Archive for June, 2007

Mr. Wizard – a democratic educator

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Don Herbert, known to young people from several generations as “Mr. Wizard,” passed away yesterday. Like many others I watched “Mr. Wizard’s World” while growing up, and loved to see the fun, wacky experiments he would take up with his young apprentices.

When I read the NY Times obituary for Herbert, it dawned on me (since I hadn’t thought of him for years) that Mr. Wizard was a great model for how adults can interact with kids with respect and dignity. Mr. Wizard treated the young people on the show as fellow scientists with ideas and opinions that mattered just as much as his own. Rather than lecturing and showing the kids experiments, Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert, of course) involved them in the experiments’ creation and implementation.

As Physicist Frank Wilczek from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton noted in a 1990 interview, “What was really remarkable about Mr. Wizard was that he talked to the kids as if they were real people.” Had Mr. Herbert acted with the more typical directive and authoritarian style that many adults use to talk to and treat young people, I highly doubt that so many scientists and others today would mention Mr. Wizard as an important influence (as did about half of applicants to Rockefeller University in the 1960s and ’70s, according to the article).

Thank you, Don Herbert, for inspiring so many people and for showcasing to the world that young people can and ought to be treated with respect.

Posted in Democratic Education | 2 Comments »

From bad to worse

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

As though increased standardized tests, narrow one-size-fits-no one standards, high-stakes consequences for students and schools, and merit-pay for teachers based on test scores were not enough, now there is a new idea being toted in New York City to bring the completely inappropriate business model into education some more: (drum role please…)

Paying kids money if they do well on the tests!

Yes, believe it or not, several NYC schools and the NYC Department of Education are discussing paying 4th and 7th graders up to $25 or $50 for high scores (See the NY Times article). The initiator of this plan is one Roland G. Fryer, a Harvard economist (hmm, surprise surprise, an economist is suggesting this plan!) who believes that paying kids will improve their test scores. Fryer, and Chancellor Klein, Mayor Bloomberg and other supporters, seem to ignore (or, more likely, dismiss) the common sense fact that the motivation for learning will cease to be to learn and grow and will become the desire to get money. Anyone with just a slight knowledge or awareness of human psychology will realize that such a plan has only very brief and highly suspect temporary benefits (and I would not even call higher scores on a narrow test a benefit) and significant long-term damage to young people’s development of intrinsic motivation.

Not to mention the classist undertones here in which low-income kids will be expected to increase their scores to get some extra cash, which they can then spend on their family’s groceries and other bills. Hmm, what about helping kids through programs to end the unjust gap between the rich and the poor rather than taking advantage of poor kids’ need for more money??

Eric Nadelstern, NYC director of the so-called Empowerment Schools (where principals gain so-called autonomy in exchange for increased accountability and testing that ends up greatly reducing autonomy in terms of curricular and learning choices) shows his true colors by giving his “enthusiastic support” for this plan.

But my favorite quote is from Tom Loveless from the supposed left-leaning Brookings Institution, who says “I don’t think we should let our queasiness over directly awarding kids with cash prevent us from experimenting. We need to find out if this works or not.” In other words, although he recognizes some discomfort with giving kids money for their test scores, apparently the dubious ends justify the shameful means.

Perhaps we should jail kids who do poorly on the tests – Hey, let’s not let our queasiness with locking kids up prevent us from trying it to see if it works!

Posted in NYC Education | 3 Comments »

Again with the business model in education!

Friday, June 8th, 2007

When will we stop talking about young people, learning, and education in the terms used to describe the production of widgets or the development of an investment fund? Human beings, and young human beings especially, must be considered in a completely different manner from business production – unless, of course, we wish young people to become as lifeless and standardized as the widgets we produce. And perhaps that is what some officials and education leaders want to create, so that their own children (often sent to private schools or elite public schools and school districts that use more innovative methods) have less competition to become the leaders of tomorrow.

A report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education finds that there are wide differences in standards across states, creating (according to the NY Times’s Tamar Lewin) “a patchwork of educational inequities around the country, with no common yardstick to determine whether schoolchildren are learning enough.” Certainly if we take a business model to education, then of course we need to standardize standards across states, to ensure that the product (”every student”) is at the highest possible level (”learns enough”). [You can read the entire report on the DoE website]

But human beings, including young people, are composed of a brain, heart, emotions, intellect, compassion, insight. We are NOT simply conglomerates of metals and plastics like the widgets our companies produce. Every human being and young person is unique: we have different strengths and weaknesses, we learn different things at different rates, some of us are stronger in some areas than other areas. Moreover, the exploding information age is leading to a whole new set of skills and qualities that are important to succeed and lead a fulfilling life, including creativity, independence, innovation, collaboration, and critical thinking.

It is time to end our use and abuse of the business model in education, and instead take up the more humanized framework of Educational Human Rights and that of respecting the individuality of each young person.

Using this Human Rights framework we replace standardization, competition, and authoritarianism with personalization, collaboration, and democracy. This is the present and the future of education.

Posted in Education Policy, Framing and Public Outreach, Research and Reports | No Comments »