To care – the chief
reason we will not be made redundant by artificial intelligence
“I
have noticed that is the biggest motivator for kids. If the kids perceive that the teacher genuinely cares about each of them as individuals that's huge. That
carries more weight in the classroom than any teaching technique. Establishing
a sense of family and community in the classroom."
Joseph Ruhle, 38-year
high school teacher (see Addendum A)
As principals, teachers, and
staff begin the new school year, a word.
One word. The key difference.
Too obvious. A given. Perhaps
trite. But, in the end, we will walk
into the school building the next 175 mornings because we … care.
That’s it.
We care about the lives and
well-being and education and character of the young people we will be with each
day for the next 9-10 months.
It is inaccurate to say we spend
the summers “recharging our batteries.”
A good answer for man as machine, but that is not who we are. We are in
the business of caring, intensely, about young people … who need strong
teaching, support, and kindness. Our
business is a matter of the heart.
No wonder we reach the final days of
school each spring needing to renew our spirit.
More than a few of us crawl across the finish line. So yes, summer is a blessing: time to restore
our soul. A chance to make sure we will
return to the classroom another year with the depth of commitment we know is
necessary to do this job well.
The new 28 kids in our elementary
class this first week, or the new 125 in our five classes in middle or high
school, deserve our best, and so we hope our heart is full – and we are ready now
to care about each of them to the best of our ability.
Which is why this is a great
profession.
And
why all the talk of artificial intelligence replacing millions of jobs during
the next twenty years should not scare off the young men and women who wish to
teach.
Yes,
many imagine education undergoing a dramatic transformation, thanks to the
impersonal touch of the computer. (See The Economist,
July 22—right. Addendum B includes excerpts from the
cover story, “Machine Learning.” Subtitle: “Education technology is
changing what happens when a child goes to school.”)
There
will benefits, to be sure. But how much
is changing? When our essential purpose
is to care, no—teachers will not be out-sourced to machines.
I am not sure anyone told me, in
1975, early in my 18-years of teaching, that it was the most important
attribute. I knew it was essential to know my content, communicate clearly,
show enthusiasm for the subject, and handle behavior and discipline issues
well. But in looking back, nothing was
more important. Care.
I’ve had many other jobs, but none harder. None asked me to give as much of myself, to
try, daily, hourly, moment by moment, to be a good person.
Which, again, is why this is a great profession: it does test our character. We know where
we are impatient or insensitive, or too proud to admit where we have fallen
short—and the kids see it, and base their relationship with us on how we handle
ourselves. They see how we manage
disruption, disrespect, teasing; how we snapped, or not; how we treated the
student who returned after an illness or a death in the family--or who returned after being sent to the
principal or dean, or after a suspension.
They see if we meet with students before and after school, or over
lunch. They sense if the one-on-one
conversations are sincere. They like praise, but above all they hope we are
fair and kind. Which can be incredibly
hard, when their behavior is more than just “off task.” The moments when my temper got the better of
me had consequences—when I did not pass the test of character. They haunt my
dreams.
Their mistakes, and our failures, remind us “what fools these
mortals be.” We strive for a sense of
proportion that lets us laugh—at ourselves and each other, that allows us to be
of good cheer. Which is impossible if we
see ourselves as burdened, sacrificing our happiness for the good of others.
Let’s remind ourselves, then, to be grateful for this challenge,
this opportunity. Grateful we can see
the faces, moods, hopes, and confusion of boys and girls, teenagers, young
adults, trying to make sense of life, of who they are. Grateful we are asked to play this vital role—to
help them on their journey.
It is not that we are better people – good grief, not my point – not at all. No, what is great—inspiring really—is that we
hold a job that sets the bar so high. We
spend most of our working day with many fragile human beings, and it our task
to build good relationships with them for this week, this month, … throughout
the year. We fear the student who
recalls his or her year with us as painful, uneasy, feeling we had it out for
them…. Another bad memory.
No wonder I loved reading Do No Harm by Dr. Henry Marsh, his look
back at over thirty-years as a brain surgeon. Teachers can see themselves in his reflections,
someone ready “to admit my fallibility,” to acknowledge “mistakes and
‘complications.’” And yet deeply proud
of his chosen profession. He writes:
“The
book is also the story of an all-encompassing love-affair, and an explanation
of
why it is such a privilege—although
a very painful one—to be a neurosurgeon.”
Yes, it is privilege to be in a profession that asks so much of us.
The school year begins. We take a deep breath. We will fail time and again to be the person
we want to be, every day, for 175 days, but we are glad for the challenge—to be
asked to care as much as we can, for as many kids as we can….
