Teach Us All, Netflix documentary

I’ve just finished watching Teach Us All, the new release documentary on Netflix on the US education system. The film makes the case for ending de facto segregation in the US, which has grown and replaced de jure segregation. The film argues that education would be fairer on disadvantaged students (mainly Latino and black students) if schools were diverse. The film’s case for ending de facto segregation relies heavily on the following premise: that getting black and Latino students into white schools would increase the funding that goes to the black and Latino students.

The funding issue is a real issue. Wealthier families have better funded schools, and these tend to be majority white schools. I’ve seen how better funding can improve outcomes and opportunities. However, the statistical data don’t support this on a wider scale. This leads to the second reason made by the film for ending segregation (this reason is not really explicitly made but is revealed nonetheless): that black and Latino students would benefit from mixing with white students. What the film is implicitly saying is that the behaviour or culture of the black and Latino students is holding them back. This gets to why achievement is not necessarily linked to spending: it does not consider what attitude and application the child brings to the classroom – the discipline and diligence the student has, the respect for the teacher and school rules, their respect for their peers and the learning process. This matters a whole lot more than spending, and it is the ignored factor in schooling today. It is not something the government can control, and it is politically incorrect to talk about it in this non-judgmental culture. But such non-judgmentalism is a form of relativism, which does not work for an organisation (a school) or an activity (learning) with a specific purpose. Some approaches are better than others.

The film occasionally touches on the lack of sophistication of the poorer kids parents, their behavioural difficulties, their neighbourhood issues, their basic lack of hygiene and life skills. When these issues are present, learning takes a back step, and the student’s time horizon shortens. Individual investment in education is lower as they’re not sure what the payoff will be and they have shorter-term issues to attend to. The film chooses some great students to interview, who inspire excitement in the audience about the potential of education. But what they are not showing are the students that do not care or do not fit into the current schooling system. The portrait painted by the film is one of earnestly working students who are being deprived by a lack of opportunity and the presence of segregation. That is, they are let down by their schooling system. I’ve got my issues with the system, whether it be the Australian or US systems, but the fact remains that we get the students when they enter the school gates in the morning, and we send them home in the afternoon. What goes on outside is of tremendous importance but is not subject to the control of the school. It is therefore ignored. The thing parents can control most is their own actions, thoughts and attitudes, and that of their children. Start making a change there and they may find that the school system is not as broken as they think.

 

Match the type of school to the prevailing culture

I hypothesise that autocratic school systems are more suitable for cultures that have greater reverence for authority figures, and democratic school systems are more suitable for cultures with less reverence for authority figures. Trying to impose teaching on a student that does not respect you or your profession is difficult, while democratic or liberal schooling systems that are child-centred will likely not work so well if students are overly concerned with the authority figures. A democratic/liberal schooling environment relies on the student taking advantage of the conditions/rules, while the autocratic system relies on subservience.

Australia’s educational culture has shifted towards less reverence for teachers, while maintaining a coercive, autocratic schooling environment. The result is constant conflict in the classroom, or passive disengagement.

In our current society of relative freedom and opportunity, I think subservience and excessive reverence for authority is not something to be desired. You need to dictate your own life, and reverence for authority in your formative years will likely leave you unprepared for adulthood. Fostering a sense of empowerment and responsibility is much more likely to equip a student for life. Therefore, we should be increasingly aiming for students to direct their own learning, and to engage with teachers in voluntary ways rather than coercive ways. A democratic/liberal school is most suitable to achieve these goals.

The lost authority of teachers

One of the lamentations of modern day schooling is the decline in the authority of teachers. While cultural change explains part of this, there are other causes, and I’d like to focus on a major one.

First, we need to distinguish between authority and power. Power relates to coercion or force. Authority pertains to that important aspect of a consensual organisation or association, where the leader, or a person in a position of responsibility, assumes a position of influence and responsibility, in an organisation or association that is voluntary. The authority is granted by the consent of those governed or influenced by the agent of this organisation.

A long time ago, a school and school teachers had authority, because they were in existence due to the demands of a community. The current education system is one of power and coercion, a compulsory system where decisions are made far from where they are enacted. The people carrying out the decisions do not have the authority to implement them because they do not have the respect or consent of those they are overseeing. The result is a chaotic classroom where many students disrespect the teacher.

Emergent forms of schooling that are more localised, diverse and personal, will allow teachers to regain some lost authority and deliver more effective education. Until then, we will continue to see defiance and a lack of respect from many students towards their teachers and schools.

We’ve gotten things the wrong way round

In the current system of universal compulsory education, where education is a right, we’ve gotten things the wrong way round.

