Interestting, if only in theory (Review of Adler's "Paideia Proposal")

Here is a book review I wrote for philosopher Mortimer Adler's "Paideia Proposal," - a conservative work arguing for education reform. Adler is somewhat of a critic of "progressive educaiton" and advocates for a more "liberal arts" type of k-12 educaiton. For those unfamilar, Adler was also a vocal advocate of educating with the "great books" of the Western canon.

I agree with some of Adler's ideas about restoring rigor and discipline into educaiton, but I disagree with his very monolithic "one size fits all" approach, as well as his view that k-12 education should not utilize electives or vocational training. Even though I dislike many excesses of "progressive education," I see much value in a utlitarian approach to education that sees education for what W. James might call its "cash value" to students, rather than as an end in itself (which it can be to many, but will not likely be to all). In other words, Adler treats all students as if they are "bookish," managing to suggest that those who are not simply need to be molded to be so.

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Mortimer Adler's "Paideia Proposal," ("paideia" means "education" in Greek) is a book which intends to offer a stern antidote to many "progressive" ideas in education. One might call Adler an educational conservative - an "essentialist" who believes that education is of value in itself (and should not be justified by its utilitarian value). Adler also believes in the value of a liberal arts education for all, the role of order and discipline in education, and the value of cultivating the intellect as the primary goal of k-12 education.

Adler's Paideia proposal "breaks" education into three types which students should receive in equal measure:

(a) knowledge acquisition: this is where direct teacher/student instruction goes on, and where the student learns to store and recall facts.

(b) developing of intellectual skill: this is where the student "learns by doing," and practices the skill under the teacher's facilitation.

(c) increase in understanding and insight: this is where students learn to evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and create ideas from ideas. Students engage in teacher-led discussion and reflections while learning "higher order thinking" skills.

I agree with these goals, but disagree much with Adler's approach. A key criticism I have of Adler's writing is that, like many philosophers of education, he speaks of students as they exist in theory rather than in practice, and tends to see them as a big monolithic group (while he says he doesn't).

Put differently and bluntly, if I had a child, I might be tempted to send it to a Paidiea school, but would be hesitant to suggest that every child should be forced into this model.

What makes the Paideia project unworkable in practice is Adler's insistence that "one size" of education "fits all." Alder does not believe in tracking of any kind, dismissing it as very undemocratic (by which he really means unegalitarian). He writes as if things like differences in intelligence (by the measure of IQ) do not exist. He repeats frequently the idea that "all children are educable," but turns it cleverly into "all children are capable of learning and absorbing the same stuff as all others." (He does bring this up as a possible criticism but dismisses the problem with high-sounding rhetoric, intimating that naysayers simply don't believe in equality.)

As a special educator, I think this idea of a "one size fits all" education is a pleasant sounding disaster. As one of my colleagues put it, "It is not a God-given right to comprehend Algebra II," by which he means that some simply learn slower, and are more limited than others. (I think Alder would realize his mistake when he put a child with Downs Syndrome, mental retardation, or autism into his Paidiea school.) Alder's point that we should challenge all students is well taken, but he doesn't seem to take seriously the FACT that students differ not only in "learning style" but in innate ability. To subject each child - regardless of ability - to the same curriculum is as unfair as hasty and strict tracking.

The other disaster in Adler's proposal is the idea that all K-12 education should be non-specialized and non-vocational. Under Adler's proposal, electives are essentially abolished and, as he says, we should "eliminate all the non-essentials from the school day." If it doesn't have to do with cultivating the intellect, we don't want it.

This would not only make school a positively dreary place for kids to be (eliminating any classes that might appeal to those not budding philosophers) but it would also lead the non-college-bound out in the cold. Alder suggests several times that all vocational training should take place post-high-school, meaning that school would no longer prepare students for a vocation at all, and those who can't afford to put off work after high school to receive additional training would be ill-prepared to start a career.

Like many schemes philosophers make about how to reform education, the Paidiea Proposal would make for some very interesting private schools. Like the Montessori method, this system might work for some or even half, but certainly not for all. Many students - those who might go into blue collar vocations - would likely do poorly in Paidiea schools. Adler might suggest that I am being pessimistic and "undemocratic," but I would charge him with utopianism and...being a theoretician rather than a statistician.

