Schools Need to Be Cautious of Business Leaders Telling Us What Kind of Graduates Educational Institutions Should Provide

 "...it was in the 1990s that shop class started to become a thing of the past, as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers.'" Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

The education system has taken on the role of distributing people in the niches needed by business and industry. When business calls for "knowledge workers," the education system reacts and cuts funding of some programs and distributes students into the chosen learning niches of business and industry. 

The problem with the education system reacting in this manner, is that students are placed in educational niches that might be short-lived due to business and industry's concerns with short-term profits and benefits. For example, when business and industry does not have the long-term interests of their workers in mind, they move entire production lines overseas or to lay workers off for the sake of short-term stock benefit or profit. In these cases, educational institutions have done a great disservice in placing students in deadend careers and jobs. These institutions should have an even greater vision that reaches beyond the horizon of the short-term advantages sought by these companies.

Education systems that purely have their students' interests in mind will look with a skeptical eye towards the kinds of workers called for from the private sector. It does not mean that the system ignores them entirely, but educators need to remember that the way business ideology is currently constructed in the United States especially, is more libertarian and tilted toward the idea that what is best for them is what is best for everybody. A quick glance at history immediately dispels this illusion. Maybe instead of shoving students into the STEM niche, we need a broader consideration of their potentials and interests. Niche-learning limits possibilities rather than increases them despite what the pro-business and STEM evangelists would have us believe. 

Schools do not need to dismantle "shop classes" nor the school orchestra or any other school programs on the advice of any business leader. They are interested in the short term: educators must be concerned with lifetimes. Educational institutions have a moral obligation to be critical and skeptical when business and industry starts dictating what kinds of graduates we should be providing. Their short-term perspective benefits them. Schools morally have to take the long-term perspective and prepare students for lives well-beyond what the immediate demands.

When Crawford pointed out the demise of shop classes in the 1990s he captured how schools often react to short-term business interests instead of advocating for the lifetime possibilities of students. Schools have a moral responsibility to students not to business or industry.

Living Leadership Deliberately and Ethically: Focusing on What Really Should Matter

 "I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing....The principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In this statement from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the author questions whether our "factory system" of production is the best means to provide clothing for people. As he points out, the factory has an unquestionable objective or purpose, which is to "make money and enrich its owners." Its objective is not to see that individuals are "well and honestly clad." In other words, by its existence, the factory is not concerned with how well, functionally or comfortably, individuals are dressed; it seeks to make money. 

Now, that certainly doesn't mean that factories or businesses can't have two purposes. It could seek both profitability and the good of its consumers, but Thoreau points to that, inevitably, the factory has to sometimes decide which object or purpose is primary, and sadly, too often, we live in a world where material advantages outweigh the good of individuals or even society.

Educational leaders face this ethical choice every day, and even make choices sometimes unconsciously. They weigh the "good of the institution" with its sole purpose being survival against what it actually delivers of value to its students, teachers, and staff. In these instances, "Survival of the Institution" reigns supreme when leaders make decisions that try to preserve the educational system, school or even university, and ignore the needs of its constituents, or even take actions detrimental to those individuals. For example, when a new initiative, new program is to be implemented, the consequential effects of that endeavor can be easily ignored or cast aside if it is seen to support the primary objective of an institution of self-preservation. In this situation, it may even implement at the expense of one of its constituent groups or individuals. In the modern school, these decisions are sometimes made at the expense of a student.

All this raises an important question for me: To what purpose or objective does my institution align itself to? Can I ethically accept and work and live according to that in my own journey of living deliberately as a leader? 

Ultimately, as a leader, you won't find answers to these questions in mission statements. The answers to these questions are found in what your organization does on a daily basis. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of a school system, school or institution of higher education can erase any carefully constructed mission statement. I choose to "live deliberately every day as a leader" and that sometimes mean I am a "thorn in the side" or even that scratching sound on the chalkboard." I do not live by mission statements, because they can be easily be manipulate, twisted or ignored. I try to live deliberately by making each day count.

Edu-Techno-Utopian Voices Got It Wrong with Remote Learning

“No matter the problem, it seems, a chorus of techno-utopian voices is always at the ready to offer up 'solutions' that, remarkably enough, typically involve the same strategies (and personnel) as those that helped give rise to the crisis in the first place. We can always code our way out, we are assured. We can make, bootstrap, and science the shit out of this.” Thomas S. Mullaney, "Your Computer Is On Fire"

Interesting thoughts here by Mullaney and some truth. There truly exists “a chorus of techno-utopian voices…ready to offer up ‘solutions’ that…typically involve the same strategies (and personnel) as those helped give rise to the crisis in the first place.” Education has its own “techno-utopian chorus” that sings of tech-solutions to everything that ails us in education too. Educational problems are seen as opportunities to solve with technology. But, as the recent remote learning experiment clearly demonstrated, our educational problems are not always solvable with tech. 

In fact, the application of tech, like in this situation, often amplifies existing problems, and causes a whole set of new problems. For example, in the remote learning experiment, the problem of parental involvement in their children’s education was magnified for those students because parents who were able to assist were either non-existent or not available. The students that remote learning most penalized were these students. There was not a ZOOM technology that could solve this issue because it was a problem before the pandemic, and it was a problem magnified during.  A whole set of new problems accompanied the remote learning experiment too. For example, how to effectively provide the services, such as counseling, therapy, and lunch to students who were not physically present, not to mention the issue of missing socialization with peers that works best in physical presence. 

As Mullaney points out, our first reaction as educators is to try to “code our way out” of the problem, or “science the shit out of it.”  Perhaps the problem in education is our recurring turn toward technology for answers. Sure, the tech industry loves that thinking and helps foster it, but we need to think independently. 

What Really Bothers Politicians and Government Leaders About the Arts and Humanities? It's About Their Power

 “Without symbols of art, in all their many manifestations—painting and music, costume and architecture, poetry and sculpture—man would live culturally in a world of the deaf, dumb, and the blind.” Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics

Anyone notice how those same individuals who are seeking to disenfranchise voters, enact voting laws to increase the odds that their candidates get elected, and gerrymander voting districts to ensure their party's choices get elected, are the same individuals in our state legislatures trying to remodel education to get rid of subjects such as the arts and humanities, or at least sanitize them of anything they deem a danger to their power and ideology? 

The real reason for this is because, as Ruth O'Brien (2010) points out, "The humanities and arts play a central role in the history of democracy..." (p. ix). And that "great educators and nation-builders" of our past "understood how the arts and humanities teach children critical thinking that is necessary for independent action and for intelligent resistance to the power of blind tradition and authority" (p. ix).  If your goal is to remain in power no matter what, then anything, including the arts and humanities, which have the ability to instill within students, the ability and desire to question their government and their government leaders' actions, must be discarded. This political revising of these curriculum areas really explains why our state governments, in the hands of mostly men, whose desire is keep that power, are scrupulously attacking our schools and seeking to rewrite arts and humanities curriculums that promote unquestioning, blind acceptance of a version of the country's arts and history that deifies that country's status in the world.

These politicians know too well, that it has been through art and the humanities that those who are dissident and think differently, have in the past called attention to those who discriminate and enslave others; who promote their own self-interests above all other human beings; and who declare the environment theirs to dominate and exploit for profit. These subjects and their products have the potential to engage students in the learning process of "imagining the situations of others, a capacity essential for a successful democracy, a necessary cultivation of our "inner eyes" (O'Brien, 2010, p. ix).