And then to wake up and do it again
tomorrow, and tomorrow, until the final bell rings in late May.
**
Nothing original here. For over a year I have been gathering quotes
that make this same quality in teachers here in Colorado and beyond (see Addendum A). It is what we all know, or—lest we
forget—what we need to remember. Our
chief task: to care.
Addendum A – CARE
Quotes, excerpts, studies
“Meet The 5 New Inductees of The
National Teachers Hall of Fame”
National Public Radio, July 25, 2017
Joseph
Ruhle is a high school biology and genetics teacher at Jefferson High School in
Lafayette, Indiana. Total years in the classroom – 38.
After one of the five new inductees
stressed the importance of caring, another—Joseph Ruhle—
added.
“I
have noticed that is the biggest motivator for kids. If the kids perceive that the teacher genuinely cares about each of them as individuals that's huge. That
carries more weight in the classroom than any teaching technique. Establishing
a sense of family and community in the classroom."
**
Principal James
Chamberlin, Fraser Valley Elementary School, East Grand School District
What’s the best advice you ever received?
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
From Chalkbeat Colorado, by Ann Schimke, http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/05/15/what-one-principal-learned-from-daily-classroom-visits-brain-science-and-a-paperwork-mistake/, May 15, 2017.
**
“New Principal Standards Catch On” - Support and Care for
Students
A look at the new
standards being approved by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator
Preparedness (CAEP).
"There's a lot in the new
standards that the preparation programs have not emphasized in the past,"
said Joseph Murphy, the associate dean of the college of education at
Vanderbilt University, who worked on the original Interstate School Leadership
Licensure Consortium, or ISLLC, standards in 1996 and was part of the committee
that worked on the 2015 revision.
"We, as a profession, haven't
really paid the kind of attention to children that we probably should," he
continued. "What we have learned over the last 15 or 20 years is that
setting up a school so that children and
young people are deeply cared for is critical. ... We have been light on the care side in preparation programs, and
the research tells us that we have to be much more aggressive in helping people
to understand how to do that."
Education Week, by Denisa R.
Superville, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/01/25/new-principal-standards-catch-on.html, January 24, 2017.
**
Jane
Shirley - Vice President, Catapult Leadership – What school leaders must do
Of her
organization’s support for school leadership. “With all the quest for
accountability and numbers, school leaders need to ensure that our schools
demonstrate above all – that we care and that our students
are more than data points. We must keep asking how we’re
meeting the needs of our students emotionally as well as academically.”
At a session in the Education Policy Networking Series put on by
the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver, May 12,
2016.
**
Lone Star
High School - Otis, Colorado
“The seniors say there are some
distinct advantages to a small, isolated school where teachers really get to
know each student. Parker says some schools don't care if you hand in your homework. They’ll just give you a zero.
“The teachers at Lone Star though
are going to get on you if you don’t have your homework, she says, asking ‘why
didn’t you do it, how can we help you understand this so you do it? What can we
do to help you?’”
“In sum, says Zach Hamar, the
teachers ‘care so much, it’s
ridiculous.’”
Colorado Public Radio, by Jenny Brundin, http://www.cpr.org/news/story/graduation-time-at-a-rural-colorado-high-school?utm_source=Chalkbeat+Colorado&utm_campaign=5f1da2eedc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_588bc72838-5f1da2eedc-86514381, May 16, 2017.
**
Arnaud Garcia - a French teacher at Loveland High School in the
Thompson School District
How do you
get to know your students and build relationships with them? What questions do
you ask or what actions do you take?
I think building relationships is primordial in our job. I have a great sense of pride when students staying in my class, even if they don’t need it to graduate. You see them grow as a student and a person, and it is one of my favorite parts of the job. I don’t have to know everything about their life, but they have to know that I care about them. We have an activity: the star of the week, where we learn about one student’s life. It is a great way to learn that one of your student is an artist or has a secret talent.
I think building relationships is primordial in our job. I have a great sense of pride when students staying in my class, even if they don’t need it to graduate. You see them grow as a student and a person, and it is one of my favorite parts of the job. I don’t have to know everything about their life, but they have to know that I care about them. We have an activity: the star of the week, where we learn about one student’s life. It is a great way to learn that one of your student is an artist or has a secret talent.
Chalkbeat
Colorado, by Ann Schimke, http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/05/02/he-wasnt-much-of-a-cook-but-this-french-teacher-has-a-winning-recipe-for-teaching-his-native-tongue/, May 2,
2017.
