What is the role of "amateur educators?"

The Utah State Legislature began its 2011 session recently, which has meant a fair amount of media coverage of what sorts of legislation might be proposed during over the next couple of months.  One interesting (and pretty controversial) bill proposed by Senator Chris Buttars has centered around the question of who should have control of public education.  Buttars believes that local school boards and the State Board of Education have too much control and wants to shift more power into the hands of the legislature and the governor.  While part of the debate has to do with how money is spent and how to make schools and districts accountable for the use of tax monies, there are also questions about what should be taught in schools and how it should be taught.  

Arguments over who should hold the lion's share of the power over what happens in schools (i.e. legislators or school boards) is interesting  because neither group has much formal training or experience in education.  Granted, there are current and retired educators found on school boards and in state legislatures, but they are surely a small minority.  The bulk of these groups are business people, attorneys, physicians, farmers, homemakers, and others who in some sense become amateur educators with a great deal of influence over what happens in schools.  

There are plenty of good reasons for this to happen.  For the most part, we are a country who believes that education matters and that we all have something to gain from having an educated citizenry.  Consequently, educational issues are seen as impacting all of us, whether we are parents of school-age children, educators employed in the system, or just concerned citizens.  And, because education matters for all of us, we are all given some voice in what happens in schools.  We vote for state and federal politicians who enact educational policy and carry it out.  And, we vote for local school boards who have influence over issues more close to home.  This happens even more often outside of the traditional public school system where we see charter and public school boards made up of non-educators who are interested in what happens in their schools.  

We structure things this way, in part, based on the belief that the "crowd is wise" and that inviting participation from a large and diverse group of people can improve decisions and systems.  The tension it creates is determining when to involve "the crowd" and when to ask educators to apply their expertise to educational problems.  I don't have an answer, but it seems like an important question to raise and discuss.  For example, how much influence should the seven member Provo School Board (an attorney, a college student, a businessman, a businesswoman, and three homemakers) that represents the school district where I live have over curricular and pedagogical decisions?  And, when do the insights and unique perspectives of individuals outside of education bring innovation and improvements that wouldn't have been reached otherwise?

The difference a community can make

It seems that recently criticizing and complaining about the public education system has become a hobby of sorts.  Politicians make calls for reform (Condoleeza Rice spoke on my campus this week and commented on the "disastrous state of our K-12 education system"), parents berate school boards, and bloggers like me make claims for how things might improve.  But, truth be told, not very many of us take the initiative to do anything very productive (so, in some sense this post is a declaration of my personal resolve to complain less and do more).

 

Every once in a while, however, someone will identify a problem, rally support within their community, and make a real difference.  I learned this week about a group of parents in Northern Utah who did that very thing.  The school their students attend was recently designated as a "walking school" by district officials, which means that all students live within 1.5 miles of the school and don't qualify for state-funded busing service.  Not surprisingly, parents were concerned because it meant that they either needed to find a way to drive their kids to school each day (a big problem for some working parents or families with limited access to vehicles) or let their kids walk to school along a route that includes busy streets and very few sidewalks.  A typical “concerned parent” response would probably include highly visible (and audible) efforts to convince someone else to own or fix the problem (angry letters to district officials, impassioned pleas to “remember the children” at school board meetings, or even protests outside district offices).  While those sorts of things are part of a democracy and likely have some indirect impact upon systems, they don’t do much other than let officials know that people are unhappy.  They make no attempt at a solution. 

 

What impressed me most about the story of Ty Haguewood and his group of parents was that they took a much different approach.  Recognizing that the district’s hands were tied and realizing that there were enough parents interested in coming together to develop a solution, they decided to create their own busing system.   They bought a used school bus for $6,000, worked out insurance, hired drivers, and set up a busing system complete with formal bus stops and a plan for storing a huge yellow bus in their neighborhood.  The 83 participating students pay an annual fee of $206 (about 60 cents per bus ride), which seems like a pretty economical deal for parents (not to mention the convenience factor of letting someone else drive) One parent summed up the groups mindset very well:

 

“This experience has been very empowering,” she says. “We often get into the mindset that everything is the school’s responsibility. … But sometimes when you have a problem, you need to try to be creative and come up with a solution on your own.”