As long as differences in ability exist (and the fact is unfortunate), the Paidiea proposal, by expecting different abilities to access the same curricula, runs the risk of being as unfair as those he charges with excessive differentiation.

Teaching Them to Be Students

Music teachers are not often philosophers. Yet, at a staff meeting yesterday, where the faculty talked about a new curriculum for "freshman seminar," a high school course required of freshman to teach them basic academic skills, a music teacher responded to a question posed to us: What do you think all freshman should be taught?" Her reply got to the core of what was on many of our minds: "we need to teach them how to be students before we can TEACH them anything." She commented that before she can teach a student how to play the oboe, they must be taught how to learn, take and use guidance, attempt success, and not give up if they stumble. These are things that, sadly, many students do not come to high school knowing.

This is an often neglected and integral piece of the educative process: in order that students can learn, they must learn to be students first. In an age where we tell students many grand stories extolling the virtues of challenging authority - from the American founders to Galileo - we neglect to teach them the value of authority and the wisdom to know how and when to accept it.

We live, quite justly, in a classless system, where anyone from anywhere has the civic freedom to move up or down in the world based on their own efforts and a pinch of luck. Because of this, I think, we are inherently distrustful of words like 'authority,' 'wisdom,' and to the ideas that come with them. To accept instruction from those who know better than we hints at the idea that some are "better" than others and that the learner must bow to the teacher.

But just like skepticism in matters of science, while sometimes good, can be taken to the extreme, so can the idea that authority should be rebelled against. In order to learn, students must at some point accept the fact that they do not know all they need to know and must become willing (even grudgingly) to receive information from those in a position of authority.

This is what I think the music teacher means by saying that students must learn to be students before they learn anything. We must teach them the wisdom to know when to challenge authority and when to accept that authority may have something to teach them. They must learn when to have an ego and when to pack it away for the sake of their betterment. They must learn that while "doing their own thing" can be good, they must also do things that are not of their own design or choosing, but are things that BOTH things can benefit them. (One without the other becomes detrimental to well-being.)

These are some of the things students are not coming to us with. Sometimes, it is as if they come to us convinced that they inhabit a universe of one. We, as teachers, must take as our first mission to widen their universe.

Liking Children versus Liking to Teach Children

There is a big difference between liking to teach children and liking children. Many, I think, get into teaching because they posess a like for children rather than a like for teaching children.

I started thinking about this when reflecting on what it is I dislike so much about teaching where I do. After all, I really do like to teach children. I got into teaching as a profession after taking a long-term substitute job at a high school where I worked in the 'resource room,' (where kids go when they need extra assistance with work, or accomodations for their disability). I vividly recall "connecting" with several students - particularly one I suspect was an undiagnosed autistic girl. I spent many hours teaching her physics, and got quite a few compliments on being able to get through to her when most teachers couldn't. I knew then that I wanted to try special education.

So, that I like teaching children is not in dispute. But I have been coming to the realization that, as much as it hurts me to admit it, I don't have the innate love for kids that many teachers do. If my job involved no possibility of teaching, for example, I would find being around kids for 6.5 hours per day too daunting to bear. It is not the kids that get me through, but the teaching of them.

And what makes matters difficult is that, where I teach, teaching is very frustrating and comprises only a small percentage of what "teachers" do. Teachers first have to motivate, then control behavior, and then, get a little teaching done. Kids actively resist us at every turn and are quite fond of defying our attempts to instil things into their brains.

This is why I think teaching where I do is so hard for me, and perhaps, not (as) hard for many others. Many of the teachers really love the kids, and don't mind as much that the kids aren't learning nearly what they should, just as long as they get to interact with them. But for me, who likes teaching kids more than being with kids, it is a source of endless frustration and dejection that the "teaching kids" part is such a small role, while the "handling kids" part takes most of the time.

If you haven't been able to tell by now by my blog entries, I am not a coddler. I do not feel bad when I don't appease kids. I don't have much trouble with trading pain for gain. I suspect, though, that a lot of teachers who like kids more than teaching kids are the opposite: their desire is to encourage over instruct, and enable rather than equip. This has been my particular experience with those who go into elementary education; they are teachers more because they like kids than any drive to teach. Students become "little guys," which is a sign, to me, of an overly motherly approach that sacrifices rigor and high-expectations for happiness and high self-esteem.

