Collaborative Economy and Education

Earlier this year Newsweek declared “we are all socialists now“. According to a new article at Wired they were right, but not in the way they thought.

You see there is something that has been growing through the internet for some time. Sharing of all sorts of information, cooperation on everything from flikr tags to digging news, and collaborating on open source software are all signs of what Wired calls New Socialism.

from Wired

We’re not talking about your grandfather’s socialism. In fact, there is a long list of past movements this new socialism is not. It is not class warfare. It is not anti-American; indeed, digital socialism may be the newest American innovation. While old-school socialism was an arm of the state, digital socialism is socialism without the state. This new brand of socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather than government—for now.

If, as Wired suggests, our economy is moving toward one of collaboration through technology what does that mean for education?

In a recent post, I touched upon how this effects college learning. It almost goes unsaid that k-12 is a different matter.

Classrooms could begin with sharing. Children could journal their experiences learning on the subjects, or share classwork with everyone. Children would have a chance to help fellow students with problem areas and see ways doing accomplishing the work they might not have thought of.

Cooperative work toward a larger goal is an important life lesson. Now this is not the same as working collaboratively. Cooperative work in this context means everyone working individually toward a common goal. Wired gives this example.

from Wired

Not only have amateurs shared more than 3 billion photos on Flickr, but they have tagged them with categories, labels, and keywords. Others in the community cull the pictures into sets. The popularity of Creative Commons licensing means that communally, if not outright communistically, your picture is my picture. Anyone can use a photo, just as a communard might use the community wheelbarrow. I don’t have to shoot yet another photo of the Eiffel Tower, since the community can provide a better one than I can take myself.

Now picture a class doing a unit on the Civil War. Everyone is researching a topic on their own, but their goal is to grasp the larger picture of the whole conflict, being as in-depth or broad as the teacher wishes. Students with overlapping topics can share information, getting a different perspective on their individual topics. The students could then produce a wiki on the project, which could be used by each student to answer questions about the Civil War.

Working in groups is a useful task that New Socialism supports. Just look at how collaborative efforts have revolutionized software. Apache Web software is a prime example of collaborative open source success. When open source developers were asked what their prime motivation for coding open source most answered, to learn and develop new skills.”

Working toward a collective goal is the foundation of nearly all businesses. Whether your selling flowers, building houses, or managing payroll all employees are working to toward the same goal. Many times this work is done collectively. Working together in groups is essential for students. In life we must learn to work with others, even if we aren’t face to face with our collaborators. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses they bring to a group. The key is how to properly highlight those strengths and minimize those weaknesses to arrive at the best end result. Children who learn these skills early will be far ahead of the game in school and in the global economy.

Texas Grading Policy Epic Fail – Minimum grades for failing students

“Everything is bigger in Texas” is how that oft used saying goes. When it comes to education policy in Texas the saying still applies. The state’s newest exercise in grading can be nothing but a massive failure.

Many Texas school districts have imposed minimum grades teachers can give to students. A score of 50 or 60 has been set in some districts, with a few raising the bottom to 70! When I went to school a 70 would have been a C-/D+ depending on the teacher. A student could theoretically not turn in an assignment or completely bomb a test and still receive an average score.

from Web Watch

Republican Senator Jane Nelson, a former teacher who introduced the bill, said the practice of putting a minimum on student grades encourages students to “game” the system.

“Kids are smart and can figure it out,” she said. “A student in one of these districts with a minimum grade of 70 can sit in class and say, ‘I don’t have to do any homework, I don’t have to answer any questions on tests, and they still have to give me a 70 no matter what.”

Let’s teach our children how to cheat the system. That’s a noble aim to teaching. Districts employing these policies cite dropout rates and providing a “safety net” as reasons for the minimum grading policy.

from Dallas News

“There are students who make mistakes and wind up with poor grades in one grading period during the semester,” said Leslie James, assistant superintendent for policy and planning in the Fort Worth school district. “If they are not allowed to turn it around, it can become hopeless for the student. They need an opportunity to bounce back.”

James’ comment shows the lack of faith in teachers. Now while I have been an advocate in greater accountability of both teachers and students, this sort of micromanaging hurts classroom efforts. James is telling teachers, “I don’t believe you will give students adequate opportunity to make up work they’ve missed. You wont give them help to boost their poor grades either. You also don’t know how to grade students. Let us tell you how to do your job.” A teacher is in the classroom with these students. Few teachers want to fail anyone. Their job is to produce success in their students. So when they do we must recognize there is reason behind that.

This whole notion of a safety net disturbs me to no end. In “A for Effort. F in life.” I wrote about the dangers of protecting children from failure in school. Instilling children with a sense of entitlement to rewards without the work sets children up for massive failure in life. I haven’t change my mind. There is no safety net in life. An employer is not going to keep an employee who constantly performs below expectations but believes they are doing just fine. How can this person be expected to improve?

We are preparing kids for the outside world. The rewards from quality work can be great and ultimately more satisfying than just doing the bare minimum (or less than that in Texas’ case). The consequences of failure in the real world can be a cardboard box with the safety net of a soup kitchen.

The Sad State of History Education

Clay wrote about updating how we teach history recently at Change.org

from Change.org

I’m tutoring a couple of Korean students home for the summer from their Oregon high school. Like many English language learners, they’re wonderfully bright, but challenged by the readability level of their assigned high school texts. And like many students generally, all their years of schooling in history have failed to equip them with any coherent understanding of the flow of history at all.