Some of our current politicians and state government leaders in their efforts to rewrite school curriculum  want to "blind the inner eyes" of our young in order to solidify their power. They are rapidly and stealthily remodeling and revising education. They want a history that allows the inner eyes of children be directed toward only those events that paint an image of our nation as the "City on the Hill" and the "best country in the world," established by God to be a beacon to that world. That's why any historical content that counters this narrative is attacked, and critical theory is so frightening. 

In addition, these politicians and government leaders are demanding educators post lists of the literature read in classrooms so that any novels, poems, plays and essays that might contradict this narrative be challenged and discarded. The same would apply for works of art as well. These are desperate attempts by mostly men in our government, trying to preserve a narrative that is more myth than reality. Their own history they are trying to sanitize to their liking would tell them, if they looked closely enough, there will be resistance to their version of life and the world. The nation has already been built, with flaws of course, but deep in our DNA, and in our arts, literature, drama, and humanities, are the seeds of the resistance that will sprout in opposition to this version of America.

In the end, despite their efforts to control the arts, history, literature, and music in our schools, these government leaders will ultimately fail. There will always be ways for the inner eyes for students to catch glimpses of the situations of others and alternatives to this smothering and controlling version of education. You can try to fashion a world without thoughtful art, literature, music, historical critique, and create citizens that are "deaf, blind, and dumb" as Mumford points out. However, history shows that in such conditions, that very art and critique thrives and blossoms.

Mumford, L. (2000). Art and technics. Columbia University Press; New York, NY

O'Brien, R. (2010). "Foreword." Not for profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Educators’ Quixotic Quest for Magic Potions and Elixirs to Make Learning Happen

 “In nature, there are no separate events. Nothing happens in isolation—not touching your head, not holding someone else’s hand, not looking at the stars, not breathing—nothing.” Alan Watts, Just So Money, Materialism, and the Ineffable, Intelligent Universe

There is a great deal of wisdom that educators ignore to their own peril. Alan Watts’ body of work is often ignored because of its heavy emphasis on eastern religions, such as Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Hinduism. It may be because his thought is too incomprehensible to Western Thought. It also may be because much of what he has to say disrupts our conventional ways of thinking about life and the universe. It does have the power to disrupt some of our thinking as well about education too.

Take the current belief that educators still hold onto that there is a solution out there that can be applied in teaching situations and bring about a desired result. That simple way of thinking has been at the heart of teaching since the turn of the twentieth century, and it seems sound. However, have really gotten any closer to finding the magical cures that will ultimately bring about the learning results we desire?

The data says we still struggle to close learning gaps and obtaining the results we desire. Why is that? It is rather simple, but much of the educational establishment stands with their fingers in their ears, like a little child who refuses to hear what they do not wish to hear. They want to continue to pour torrents of energy and effort into the search for the one measure A that can be applied to Student B and get result C.

I’ve written about this before, here and elsewhere. We are so caught in this quixotic quest for the miracle, we ignore the very wisdom of Eastern religions and what Watt’s so clearly points out: “Nothing happens in isolation.”

So how does this apply to educational thinking? It is rather simple: The search for a single practice or method to produce desired educational results is futile. Education, Teaching, Learning, Classrooms, Schools, Systems, Teachers, Students…are complex, and trying to approach the act of teaching by ignoring CONTEXT is a futile exercise and akin to a searching quixotic quest for magical potions and elixirs to make learning happen.

But, and I have to add this BUT to this information. But, the educational system and those that inhabit it like this status quo. As long as there hope that a magical method of teaching or learning exists, then snake-oil consultants and professional development pitch-persons have wares to sell. They can stand in the cyber-square of the internet hawking these wares and gobble up tax money galore. One can’t help but question for whose benefit such a system provides.

Teaching Is a Craft: It Will Never Be a Science

What if we have got it all wrong as educational professionals, that our enterprise of teaching is not a science, never was a science, and never can be a science? Instead, it is a craft, and we really should see ourselves as crafts-persons, and not as “scientists” tackling the problem of education.

We are still looking for the scientific recipes for teaching and have been searching for over a century now. The same applies to educational leadership, where we have been searching diligently for scientific principles to guide leaders in the field. Instead, in both fields we have had a endless torrent of fads and tactics-of-the-day to try address the same recurring problems and the new problems we face. In the end, we still have not made sure progress in resolving old issues like achievement gaps, student drop outs, and student apathy. Nor have we made any new headway to resolving new issues like increasing student apathy, raging societal inequality, and best-practice technological application. This is due in large part with the paradigms guiding teaching practice and teaching research. We are looking for method A that will definitively bring about result B, only discover each time, method A only sometimes brings about result A. This is because our thinking about environment C and the instructional materials we use aren’t as simple and uninvolved as we thought. Equally true, the students we work with aren’t standardized, which means we can’t really understand them on a macro-level as a hypothetical student; we have to understand them as individuals, as single complex human beings, not manipulable, standardized automatons who respond in predictable ways when certain teaching tactics are applied.

Hence my argument for teacher as a craftsperson…

It is important that educational craftspersons understand that we can’t direct learning, we can only guide conditions that make it possible. Like the metal craftsperson shaping a piece of steel into a sword, she can only create the conditions where this transformation can happen. Often, some equipment or tool issue or environmental issue intervenes unpredictably; it is then the craftsperson shows his true expertise by looking for an then applying an additional tactic. 

In education we rarely engage in these additional steps…we spend too much time in postmortem analysis with assessments scrutinizing what about our tactics failed, when if we had acted like a craftspersons, we would have analyzed the problem in a split second, used our experience, expertise, and knowledge to apply a solution while the learning was in progress. 

Education is not nor never will be like medicine. Educators would perform much more effectively if they viewed their work as a craft rather than as a practice infused with science applying cures to educational ills.

Richard Sennett writes in The Craftsman, “The corporate system that once organized careers is now a maze of fragmented jobs.” I can’t help but think of education slowly moving into this fragmented direction when it comes to teaching jobs. We’ve may have inadvertently imported this view of the teaching work from business and industry, whose management tenets so powerfully undergird educational leadership. Education once viewed teaching as a viable career…now it has become a stepping stone to other work. That’s why there’s the scramble to leave the classroom. The working conditions sustain this scramble along with the installed business-leadership hierarchy in public education now. In a word, the system no longer wants career teachers. Temporary workers are just fine. We don’t have to pay them as much. There is no long-term benefit plans to support like retirement pensions. This is accomplished by simply creating a front-loaded pay scale that pays people on the front end only marginally less than those who stay in the field 15 or 20 years. Education as a field no longer wants to foster teaching as career. It focuses instead on just getting individuals into the jobs shorterm in order bring about the short-term goals, and I would also add short-sighted goals, of test results.

While reading Richard Sennett’s book The Craftsman another thought came to mind. Business and industry are fond of dictating to education what kinds of workers they need, when they are the ones who caused the massive mismatch between the labor force and their own needs. They wanted an unskilled immigrant labor force in the late nineteenth century to the early to mid twentieth century. They did not want an educated workforce because such workers would demand more pay and be more expensive. They still don’t really care about the educational attainment and training of workers; they are looking to add to their bottom lines and push educators to provide the workers that would add to their profits. 

