By Travis
The school of the future will not be housed on a cloud, or a floating pod. The school of the future will not have whole sides of buildings made out of windows, nor will students sit, discussing great works of literature through their hand-held discussion devices.
No, the school of the future is more real.
It IS attainable.
It IS possible.
The school if the future will have No Tardies, No Failing Students, and No Homework. The school of the future is only a few years away.
This future school is not far away. This is the future of schools as created (and in some cases—pushed) by schools in my area.
This is not a positive future. This is not science fiction where the ills of humanity are solved through social construction. It is a dystopic story.
In this story .. and please recognize that I am using story to distance myself from the reality that this future school plays in my life … in this story, through spoken, and unspoken means, several of the middle schools in my area are pushing the future policies of:
No tardies: students are not tardy if they show up to class. This is a modification of the current policy that encourages attendance as such–if a student shows up to class, at all, no matter how late, they are considered tardy rather than absent.
No students can fail: students cannot fail. For a student to fail, the system has failed. And clearly the system has not failed because here it is. Assigning a demonstrated failing grade to a student is bad for his or her self esteem; moreover, it puts the school in conflict with the community.
No homework: students are not going to do it anyway and parents complain that there is too much so the best thing to do is require all learning within the class period, and no extension or practice outside of class.
I have seen some of these trends make their way into the high schools. I do not teach in elementary schools so I do not know, but please inform me–is it like this in elementary?
Scared yet? I am. But let's take a step back for a moment. A school that succeeds academically does not have to have homework, and will, as a result of being academically successful, not have quite the number of failing students that are in schools today. And tardies … probably not since the kids want to get to class on time. In this high achieving school, the policies are more likely to be Timeliness, Achieving, and Learning. These are the results of a successful school.
A school cannot adopt a “No” policy and hope that it will create a successful school. Moreover, schools cannot change the rules or meanings of these three policies to “cook the books.” It does a disservice to students, family, our communities, and our schools.
The concept is indeed breathtaking. This model could be the future format for exclusive private schools in the near future. Healthier learning environment for the students.
I do not have much experience with education outside of America. However, it seems like in America we have freedom of curriculum and freedom of teaching style and what happens is that school systems have difficulty with so many diverging styles. Perhaps the hope would be for one of the two to be “similar” enough.
Similar curriculum and let to the teacher to decide how to implement for the students. Or similar instructional style, but the curriculum is decided by the teacher based on student needs. American education may lack a metanarrative.
I know that schools, districts, and states are moving toward common standards and assessments. Hopefully this will be good for the country. (Only good if the focus is strong and focused, but teachers are given the professional freedom to instruct in a way that is based on student need and intentional skill building.)
Tamara, you wrote, “But could greater autonomy within the framework of a common curriculum be a starting point for the institutional change we are all craving?” I would say yes, and I would say it works, and did work when I and two other teachers did so.
We did not teach the same subject, and we did not instruct in the same way. However, we had enough common pieces. The three of us had the same assessment system, routines, relearning strategies, classroom expectations, and after school help. This put Math, Science, and English on the same classroom set up. The curriculum was different subjects, and the teachers left to their own styles.
I changed schools the following year so I was unable to track the experiment and evaluate it. However, our school had two house for the 8th grade. House A and House B. The house of the three of us, scored significantly higher on reading and math and science. Reading was something along the lines of 80% passing rather than 50%. (I can find the data if someone calls me on it, but the illustration is sound.) The houses were not tracked and theoretically broken into 2 sets of peer-similar houses.
Curriculum focus. Instructional autonomy.
Just thinking my thoughts as a comment. Not attached to any of it.
The autonomy question is important… and it seems many issues circle back around to teacher autonomy and professional discretion.
Mark-you are absolutely right: other countries are not committed to taking all comers. That and their vocational tracks do make for an “apples to oranges” comparison in terms of student acheivement.
For this discussion though I’m not thinking so much about student acheivement as I am what school/teacher autonomy would do for sparking change in utional culture issue Travis raised.
As a society we have committed to educating everyone and tracking is seen through a negative lense. I don’t see either of those things changing (though I think there is good evidence of posiive outcomes from a tracked system). What I think we could change is school/teacher autonomy within a common framework.