I cannot be that way. Alas, I am going on to study for my PhD, where I might teach college students - where classroom management is not the ultimate concern, and where teachers are not expected to baby, but to teach, and students are expected to exercise some independence.

I think I am making the right choice.

Which Counts More: Motivation or Intent?

There is a longstanding strain in law and public morality which tells us that bad acts may be excused if it can be shown that no malicious or wicked intent accompanied them. In law, killers are judged 'not guilty' because the killer suffered from a mental defect. In public morality, we often view a drug addicts crime in a different light when we find out that her actions were "caused by" drug addiction, rather than malice.

Well, here is the latest example of (what I see as) this egregious tendency. A man in Canada has recently been arrested for "beheading and cannibalizing a passenger on a Greyhound bus." According to the article:

Li's lawyers are not disputing that he killed McLean, but they will argue Li was mentally ill and not criminally responsible. A psychiatrist told the court Li is schizophrenic and believed God told him to do it.

I understand the dilemma of putting a man away in prison for an act which may have been "caused by" a mental defect. But prison isn't just about punishment either. One of the reasons I have never warmed to the "insanity defense," is because it misses the point that one key reason to put someone in prison is to keep others safe from that person. It makes absolutely no sense to argue that a person whose psychiatric disorder (an unpredictable one at that) caused him to behead and cannibalize someone is the type of person who should avoid imprisonment. That person is, to me, the very definition of a person who SHOULD be in prison - if only to guard against future beheadings that God might tell him to comit.

Why do we have such a hard time with this idea that a man afflicted with a mental disorder should be allowed to argue that he is not guilty of a crime he is in fact guilty of? Because current thought puts more weight on intent and motivation than action. We are less likely today than we were thirty years ago to feel contempt for the man who gambles his family's savings away because he is a victim of a disease. We are less likely to morally judge the action than we are the intent.

I think this is wrong-headed for several reasons. Flrst, judging intent is a very subjective business, while judging actions is not. It is a fact that this man beheaded and canibalized a person. No one, not even the lawyers, dispute that. Is it a fact that God told him to do it? Only if we take the killer's word. If a man gambles his family's savings away, this is factually verifiable. What is not is the idea that he was powerless to choose not to.

Secondly, from a legal and political sense, judging intent rather than action is a dangerous precedent. In order to protect society against certain acts (cannibalism, murder), it is best to make a rule against murder (without exception) than it is to make a rule against murder which allows for murder within certain psychological parameters. If we want to make sure that no one else feels free to behead or cannibalize, the precedent should be that ANY instance of these things are wrong, not just that it is wrong only if there is bad intent behind it.

And I reiterate my concern that, as part of imprisonment is for public safety rather than punishment, it simply does no one any good for a self-confirmed schizophrenic who has beheaded in the name of the god issuing him orders to walk the street solely becuase he has a disorder. If he walks, maybe he can kill the judge and blame it on god.

The Problem of Student Motivation

Recently, I have come across an interesting article: "Who is Responsible for Student Learning," by Baylor University education professor, J. Wesley Null. The main thesis of the article is that in an age where "accountability" is a buzz word, we must remember that, as wrong as it may sound to some, teachers can only do so much in getting students to learn. We often forget that the other half of the responsibility MUST lie with the student.

Null suggests that the view which sees teachers as the primary responsibility-holders to student learning confuse the business of education with most other businesses. There, if the product falls short of expectations, the workers are the likely culprit. As Null rightly points out, this ignores one key difference between "factories" and education: students, unlike cars and insurance policies, are agents that are often actively resistant to being "worked on." If a car turns out not to work well, something in the workmanship is likely to blame. If a student graduates history class without being able to recall history facts, it may be due to poor teaching by the teacher, or poor learning by the student.

Null provides an analogy to bolster the point:

[I]f a husband and wife enroll in, say, a marriage course at their local church, should the pastor who teaches these classes be blamed if the couple's marriage never improves? Or do the husband and wife have a joint responsibility to improve their own marriage?

Obviously, we would suggest that the pastor can persuade, guide, cajole, instruct, and remind. What we would not say, though, is that any of this can make the marriage work. In the end, teaching, guiding, and reminding are only so good as the will of the person recieving the instruction, guidance, and reminders.

