Opting In to Open-Minded Learning: A Fantasy
Published February 16, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
I never realized just how much teachers have in common with politicians until I wrote this post. Bottom line: they both need to avoid alienating the voter in order to keep their job. Yet by succeeding at that, they all-too-often lose their original meaning and purpose for seeking that job in the first place.
The life-blood of democracy? Another reason tenure matters:
First-time commenter Lana M. left this gem on the "U.S. Schools Work Teachers Smarter, not Harder" post a few days ago:
We have so much to learn from other countries rather than touting how great we are that it is pathetic. As James Loewen demonstrated in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, textbooks deliberately suppress facts believed to reflect poorly on the country so that students do not have the facts to understand how we got here nor why we need to change.
ALL public text books must meet the standards of the Texas State Board of Education before being manufactured.
Thus, whatever changes that board, controlled by conservative fundamentalist Christians, ask for, they get or the book won't be bought. This is how ideology gets built in to our texts. The Organization of American Historians have protested to Congress over the skewing of American History in education.
And ideology holds too much sway over the classroom; conservatives want to get destroy tenure to get rid of professors whose ideas they find dangerous. Freedom to question, to investigate is at risk; I know, not only from studying the oppression of teachers with critical ideas, but also from having spent 30 years teaching at both the college and h.s. level. [Emphases added.]
Lana's connection here of teacher tenure to true critical thinking is so important. It draws out how critical thinking is put at risk by the current union-bashing campaigns of the Business Roundtable, Bill Gates (good grief, see his latest TED Talk on how he's going to spend his money "creating good teachers," and be very, very afraid), KIPP and other charters, Teach for America, and the rest. Teachers need tenure to protect them from people who don't want students to be taught how to think.
(Reading is not thinking. It's often the very opposite. Many people think what they read, without ever thinking about it. That's dangerous. Reading is not thinking.)
Cut to: the following keeper from Deborah Meier, who entertains Diane Ravitch's question,
"Why are people so gullible?":
[W]hile we all have a “right” to our opinion, it’s an empty right if that’s all it is, or maybe a dangerous right!
In a democracy then, you and I might argue, learning how to reason (or empathize) our way into enough of the truth, with enough uncertainty to be open to new truths, needs to be “learned.” (Is that sentence too loaded?) Where might we learn such a mindset? In family, neighborhood, on TV, and above all, in those 12-13 years of schooling that are universal and free. And even required!!
The question for educators then is how to use those long years toward such ends. And, simultaneously, how to educate the larger public, as we learn more ourselves, as to why these newfangled innovations are worth doing. They cannot be imposed upon an unwilling public, or parents—because that in itself can’t happen in a democracy for very long....
It’s also tricky to “experiment" on children—to admit that we truly don’t entirely know whether our new approach will get us where we want to go, but bear with us!
That’s why I’m for such experiments not being imposed, but being studied carefully and applied to volunteers. The voluntary part goes against “random sample experimenting,” etc., but that’s a limitation we need to accept. Of course, since the “traditional” paths are in fact still unproven experiments, I want the right to opt out of them for my kids, too. (That’s where some form of controlled choice enters into my equation.)"
As I see it, both Lana M. and Ms. Meier are dancing around the issue of adult tolerance of open inquiry in schools. Of thinking. Of following questions and possible answers wherever they lead, regardless of our emotions about those destinations. For far too long - since Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Darwin, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, on and on - haven't the least intellectually-open adults been the brake on new ideas?
And in schools....
....aren't closed parents a retarding influence on the education of everybody else's children?
(More below the fold....)
So I love how Meier toys with the idea of parents "volunteering" for, or "opting in" to, classrooms in which their children are encouraged to *gasp* be skeptical - to not be, as Ravitch puts it, "gullible." To think.