Tamara–I think one element in the other-country comparison is that, from my understanding (and I might be wrong), those systems are not charged with taking all comers. I believe there are alternative tracks akin to a vocational/skills training track… hence the inherent difference in the system: we just get compared to the “college” track. Again…don’t quote me on that one.
The “Cult of Sameness”-isn’t that the truth!
What I find interesting though is how systems like Finnland and Singapore whose foundation is a common national curriculum appear to avoid the trap of sameness. Could it be because individual schools and teachers in those systems are given the freedom and trusted to deliver the common curriculum in a manner that best suits their students’ and communities’ needs? What if we were given that kind of autonomy? Would that be a potential solution? Especially as we wrestle with the implementation of Common Core? Now it doesn’t directly address the institutional culture of sameness you have pointed out. But could greater autonomy within the framework of a common curriculum be a starting point for the institutional change we are all craving?
Mark, the solution is not an easy one. It is one with which I continually work. Kids change. My methods have to constantly change. Sometimes my methods change fast enough. Sometimes not at all.
The solution is time and dedication. I am not saying that teachers have free time and I am not saying that teachers are not dedicated. However, as individuals we make less of a difference than if we were a body of improvement.
If a student is consistently tardy, talk with the student. Let the parents know, invite people to a meeting. This meeting would not be one to find penalties for tardies, but solutions. Student is failing, invite student in after school; let the parents know; call the parents more than once in that week.
As a body of educators, if more than one was in contact with the parent and student, change would occur.
The world of education is not going to get better, and it will not get better with whatever the current phrase or boxed up goods are (which, interestingly, a veteran teacher will pull out a book from the 60s saying the same thing).
What teachers can offer that no one else can is time and dedication which applied to specific needs in an intentional way will make a difference.
And the difference is always stronger if it is more than one person.
No tone in particular, certainly not an aggressive one. I just am curious what the solution is… I see in your post the same kind of “no”ing that you advocate against. No “no” policies. No adopting canned methods. I agree with both those assertions. So what “yes” is in their place? Even “timeliness, achieving, learning” is a statement of philosophy, not a statement of action…it doesn’t make clear what must be done. As with your assertion about the no tardies et al., schools will not make progress when being told what not to do. This, perhaps, is part of the reason for the desperate grasping at acronyms, as they seem to imply a “yes” answer which tells us what to do…not what not to do.
I can you tell you this much, Travis: in my elementary school kids are tardy when they’re late and they have homework every night. I’m not sure about failing, though. We give kids low grades, which in my school is a “1” and it means that they aren’t making any progress toward standard, which is almost impossible to achieve.
Mark, I am unable to fully read your tone, but to answer your questions. Yes, it was the staff. They were great people and good teachers, but put more faith in an easy solution (cut of sameness) rather than figure out what was needed.
Oddly, this same school had a presentation where they had a series of TShirts as the visual for one size does not fit all, but when it came down to SIP; schedules; behavior; and leadership … It was a size medium. One medium.
So what is the solution? You imply that the problem is the staff, since if the staff were dedicated, they could do it without a packaged program.
I think the biggest problem is that we look for simple, universal solutions to problems which are actually complex and discrete. There is absolutely no reason why building X should do exactly what building Y does, even if building Y sees success. Same is true for classrooms X and Y. The sameness movement (I’ve now taken to calling it the “cult of sameness”) is the most destructive weapon the education system can use upon itself. And it’s all the rage right now.
Mark, I hear you on the PBIS. However, like anything, and especially things with initials and packaged up, the success of such a PBIS relies on the implementation and people. I have worked in schools using PBIS where the staff was convinced that just by using PBIS the school situation would work. It did not. No surprise there.
It is not PBIS. It is the people and the commitment to implementation. Think of all the behavior things we have lived through in our career thus far. I find it scary that so many great fix-it-alls could exist and yet no change the school culture. I find it scary that people think it will. I understand why it does not.
Yes, PBIS, Love and Logic, BHAG, XYZ are all good, if used, and implemented, by dedicated staff. However, if the staff were dedicated, they could do it without a packaged program.
Sounds to me like you’d like PBIS. I was at one point on a district committee about implementing this approach. The gist: we cultivate what we pay attention to… if we’re about “no, no, no,” then we are focusing more on what we don’t want than what we do… when our efforts ought to be on cultivating what we do want, so let’s pay attention to that.