That this is analogous to the limits of the teacher's role is obvious. What we do with this recognition is not. When teachers say things like, 'we can only do so much,' or try to shift at least some of the "blame" onto parents, students, and an anti-intellectual culture that many students come to us imbued with, we are seen as offering a subterfuge. In turn, teachers may be charged with laziness and unwillingness to be accountable.

In some sense, this view is sometimes justified. There certainly are such things as bad teachers, and often, those teachers ARE shielded from accountability by the ill-thought-out mechanism of tenure. And, as a "public service," there has to be some way to hold teachers accountable for results. Otherwise, poor-performing teachers can pawn all responsibility onto their students.

There are several other reasons for our collective uncomfortability with blaming at least some of education's failure on students:

(1) Doing so forces parents and society at large to take a critical look at their practices and whether they may be (inadvertently) sending teachers students who have not been taught such basic prerequisites to learning as respect for authority, impulse control, and some reason (internal or external) to value the enterprise of education. It is easier to blame teachers for students' low performance.

(2) As trivial as it seems, all of us have become familiar with the "feel good" teacher movies like "The Ron Clark Story," "Dangerous Minds," and "Freedom Writers," where a teacher is able to overcome all educational obstabcles with students by pure dilligence and tenacity. Take this, couple it with the egalitarian idea that every child has equal potential, and we grow intolerant with the view that student failure is not purely a symptom of bad teaching.

(3) As most of us have had at least 12 years of direct experience with teachers, teaching is the one job that most people have seen close-up, and as such, most people feel is not so difficult. I think that this inadvertently plays into notions that student failure is due to bad teaching because, unlike most professions, it is easy to "play at armchair teaching." Laypersons might not be quick to offer opinions on how accountants can do their job better, but are generally unafraid to criticize the "common sense" discipline of teaching.

It is difficult to know how to strike a good balance between holding teachers accountable for results and accepting that teaching, unlike other professions, requires willingness from producer AND PRODUCT in order to be successful. it may even be as simple as involving teachers who produce scores of underachieving students in more stringent observations and professional developments. It may also involve offering teachesr financial incentives, as some districts have done, for good results (thus not penalizing underperformance, but simply rewarding outstanding performance.

But what many don't realize is that teaching is hard as it is. It is even harder when we teachers are held solely or even primarily accountable for students low performance on tests (when they admit, as they often have to me, that they do not studey), for low homework grades (homework is the responsibility of the home), and even student truency.

As Null correctly notes, and as hard as it is for many parents and policy-makers to hear, "Individual agency matters. Put another way, one person cannot be held responsible for another person's behavior."

On Schemes and Schools: How We Got "Here" from "There"

Below is a recent review I have written of Diane Ravitch's bok, "Left Bac: A Century of Failed School Reform." In the book, Ravitch attempts to give an in-depth history of the progressive turn in education and its excesses. In the end, she argues that progressivism bears the responsibility for the Amreican education system losing its way. While I disagree with Ravitch on a number of points (she is very anti-utilitarian when it comes to education, and I cannot see education justified any other way), her historical arguments are very persuasive. Highly reccomended!

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Diane Ravitch's "Left Back" is both a history and a polemic. As the subtitle suggest, Ravitch does not only cover the history of educational ideas over the past century, but the history of "failed" educational ideas. As other review rs suggest, Ravitch's book is a history of, and argument against, progressivism in education.

Most of this book centers around two recurring dualisms of 20th century educational theory: essentialism v. utilitarianism, and learning as transmission between teacher and student v. learning as natural student-led proces.
The debate between essentialists (like Bagley) and instrumentalists (like Dewey and Thorndike) was over whether educational learning was valuable in itself or whether its value derives from its utility. In Left Back, Ravitch demonstrates that the concept of justifying education in utilitarian terms (how useful it is to students' lives) may have been an interesting idea at one point, but, like many ideas, it was pushed too far. Not many people - even the eseentialists - would argue that education should not have utility to students lives, but the overselling of this idea by progressives resulted in everything from hastily done tracking (tailoring instruction to students' predicted 'station' in later life), to the stripping away of academic rigor (why take biology when one can take a class on how to grow plants?).

