Archive for the ‘Book Summaries’ Category

Counting What Counts: Reframing Education Outcomes by Yong Zhao and friends takes on the current system with its focus on standardized tests and their sole focus on cognitive skills. Chapters are devoted to defining a variety of non-cognitive skills that are connected with success in life and the current status of how to assess them. They make a case for a new paradigm that would move the system towards more personalized learning and assessment with more focus on non-cognitive skills. Be sure to add this fine book to your professional development library.

Introduction – The Danger of Misguiding Outcomes: Lessons From Easter Island – Yong Zhao

• Yong uses the story of how the natives of Easter Island overexploited the resources in a race to build ever bigger statues. He compares this to the current race to produce students with excellent tests scores. Here he makes the case that the obsession with test scores has and will continue to damage our education ecosystem. It has resulted in cheating, teaching to the test, focusing on students on the pass/fail border, and limiting the focus on subjects not tested. We are destroying teacher autonomy as we ignore real challenges like poverty, unsafe neighborhoods, and unequal access.
• We are striving to produce a homogeneous population rather than supporting diverse talents. Routine knowledge and skills are stressed and they can easily be outsourced or automated. There are many negative side effects that are not considered unlike drug companies that must evaluate and publish side effects of their products. Creativity and non-cognitive skills are ignored. Students good at taking tests might not be good at anything else.

1. Numbers Can Lie: The Meaning and Limitations of Test Scores – Yong Zhao

• Humans are too complex to be reduced to a single number, and such numbers should not be used to make life-changing decisions. Research indicates that IQ tests have limited predictive power. Personality variables like high and stable self-esteem appear to be decisive for life success. SAT and ACT tests are much less predictive of college success than a student’s high school GPA. After many years, the Common Core Standards don’t appear to make students college ready, while motivation, time management skills, and awareness of postsecondary norms and culture do.
• A look at international tests shows that U.S. students have been bad at test taking for a long time. Such scores would suggest that by now the U.S. would be an economic backwater, but the facts suggest otherwise. It’s possible that countries that obsess about tests more than we do have discouraged the cultivation of creative and entrepreneurial spirits.

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Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica ©2015 offers advice for educators and policy makers that can bring rigorous, personalized, and engaged education to everyone. As a leading voice in education, it’s vital that anyone interested hear what Sir Ken has to say. If you haven’t seen his number one TED Talk check that out too. Click at the bottom on any page to purchase this necessary book.

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD and Lou Aronica

• Sir Ken is an English author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to governments, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education. He is the author of The Element, Finding Your Element, and Out of Ours Minds. His 2006 TED Talk How Schools Kill Creativity is the most watched in history with over 33 million views. Originally from a working-class Liverpool family, Robinson now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Marie-Therese and children James and Kate.
• Lou Aronica is the author of three novels and the coauthor of several works of nonfiction, including the national best sellers The Culture Code, The Element, and Finding Your Element.

Introduction: One Minute to Midnight

• The current reforms are being driven by political and commercial interests that misunderstand how real people learn, and how great schools work. As a result they are damaging the prospects of countless young people. The standards culture is harming students. In response, Sir Ken continues to push for a more balanced, individualized, and creative approach to education. Instead, schools take children with voracious appetites for learning and see to it that their appetites are dulled as they go through school. Current efforts focused on raising standards through competition and accountability do not work, and compound the problems they claim to solve. If you design a system based on standardization and conformity, you suppress individuality, imagination, and creativity. Schools that were designed to produce factory workers resemble factories with their assembly line approach. Current reforms stick with this approach only to be less in tune with the circumstances of the 21st century. Sir Ken thinks that schools need to be transformed not reformed, and that we know how to do it even though we aren’t.

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Critical Issues in Democratic Schooling: Curriculum, Teaching, and Socio-Political Realities by Kenneth Teitelbaum is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs. Each chapter can easily form the basis for whole class and small group engaging conversations on topics that prospective teachers need to confront. It’s also a great book that will allow practicing teachers and administrators to question their practices. If you are looking for a book to give all of the teachers in your building for professional development, look no farther.

Part I: Teaching and Teacher Education
1. Teaching Has Its Own Rewards

• Teaching is a profession for those who want to create and inspire, for those who love learning, for those who care about our future, and for those who like to watch young people develop. Students don’t reveal what they are thinking or learning. The most important learning is difficult to capture and may not be known until much later. Likewise, the rewards of teaching are also difficult to measure. (Doug: Like Ken, positive feedback from former students and parents always makes my day.)

2. Despite What Some Think, Teaching Isn’t Easy

• This thinking emanates from the fact that mostly women taught in the last 150 years. A child’s education begins at home so all parents are essentially teachers. Stresses faced in the home and elsewhere outside of school impact behavior in school add difficulties when it comes to dealing with emotional issues and evolving subject matter. The questions of who selects the content and what content to select are also central. Decisions regarding how to deliver content seem endless as are the roles that teachers are expected to play. Time may be the biggest constraint. Teachers, therefore, need proper support and compensation.

3. Reasons to be a Teacher

• It certainly is not the money. Ken’s research and my own show that teacher salaries have not kept up with inflation since I started in 1970. There has also been some erosion in benefits and loss of autonomy due to test-driven expectations and their repercussions. Many teachers work well beyond the 40-hour work week and most will tell you that students have become more unruly over the years. This may have caused fewer people to prepare for a career in teaching, but the current shortage should make jobs easier to find.
• Ken finds seven reasons that still draw people to the profession. 1) Independence and Collaboration: To some extent, teachers are free to decide how they will present the desired content. They should also be able to work with other teachers, although the time available to do so depends on leadership. 2) Lifelong Learning: If teachers seek excellence, they are always thinking about how to improve. As lifelong learners, they will enjoy learning and improving daily. 3) Creative Imagination: Taking reasonable creative risks will make teaching more fun for all. This will help you avoid getting stuck in a rut but consider discussing such risks with your supervisor. 4) Forever Young: Lighting fires in young people is exhilarating and revitalizing. It keeps you stay hip and young at heart. 5) A Noble Profession: In spite of the fact that the media often bashes schools, teaching is widely considered a noble profession by the public. 6) Helping to Create a Better World: Teaching is a profession of hope, and even though you won’t know exactly how you made the world better, you will believe that you did. 7) Student Growth: We all have stories about teachers who made a difference in our lives. You may not see incremental growth daily, but it’s there.

4. “Work With What You’ve Got”

• If you see oppression or injustice in any form be sure to speak up. If you see that school practices or policies at any level are ineffective say so. You may not have all the autonomy you want, but work with what you have. You have to believe that schools can change over time for the better. You may have to make some small compromises, but they are probably worth it.

5. Lessons from Alternative (Progressive) Schooling

• These schools are mostly private so the students are more likely to have more means and skills than typical public school students. Ken has worked in, visited, and read about such schools. In essence, the students are much more in control of what they study, the teacher talks less, and usually intervenes when students need help with skills necessary to pursue their chosen learning. Students are essentially self-directed learners, which requires skills that poor students may not have.
• While such schools are not noted for the longitudinal follow-up that can determine how their students did, the data available suggests that the students do fine and tend to be happier and more self-confident. The atmosphere of trust found at these schools could account for that. Creativity, problem-solving, and project-based learning are seen throughout the day. Ken hopes to see more of this in public schools in spite of the roadblocks created by standardized curriculum and testing.

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