What a wonderfully elegant idea. Allow the closed parents to opt out, so those parents wanting their children to receive open, no-nonsense, intellectually fearless sex ed, evolutionary science, religious inquiry, critical national history, and so forth, can get it - and not be held back by the members of the school community who fear their children will, through education, think differently, and perhaps understand more, than them. It's "medieval studies" and "modern studies" with a twist.
Really Kool Kreationist Graffiti: Creation Museum display, Kentucy, USA.
Opt-in to Open-Minded Education, the alternative take:
Michael's recent post on the Gay Rights blog raises the same issue in a specific context: "Should parents be notified if a teacher wants to discuss sexual orientation in class?" It made me float the same idea of "opt-in to open-thinking education" in a comment there, only with a little more sauce:
Since there are always, at least for another century or two, going to be parents who consider ancient books as the Only Word on science, ethics, race and gender and sex relations, metaphysics, philosophy, and the Key to Everything, I fantasize that The Rest of the World can get on with its children's learning through a parental permission policy of sorts.
Progressive, modern parents, who realize that the international community of scientists, for example, has better and more evidentiary answers than Iron Age books, can elect to have their children learn these things. The unfortunate kids of Parents Who Know Better Than Scientists can sit in separate classrooms puzzling over the moral implications of forced incest when Adam and Eve's children needed to propagate the species, how Satan could manufacture fossils, how Noah could possibly have traveled the tens of thousands of miles to collect a he and a she of each of the 5-to-30 million species on the planet and house them on his ark before the rains began - and how he led them back to Palestine from, say, Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America.
Or whether martyrs can choose the hair color of the virgins they're rewarded with in Paradise. And how that deal works for woman martyrs.
Mind you: I'm aware that many, many people of faith are beyond this literalism. They're not the ones calling for teachers' jobs at the pop of a real question mark. Their kids wouldn't be in the "opt-out" class.
The cafeteria conversations between students belonging to the two groups would cross-pollinate the modern ideas into the pre-modern minds of the second group.
And eventually, the second group would wither away, and there would be no need for parental permission to have children explore questions freely.
....at a certain point, we have to at least confront the fact that being a parent doesn't make us all-knowing, and that it's problematic to insist that our children are not exposed to ideas of which we disapprove.
If every parent was a genius - or even abreast of the state of knowledge in all subjects - schools woudn't be necessary. But your average parent was your average student - which means a "C" student - and so wouldn't necessarily make the best intellectual guide for a child.
The "Opt-out of Open Inquiry" model is something I'd love to see. Teachers can't possibly inform parents before-hand of every topic that will come up in a week of school. And if they tried, it would be like trying to herd a hundred cats: Johnny's mom says he's okay for birds and bees on Tuesday, but not Darwin on Wednesday. Janie's mom says....
This all seems doomed to remain fantasy, which is sad. Because the idea of a truly advanced, "open" education, unbothered by parents who insist their children be closed - and who threaten the jobs of teachers who slip up with a good but unpopular question - isn't that sort of what education is supposed to be?
In any case, it's one more reason to support tenure. Without protection from unfair dismissal, teachers will be afraid to encourage kids to think at all. And everybody but a small minority loses out.
Creationism Museum Graffiti photo by rauchdickson
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Comments (9)
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Clay is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he's married to his wife. According to his wife, he's married to his Mac.
And the world will be pure for the pure of heart and mind and unto thee we shall sing praises of inteligencia and openness.
Clay, I do wish that you could get politics and parents out of the classroom. That day will not happen in K-12, hell it doesn't in college, the helicopter and all-knowing ones believe they know what is best for their children -- no matter their age.
Politics is an ideology that is followed and supported. The only way to maintain that ideology or make it stronger is to incorporate new recruits. If the schools are allowed to let students think and see all sides of an issue, then the political sway may be different. But it is okay for private schools to have their students think and learn independence, whereas public schools are only allowed or encouraged to teach regimentation.
As my grandmother said "Tis a folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss"
Posted by Harold Shaw on 02/16/2009 @ 11:37AM PT
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God, Harold, that's a depressing position on the function of public schools - which doesn't make you wrong.