The debate between those who argued for teacher-led education versus those who argued for student-led education was an outgrowth of the previous debate. The 'student-led' advocates (William Kilpatrick, Carl Rogers) rediscovered and revamped the Rousseauian idea that the best education is a non-coercive process of letting the student explore what she likes, and fostering her creativity. By contrast, the 'teacher-led' advocates (Leon Kandel, Michael Demiashkevich), believed that learning was as often an artificial process that necessitated the teacher being a teacher, and that part of s good education was learning things beyond what one would learn on one's ow.

In each debate, the progressives (utilitarians, student-led believers) won the day, often in spite of public outcry against them. In fact, one ironic theme in Ravitch's book is that while the progressives constantly invoked the word "democratic" to support their various cure-alls, the movement was, at every turn, undemocratic. Progressives always saw themselves as superior to the clamor of "reactionary" parents (who audaciously wanted their kids to learn subject-matter), were constant enthusiasts of tracking students at an early age by their predicted 'stations' in life, and constantly spoke of "creating a new social order," rather than educating independently-thinking students.

The undoubted hero of the book is William Bagley (an education philosopher that may have been John Dewey's most serious rival that is unjustly all but unheard of today). For his part, Dewey is portrayed as an out of touch intellectual whose "innocence was [often] comical" [p. 207) Many will object to this characterization of an educational icon, but Ravitch is certainly not the first to suggest that Dewey was entirely too aloof to articulate a philosophy with any real clarity.

Some negative reviewers comment that Ravitch's characterization of the various progressive movements is an unfair and mistaken straw-man. While I have only read a handful of the plentiful original sources she cites, it is difficult to see how an author who quotes so frequently from primary sources can be said to have gotten them (many unambiguous in meaning) wrong. My thoughts are that this book is a fair portrayal of progressivism, and that the reviewers may be mad because Ravitch is not afraid to mix history and polemic.

All in all, this is a stunning work for anyone who wonders how we got here - social promotion, self-esteem movement, flexible standards - from "there." Ravitch may have mixed history with polemic, but the book is well-researched history and necessary polemic. Ravitch's conclusion:

"If there is a lesson to be learned from the river of ink that was spilled in the education disputes of the twentieth century, it is that anything in education that is labeled a "movement" should be avoided like the plague. What American education most needs is not more nostrums and enthusiasms but more attention to fundamental, time-tested truths." (p. 453)

"Don't read it! Just see the movie!"

Being a high-school teacher has, I fear, has made me more quick to anger when watching horrible parents. I never used to get too angry when in the presence of bad parents (like those who let their kids run around unatttended in the supermarket), but being a high-school teacher forces me to see poorly parented kids as potential poorly parented young adults.

Here is the most recent situation to get my blood boiling: a family friend has their elementary aged child in a school-sponsoered book club. The book they were assigned a few weeks ago has gone unread and, today, the family is going to see the movie (in leiu of reading the book).

Normally, a situation like this would be mildly annoying to me. But upon hearing about this, my "teacher mode" turned immediately on, and I have not been able to stop stewing over such a blatant act of parental irresponsibility. Here we have a great example of a parent tacitly informing their kids that skirting rules is completely permissible, and that the parents glowingly endorse such rule-skirting. In addition, this child (who actually does like to read) has now been introduced to the dilemma that all children eventually face: why read the book when I can just see the movie?

I recall when my parents found out that I had not read a required book for a high school class. What did they do? They called the teacher! They let the teacher know that I had not read the book, and advised the teacher to "catch me in the act" by pulling me aside and quizzing me on it. I did not find out that my parents put the teacher up to it until years later, and to tell the truth, I am glad they did. It encouraged me to read (if only by force) which eventually lead to a joy for reading.

Would I do what my parents did in this child's situation? Yes. Being a teacher has made me appreciate that, sometimes, one must be creative in teaching kids how and why to follow rules. Yes, this means that the child may not like you for a time, and yes, this certainly means that the child will be discomforted when the teacher "calls them out," but they will learn the lesson they should learn and be the better for it in the long run.

When I think of this story, I cannot help but think about kids I teach who expect A's simply because they show up to most of my classes (and the parents who back them up). I cannot help but think of the stduents who miss inexcusable amounts of time from school with their parents permission, and those whose parents don't make them do homework or study, but pretend that they value education.

With any luck, this student will never have a teacher in high school that has the audacity to set expecations and hold students accountable for them. Unfortunately, unless the student goes to a private high school, it seems unlikely that they ever will.