In The Death of Expertise, Tom Nichols describes his experience of become an expert in reading Soviet materials. He states:

“Another mark of true experts is their acceptance of evaluation and correction by other experts. Every professional group and expert community has watchdogs, boards, accreditors, and certification authorities whose job is to police its own members and to ensure not only that they live up to the standards of their own specialty, but also that their arts are practiced only by people who actually know what they’re doing.” (p. 35)

In education, because of managerial business ideology and discourse, the expertise of the teacher has been disrupted and destroyed by de-professionalizing practices. Education may never recover from these influences.

Educational Leaders, Marketing Language, Deception and Integrity: Critical Thinking Instead of Deception

Since I began blogging a few years back, I've always eschewed all these offers from companies and individuals for "branded content" to post here. I could have perhaps made much more money from blogging. The pennies one receives from allowing ads alone hardly amount to any kind of income. I'm even embarrassed to admit how little I've made in this area, but not really.

Accepting offers from companies to post their self-promoting branded content seems to me a violation of sorts. If one expresses one's thoughts honestly and with integrity, by allowing some company to provide a guest post is simply an exchange of that honesty and integrity for money, and that is not something I have done here. As Franklin Foer accurately captures:

"Advertisers will pay a premium for branded content, because its stands such a good chance of confusing the readers into clicking." (p. 151).

Foer's words capture an insidious side of the web, educators for some reason fail to acknowledge sometimes. It is often of place where deceiving others is an accepted practice. It's like the old athlete ads on TV where a popular athlete holds up a box of Wheaties and at least gives the impression that he faithfully eats the cereal each morning and it has something to do with his athletic prowess and ability. The web's advertising and these requests for "guest blog posts" are of the same deceptive practices. It's all a "little lie" but it is told for a greater good is the thought rationale behind these tactics.

I argue that educators and educational leaders who have integrity and principles refuse to engage in these kinds of techno-deceptions. They don't ask prominent other educators to endorse their products nor their persons. They certainly do not engage in deception. Educators are very fond of using the marketing language in every new program that comes along.

Everyone time some new initiative is undertaken, there's always talk about creating "vision statements" and "empowering stakeholders" and getting "buy-in." But what if that which your selling is just a bad idea, a horrible product, or even a waste of time? Just because you believe what your selling, doesn't automatically assume everyone should. As I've written many times, there's just not enough critical-minded educators who criticize these ideas. That is at the heart of why I could care less whether I make money on this blog, and I am certainly not motivated to post someone's "branded content."

Accepting branded content or promoting your colleagues latest consulting business may make you money and perhaps keep a friend, but to promote someone else's product or ideas without really having a personal experience with them is just plain wrong. Educators must learn to engage in critique and also be willing to accept critique instead of always being so obsessed with "buy-in" and "vision statements."

 Foer, F. (2017).  World without mind: The existential threat of big tech. Penguin; New York, NY.

Achieving High Performance by Recipe-Following: Truth or Fairy Tale?

Educators, and I would add business leaders love fads and leadership gurus. While I don’t know personally the data regarding how much money is made by consultants and gurus in the educational industry, I would bet it’s often more than whole educational budgets in states and districts. There is money to be made, and the entrepreneurial sects know it; that’s why our inboxes of our email accounts and our message boxes of our LinkedIn accounts get stuffed daily with promises of high performance nirvana and paths to leadership greatness. 

But what if it’s all an entrepreneurial fairy tale based on an educational (or business) leadership model that believe there exists “magic principles” that can guide the leader and her or his Educationalites to the “Promised Land” of high performance and pedagogical greatness? What if the only ones reaching any levels of high performance and success are those pilfering the meager coffers of educational systems with their “educational tonics and powders” that promise success if only you follow our program?

As Phil Rosenzweig writes in The Halo Effect…and Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, we, like business leaders, have fallen for the idea that:

“...high performance can be achieved with enough care and attention to a precise set of elements—the four factors or those six steps or these eight principles” (2007, p. 143). If we “do these things,” then “success is just around the corner.”

Now I ask, if success is that easy, then why is there not more of it? We should have schools everywhere with achievement levels off the charts. (And I would add many, many more business successes.) The gurus and consultants would say, “Well, it’s because those trying our 7 principles, or four factors, or six steps, are not following our program faithfully.” That’s always their easy answer. But what if that’s just part of the marketing pitch for the pile of baloney they are selling? Just maybe, the world on which their 7 principles, or four factors, or six steps are based only exists in a Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale. In other words, perhaps the real world of education systems and business systems are much too complex for the simplistic thinking of gurus and the fads they bear with them.

In the end, it just might be that educational consultants, and business consultants, are only diverting us from the real truth. That truth is educational performance and business performance is uncertain and complex and not amenable to an application and engineering that brings about predictable outcomes” (Rosenzweig, 2007, p. 143). In other words, doing A and B leads to an infinite number of possibilities and outcomes, not C as the guru and consultant industry would lead you to believe.

There are certainly ideas that can be learned from gurus and consultants. I am not implying that it’s all baloney. However, being a critically-minded educational, and business leader, means realizing that our worlds are much too complex for easy answers and solutions. We should always question those claiming truth. We owe it to ourselves and to our stakeholders.

Rosenzweig, P. (2007). The halo effect...and eight other business delusions that deceive managers. New York, NY: Free Press.

Liberal Arts & Humanities vs Science,Math and STEM: What If Educational Leaders Are On Wrong Side of History?

What if we as education leaders are wrong about all this hype about the supremacy of math and science as being the keys to our future and the futures of our students? What if all this STEM hype ends up being just another one of those fads that takes hold of education from time to time?

It's true that education leaders have been wrong before. Just tour some of the open education buildings constructed during the 60s and 70s, when well-meaning education leaders took the idea of open education to mean that education should take place in a physical environment without walls. What did they do? They built school buildings that did not have walls between classrooms. There are other times too when educational leaders have gotten it wrong as well, that's why the never-ending cycle of fads continue unabated. But what if we are also wrong about the current utilitarian fetish with all things math and science? Could it be that we are providing our students with plenty of technical skills, but also leaving them soul-less and unable to to even ask the bigger questions about our existence?

In his book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, William Deresiewicz makes a powerful argument for the value of the humanities and a liberal arts education. This argument is needed now, more than ever, as recent events in Wisconsin demonstrate. There, the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, has plans to drop 13 majors in the humanities and social sciences (see article here.) They are doing so to address declining enrollment problems and budget deficits. The real reason for dropping these majors? According to the Washington Post article, "The push away from the liberal arts and toward workplace skills is championed by conservatives who see many four-year colleges and universities as politically correct institutions that graduate too many students without practical job skills--but with liberal political views." In other words, these liberal arts programs are graduating students who engage in thinking that is found objectionable. Instead, what is desired are unthinking workers who will simply go their jobs each day and unquestioningly do as they are told.