Posted by Clay Burell on 02/17/2009 @ 12:20AM PT
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Fantasy indeed, Clay. I am particularly perplexed by this statement:
"Teachers need tenure to protect them from people who don't want students to be taught how to think."
Yikes. Really? While it may be true that the least-intellectual adults have put the brakes on new ideas, I don't think we can actually take this blanket statement farther to say that teachers need tenure to protect them from such un-intellectual adults. Surely we can be creative enough to find other ways to stop un-intellectuals from obstructing open inquiry and thought -- I mean, if we're teaching creative thinking and problem solving, surely we can solve this in a way other than *tenure*, which is a problem-riddled obstruction. I'd like to see that problem solved without the wall, personally.
I have always been opposed to tenure. Why? It's personal, I'll start with that. Short anecdote follows: I had some terrible teachers growing up -- teachers who never should have been allowed in the classroom, including one in elementary school who *should* have been dismissed on the grounds of physical abuse, but of course wasn't and couldn't be. I have the teacher's union to thank for that. By the time I got to high school, said teacher was -- get this -- president of the provincial teacher's union.
That is just one example of many I have experienced first-hand (I could write an entire book chapter on terrible teachers who have been "protected"). In my experience, tenure (and unions) often -- not always, but often -- protects those teachers who SHOULD not be there, those teachers who are doing anything but teaching students how to think.
I do like the opt-in idea for parenting, though. And I am surprised this is the first time you've realized how similar teachers are to politicians....? I mean, look at all the people we have to try to "please"! The only difference: we aren't elected to our position. Except, of course, those working in Sudbury schools. :)
Posted by Adrienne Michetti on 02/16/2009 @ 08:09PM PT
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And Adrienne, there's the rub, no?
I wrote about the 'dismissing unionized bad teachers' question over on Beyond School here. Stephen Downes' pingback to his long response is worth reading, as are all the comments. Many give first-hand accounts of unions supporting the dismissal of hopeless teachers, though that's not to say they settle the question.
So what are your creative solutions for this? (Hate me for asking, I know.)
Posted by Clay Burell on 02/17/2009 @ 12:19AM PT
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Clay, Both good posts, thanks for directing me. (Admittedly I missed your original post because of the NCLB title.)
I still don't think that tenure or unions are a solution. I also disagree with much of Downes' claim. that teachers are not often fired (I also seriously question using a Google search as "evidence", but I'll leave that alone for now). We'd need to see statistics from all sorts of places -- not just news articles. I mean, really - only 112,000 hits? Out of how many teachers in the world? I'd like to see some hard-core stats about the proportion of teachers per district / school that are fired due to incompetence. I'd be willing to bet it's super low.
Creative solutions? Let's start by defining *exactly* what incompetence is. Let's define what good teaching practice is. And hey, let's agree on what a good teacher is. Hard, huh? I doubt we as a group of global educators will ever come to widespread agreement about this, given our collective differences in culture, upbringing, and more. I would like to suggest, then, that these agreements be made at the smaller community level. Why can't everyone working within a school or school community, maybe even larger than that -- and yes, this includes, parents, admin, and (gasp!) students! - communicate, reflect, and agree upon those descriptors that make a good teacher? Only then can we buy into the school's philosophy and say, "Hm, yes/no this is a place I want to work in." Yes, it would take a lot of work but we'd all at least be on the same page from the get-go.
Another idea: separate the bodies who protect teachers from the bodies who allow teachers to be certified and licensed, and ensure both bodies are separate from the government or any other organization employing teachers. In the medical and law professions, there are professional organizations which act as the "executive" branch overseeing those in the profession. These professions include a code of ethics which must be adhered to in order to gain licensure. Teachers should have an external body (democratically elected) such as this, made up of teachers themselves who decides if teachers are competent or not, and if a part of the ethical code has been violated. In this way, less of the pressure sits on the shoulders of Admin. The provinces of B.C. and Ontario both have such an organization (aptly called the College of Teachers) and it is often involved in direct head-butting with the teachers' unions; the College wants the incompetent teachers to go, and the unions fight for them to stay. At least with an organization like this, there is more credibility in trying to get rid of the teachers who, quite frankly, either suck completely or have done something heinous. Without it, it's difficult to say, "Hmm, what makes this teacher bad?" and is often simply left to the legal implications of student safety, which may not have anything to do with why the teacher needs to go.
