. Don’t let them.

They have money for Haliburton, big banks, homeland security, but no money for homeroom security.

There are people throwing marbles on the stairs and bananas on the sidewalks to dismantle public education.

Every other nation is investing MORE in education. Yet US students graduate with more and more debt.

Our grandparents taxed themselves to build universities for the next generation. And they respected teachers.

How do we expect students to respect teachers when our leaders don’t?

Students want to be doing something, using their creativity, not taking tests. That’s why they’re dropping out.

We know that students are more successful when they feel their strengths are valued, supported, and enriched. We know that systems focused on vision, goals, and shared objectives enjoy greater success. And we know that leaders who can see and adapt to the changing dynamics of markets, demographics, and opportunities are the ones who shape tomorrow.

As we think about the architects of the next economy — the generation currently weaving their way through schools — it is clear we need to seize the chance to build them up with a strengths based model, not tear them down with a deficit model. Surviving and thriving during and after change events is more likely when they feel confident, able, and valued, not tested, disconnected, and irrelevant.

I left Van Jone’s session and ASCD13 wondering,

• What are the strengths of the people in our education system now — from students to parents to teachers to leaders — and how can they be leveraged to cultivate learning that matters?
• What might it look like when learning is meaningful to all students, regardless of their race, gender, socio-economic status, and/or cognitive profile?
• And, how can we move to actualize a vision that inspires students?

Photo Credit: kay la la via Compfight cc

Van Jones Photo: Van Jones.net

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The original and perhaps first presentation of dramatic works, barring the storytelling around the communal campfire, is the proscenium presentation. It is perhaps the best known and most widely recognized theatrical staging of any dramatic work. This staging is familiar as it resembles a box or television screen. In fact, many theorists and critics have posited that the idea for the cinema and later the television came from this particular presentation. School auditoriums and community playhouses have been erected with this design in mind.

In fact a one can make a certain connection linguistically between the proscenium theatrical presentation and certain instructional terms and furniture, or props, utilized in the classroom. Many teachers still use podiums to deliver instruction from, even with the heavy use of technology in today’s classrooms. The linguistic parallels between these two words should not pass to lightly over us. Actors, especially in Elizabethan – which includes Shakespeare – drama, were keen on having soliloquies as well as monologues. It is not a far stretch to see the similarities as well between these and lectures or direct teaching episodes in the contemporary classroom.

But what exactly does this mean for instruction, as well as curriculum in today’s secondary, standards-based, content classroom that is driven by state and national measurements of student achievement. From our perspective of looking at the theater of the classroom and understanding teaching as a performance art, it means a great deal. Primarily this is the method that the majority of us are comfortable teaching. This is due to the fact that most of the classroom teachers were taught using this method when we were students, and this is the dominant method in most colleges and universities.

Now, having presented these facts is neither an indictment nor excoriation of the proscenium presentation. There are certain lessons, just as there are certain theatrical works, which work best in this particular mode. Yet, repetitive use of this particular presentation is neither useful nor fruitful. More than perhaps any time before in the history of education, classroom teachers are facing greater odds and challenges in effectively engaging students. Today’s instruction relies more on connecting with the audience, the students, in an engaging and entertaining way than ever. This is a trend which has been growing steadily since the late twentieth century with the rising popularity of children’s television programming and compounded with computer software and games.

Whether or not we as teachers agree of even like it, it is a force to be reckoned with. There is an old Asian proverb that goes something like this, “No matter how much the wind howls, it cannot make the mountain move.” This is where we are as classroom teachers. However, the history of education shows that there has always been an element of the theatrical and something entertaining about good instruction well before the advent of television and the computer. Perhaps the time has come for us, as a group to reclaim it.

With the proscenium presentation, like the actors on the stage, the classroom teacher is primarily stationed in front of the class instructing. While this is not necessarily the worst possibly method of instruction, it is not the best either. It opens up the possibility for numerous behavioral problems as well as off task opportunities for the students. Simply put, boredom has every chance to set it and mayhem is free to roam about. Yet, there are times which call for this particular mode of presentation.

So this begs the question as to what can the classroom teacher do about combating disruptive behavior and off task students. Again, looking to our dramatic cousins in the theater, many possible solutions present themselves in some simple places and practices. One of these is the skillful use of props. Technology can be of great use, but can be too readily relied upon. There are numerous presentation programs that can easily assist a teacher with engaging students in new material. However, believing that the technology and/or the material alone will suffice in motivating the students is an all too easy pitfall that many fall prey to. It is a fine line that the classroom teacher must walk in combining technology in their presentation as well as their motivation and knowledge in engaging the students with the material.