There is real danger when educational leaders start talking just about employability, science, mathematics and utilitarian education. Our education system, from pre-kindergarten to the doctoral level needs and must have the humanities and liberal arts. As Deresiewicz points out, "In the liberal arts, you pursue the trail of inquiry wherever it leads. Truth, not use or reward, is the only criterion." Liberal arts and the humanities are important so that we do have individuals who can think beyond the existing boundaries and ask the tough questions about our lives, our society, and our world. If you want graduates who will simply engage in "inquiry that leads to pre-determined outcomes," then the answer is to make all education instrumental and utilitarian, where the focus is technical and on immediate employability.

I think Deresiewicz offers us powerful reasons to critique and not unquestioningly fall in line with the adoption of STEM and all that hype over math and science. He makes the case for a liberal arts education and its importance to the souls and well-being of our students, and our future. We do need both, and his words below are worth repeating at length:

"Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you to learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career: for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free. That's why the humanities are central to a real college education. You don't build a self out of thin air, by gazing at your navel. You build it, in part, by encountering the ways that others have done so themselves. You build it, that is, with the help of the past. The humanities--history, philosophy, religious studies, above all, literature and the other arts--are the record of the ways that people have come to terms with being human. They address the questions that are proper to us, not as this or that kind of specialist, this or that kind of professional, but as individuals as such--the very questions we are apt to ask when we look up from our work and think about our lives. Questions of love, death, family, morality, time, truth, God, and everything else within the wide, starred universe of human experience." (p. 155-156, Excellent Sheep)

I can't but help but wonder that the hype over math and science, and especially STEM and the desire to devalue the humanities and liberal arts is all connected. No one is talking about teaching students to think critically and for themselves any more. No one speaks of asking students to inquire in the greater questions about our world--such as the environment, justice, morality--instead we simply want them to be able to solve 'technical problems" using science and math. We want them to be "good workers." Whatever happened to wanting them to be exemplary humans?

If You Want Students to Be Passionate Readers, Learn from This

It is easy to forget during the season of testing just what it is about reading that lures us in. We can become hung up in test prep---exposing students to so-called "test questions" and sample passages---and in the process utterly blaspheme the joy of reading and the beauty of literature.

Looking back, I became a reader due to two educators in my life: Ms. Jackson (name changed) and Ms. Sherrill (again, name changed, in case she is still out there). Ms. Jackson was our school librarian. She was not a media specialist as they are called now. In fact, I could bet Ms, Jackson would have disdained that title. She would have seen all this hype about "computers" and "technology" as major distractions. She would not have liked the direction our school libraries have taken at all, with the removal of books and the placement of high-tech gadgets.

My fondest memories of Ms. Jackson is her reading fairy tales to us. She read them all: Hans Christian Andersen, Grimms, Native American Tales, mythology, etc. During my first and second grade, Ms. Jackson introduced me to the world of fantasy where almost anything could happen. She provided me with a ticket to my own imagination. She introduced me to books. But what Ms. Jackson did really was instill within me a insatiable flame of desire for books and reading, and she did this when she "broke the rules." Yes, she broke the rules.

In those days, the rule of the library was that you could only check out books from your assigned grade level. Such a rule makes sense on the surface. Students aren't allowed to check out books that are too difficult or are inappropriate, but rules can put out the flames of passion, and in this case, she could have just enforced the rules, and let my own passion for exploration and reading die. She didn't. She allowed me to wander everywhere and check out anything I desired, so when I had a passion for the stars and planets, I checked out every science book on the topic. When I became interested in the Civil War, I checked out books on that topic. When I stumbled on dinosaurs, as every young kid inevitably does, I read every book in the library on the topic. I literally checked out books, in some cases, way over my head, but when I got the books home, I wanted to know what they said so badly, I read, re-read, and read again, until I could understand. Ms. Jackson, by simply choosing not to enforce her library rules, created a life-long passionate reader.

 Ms. Sherrill, who was my sixth grade teacher reinforced my passion for books in her classroom. First of all, she surrounded us with books and a comfortable place to read. She had this carpeted mat sitting next to the class library, and she practically gave us free rein to spend as much time there as possible, if we got our other assignments done, of course. But that alone wasn't new. Ms. Sherrill also fostered my passion for books by reading aloud to us as well. She read Old Yeller, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist. She read with such energy and passion. I could tell she loved novels, and she infected me with the same disease.

Both these teachers remind me of these words by my favorite writer, Pat Conroy:

"Great words, arranged with cunning and artistry, could change the perceived world for some readers. From the beginning I've searched out those writers unafraid to stir up the emotions, who entrust me with their darkest passions, their most indestructible yearnings, and their most soul-killing doubts. I trust the great novelists to teach me how to live, how to feel, how to love and hate. I trust them to show me the dangers I will encounter on the road as I stagger on my own troubled passage through a complicated life of books that try to teach me how to die." Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

Today, we aren't going to foster reading, I mean real reading by being obsessed with standardized tests. These two educators introduced me to the "great words" of writers. They also introduced me to novelists and then allowed me to "search out those writers" for myself, "who are unafraid to stir up my emotions, who entrust me with their darkest passions..." Ms. Jackson gave me ability to search and fulfill my hunger to know. Ms. Sherrill infected me with a disease that means I can't walk by the new novels rack in the bookstore and not feel the passion and energy surging from them.

In this season of testing, let's remind ourselves, that the test is not everything; it never was, nor will it ever be.

How to Be an Educator When Thinking Has Become Dangerous

"Thinking has become dangerous in the United States and the symptoms are everywhere." Henry Giroux, Dangerous Thinking: In the Age of the New Authoritarianism

 For all the talk and blather about teaching students to think critically and creatively, we need to face the reality that much of our political and educational establishment is actually more interested in conformity, and teaching others to think in certain privileged ways. For example, with all the talk that comes with education as the engine of the economy, also comes the worship of greed, free-market fundamentalism, and simple form of idolatry that places the "businessman" as the salvation of all that is good and wonderful. Schools are seen as the producers of workers for industry. Art and music is irrelevant and unnecessary. Education is not about thinking critically; it is about making sure our students accept and conform to a culture that pursues economic interests, and selfish individual interests at the expense of everything else, with the belief, that in the end, all will be well in such a society.

The current predicament we face in this 21st century isn't just about jobs for our students; it is whether or not the world we are leaving them will even be inhabitable. Instead of educating students how to work the machines in the factory down the road, we need to be teaching them to be problem-solvers, creative thinkers, and dare I say, teaching them to be willing to be non-conformists?

Non-conformity is not always a negative. There are plenty of examples of constructive non-conformity in our history. Had the forefathers of our country chosen the path of conformity, we certainly would not have the country we have today. I realize that is a bit of tired thinking, but I think it illustrates a simple point that should be a part of our educational philosophy for 21st century thinking. You simply sometimes can't think outside the box when conformity matters most. You can't always expect different results when you insist on playing by the rules set by others. Sometimes you need to invent new rules, or simply refuse to play by the old ones, and invent an entirely new game.

As Giroux points out, "Thinking has become dangerous" and I would agree it has especially become dangerous in the United States in our current political climate. But, if we are going to push the limits and be "dangerous educational innovators," we are going to have to engage in the unsafe. We are going to have to be critical and creative thinkers, and question the official, and dare I say even resist. Ultimately, we can by example teach our students to be "dangerous thinkers" who can disturb the present by being willing to question and even think dangerously ourselves.

Why Pursue a Doctoral Degree? You Might Be Changed By It!