 

Stories like this are refreshing because they remind me that everyday people can make improvements in their communities.  But, there also seem to be some critical elements of these stories worth mentioning.  There seem to be some important reasons why this group of parents was successful and able to bring a new idea to fruition:

 

1.  They cared.  This seems to be obvious and is probably the first step in any kind of community action.  A less committed group would have given up as they encountered challenges along the way (e.g. the reality of finding insurance for an LLC, paying for fuel, working out storage, etc.).  This group was successful because there was a critical mass of people that really wanted to make a difference.

 

2.  They made sure to generate support from a broad base of interested parents.  Had there only been a handful of parents behind the plan, not much would have happened.  But, the leaders were smart.  Before moving forward, they made sure that there were enough interested parties that they knew they would have backing.

 

3.  They had resources.  The reality is that the bus cost $6,000.  Had Haguewood and Bruce Jones (another parent key to the success of the project) not had the money and the connections they did, the project wouldn’t have made it very far.  And, it’s not just financial resources that are important here.  Someone (and likely multiple participants) had sufficient time to spend conceptualizing the idea, garnering support, handling administrative concerns, etc. to make this all happen.  A group of concerned parents without time and resources wouldn’t have been successful. 

 

4.  The group included parents with expertise in key areas pertinent to the project.  A randomly assembled group of equally motivated parents in another neighborhood may not have had the same success as did the Sunset Elementary group.  They were able to make this work, in part, because they had parents with particular skill sets and experience.  Haguewood is a real estate agent and likely familiar with navigating things like insurance policies, sales, and bureaucracy.  He also has a commercial driver’s license and past experience as a bus driver.  There are probably other parents not mentioned in the article that brought unique skills and experience to bear in playing key roles in the process as well. 

 

What if this problem had cropped up in another neighborhood where parents don’t have time, resources, or expertise?  Are there things that can be done to bring together concerned parents and facilitate change in those places?

The importance and value of solitude

My wife and I are expecting a new baby this summer.  Depending on the day, I am either terribly excited or scared stupid.  Our two year-old daughter feels the same way.  A few weeks ago we were talking at dinner about what it would be like to have another child and what things might change and sensing that she was losing her position as the center of the family she bluntly stated "I don't like the baby."  We tried unsuccessfully to convince her that having a brother or sister wouldn't mean losing her place in the family and didn't think much more of it.  A few nights later I came home from work after she had gone to bed and thought I would peek in on her to make sure she was sleeping okay.  When I opened the door I could see she was laying in her bed wide awake and realized that she probably had been there like that for close to an hour.  It sometimes helps her fall asleep if she has someone laying next to her, so I layed down but didn't say anything.  After a few seconds she looked at me and said "I think I can share Mom with the baby."  I was pretty blown away.  First, because it seemed like a pretty sophisticated thought for a two year-old and, second, because it had been days since we had talked to her about the baby.  

It is hard to say what would lead a child to a thought like the one our daughter expressed, but I wonder if it was partly due to her lying in a quiet, dark room, all alone with her thoughts for what must have seemd to her like an eternity (anyone with a small child learns that, to them, five minutes is a long time).  I have wondered since then if she doesn't also lay in bed in the mornings and think because she seems to have insightful things to say immediately after getting up in the mornings.  

As I was thinking about all of this, I came across a lecture on the virtue of solititude given to the freshman class at West Point by William Deresiewicz.  In the talk he argues that one of the distinguishing qualities of good leaders is that they find time to be alone.  That may mean quite time for introspection, focused and sustained work on a single project (e.g. rebuilding an engine or repairing a toilet), or deep and engaged reading of a text.  The point he makes is that these sorts of activities remove us from the frenetic and distracting world we generally find ourselves in and give us an opportunity to be alone with our thoughts.  It is during those times, he claims, that we can receive inspiration, be truly creative, and develop the original and insightful vision characteristic of great leaders.

This is an interesting idea and stands in pretty stark contrast to the emphasis we have come to place on connectedness, networking, and multi-tasking.  I don't know that Deresiewicz would argue for complete isolation or cutting oneself off from all external influences.  Rather, it is periods of solitude, reflection, and just being alone that give us a chance to make sense of our lives and find our own direction. 