This is where another practice from the theater can help us in the classroom with the proscenium presentation. As teachers we must remember that what we do is something of a performance art. With this frame of reference in mind, then we can balance a dual responsibility of not only passing along knowledge and skills but also engaging our students in an entertaining measure as well. When the term entertaining is used in this sense it is meant as an all encompassing expression that contains the full range of human emotions and experiences. Not everything in the classroom must be jolly and full of frivolity.
Sometimes this takes the form of anecdotes from history, others created on the spot – for it must be borne in mind that the earliest teachers were storytellers and we are inheritors of this tradition – as well as jokes, including good one-liners directed good-naturedly at students. This can also take a more artistic bent with creative approaches focused on the students where they can engage the material in a theatrical manner. This is has only two delimiting factors, the creativity in the classroom and the time on the clock.

Now some of the more common pitfalls, as mentioned previously, is the simple use of technology. All too often in the classroom, we can confuse a quick presentation, with animation and a few sound bites or movie clips as an engaging and complex lesson. However, if we truly step back and look at it, the presentation is something that one our students could generate in their basic computer classes. The key component in presenting the lesson, the instruction is not the technology, or even the material, it is us…the teacher. The students are looking to us to bridge the unknown and translate it for them. Just as the audience is looking for the actors to present the play, to make it come alive off of the page and onto the stage for their enjoyment, so too the students enter the classroom.

Yet, our audience is not always the most beneficent, well-rested, or fed. They may not want or be willing to learn. Regardless of these facts of life that we teachers face daily in the classroom, we do have one universal and undeniable truth on our side. Students on any age are curious. Also, most are motivated as well. If for nothing else, they do not want to repeat our class. We can leverage these givens with our understanding of teaching as a performance art to our favor with the proscenium presentation. A few well-placed props combined with a skillful delivery, and it will not be surprising that achievement will rise while the dreaded discipline will decrease.

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I envy Thomas Paine’s way with language. I’ve been searching for years for words that would have the impact of those he penned in his 1776 pamphlet, “The Crisis.”

Admittedly, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” and the words that followed, weren’t a howling success. Only about a third of the colonists agreed with Paine’s call for revolution. Another third wanted to stick with England. The remaining third were neutral or apathetic.

What Paine was able to do that I can’t do is sell an idea to at least enough people to make something happen. I need to convince not a third of readers but, say, a tenth, to call their legislators and tell them to dismantle the education “reform” machine assembled in Washington by business leaders and politicians.

Long before corporate America began its assault on public schooling, American education was in trouble. Educators were, however, increasingly aware of the problems and were working on them. When Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, Mike Bloomberg, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, and other big name non-educators took over, that worked stopped.

What I want people to understand is that the backbone of education — the familiar math-science-language arts-social studies “core curriculum” — is deeply, fundamentally flawed. No matter the reform initiative, there won’t be significant improvement in American education until curricular problems are understood, admitted, addressed, and solved.

Few want to hear that. Reformers are sure America’s schools would be fine if teachers just worked harder and smarter, and reformers are sure the teachers would do that if merit pay programs made them compete for cash. They seem incapable of understanding that classroom teachers are doing something so complicated and
difficult that even the best of them are hanging on by their fingernails. If they knew how to do better, they’d be doing it. Would surgeons operate differently if they were paid more? Would commercial airline pilots make softer landings if they made more money? Would editorial writers write better editorials if their salaries were raised?

Teachers are doing the best they can with the curriculum they’ve been given. Here (in regrettably abstract language) is the curricular problem at the top of my list:

Change is in the nature of things; it is inevitable. Human societies either adapt to change or die. The traditional core curriculum delivers existing knowledge, but adapting to an unknown future requires new knowledge. New knowledge is created as relationships are discovered between parts of reality not previously thought to be related. The arbitrary walls between school subjects, and the practice of studying them in isolation from each other, block the relating process essential to knowledge creation.

Stick with me here. This isn’t complicated, just different from the usual school fare.

(1) Change is in the nature of things; it is inevitable. The earth heats and cools. Seasons come and go. Water tables rise and fall. Human populations increase, decrease, migrate. New tools change the ways societies function. People multiply, resources diminish, and waste builds. Civilizations appear and disappear. This is — or should be — the usual content of the core curriculum.