I think it is fairly obvious that I haven't posted anything here in some time. Some have probably thought I dropped off this earth, and there are perhaps those, because of my sometimes irritatingly political posts, who hoped that such had happened. The truth is, so much of my time is consumed with working on my dissertation that blogging has taken backseat. The constant reading, writing, and journaling takes just about every spare moment I have, and when there is a moment I am not working in my role as principal of a small high school, and working on this infernal degree, I am sometimes too tired to even look at a computer screen. In spite of all these travails though, I would gladly engage in this pursuit of a doctoral degree and would encourage others to do so too. Here's why.

This scholarly endeavor has changed me in dramatic ways. I don't look at education, my job, or even leadership in the same way any more. I now find myself entangled with the Postmodernists, Poststructuralists, and Deconstructionists. Now, I won't subject anyone to any attempt to explain those terms. If you're an English teacher, you probably encountered these schools of thought (if that is what they are) in your literary criticism classes as I did. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to them then. But what's different for me now, is that here toward the latter years of my career as an educator, the likes of Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze once again haunt both my work, my thoughts, and even my writing. They have unsettled everything I once believed to be "education science."

Once again, I won't subject you to a biography or description of the contributions of these individuals to literary or cultural studies; I simply say that these Postmodernists-Poststructuralists-Deconstructionists have  disturbed me as a practicing educator and educational leader. How can that be? Through them, I've learned that I don't really know as much as I thought I did, and many of those things I took for granted as "truth" are not the truth. Even my daily actions and thoughts about what it means to be an "effective educator" is not as simple as it once was. The intellectual challenge that these thinkers have wrought has made me more inquisitive, and even more skeptical it that was possible, of this thing we call education and all the "science" in which we wrap it.

In effect, I've actually come home, because in these thinkers, I've found the permission and means to continue to be skeptical, which I've always been when it comes to those promising "educational elixirs" and promises of quick cures. It's as if I've been given free reign to question and examine relentlessly all these things about education that we take for granted and take as a given. As the intellectual leader of my school, I have come to understand that "experts" in education are sometimes better at selling their wares than actually improving our field, but that is another blog post altogether.

All these years I've talked about leadership practices, teaching practices, and practices of engaging in using technology. Now, due to my explorations and doctoral readings and studies, I walk around each day on my job with each of these enclosed in quotation marks. In fact, every time I hear another educator or education consultant use the word "research-based," I see the quotation marks there too. Why is that? It is because these postmodernists-poststructuralists-deconstructionists have disturbed what I took for granted as the boundaries of our field of education. My dissertation experience has fostered a new habit of mind that demands that I be both inquisitive and question relentlessly.

Some would see no practical value in being this way. I disagree. This "ethos of critique" I live in now has freed me to think even more outside the box than ever. If we want to innovate and be creative, we have to suspend the rules and think in ways that are out of bounds. Besides, who was it that got to decide what is "out-of-bounds?" There's a long list of individuals whose thought was initially out-of-bounds. Now, I am not so Trump-like to say that "only I can solve the problems of education," but I enjoy thinking beyond the boundaries now more than ever.

So, what has this dissertation journey done for me so far? It is teaching me to think "out-of-bounds" and not worry whether some other educator-referee is going to call me on it. After all, who made them referee?

When Strong Leadership Takes Advantage of Others and Setting Aside Our Ambitions

"We push for a strong leader to get us out of this mess, even if it means surrendering individual freedom to gain security." Margaret Wheatley,  Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

When things are rough and uncertain, as Wheatley points out, people look for a strong leader. For many, any old "strong" leader will do. The individual talking the loudest and making the most promises, impossible or not, will do. The individual no one really likes, but because he demonstrates toughness, will do. Finally, the individual with the largest ego and a plan, even though it's clear it won't work, will do.

Whether it is our world, our communities, or our schools, when uncertainty and messiness rears its head, the search for a "strong" leader is common. And, if one appears, people are willing to sacrifice their own freedoms and creativity in order to avoid the messiness and uncertainty and obtain security. The flip side of this is the danger many school leaders face: that of becoming one of these leaders who preys on the fears and insecurities of others in pursuit of one's own ambitions. Thinking that one has all the right answers, and the plan, with emphasis on the "the," is perhaps more about egos than authentically leading others.

In times of messiness and uncertainty, leadership should embrace others as co-creators in finding solutions, not strong-arm them into accepting less freedom. This means not yelling the loudest, not offering plans that betray who we are internally, and not deceiving ourselves into believing that we're the answer to all people's problems. Ethically, offering authentic, wise, and compassionate leadership to those who are insecure is what is needed most in these times of uncertainty and insecurity. It is time to set aside our own ambitions and remember it is not always about us.

School Leadership Is About Keeping Teachers Happy: Not Just Weeding Out the Bad

I agree wholeheartedly with Ken Robinson when he writes:

"Great teachers are the heart of great schools." Ken Robinson, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education

Too often there's this undying faith in educational leadership literature that if the right school leader is found, then the problems of the school will be resolved. There's the rhetoric that says, "If that school only had the right principal, then it could be saved." It is this search for a savior and messiah in education that is a misguided and a proverbial "wild goose chase," because in reality, if there are no great teachers, then nothing miraculous will ever happen.

I once had a conversation with the manager of a restaurant that I frequented. This restaurant was known for its long lines snaking all the way into the mall in which it was located. On some days, to eat there, it meant waiting sometimes as long as an hour or two before you could be seated. I asked this manager, "It's obvious your restaurant is a success. What is the secret?" He looked around for just a second, and quickly said, "I keep my cooks happy."

Over the years, this has always been behind my leadership practice. I do not see the teachers in my school as "expendable" and simply interchangeable parts. That managerial philosophy really has no place in education.

The truth is, great teachers aren't interchangeable. They are sometimes hard to come by. If you're lucky, you might be able to coach and build great teachers over time, but as fewer and fewer people enter teaching, this becomes more difficult as well.

Rather than seeing teachers as interchangeable parts, I see them as great "cooks" that we need to treasure and keep happy." This doesn't have anything to do with sacrificing what's good for students either. Too often today, if a school leader talks about keeping teachers happy, he is viewed with suspicion, as if in doing so, he is ignoring what's good for students. Why is this an either or proposition in the first place? Making sure your great teachers are supported and appreciated, and happy, while working with those who have not yet reached the level of greatness is school leadership.

What's important today in school leadership is realizing that school leaders with savior complexes rarely sustain great schools, because in reality, such personalities are more interested in themselves, and their own professional ambitions than they are with the success of anyone, students or teachers. These leaders see everything and everyone around them as interchangeable parts to be discarded if they somehow do not fit into their plans. Sadly, that's why their results often disappear once they moved on to their next "great" ambitious project.

2 Things That Really Matter When Leading Your School, District, or Organization This Year

At the end of the day, we can set up all the policies and procedures we want; our schools or organizations still may not be successful. All the goals, strategic plans, visions, and missions we establish are meaningless and will not spur success if the people do not feel what they are doing is meaningful and worthwhile, and they do not feel valued. I like this quote from Margaret Wheatley's book Find Our Way: Leadership for Uncertain Times.