I often think that if we simply had some kind of professional organization like that, we wouldn't need unions at all.
Posted by Adrienne Michetti on 02/17/2009 @ 01:02AM PT
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One more thing.... I just re-read this line you wrote: "Without protection from unfair dismissal, teachers will be afraid to encourage kids to think at all."
This is what gets it for me: We should never be afraid to encourage kids to think. I get that that's your point, that tenure protects this so that we will never have to be afraid. But I want to be unafraid WITHOUT the protective wall. Honestly, I have worked in a lot of different communites (including private Catholic schools, public schools, an 85% Muslim school in the middle east) and I have *never* been afraid of encouraging my kids to think. In fact, encourage isn't a strong enough word: I *demand* them to think. It's a requirement when they walk through the door. Maybe I'm lucky -- maybe one day I will be fired for simply asking my more conservative students to think outside the box. But two points:
1 - There *are* tactful and respectful ways to get your kids thinking outside the box without being revolutionary or imposing. And most good teachers know this already.
2 - Do we really want teachers in classrooms who *are* afraid, but teaching anyway? Not me, NO WAY. I even struggle working with people like these. I want the teachers who are unfraid, bold, and dynamic. Not the ones who are thinking, "Well, what I'd really like to try is this, but I'm afraid I might get fired." My response: Pfffft to that! The future is at stake. And you're going to hold back because you're afraid you might get fired, even when you know what you're doing is right and best for the future of this young person? Not that I'm asking my colleagues to play the martyr role, but I want to work with teachers who really, truly believe in what they do, not teachers who are simply there to "manage and get by."
Posted by Adrienne Michetti on 02/17/2009 @ 01:19AM PT
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As a teacher who has been fired for stepping outside the box and teaching his kids how to think critically, I have often wished that I did have some kind of protection at the time. Having said that, I was surprised to see that neither @clay or @adreinne mentioned anything about what it is like working in the international school system, seeing that you are both members of this tiny community.
I have often dreamt about having an International School System union, because I feel working for private and often corporate clientele, we are often at the mercy of the parent and business communities that run our schools, and no matter how much the mission statements and school values try to promote a progressive critical curriculum most international schools are nothing more than a place to train and educated the next batch of corporate movers and shakers.
So what is a progressive teacher to do in this type of an environment? I know many teachers who are terrified to guide their students to question existing power structures, because they know that their students’ parents are the very structures they are challenging.
I made a stupid mistake by posting an art project that I shouldn’t have and that is why I was fired, but I am pretty sure that many of the topics we discussed in class such as: globalization, wealth, race, class etc…were frowned upon by the conservative, religious, clientele at my school. I had no protection, no larger group to fall back on to prove that I was doing my job above expectations. A union would have been very helpful in a situation like that.
On the other hand, I have worked with many terrible teachers in the NYC system that should have been fired, but were allowed to stay because they had been teaching for 50 years. So I see where @adrienn is coming from.
One idea could be to have a set of teaching standards, which could include things like: level of professional development, 21st literacy skills, education level, parent survey forms, observations etc… and if a teacher meets these benchmarks they can be eligible for tenure subject to review every few years.
That way teachers who are just passing time will be challenged to stay knowledgeable and effective or face losing tenure.
I think that organizing and collective bargaining are powerful tools for any group and teachers should be allowed to organize too.
In closing, I got into education because I feel that a truly advanced, "open" education, unbothered by parents who insist their children be closed is what education is supposed to be!