**
Bill Cary - a teacher
in horticulture program at Pickens Technical College, retires after 25 years
Talk to former students and one thing becomes abundantly clear about the
man who was just awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Associated Landscape
Contractors of Colorado: Cary’s love for
plants is only matched by his love for his students.
“It’s who he is. He’s very caring,
he’s very warm,” said Shelby Kowalenko, a former student and owner of Colorado
Land Escapes in Aurora. “It’s almost like you don’t want to let him down
because he’s putting so much into you. You wnt to succeed.”
Aurora Sentinel, “After 25 years of
inspiring love of plants, Aurora teacher hangs up his shears,” http://newsvader.com/id/17254632988, June 7, 2017.
**
What I Learned From Listening
to 100 Oakland Students
Charles Cole II asked 100 students: “If you
could address any issue regarding education, school, and your community, what
would it be?”
“Every group we spent time with,” he writes,
“was incredibly thoughtful during these conversations. Here are the top three
answers we got. I am sharing this with
the hope that educators, community activists, parents and the like take heed.”
#1 - TEACH ME LIFE-RELEVANT SKILLS
#2 - QUALITY TEACHERS WHO CARE ABOUT ME
This one came up with a lot of passion. Students were quite vocal on
this point. They each could point to one or two teachers they felt were
“different”—who really connected to them. But for the most part, they
highlighted that they did not feel cared
for. I pressed them for examples.
One student said: “It feels like my teachers don’t wanna be here. And
I’m like, if you don’t wanna be here, what makes you think I wanna
be here?”
Another student: “My teachers know nothing about me. Nothing! Like,
damn, you want me to do all this work that has nothing to do with me, but you
can’t even take the time to find out what
I care about or where I come from?” That one got a lot of head nods and
verbal agreement….
Education
Post, by Charles Cole III, https://educationpost.org/what-i-learned-from-listening-to-100-oakland-students/, June 13, 2017.
**
Gallup Student Poll Finds Engagement in
School Dropping by Grade Level
The
survey, conducted by Gallup, found that only half of adolescents report feeling
engaged in school, and a fifth are actively disengaged. About 10 percent of
students are classified as both disengaged and discouraged.
"A
tenth of American students are really struggling," Shane Lopez, a senior
scientist at Gallup, said during a panel discussion on the survey at the
organization's headquarters here last week.
The
report suggests that engagement drops as students age because older students
feel less cared for by adults and
see less value in their own work.
Education Week, by Ross
Brenneman, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/03/23/gallup-student-poll-finds-engagement-in-school.html,
3/22/2016.
**
“More
than a third of teenage girls experience depression, new study says”
Depression
is usually considered an issue parents have to watch out for starting in the
turbulent teenage years. The CW channel, full of characters with existential
angst about school, friends and young love, tells us so, as do the countless
parenting books about the adolescent years in every guidance counselor’s
office.
But
what if by that time it’s already too late?
A
large new study out this week contains some alarming data about the state of
children’s mental health in the United States, finding that depression in many
children appears to start as early as age 11. By the time they hit age 17, the
analysis found, 13.6 percent of boys and a staggering 36.1 percent of girls
have been or are depressed.
These
numbers are significantly higher than previous estimates. Understanding the
risk of depression is critically important because of the close link between
depressive episodes and serious issues with school, relationships and suicide.
The new numbers show that whatever divergent paths boys and girls take happens
even earlier than expected.
The
Washington Post, by Ariana Eunjung Cha, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/05/31/more-than-a-third-of-teenage-girls-experience-depression-new-study-says/?utm_term=.41f1391da65f, May 31, 2017.
**
‘Too Smart to
Teach’ –
On the challenges of teaching today, and
yet the need for teachers to remember how important they are to the young
people in their care.
To be sure, educating today's youngsters in our
virtual-reality culture is a tough task …. Yet these realities are little
different from the interferences of past generations, when the introduction of
rock-and-roll, television, radio, and the backyard swimming hole all provided
newfangled nirvanas for yesterday's students to explore. Though more complex
and technological, today's distractions to academics still share some common
ground: Each involves children who are active, friend-conscious, and more interested
in having fun than in learning math facts. Times may change, and the kids of
today may appear more sophisticated than their 1940s counterparts, but a deeper
look reveals that which should be obvious: Today's
students need caring and intelligent adults to teach them as much as they
ever did.
To the many naysayers in our profession, I
kindly ask a favor: Resign or retire or retrain or do whatever it takes to
reignite the idealism that brought you here in the first place. Leave education until you once again
believe that anything is possible in the life of a child--drugs, poverty, or
emotional bankruptcy notwithstanding. If educators do not see their ability
to make a meaningful difference for a student who believes in the inevitability
of his own defeat, they are taking up valuable space in front of a
classroom--space that can and should be occupied by an optimist who takes the
role of teacher seriously and pridefully.