In aiming for universal education, we end up achieving something far less superior. If we aimed at something far more modest, we’d get further in our goals. Let me explain.

Currently, the disruptive students receive a lot of the teacher’s attention. They’re not entirely rational, but one thing they are quite good at is knowing how much they can misbehave before the consequences are too dire. They push the limits, and in doing so, they stymie the class’s progress. It is these small acts of individual defiance, rebellion or fun that wear away at the goal of universal education.

The disruptive students receive much of the teacher’s attention, while the more academic students sit frustrated and bored. The result is that we do not maximise the learning that could take place. The disruptive students are learning very little, while the academic students are substantially impeded. What we need is a situation where we maximise learning, which would come from a situation where more academic students receive the education and challenge they require, and if the other students cannot meet the standard, they are moved onto something else. We’ve got things exactly the wrong way round.

If we were harsher on our disruptive students, and focused more on the academic students, there would be more learning and less disruption. The disruptive students would realise that in order for them to be able to participate in the class, they would need to change their behaviour. If we increased the consequences for misbehaviour, the part of them that is rational may well adjust to this new environment. In doing so, learning is maximised. The disruptive students would be less disruptive, and both the disruptive students and the academic students would do more learning. For those that cannot handle this environment, they would have alternative options (in a more pluralistic and diverse education system).

There is a major caveat here. In forcing our children to go to school, they are very dependent on the environment of that school, which comes down to the school culture and rules and the quality of the teaching. I want to make a small point here on the quality of the teaching. If the teaching is bad or mediocre, it is difficult to blame students for not being interested and disrupting the class. They are very dependent on their environment. Therefore, for a system like this to be a fair one, it has to be a high performing system. Unfortunately, the NSW public education system is not one.

Another caveat is that we need a more pluralistic system to enable students that cannot cope in a more disciplined, rigorous academic classroom to be able to do something else with their time. This would require a range of different types of schools offering a range of different types of programs. Unfortunately, we do not have that and arguably cannot produce that in the NSW system.

A final caveat is that in forcing education upon the students, it is likely to meet resistance, and if not, is not likely to deeply resonate with them. The Socratic wisdom that you cannot educate someone until he or she is asking the relevant questions is still relevant. Many students are not overly academic and will not be asking questions about Rome, or chemistry or Hamlet. It is not surprising that there is a huge compliance problem in getting students to participate and learn when there is insufficient choice and relevance, and where other options have been removed from their lives.

In summary, if we aim for universal education, we will not achieve it and our efforts will backfire. We need a more disciplined approach in the classroom, and more options for those that do not fit. We need to abolish the compulsory nature of education (while maintaining public funding), and make our schools much more accountable. One way to do this would be to give the students the option of exit. Currently, the education system is an example of the imposed wisdom of planners on innocent children, who have other plans and naturally stymie the grand vision of compulsory universal education.

 

A case for streaming

Consider my two Year 10 classes. One is a streamed class, the top class (class A). The other is mixed ability (class B). Some of the top students in the mixed class are also in the streamed class (the classes are for different subjects).

Today, and for the whole week, class A has worked mostly productively and cooperatively with substantial freedom. I gave them a broad topic and question to answer, and they were able to choose their specific topic and direct their research from there. They worked beautifully.

Class B was a battle today. They’re often a battle and today was one of the worst lessons. I attempted to step them through the assessment task I had just handed them. I was effectively giving them the keys to the door, which the could convert to easy marks. It was a gift. But not only were about a quarter of the students disrupting the class, they weren’t even paying attention or writing notes. They flatly refused easy marks. This is entirely irrational behaviour, some supporting evidence against the rationality thesis.

The looks of frustration on the faces of the strong students in class B was deeply saddening. I was trying my best but today I just couldn’t create the environment that they deserve.

Let’s compare productivity between the two classes:

• Class B: the disruptive students did not get much from the class, nor did the presence of strong students seem to improve their attitudes. Meanwhile, the strong students were constantly waiting for us to proceed so that they could get the information they needed. The net result: the disruptive students have not benefited from being in a mixed class. But the top students have suffered.
• Class A had no impediments to productivity, and was so functional and mature that they were able to work independently,  a welcome deviation from our typical, more traditional lessons. They were working at capacity.

The conclusion? Top students gained from streaming. The top students suffer from mixed ability, while the disruptive students have not gained. Given the level of disengagement in the mixed class, I can’t imagine worse behaviour in their streamed class will have much of a negative impact compared to the mixed class. They simply weren’t paying adequate attention in the mixed class for the presence of top students to have any positive effect. These students got very little to nothing from this lesson.