I work on a college campus where it almost seems to be a necessity to run from one meeting to the next, always have a new project on the horizon, and fill ones day with "productive" activities.  I see this in faculty members who move from preparing a lecture, to delivering it, to office hours, to a committee meeting, to work on a paper.  I see it in students who go to class, participate in clubs, serve in the community, and study in the evenings.  And I see it in myself (yesterday I got to my office a little before 8:00 and didn't stop meeting with students, updating records, and writing proposals until after 6:00.  So, I wonder how much this relentless "productive" pace is hurting our learning.  How often do we carve out time and space for the solitude that Deresiewicz speaks of?  How much is enough?  And, should institutions (be it schools, universities, businesses, or families) be more intentional and proactive in expecting and allowing their members to stop being busy and start thinking and sense-making.

Risk, rules, & the need for practical wisdom

We frequently participate in activities that, although necessary and often beneficial, entail risks.  Doctors and hospitals can treat illnesses and help us recover from terrible accidents, but unpleasant or even terrible things can and occasionally do happen in hospitals or medical clinics (e.g. the wrong drug is administered, an unnecessary and very expensive procedure is carried out, or surgeons remove a patients kidney when all they needed was a knee repair).  We invest our money with the help of banks and bankers, but they may mismanage and lose our hard-earned cash.  We send our children to schools where they can learn to function effectively in society and develop a passion for learning, but schools have the potential to become uninspiring places where teachers fail to facilitate learning.  So, what are we to do?

In a TED talk posted earlier this week, professor Barry Schwartz argues that our common response in situations where we want to minimize risk is to (1) make rules aimed at helping people know how to do the right thing (e.g. guidelines or standards for teachers to follow) and/or (2) to incentivize what we believe to be the right types of behavior (e.g. rewards for doctors who save hospitals money or teachers whose students have high test scores).  While Schwartz doesn't advocate for complete elimination of rules or incentives and recognizes that they have value in certain situations, he points out they aren't enough when it comes to finding solutions for complex problems and managing risk.  He calls for a renewed focus on helping individuals and institutions to develop "practical wisdom" (which is pretty close to Artistotle's concept of phronesis).  In other words, preparing people to figure out how to do the right thing when they find themselves in real interactions with unique people in specific circumstances.  

As I was thinking about Schwartz's ideas I recalled a comment that Derek Bitter made in response to a blog posting on what beneficial risk in the classroom might look like:  

I don't think I could walk into a classroom and follow these steps, or any others, and have them work for me and the class, unless there is something more fundamental present within me as a teacher. I have ideas on what this might be, but can't really narrow it down or even specify it. 

Derek's point is well taken.  We can't boil risk-taking in learning down to a set of rules, strategies, or activities that come to be viewed as surefire ways of improving learning.  It seems that what Derek might be calling for here is  Schwartz's concept of practical wisdom.  The success of risk-taking in the classroom depends, in part, upon a wise teacher who knows when and how to bring risk into the learning process.  So, if we want people (particularly teachers) to take risks in learning (or in any other setting where calculated risk could pay off), we have got to help them develop the wisdom to know when to take risks, how to do it without putting themselves (or others) in unreasonable danger, and how to skillfully navigate risky situations so that good things happen.  This is one of the things that seems to be missing in most teacher preparation programs (where the focus is largely on rules and strategies) and governmental programs (large collections of rules & incentives).  Yes, individual teachers may develop wisdom through their own experiences, but the institutions concerned with education (universities, governments, schools) seem to do very little in the way of promoting or encouraging the application of wisdom in the classroom.  

Instead, we largely treat the teaching and learning process as one governed by rules and incentives.  I wonder if this might be because we naively believe that by falling back on rules, policies, and explicitly stated pratices and processes, we minimize the risk that people won't learn.  Indeed, it is "risky" to structure systems where practitioners--be it teachers, doctors, bankers, etc.--are allowed to be "wise" because there is always the chance that they won't.  But, by failing to include the development of wisdom (and the freedom to use it) in conversations about reform will ultimately prove problematic and limit improvements in our institutions.