Education Week Teacher, by James Delisle, when he was a professor of
education at Kent State University and an enrichment teacher at Orchard Middle
School in Solon, Ohio. http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1995/11/01/03delisl.h07.html,
Nov.1, 1995.
**
“Teaching
character – Grit is critical in how and why people succeed” –
Review of two books: Paul Tough’s Helping
Children Succeed - What Works and Why, and Angela Duckworth’s Grit
Paul Tough is “almost certainly right that character skills
are shaped by a child’s social context and modeling rather than by direct
instruction. And he’s probably right that
helping students feel authentic connections to the adults in their school
and what those adults are trying to accomplish is incredibly important.
Thinking about schools as social organizations, as James Coleman once did, will
likely prove a much better approach to addressing problems of motivation than
pursuing solutions that focus on using incentives or information to change
outcomes. … [What students] do lack, too often, is a connection with adults who would be disappointed if students
didn’t care and strive for better outcomes.
Education Next, by Jay
Greene, http://educationnext.org/teaching-character-book-review-angela-duckworth-paul-tough/,
Fall 2016.
**
From “Musing on My First
Months on Ida” - Emma Willard School, Troy, N.Y.*
One of my
first efforts was to gather information from every member of the faculty and
staff about their Emma experience. The results of those personal interviews
tell a compelling story: Ask any member of this community why they stay at Emma
and the answer I heard most frequently was, “the girls.” This isn’t always the
case in schools. Emma is blessed with diverse group of caring adults who surround each girl with support and care during her entire time at Emma.
From
the Interim Head of School, Dr. Susan R. Groesbeck, Emma Willard School, Signature,
Spring 2016
(I taught English at the Emma
Willard School from 1984-88.)
**
School Climate - "How Are Middle
School Climate and Academic Performance Related Across Schools and Over
Time?"
Middle schoolers' math and reading
performance rose and fell with their belief that their school had a welcoming
climate, says a new study by the Regional Educational Lab at WestEd.
Researchers looked at 7th graders'
reports of school climate—including feelings of safety and connection, caring relationships with adults,
meaningful student participation, and low rates of bullying, drug use,
delinquency, and discrimination at school—at 1,000 California middle schools,
from 2004-05 through 2010-11. Researchers compared school climate data to
students' test performance in reading and math during that time. … Schools with high overall school climate … had
higher average reading and math scores, and student performance was strongly
related to changes in the social climate within the same school from year to
year.
Education
Week, by Sarah D. Sparks, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/02/08/school-climate-1.html, 2/8/17.
**
Europe’s top-performing school system rethinks its
approach
The
article began noting the recent praise and attention devoted to Finland’s K-12
schools, but then found a different reality:
Inside the country, however, educators are
worried. PISA scores fell in 2009 and 2012 (the next results will be published
in December). Data suggest the slide began around the turn of the century.
Children of immigrants tend to score worse, but native Finns’ scores have
dipped, too. The problem is worst among girls from non-Finnish-speaking
households and native boys: one in eight 15-year-old boys cannot read at the
level necessary to keep studying.
A separate problem is that when Finnish
children are in school, they are surprisingly glum. About half of 14- and 15-year-olds feel that their teachers do not
care about their lives. Finnish pupils are more likely than the average
OECD student to say that their classroom environment is bad for learning.
Tuomas Kurtilla, the country’s ombudsman for children, says 20-25% of Finnish
girls aged 14 and 15 receive school counselling.
The Economist, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21698679-europes-top-performing-school-system-rethinks-its-approach-helsinking,
May 12, 2016.
**
“Using
Student Surveys: Research Findings and Implications for Teaching and Learning”
- by Dr. Ron Ferguson, Senior Lecturer, Harvard
Graduate School of Education,
and Paul
Ronevich, Science Teacher, Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy.
“What we have learned through recent research
on the use of classroom- level student surveys…. (including) how surveys
capture key dimensions of classroom life and teaching practices as students
experience them.”
The Tripod 7Cs Framework
What Teachers Do (What Students
Experience)
SUPPORT
1. Care about students (Encouragement and Emotional
Support)
2. Captivate students (Learning seems Interesting
and Relevant)
3. Confer with students (Students Sense their
Ideas are Respected)
4. Clarify lessons (Success Seems Feasible)
5. Consolidate knowledge (Ideas get Connected and
Integrated)
PRESS
1. Challenge students (Press for Effort,
Perseverance and Rigor)
2. Control behavior (Culture of Cooperation and
Peer Support)
Webinar for the American Youth Policy Forum, http://www.aypf.org/resources/using-student-surveys-research-findings-and-implications-for-teaching-and-learning/, March 6, 2014.