(2) Human societies either adapt to change or die. Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome are no more. A century ago, the Elks, Eagles, and Masons were popular organizations. More recently, Kodak, Bethlehem Steel, and Sony dominated whole industries. If we value our way of life, we need to understand the dynamics of change, but it’s not in the core curriculum.

(3) The traditional core curriculum delivers existing knowledge, but adapting to an unknown future requires new knowledge. Obviously, what will need to be known in the future isn’t yet known, from which it follows that it can’t be taught. However, the process by means of which new knowledge is created can be taught.

(4) New knowledge is created as relationships are discovered between parts of reality not previously thought to be related. Levels of respect for elders and rates of societal change are related. Elapsed time since death and level of isotopes in fossil remains are related. Exposure to lead and learning difficulties are related. Discovering and exploring relationships,not mentally storing information, educates.

(5)  The arbitrary walls between school subjects, and studying them in isolation from each other, block the relating process essential to knowledge creation. If astronomers only studied the heavens, and oceanographers only studied the ocean, the relationship of moon, sun, and tides would remain unknown. Technological and economic change profoundly impact values, beliefs, and behavior, but study of their connections is missing from the curriculum. Again: Discovering and exploring relationships, not mentally
storing information, educates.

(6) What needs to be known in the future can’t yet be taught, but the process by means of which that knowledge is created can-and must-be taught. Traditional instruction places far too much emphasis on content. The problem isn’t just that what students need to know can’t be known. The unreasonable amount of information dumped on them, the brief life in memory of most of it, and easy electronic access to a near-infinite amount of it, make merely delivering information a poor use of time. Focusing on the real world rather than on second-hand textbook versions of reality, and understanding the process by means of which sense is made of that world, are keys to new worlds of performance.

Standardized, high-stakes tests are the single greatest obstacle in the way of curricular improvement. Sold to the public as a necessary club to hold over teachers’ heads, the tests are dumbing down kids at a spectacular rate. The problem isn’t test overuse. The problem is their inability to measure what most needs to be measured.

Standardized tests are to accountability what a finger in the wind is to a weather station. What they measure — information stored in memory — is useful, but for kids facing an unknown future, that’s not nearly enough. They need to know how to create new knowledge. That knowledge will be original, and standardized tests can’t evaluate original, non-standard thought.

Unwilling to trust teacher judgment, we’ve handed their responsibilities to machines incapable of making judgment calls.

Tell business leaders and politicians to put their own houses in order and give education back to educators.

This piece was originally posted on Washington Post’s Answer Sheet. 

Photo Credit: Simon Harriyott via Compfight cc

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In a recent commentary piece at Education Week, author, speaker and educator Dr. Thomas Armstrong argues for tipping from a deficit model to a more inclusive (and enlightened) model that values students’ strengths, regardless of their learning profiles. He writes,

I believe it’s time for a paradigm shift in the field of special education. Fortunately, a new concept has emerged on the horizon that promises to establish a more positive foundation upon which to build new strength-based assessments, programs, curricula, and environments for these kids.

The concept is neurodiversity. The term, which was coined by Australian autism-activist Judy Singer and American journalist Harvey Blume in the late 1990s, suggests that what we’ve called in the past “disabilities” ought to be described instead as “differences” or “diversities.” Proponents of neurodiversity encourage us to apply the same attitudes that we have about biodiversity and cultural diversity to an understanding of how different brains are wired.

 

It would be absurd to say that a calla lily has “petal-deficit disorder,” or that a person from Holland suffers from “altitude-deprivation syndrome.” The fact is, we appreciate the flower for its intrinsic beauty and value citizens of the Netherlands for their unique landscape. So, too, we should celebrate the differences in students who have been labeled “learning disabled,” “autistic,” “ADD/ADHD,” “intellectually disabled,” “emotionally and behaviorally disordered,” or who have been given other neurologically based diagnoses. We ought to appreciate these kids for who they really are and not dwell upon who they have failed to become.

I could not agree with him more. It is why I work for an organization built around 5 principles:

1. Inspire optimism in the face of learning challenges
2. Discover and treasure learning profiles
3. Eliminate humiliation, blaming, and labeling of students
4. Leverage strengths and affinities
5. Empower students to find success

To read his full and compelling article, click here. For more about our work at All Kinds of Minds, click here.

This post was originally published on All Kinds of Minds blog. 

Image: Da Capo Press 

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