So although I was fired, I am still not afraid to carry on!
Posted by Jabiz Raisdana on 02/17/2009 @ 02:23AM PT
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Jabiz, I'm not 100% convinced that you were fired bc you challenged your students to think creatively. I tend to think of your situation more of a case whereby your affiliations got you fired -- which is still wrongful, btw. But what I have admired about you is your tenacity through it all. Look - you are still here! And like you said, not afraid to carry on.
As far as the Int'l School community goes, I think my suggestion still stands. If the community(ies) decided what made a good teacher and what didn't, you could then decide ahead of time if it was a place you'd like to work. As it stands now, the community does not have a "stance" and so all these assumptions are unpublished, unspoken, and only ever challenged as they occur. That's a pretty big risk to take sometimes. At the best of times, we assume that the community we work in supports what we do. We also, as I mentioned earlier, don't have a code of ethics in this profession, which I strongly feel we should. I think this would then be the precursor to the standards you talk about, which could possibly vary from school to school, region to region.
.. thinking about my own post on this topic now...
Posted by Adrienne Michetti on 02/17/2009 @ 04:15AM PT
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After reading this entire thread, I am very confused. The title speaks of "open-minded learning" and eludes to that being a desirable but unobtainable way of teaching. And, according to the post, this is unobtainable because teachers do not have tenure to give them power to do as they wish.
First, my definition of being "open-minded" is simply keeping my mind open to all ideas, and not shutting out those I don't fully understand. Being open-minded is a willingness for me to listen to contrary ideas, trying to fully understand them, and then weighing them against those beliefs that I hold to be true. An open-minded person is willing to test his beliefs against new thoughts and ideas, and change those beliefs if they do not stand up to new truths. This is indeed an important concept to learn in school at an early age and I support that being taught in our schools.
However, I do not believe this is what you are advocating in this post. Indeed it is quite the opposite. A more appropriate title for this thread would be, "Wouldn't it be great if we could stamp out Creationism and all those other things I don't like or agree with?"
The problem we have with open-minded learning is that we do not have enough open-minded teachers. Too many teachers are closed-minded like those commenting here, and simply want to advance their own personal beliefs. Yes, of course, that happens on all sides of an argument, thus the need for true open-mindedness. It is quite silly (and dangerous) for a teacher to think and teach that they indeed have figured it out, end of story. Rather closed-minded, wouldn't you say? It absolutely amazes me how arrogant some people can be. Everything I believe is right, and everything you believe is wrong. Are you evening listening to what you are saying? This is the same thing you accuse conservatives of doing. But wait, let me guess, YOU have figured it all out, and you have all the answers for everyone else in the world! Is there really a question as to why we don't give public school teachers tenure? No, it's because they are fallible, just like the rest of us, and just like Darwin...
Yes, I'm sure most of you who put your faith in Darwinism and Science wont be reading any further, nothing to learn from a "Creationist"! That's OK, I understand. Besides, there is no way to change a closed-minded person, anyway. For those of you still interested in understanding why a Creationist can still believe in God, even after all we have learned through scientific discovery in the last century, consider this:
Will Science change tomorrow?
When I was in high school, back in the mid eighties, the mainstream scientific thinking was being challenged by a small group of "fringe" scientist. They believed the universe had a definite beginning, not the "infinite" beginning as was the current scientific thinking and what schools taught as a part of evolution. I had friends in school who thought I was crazy for being so open-minded to accept the new scientific belief. For me, science was just catching up to "In the beginning..." More and more I find that new scientific discoveries are confirming my beliefs in God, not the opposite. Will scientist ever find the God particle? I don't know. If so, will people start believing in God? Who knows, but probably not closed-minded people. One thing I know for certain, If you really and truly believe in today's scientific beliefs with all the faith you can muster, you will surely be disappointed when Science changes tomorrow.
Posted by Mark Andrews on 02/22/2009 @ 08:32PM PT
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