**
First
Person: “I dropped out of school in Denver at 13. Here’s how I ended up back in
the classroom helping kids learn.” (Chalkbeat Colorado)
Every day
when I greet the young children walking into the pre-kindergarten classroom at
Rocky Mountain Prep, where I’m a teaching assistant, I wonder what my middle
school teachers would think if they could see me now.
My story starts out like so many others, but
it has a happy ending. Why? Because a
caring teacher at the school saw in me, a young mother with three kids,
someone she wanted to help reach her potential.
So here I am.
Back then, no one would have guessed I
would end up here. It felt like no one at the Denver middle school I attended
took education seriously. The teachers
who didn’t bother to learn my name didn’t take me seriously. The kids who
walked in and out class whenever they wanted sure didn’t.
**
I guess you could say my dropping out was no
big surprise. In a lot of ways, the process started when I was little. In
elementary school, I was one of the thousands of Denver kids who didn’t speak
much English. But I could never find the
help I needed and wanted at my school.
I just felt lost, like no one there cared about me.
**
The school I went to in Mexico was much
better for me. Reading, writing, math and Spanish classes were hard. But the
teachers really cared. They checked
in with me one-on-one every day. It was the first time I began to realize that
there were adults outside my family who really cared about me. That made a big difference.
**
(When her daughter) Alisson turned four, I
needed to find a school for her. We lived right across the street from an
elementary school. But everyone told me it was not a great school. I knew how
to look up information about test scores and every school I looked at near our
home did not have the best scores, or at least anything close to my
expectations.
I went
to my mom crying. We felt stuck. I really wanted my daughter to receive a
better education than I had. I wanted a high quality school that would provide the attention and support she would need.
A school that would care for her
education as much as I did.
Then in June, someone knocked on my door. It
was a teacher from Rocky Mountain Prep charter school. … I sent Alisson to the
school and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It’s nothing like any
of the schools I attended.…
(And then
Karen was hired.)
Chalkbeat Colorado, by Karen
Holguin, http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2017/06/20/i-dropped-out-of-school-in-denver-at-13-heres-how-i-ended-up-back-in-the-classroom-helping-kids-learn/, June 20,
2017.
Addendum B
Excerpts from
“Machine Learning.” Subtitle: “Education
technology is changing what happens when a child goes to school.” The
Economist, July 22, 2017.
Information
technology has reshaped other sectors; it has had little impact on education. …
Now, though, the stasis is finally starting to shift …. “edtech” is
increasingly able to interact with students in sophisticated ways. Recent
studies show that software which imitates the responsive role of a tutor rather
than just cranking out questions and answers can indeed accelerate children’s
learning.
**
Research
in two fields is shaping the new technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) is
letting machines learn about the pupils using them by studying the data
produced in the process. And research drawing on psychology, cognitive science
and other disciplines is providing practical insight into the “science of
learning”.
**
Rapid
progress in speech recognition and generation may take such ideas further.
Researchers at the ArticuLab at Carnegie Mellon University have used
voice-recognition technology to develop Alex, a “virtual peer”, who talks to children
in a vernacular that makes them feel more comfortable in class.
**
When
pupils at the Ascend School in Oakland arrive for their daily hour and a half
of maths, they look up at monitors resembling airport information screens which
tell them what and how they will learn today. One child is to work on geometry
in a group; another will take algebra questions on his laptop. Three teachers
walk around the open space, checking on pupils’ progress. At the end of the
session pupils take a short test, which is used by developers at New
Classrooms, the charity behind Teach to One, to set children’s schedules for
the next day. Wendy Baty, the school’s head of maths, is an enthusiast; she
says that pupils receive feedback that “even the best teacher could not provide
to all of the class”.
**
At
the Yerba Buena AltSchool, in San Francisco, Hugo, 12, explains that he learns
more from his peers here than at his old school. Teachers at AltSchool say they
save time by not marking or planning lessons. Instead they analyse data on
pupils’ portraits and tutor them on individual problems. Hugo says “I feel like
the teachers here really know me.”
**
If
schools can combine personalisation and rigour it is hard to imagine pupils
failing to benefit. Education software is not making teaching obsolete. If
anything it is making the craft of teaching more important. That would be good
news for the staffroom and the classroom. For as 12-year-old Hugo observes,
“too many teachers are just trying to get to the end of the day”.
No comments:
Post a Comment