"During this period of random unpredictable change, any organization that distances itself from its employees and refuses to cultivate meaningful relationships with them is destined to fail. Those organizations who will succeed are those that evoke our greatest human capacities---our need to be in good relationships, and our desire to contribute something beyond ourselves. These qualities cannot be evoked through procedures and policies. They are only available in organizations where people feel trusted and welcome, and where people know that their work matters."

 If your life as a school leader is like mine, we are in a swirl of change, especially as we prepare to enter a new school year. Try as we might to plan for every contingency, you can bet things will not go as we planned; that's the only certainty about the future. As Wheatley reminds us, what we can do is make sure to connect with those in our school or district; that does not mean connecting from the perspective of supervisor to subordinate either. It means genuinely having conversations with others about the things that do matter to them. In this, we show them that we care. We must pay attention to the relationships.

In the swirl of change we find ourselves in, we can't shield people from the wind gusts and driving rain. We can't create some rule or policy that will hold back the floods. What we can do are two things. 

First, we can be human and work on "cultivating meaningful and authentic relationships." As a school level principal, I am guilty of getting so lost in the swirl and blast of change that I forget that it is people with whom I work. We need each other more than we need anything else in those times. We need our schools and districts to be the places where people feel trusted and welcome. If everyone has hidden agendas and only displays their inauthentic selves, there can't be an atmosphere of trust and respect.

Second, we need to make sure our staff know they are engaged in work that matters. I think that's one thing testing and accountability folks really struggle with. They can't quite understand why teachers and educators don't see that goal of "raising test scores" as meaningful. I didn't become a teacher to raise students' test scores. I also taught long enough to know tests can't measure all learning. In fact, tests often can't measure the most meaningful learning. We need to make sure that our purposes are higher than making sure our End of Course test scores increase, or whether our graduation cohort rate is higher. Those who find that such things are most meaningful are perhaps short-sighted. If we pay attention to shaping students' minds, these things take care of themselves, or don't seem quite as important. Often, what is most meaningful to me is when a student comes back and tells me about her life.

Yesterday, I experienced firsthand why teaching and education is meaningful to me. I was in the line at the grocery store in my neighborhood, preparing to check out. I was placing items on the conveyor when a former student of mine I will call Amber (Not her real name) came up and excitedly started telling me about her 100 on her latest college paper. She was beside herself as she hugged me, and she said it was because she had such a "great English teacher" referring to me. Of course, we all enjoy it when former students do such things, and I am no different. We all like to hear stories about the success of our former students. But this story has much more to it; more "data" than Amber's score on her paper, or her assessment of me as an English teacher. There's also the fact that I know this young lady has had to endure quite a bit diversity and works hard at this store. She has a young child. With all this going on, she decided to go back to a local community college to earn her degree. Despite circumstances, she is thriving and perhaps using something of what we learned together ten or fifteen years ago. You can bet that "something" was not the content found on a standardized test. This former student reminded me once again that I am involved in something greater than myself. My work mattered to someone else.

This post is in some ways more a challenge to myself to remember what really matters this coming year. It is reminder that chances are, I am going to find myself and my staff in that swirl of change again this year. What is important is that I remember we have each other and that we are engaged in a purpose that really matters.

Leading to Make It Safe for Creativity

"If we as leaders can talk about our mistakes and our part in them, then we make it safe for others." Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unknown Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Leaders are sometimes very stubborn people. They make mistakes, but then they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to conceal those mistakes. To some school leaders, showing that you are capable of making mistakes is revealing weakness. But, if you want to foster a culture of creativity and exploration in your school or district, you have to embrace your mistakes and display them. We display them by being open with candor with those we lead. By that very action, we demonstrate that trying and failing isn't the "unpardonable sin." As authentic leaders we must strive to make our mistakes public. We admit them; we learn from them. Creativity thrives within a culture that embraces failure as a product of experimentation.

A few years ago, when teaching my students writing, I emphasized repeatedly to them, that writing is about experimenting. It is about trying new combinations of words and ideas. I told them that means sometimes we write "drivel" and sometimes we pen words that inspire. But then I told them that "drivel" is a necesary part of writing. Just the same, mistakes are a part of leadership, and the wise leaders make them public. Authentic leaders that strive for creativity accept, acknowledge, and use failure, not hide it. We should always strive to make our mistakes public to those we lead. By doing so, we make it safe for others to be creative. Do you want your staff to approach problems and come up with creative solutions? Then perhaps you need to celebrate mistakes and failure through disclosure to make it safe.

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What Can School Leaders Learn from Pixar? Inviting Candor and Criticism to Be Creative

What does it take to create a “sustainable creative culture,” in an institution like public schools? The fact that many public schools exist just as they did a hundred years ago is an indication that they are often more about self-preservation than engaging in innovation. In other words, school systems are more often interested in work that is derivative rather than innovative. Not much is new in education reform because of this. It is a monumental failure to create a "sustainable creative culture" that could tackle some of our most serious problems in education today.

The pendulum metaphor is very familiar to most seasoned educators because they have seen reforms come and go and come and go, and most often these "reforms" are simply old ideas dressed differently. This pendulum metaphor persists because there's not really anything new in today's reforms; they are simply the old reforms or derivatives of old reforms. As Michael Fullan points out,

“If you’re in education long enough, you’re likely to get hit by the same pendulum multiple times." 

No reforms ever stick because we keep doing the same old things such as revising standards, chasing more difficult tests, or revamping teacher evaluations among many others. While this work is important, it isn't really reform. We aren't innovating because public education, schools and districts, aren't structured to innovate. They do not have sustainable creative cultures that foster innovation. We begin embracing innovation by developing what Ed Catmull describes in his new book, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, this “sustainable creative culture.”

According to Catmull, a most important ingredient in this creative culture is fostering a place where “people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms.” To create that culture, school leaders need to embrace “candor.” Candor is defined as the “quality of being open and honest in expression; frankness.” Candor, in other words, is inviting others to be open about their opinions, criticisms, and ideas. Sadly, public education, for all its calling for stakeholder buy-in is often more about defending and marketing someone’s pet reform project or idea rather than honestly seeking other educators' input or opinions. This is why that education pendulum continues to hit us multiple times. Candor is not invited and is often not allowed. If we really want to move education initiatives beyond the derivative to the innovative, then education leaders need be courageous and invite candor into their schools and districts.

How can school leaders invite candor into their schools and districts? Catmull offers an easy way to do that: You “institutionalize candor” so that it is part of the ritual and practice of the school. You can begin this by engaging in three simple practices.

• Tear down the “top-down hierarchy” and top-down reform driven processes that currently exist, and stop trying to defend initiatives that, if they are so darn beneficial, they should stand up to criticism and candor on their own. Too often educational leadership is more about pushing and marketing ideas instead of approaching the problems we face in schools creatively. Instead, let’s subject all these educational initiatives to the full force of candor and criticism. If they survive intact, then they must be good. If not, then they weren't worth the paper on which they're written.
• Invite straight talk as a rule. Nothing is sacred and off limits. Too often, those sitting in meetings are afraid to speak their minds because of the political consequences. It’s true! In public education if you get the reputation of speaking your mind, you are often defined as “not a team player” or worse. You are cast aside as an outcast and troublemaker. Educational leaders like to talk big about buy-in, and that they sought feedback, but some of them politically destroy those who don’t agree with them. Candor means you have the guts to listen to criticism and recognize when it is valid.
• Bring people together often to discuss school or district initiatives for the purpose of straight talk. Educators, for the most part, are by nature passionate people who care a great deal about what they do. Encourage them to identify the problems they see and be entirely candid. School leaders must be willing to courageously listen and not resort to being defensive. Allow the discussion and criticism to happen instead of shutting it down. Be flexible and willing to revise accordingly, and possibly even let go. It should never be about ego; it should be about improving education for kids.