This I’ve confirmed with almost all students (not just English Language Learners) in high school classrooms over the years by doing this simple exercise: Scramble the major periods of history in a random cluster on the board or a handout – you know, “Medieval Period,” “Cold War,” “Roman Empire,” “Enlightenment,” “Age of Exploration,” “Classical Greece,” “Industrial Revolution,” “Greek Heroic Age/Trojan War,” “Renaissance,” “Sumer,” “Solomon Builds the Jewish Temple,” “Scientific Revolution,” “Alexander the Great,” “World War I and II,” “Mohammed and Islam,” “The Crusades,” “Egyptian Pharoahs,” “The Reformation,” “Buddha,” “The Romantic Era,” “The Catholic Church Begins,” “Confucius.” (We can quibble about this list, of course, but for now play along.)

Then tell the students: “Make a list in which you place these major historical events and periods in the correct chronological order. Then, write the approximate dates you think each one took place or began.”

Then wander the room monitoring the students’ progress. In almost all cases, depending on your personality, you’ll either laugh or weep. It’s not unusual to see the Industrial Revolution occurring before the Middle Ages, the Holocaust during the Enlightenment, and Columbus before Confucius. Stalin was a Renaissance Man. What a muddle.

Clay’s post (read the whole thing, it’s great) really got me thinking: what is wrong with history education these days?

I recall from numerous college history classes how little people know. Even obvious questions from the professors were usually met by silence. For a history nerd it was quite disheartening.

While it disappoints me that people can’t at least place eras in the right order, I’m sure we can all agree that memorizing dates is probably one of the worst approaches to history (Though I’ll never forget the Battle of Hastings October 1066).

What gets me most is the lack of understanding of the whys of history. Most people can’t explain the Civil War beyond stopping slavery, which really was not Lincoln’s aim at first. How many know more than “taxation without representation” as a cause of our Revolution, let alone who we fought? Don’t even get me started on all the fallacies and halve-truths taught to students as written in stone facts.

Why are we so afraid to get down in the dirt with history. That would be the best way to engage students. Of course now we be a good time to advocate discovery learning as well.

A Rest On Standardized Tests?

No Child Left Behind, just reading the word makes many cringe and strong men faint. George W Bush’s magnum opus in education policy has become a symbol for his presidency, good idea with a terrible execution. Perhaps the most damaging aspect of NCLB was its push for standardized testing. Those in education have long debated standardized testing. How fair are they? Do they make teachers teach to the tests? What do they actually prove?

Should the government completely scrap No Child? No, it shouldn’t. I may be going out on a flimsy limb here, but NCLB is not a total disaster. Schools have just pushed students ahead for too long. The further along they are pushed, the larger the deficit in their education grows. By the time students reach high school, most are too embarrassed to ask for help and simply drop out. Few of these students will attend any type of higher education, becoming low wage earners and possible drags on society. It should be a crime in this nation to let any child fall into this position. NCLB took an important first step. No Child forced schools to set standards they should have set in the first place.

Don’t worry my praise for Bush’s baby ends here. No Child encourages teaching to the test. So what if a student can answer a multiple question? That doesn’t prove a child really understands the material. A child should be able to take what they have learned and apply it to many different areas and situations. Our lives do not function in a vacuum. Why should we expect our children to spout information in one?

Lastly, what do the tests themselves actually prove? What happens when a student who begins the year not being able to read, learns during the school year, but still does not meet the NCLB standard at the end of the year? NCLB considers hat child a failure. Growth based test scores are the answer. Each child is an individual, even each state and region of this nation are individual. How can we expect everyone to follow the same standard? The government needs to reward improvement. Curriculum and test requirements that focus on student growth are essential.

A Rest On Standardized Tests?

No Child Left Behind, just reading the word makes many cringe and strong men faint. George W Bush’s magnum opus in education policy has become a symbol for his presidency, good idea with a terrible execution. Perhaps the most damaging aspect of NCLB was its push for standardized testing. Those in education have long debated standardized testing. How fair are they? Do they make teachers teach to the tests? What do they actually prove?

Should the government completely scrap No Child? No, it shouldn’t. I may be going out on a flimsy limb here, but NCLB is not a total disaster. Schools have just pushed students ahead for too long. The further along they are pushed, the larger the deficit in their education grows. By the time students reach high school, most are too embarrassed to ask for help and simply drop out. Few of these students will attend any type of higher education, becoming low wage earners and possible drags on society. It should be a crime in this nation to let any child fall into this position. NCLB took an important first step. No Child forced schools to set standards they should have set in the first place.

Don’t worry my praise for Bush’s baby ends here. No Child encourages teaching to the test. So what if a student can answer a multiple question? That doesn’t prove a child really understands the material. A child should be able to take what they have learned and apply it to many different areas and situations. Our lives do not function in a vacuum. Why should we expect our children to spout information in one?

Lastly, what do the tests themselves actually prove? What happens when a student who begins the year not being able to read, learns during the school year, but still does not meet the NCLB standard at the end of the year? NCLB considers hat child a failure. Growth based test scores are the answer. Each child is an individual, even each state and region of this nation are individual. How can we expect everyone to follow the same standard? The government needs to reward improvement. Curriculum and test requirements that focus on student growth are essential.