From this small sample, I conclude: streaming is better.

 

 

 

Shielded and protected in the state system

It’s a sad image: an ageing but experienced teacher, constantly yelling at his students, a sign that he’s lost touch and control. It’s time to go. It’s been time for a while. But he’s going out on his own terms…at the end of the year.

If he were in a normal work environment, where customers had the option of exit and his employer had considerably more power than the school does over him, he would’ve been gone a long time ago. Because it’s either that or the customers go elsewhere. But a teacher like this one has a captive audience. His students can’t go anywhere. And the school can’t, or doesn’t let him go. He’s a nuisance but a bearable one.

So he continues teaching yelling. And yelling. And yelling at his students. They continue despising him, annoying him, tolerating him. Very little learning occurs, and very little in the way of human connection and development. It’s a constant battle, a war of attrition. But he’s hanging on. After all, he’s secured for himself a very comfortable economic rent. They’re hard to give up.

It’s only in a system that lacks accountability, both from the employer and from the customer, that a man such as this can continue in such an untenable position. This is the argument for school choice. Give the students the option of exit, alongside greater power to the schools, and watch as people like this teacher are sent on their merry ways. This man is an argument for massive deregulation. And there’s plenty like him.

 

Professionalism in the public system

It was a shocking sight – teachers flagrantly having a conversation in front of the Principal and Deputy as another Deputy presented a session of professional learning. Just flat out having a chat, blatantly, in front of the boss. Surely this wouldn’t happen in a private organisation. I asked my small business owner housemate about this. She has run several successful businesses over decades. She said it wouldn’t fly in her business, and she was shocked that this would be the behaviour of our public school teachers. Yet the Principal seemed to accept the state of affairs and was apparently powerless to change it. It’s a sign that teachers have too much power, and executive staff not enough. And it’s a sign of the lack of professionalism in the system. I suspect that the levels of power and the level of professionalism are related – you get away with what you can get away with, unless you have very strong principle and self-restraint. With my perspective on the decline in standards in our society,  I don’t have great faith in principles and self-restraint. We need to change ourselves, and we need a better, more incentive-compatible system.

Action research: are students rational?

I’m conducting action research in the classroom in a couple of different projects. This post is about my rationality project. Some time ago, I speculated that some students may be rationally disengaged – that they are maximising their outcomes by disengaging. I wanted to test this, and today I set out to do so. I surveyed my students to try to gauge their values, attitudes, goals, etc., and then compare their responses to their behaviour to see if their actions aligned with their mindsets. Some interesting initial results emerged. All students report that they value their education and want to do well at school, and most provided very strong responses on these questions. Even the misbehaved and disengaged students. This supported previous surveys I’ve conducted, but nonetheless I was surprised, because some of the students appear like they just don’t care. How do I square this circle?

Further, many students, particularly the more disengaged and chatty students, see little to no value in off-task talking with their classmates. Yet these are the ones that do it most. The better behaved students reported greater perception of value in off-task talking with classmates, yet they engage in this behaviour to a far lesser extent. The results for the disengaged and engaged students were true even when they saw little value in the teaching. That is, there is little value in talking to friends in class, even when the teaching is bad. This shocked me. I could totally relate to the perspective that disengaged students want to disengage when the teaching is bad, but, at least in their perceptions, they don’t actually want to do this.

What do I make of all of this? A few things:

*The more disengaged students tend to be the lower ability students. Quite often these students concede they they don’t understand what is going on. Perhaps the classroom for them is a place of not so quiet desperation – they want to do well but it goes over their heads.

*Lower ability students tend to have less self-control and less foresight. They are less capable of sticking it out in difficult circumstances, and see less future value for doing so. Despite this, these students did think about their futures and wanted to do well in them.

*Engaged students may feel confident enough to talk to their peers in class and not feel left behind. They are on top of things, and may be so ahead that they talk to their friends either about the topic or because they are waiting for the rest of the class.

So, are my students rational?

I need more information, but my sense is that the more able students are more rational (this is seen in research), have better foresight and can better connect current action with future goals. Less able students are less rational and have less self-control, but they are also responding to their environment, and if the environment is too difficult, this increases the return to slacking off – at least in the short run. Short run considerations will be relatively more important for these kids compared to top kids, at least in their perceptions. There may also be a difference in mindsets – whether they have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. This will determine their perceptions of value and returns from doing hard work to overcome the knowledge gap. If they don’t think they can improve, they will slack off when something is difficult.