I wish that I could be as optimistic about the education reforms swirling about---Common Core, Technology, Testing, Accountability, etc. Sadly, I am not. Fundamentally, public education is still more about institutional self-preservation than engaging in creative approaches to the problems the system faces. If we’re going to move to sustaining a creative culture that can tackle 21st century issues, then we have to become courageous school leaders and invite candor into our schools and districts.

Race to the Top Damage Assessment: A 21st Century Principal's Perspective

When the 2012 PISA scores were released, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared the American Education system “stagnant.” He said the results were “straightforward and stark: It is a picture of educational stagnation.” Whether or not that’s true is debatable. What is not debatable is how the Obama Administration, Secretary Arne Duncan, and the US Department of Education have repeatedly used data like this to manufacture an educational crisis that only their remedies can fix.

Duncan's Department of Education and President Obama even released a report, not independently created mind you, to declare how successful their Race to the Top program has been. In a USA Today article "Obama Report Claims Success for 'Race to the Top'" Duncan even had the audacity to say, "The most powerful ideas for improving education come not from Washington, but from educators and leaders in states throughout the country." This statement is just not true. The "ideas to improve education" are coming directly from Washington, because under his Race to the Top and NCLB waiver system, they APPROVE what states are doing, which means they are the ones having the ultimate say. Arne Duncan has proved once again, he's a much better politician at bending the truth than being an educator. He even praised North Carolina for its "reforms" when more than half our teaching force is leaving and the flow of new teachers has slowed to a trickle. Both President Obama's Department of Education and our North Carolina government have done an excellent job of creating the most unattractive teaching environment in the nation. It is incredible that Duncan would declare my state, North Carolina, as one of the leaders in education reform when conditions in the classrooms and schools have never been worse.

But set aside all the "Race to the Top stretchers" coming from Arne Duncan and the Obama Administration. Let me tell Secretary Duncan what his policies have done to the schools.

• Schools are more than ever focused on teaching to the test, and what’s worse, it matters not what the quality of the test is. Any old test will do as long as it provides numbers. It is one thing to use data to inform instructional decision-making; it is quite another for politicians, policymakers and educational leaders to invent tests of dubious quality and use that data to brag about their own success. In addition, the test-centric school system culture fostered by Arne Duncan's policies have forced schools to devote inordinate amounts of time to test-prep. In North Carolina, schools take whole days to subject students with ACT prep activities with hopes that such measures will help increase their scores. This test-centric school culture has created an educational environment where the only thing not-negotiable is the "test." Testing and accommodating the record number of tests in North Carolina drives over half of our decision-making.The last days of the semester and the school year are devoted entirely to testing and nothing else.
• Teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and those that stay are morally dejected. Race to the Top has fostered an atmosphere in education where the objective is to raise test scores at all costs. I have not heard a single teacher say he or she entered the profession to “raise test scores.” All teachers, including myself, entered teaching out of love for content area, love for teaching and helping kids. When that content area is reduced to test content, out the window goes the content we love to teach, and when a teacher is forced to only see a student as a test score and their potential to improve their evaluation, then how could someone possibly want to teach in those conditions.Race the Top combined with our anti-teaching North Carolina government has simply accelerated the exodus of teachers from the classroom.
• Far fewer teachers are entering the profession. I recently attended a job fair at a university in our state. There was a time when one would expect to talk to many prospective secondary science, math, social studies, foreign language, English, career and technical education teachers. This year, I could count the number of secondary teachers I spoke to on one hand. While our North Carolina legislature and governor can certainly take some blame with their anti-public education legislation, this massive lost of interest in teaching began before their law-making activities. What the US Department of Education doesn't get is that when the focus of teaching becomes raising a test score, all else becomes irrelevant. The truth is, few people want to enter a profession that is driven by test scores. I can’t say that I blame them.
• More and more parents are getting tired of all the tests we subject their children too, and they are starting to fight back. More and more around the country parents are pushing to allow them to have their children "opt out" of testing. This growing opposition to testing is getting stronger. There was a time when educators used test scores in sane ways, not insane, such as determining student promotion or to decide whether a teacher is doing his or her job. No Child Left Behind began this intense focus on testing and Race to the Top has only only magnified that focus. It is not surprising that there is a growing crescendo of discord from parents about all the testing. Yet Arne Duncan and our state department of education turns a deaf ear.
• Because so much money is being spent on testing, many other areas of the budget have declined over the years. Sure, state leaders will point out that testing costs so little in comparison to other educational needs, but I have never heard an educational leader say, "We're cutting the fourth grade end of grade tests this year due to lack of funding." The testing budget is simply accommodated no matter what. Schools no longer receive professional development budgets. Textbook funding is not even enough to purchase a class set of books anymore, even if we wanted to. Computer systems and software are aging and there is little funding to improve these. In North Carolina, policymakers never starve their testing budgets, but they don't mind cutting funds from teacher assistants and classroom supplies. Race to the Top has focused budgets even more intensely in testing at the expense of other budgetary items.

Race to the Top and Arne Duncan have done more to make teaching and being an educator one of least attractive professions. Its test-centric policies are driving teachers out of the profession and forcing prospective teachers to choose other careers. Duncan's Race to the Top, fueled by false crisis education rhetoric has had such a negative impact on education it will take years for the system to recover after Duncan and Obama leave office.

5 Ways to Be a Skeptic in Today's "Reformy" Educational World

“Good skeptics change their minds, according to the best evidence available. There is just one thing to be loyal to here, reality.” Guy Harrison, Think: Why You Should Question Everything

In a time of education reform peddling and of vendors selling wares claiming that this program increases student achievement and that this program will improve graduation rates, what serves an educational leader well is to be a strong skeptic. As Guy Harrison says in his book, our loyalties should lie with reality. It should not lie with friends who have left education and are now selling some latest educational ware. Our loyalties do not lie with unquestioningly listening to latest edict that comes down from the federal government as the answer to all of our school’s educational shortcomings. Our loyalty does not lie in unquestioningly implementing unfounded programs and practices. Our loyalty should lie with demanding that all of the above be demonstrated with scientific proof and reason that what they claim is true.

In his book, Think: Why You Should Question Everything, Guy Harrison offers a useful framework for being a skeptic when it comes to those making outrageous claims about anything. As the late Carl Sagan once wrote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” and any educational resource salesperson or educator pushing a pet program, saying definitively that their product or practice raises test scores, needs to provide evidence to that fact, and testimonial quotes from another school district leader or teacher is not sufficient.

Harrison offers all of us a thinking approach to question those who approach us with these kinds of claims. He encourages us to utilize the scientific process when we “bump up against weird things in everyday life,” and I must say that in my 24 years in education, I've seen some pretty weird and outrageous educational claims.

