you say you want this minnesota

You say you want this...so then why are you doing that?

Joe Bowerwww.joebower.org@joe_bowerjoe.bower.teacher@gmail.com

Abigail is given plenty of worksheets to complete in class as well as a substantial amount of homework. She studies to get good grades, and her school is proud of its high standardized test scores. Outstanding students are publicly recognized by the use of honor rolls, awards assemblies, and bumper stickers. Abigail's teacher, a charismatic lecturer, is clearly in control of the class: students raise their hands and wait patiently to be recognized. The teacher prepares detailed lesson plans well ahead of time, uses the latest textbooks, and gives regular quizzes to make sure kids stay on track.

-Alfie Kohn from The Schools Our Children Deserve

What’s wrong with this picture?

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea; it has us.

-Alfie Kohn from Punished by Rewards

Rethink School

When do we stop blaming the kids?

Can we admit:

•school can be improved

•to improve school, we need to change school

We tend to parent the way we were parented,and teach the way we were taught.

If you never change your mind, why have one?

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll getwhat you’ve always gotten.

-Anthony Robbins

Insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

-Albert Einstein

Can we agree:

•we want children to become lifelong

learners

It ain’t what we don’t know that gets usinto trouble... it’s what we know for surethat just ain’t so.

-Mark Twain

However beautiful the strategy,you should occasionally look at the results.

-Winston Churchill

We need school to look a little less like school

What if kids who hated school became teachers?

homeworkgrading

rewardspunishment

discipline

hand raisingmultiple choice

honours

competition

testing

lecturing

standardization

lesson planning

curriculum

Rethink Discipline

The more you use power to try and controlpeople, the less real influence you’llhave on their lives.

-Thomas Gordon

The hardest kids to like are the oneswho need us the most

What has made you feel so bad inyour life that you feel someone has to share your pain?

-Sean Grainger

Rethink Assessment

Assessment vs Measurement

Measurable outcomes may be the least significant results of learning.

-Linda McNeil

Grades cause an emotional reaction -either positive or negative.

Feedback causes you to think, which is reflective learning.

-Dylan Wiliam

Reducing children to a test score isthe worst form of identity theft wecould commit in schools.

-Steven Covey

Never grade students while they are still learningsomething and, even more important, do not rewardthem for their performance.

-Alfie Kohn

A mark or a grade is an inadequate reportof an inaccurate judgement by a biasedand variable judge of the extent to whicha student has attained an indefiniteamount of material.

-Paul Dressel

Students should experience successand failure not as reward and punishmentbut as information.

-Jerome Bruner

Every rubric I have ever seen involves the useof a fixed measurement scale.

I once had a student tell me that at her schoolthey do formative assessment on a 4-point

scale...

Gather ------> Share

Collecting information doesn’t require tests, and sharing that information doesn’trequire grades.

-Alfie Kohn

We must constantly remind ourselves thatthe ultimate purpose of evaluation is toenable students to evaluate themselves.

-Art Costa

Assessment is not a spreadsheet -- it’s a conversation

There is no substitute for what a teacher sees and hears everyday while working with

students while they are still learning.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judgea fish by its ability to climb a tree, itwill live its whole life believing it is stupid.

-Albert Einstein

The greatest trick standardized testing ever pulled was to convince the world it resembles anything we do in the real world.

Standardized testing is what constitutes an amazingly contrived and unrealistic form of assessment.

Standardized testing has almost nothing to do with education and almost everything to do with politics and profiteering.

Standardized testing tells us about learning as much as reality TV tells us about reality.

Standardized testing is as much for the kids as the Running of the Bulls is for the Bulls.

A correct answer on a test does not necessarilysignal understanding, and a wrong answer doesnot necessarily signal an absence of understanding.

-Alfie Kohn

The bane of reducing learning to a symbolis that it inevitably overvalues whatever

can be quantified and undervalueswhat cannot.

Not everything that counts can be countedand not everything that can be countedcounts.

-Albert Einstein

There is a big difference between measuring what we value and valuing what we measure.

Rethink Curriculum

Learning should be done in a contextand for a purpose.

It is simply double-talk to ask children to takecharge of their own learning and at the same timeorder them to “discover” something that can haveno role in helping them understand anything theycare about or are interested in or curious about.

-Seymour Papert

The CommonCoreBore

When children have trouble learning this should be seen not as a problem with the child, but a problem for the curriculum to solve.-Mary Drummond

The passion of learning is not something youhave to inspire kids to have; it’s somethingyou have to keep from extinguishing.

-Deborah Meier

A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to its job.

Why waste time proving over and over how greatyou are, when you could be getting better?

-Carol Dweck

gaofen dineng

gaokao

zhuangyyuan

zero sum

Success should never be artificiallyscarce for an arbitrary few.

Competition is for the strong.Public Education is for everyone.

See the problem?

Peers become obstacles to your own success

We can teach kids about competition withoutimmersing them in it.

Two tales of technology and personalization

Bill GatesRupert MurdochArne DuncanMichelle Rhee

union bustingtest score analyticsmarketization of our children’s minds

Technology becomes a trojan horse carrying an army of economists and shadow industries who have been stalking public education for a very long time.

In this story, the poor get a computer, while the rich get a computer and a teacher.

In this story, technology and personalization isn’t about learning -- it’s about profits.

In this story, technology uses the learner.

Two tales of technology and personalization

Sir Ken RobinsonAlfie KohnLinda Darling-HammondDiane RavitchYong ZhaoWill Richardson

excitement and engagementcreativity, curiosity and citizenshipintrinsic motivation and a love for learning

In this story, even when supplying children with their own computer becomes cheaper than providing them with a teacher, we have the courage to give all kids both.

In this story, personalization isn’t about technology -- it’s about learning.

In this story, the learner uses technology.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Which tale is this?

Are the learners using the machineor is the machine using the learners?

If we simply reconcile to the status quo and spendall our time getting our children to accomodatethemselves to it and play the game, then nothingwill change and they will have to do the same withtheir children. As someone once said, realism corrupts; absolute realism corrupts absolutely.

-Alfie Kohn

The most important attitude that can be formedis that of a desire to go on learning.

If we want to make things better for ourchildren, we need to start questioning what

we consider to be the obvious.

You say you want this...so then why are you doing that?

Joe Bowerwww.joebower.org@joe_bowerjoe.bower.teacher@gmail.com