The teaching take-away is to simplify the lesson, provide glossaries for all students, assume a basic level of understanding and slowly build in complexity from there. And for students with less self-control, a seating plan will help. Engaging teaching will also help too, but it must be accessible to all. Keeping the lesson more concrete and less theoretical or abstract will also help. More able students can be given extension exercises involving abstraction and theory. In other words, start basic and build the complexity. Don’t assume even a basic knowledge of your topic.

These findings, and the related project I am running alongside this one, both point to the power of great teaching. I knew it was important but the research indicates that it is more important than I gave it credit for. I’ll discuss this next time and discuss more results as they come in.

Productivity amid compliance or compulsion

The problems with the current educational mindset were on show today during staff development day at my school. The morning was spent doing what the executive thought would be useful. But this turned out to be not only a waste of time, but counterproductive (it sapped morale on the first day back – the day when it should be at its highest). The teachers found little value in what was presented, and some resented being lectured to. Yet teachers do not seem to consider that this is exactly how many students feel in the classroom everyday. (Well, either they do not realise it, or they battle on anyway, which must be a difficult and frustrating state to be in.) Both yesterday’s professional learning, and the classroom, are products of people in authority deciding what is best for others, without regard for the wishes, dreams and desires of the people they are affecting.  Getting people to be productive is a challenge under any circumstance. It is even more difficult when work and activities are undertaken for compliance reasons (in the case of the teaching profession), or without the voluntary consent of those involved (in the case of students and their schooling). This is something we should reflect on.

 

 

The plight of the classroom teacher in a bureaucratising world

This week I spent a few days with fellow secondary school teaching colleagues partaking in professional development sessions, and over this time I got to know them like never before. I’d previously heard their whingeing and gripes in the staff room, but in these few days I had extended discussions with them, and boy did they unload.

Picture two male teachers: around 60 years old, well-meaning, hard-working, but fairly average Joes. They’ve worked their whole careers in state schools and seen the transformation of the kids and the system before their eyes. Their frustrations are many and varied. They strike me as people who would vote for a Trump-like figure because of the changing nature of their society and the system in which they work. It is not the ideology that they care about, it is someone who respects the impact of the elites on the mainstream. For it is management, bureaucrats and politicians, in well-meaning or self-interested career progression actions, that impede, disrupt and frustrate the everyday working lives of the ordinary teacher. These ideas, management practices and procedures lack common sense and respect for the people who implement them, and stink of political correctness, and underneath the PC undercurrent that so influences the school is a weakness to stand up and fight for what needs to be done to make the school run effectively.  I hear from these, and other men just like them, the phrase: “why weren’t we consulted?” “Who made that decision, and on what information?” They feel like they are being managed by people who do not bear the costs of their decisions, who do not have to implement them, and who do not care about their impact on the worker or the student. It is not a shift to Democrat or Republican, Labor or Liberal, that will satisfy these men. It is a move to something different, something not based around the status quo. Because both sides of politics have picked up and run with the status quo, and it is this that these men are fighting against. They are just trying to do their job, and managers and elites make their life much more difficult than it needs to be. It is the legalistic nature of compliance work, the lack of courage in standing up to parents, the overly soft approach to students, the shift to making classroom teachers increasingly responsible for disorganised school students. There is not enough time in the day, and this is not the work they signed up for. Where is the time for teaching great lessons in all of this bureaucracy? And cui bono – who benefits?

I understand their frustration and see the system as reflecting a belief that no harm should be done to anyone, anywhere, at any time. That we should try to mitigate everything. That we should excessively manage risk. Again, it is a symptom of weakness, a lack of character, vision and values in our society. Nassim Taleb sums this up beautifully: the Soviet Harvard fragilitas. They run a society devoid of a guiding philosophy except for harm minimisation, increasing comfort, to be seen to be ‘doing something’. Combine that ideology with a system of distant and central control, weak accountability mechanisms, and inefficient transfer and use of relevant knowledge. In other words, combine the progressive ideology with a bureaucratic, centrally-controlled system and you get the current system with the current gripes. This type of issue is probably applicable across different sectors in the economy.

***

These men I write about are old school, and boy is it refreshing. They don’t get on board fads. They are focused on their work and what actually helps the student. They are not ‘song and dance’ people – they don’t care about appearing to be a certain way. They just get the job done, and unfortunately, it’s these men that the elites can exploit for their own gain. Like students in classrooms, these men perform everyday acts of resistance. In the case of students and workers, it is the system forcing it’s values and processes on them, and they naturally fight back, in rational ways.

Unfortunately, things will not change, because elites have not learnt the recent lessons that are so palpably on display. They are in a bubble, and it won’t be until we see a crisis or they are put in a system where they are more accountable for their decisions that we will see change. And that is a long way off.