Here’s Harrison’s steps to exercising skepticism toward extraordinary claims and my own suggestions for how it would apply in a school leadership role.

• Ask questions. According to Harrison, asking questions is critical. We should not passively accept what we are told by policymakers, politicians and even educational researchers making claims. Educators are notorious for sometimes being sheep and avoiding asking the tough questions. As Tienken and Orlich state in their book, The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myths and Lies, "Education professionals have a history of not asking why." Being educated, you would think educators would explode with questions in the face of educational claims, but too often they fall prey to arguments of authority or because someone has 90 years experience as an educator, as if that's somehow a substitute for real proof. Sometimes the right question, according to Harrison can derail the most invalid claim. Being an educator-skeptic doesn't mean you are being disrespectful. It means you are being loyal to reality and not to an idea, policymaker, boss, or friend.
• Observe. This is something educators sometimes don’t do well either. We need to do as Harrison suggests and “look and listen with deliberate effort.” When some policy or educational practice is implemented, and even before, we should observe it for how it works and how it affects others. Our job as educators should never be guardians of the latest educational fad or program. The burden of proof isn't on us; it's on those who push the practice. We shouldn't be marshaling evidence to defend someone else's practice. We should be willing to simply look at the evidence and decide for ourselves whether it is working as it should. And, as advocates for children, we should be willing to speak up when practices harm children and learning or are a waste of resources.
• Research. Harrison reminds us that “If you look for it, it’s not difficult to find credible information about most claims.” We should do our own “fact-checking.” As educators most of us have experience with research and how its conducted, so you would think we would demand that information we receive about a product or practice have the best scientific support and rationale. Take the claims about using value-added measures  in teacher evaluations and how it can increase student achievement. There’s no research to support that claim no matter where you look. Intuitively it makes sense, but those who advocate for its use in teacher evaluations don’t have an ounce of support for the practice, yet we've implemented it across our entire state as well as others. Educators owe their students and themselves to conduct research about claims made from outside education and from above and within.
• Experiment. So many things we do in education are obviously not subject to scientific experimentation, after all, try telling parents at your school that you’re experimenting with their kids and see how far that gets you. It’s just not ethical sometimes to perform blind studies on our students. But, that does not mean that we can’t look at the research and see if someone has examined a practice or reviewed its effectiveness to see if there is any basis in the claim. We only need to look at the effects of policy on our kids and teachers to see how it is working. We can also engage in our own case studies and collect information from those who experience the program or practice. That is data too, and perhaps the best data because it tells us how a policy and practice is affecting our students and staff locally. We should constantly study how policy and practice affects what we do.
• Share ideas and conclusions with others. As Harrison points out, this is a “great way to get feedback from people who may know more that we do about a claim.” We aren't trying to debunk or discredit. We should be trying to get at the truth. We should share how policy, practices, and products actually are working in our schools.

As Harrison points out, “Smart and honest people are sincerely wrong all the time.” The person pushing the latest education reform initiative or a new instructional approach certainly may be sincere and honest. Their intentions may be saintly; they want to do what’s best for kids. But that does not mean we give them a pass due to their saintly intentions. In the end, the obligation for proof should ideally fall in the laps of the sellers: those pushing new educational products, new policy, and new practices. But, when such proof or support will not stand up under the scrutiny of questions, observation, research, experimentation, our obligation is still with reality and our students.

Harrison definitely makes clear what can happen to unsubstantiated claims when he states, “Only hollow beliefs tremble when confronted by reason, and only false claims collapse when skeptical thinking is applied.” In an age when new reforms and approaches are being flung in our direction at light speed, skepticism should definitely be in our leadership toolbox. We owe to ourselves and our students to subject all claims to reason and thinking.

Time for School Leaders to See Teaching as 21st Century Profession, Not Assembly-Line Work

School leaders and policymakers have a serious misperception about the role and job of teaching that undermines teaching as a profession and perpetuates the view that the role of teaching is akin to being an assembly-line worker. It is no wonder American politicians, policymakers and corporate reformers have bought wholeheartedly into the idea of value-added teacher evaluations. When you hold a deep-seated view that a teacher’s job is simply to “add value” in the form of knowledge as students roll through the classroom assembly line, then the perception is that the “physical act of imparting knowledge"---or teaching in this view---is just about being physically in front of students and nothing else.

Americans have long held the belief that teachers aren't doing their jobs unless they are in front of kids. Planning periods and professional development as well as tasks like grading papers are never calculated into the teacher workday, and that demonstrates fully that the American education system stubbornly holds on to a dated and ancient view of both what exactly is the act of teaching. In short, we just can’t give up the view that teachers should only be paid for the actual time they are in front of kids. We then expect them to spend hours in the afternoon-evenings and on weekends grading papers, lesson planning and attending to their professional development.

It’s time for school administrators and policymakers to remember that good teaching starts with all those things teachers do outside of the classroom too. It’s too bad we can’t let go of this factory model view of teachers and start to discuss some real 21st century solutions that will allow teachers to increase their professional capacity by restructuring both the time and amount of time teachers spend in front of students. After all, are our teachers babysitters for parents while they work, or are they professionals who are actually engaged in one of the noblest of professions?

In his book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland, Pasi Sahlberg writes:

“In lower-secondary schools, on average, Finnish teachers teach about 600 hours annually (i.e., 800 lessons of 45 minutes each). This corresponds to four teaching lessons daily. According to the OECD, in the United States the average annual total teaching time in lower-secondary grades is 1,080 hours, which, in turn, equals six or more daily lessons or other forms of instruction of 50 minutes each.”

In other words, the Finnish education system sees teaching much more broadly than we in America do.  They see those activities---professional development, tutoring, grading student work, providing remediation---as much a part of “teaching” as being in front of the classroom. For years, American education has expected teachers to do these things on their own time, even with paltry efforts to provide planning period time during the school day.

If we wanted to do one thing that would have the greatest impact on teaching and student learning, perhaps we need to more broadly define “teaching” as the Finns do. For example, we might:

• Consider teacher planning times as sacred and not fill them up with mundane and mandated meetings. Allow teachers to use that time for planning, grading, and even re-mediating students.
• Rethink our views of “teaching” to include all the things effective teachers do---planning, creating new learning activities, grading/providing feedback, tutoring, professional development. We really do need to stop thinking of teachers as only doing their job when they’re in front of kids.
• Hold professional development during the regular workday rather than expect teachers to sit in the afternoons after spending all day teaching. I still remember how scattered and tired my mind was at the end of the day was after facing multiple classrooms full of students. Professional development need to be melded to the act of teaching. It should be included as part of the workday.
• Look at how we can restructure our school days to allow for more time to do all the things required to be a good teacher instead of expecting that teachers do these things on their time, at home or after school. It’s no wonder teachers burn out and tire of the profession. How many other professions are expected to work without pay? We need to create schedules that allow teachers to devote time to all the tasks of teaching.

We Americans, especially school leaders, politicians, and policymakers have a mistaken perception of what should be included in the act of “teaching” when it comes to how we structure compensation and what teachers do day-to-day. We like to boast about 21st century schooling and teaching, while at the same time we hold on stubbornly to a 20th century perception of the teaching profession. Maybe it’s time we let that go. We need to redefine teaching broadly in how we manage our schools and include time for teachers to do all that teachers do in their school day.