The Malleable World

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you are to just live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. 

Quoting Steve Jobs and showing clips from one of his many video interviews seems to be one of the best ways to garner attention on the Internet, but I promise that's not my primary intent in embedding this video here. Instead, I wanted to use it to lead into the most important thing that teachers (and anyone responsible for the growth, development, and education of young children across the world) need to remember: we need to promote the understanding that the world is malleable. It can always be changed.

If you don't agree, I completely understand why. Life is tough and there are some tragedies that haven't been avoided and may never be eliminated. But I will never forgive you for being the kind of person that stands in the way of any young boy or girl who naively believes that everything around them can, and should be, improved for the better.

My Thoughts on Being a "Delayed Adolescent"

I've read a lot of articles in the last few weeks that seem like they were written for the express purpose of making me feel like less of a sub-human being and more like a... future valued-member-of-society-who-just-hasn't-been-given-the-chance-to-shine. This New York Times article is the latest in this series and fortunately could not come at a better time:

Just when parents thought they might finally be free of their children, many of this year’s college graduates will pick up their degrees — and move back home. Even those who don’t may continue to live off the parental dole...

But this is not necessarily the nightmare scenario it’s made out to be. Our research shows that the closer bonds between young adults and their parents should be celebrated, and do not necessarily compromise the independence of the next generation.

Phew, I really needed that. The writer goes on to explain that my parents' generation, when faced with the trials of graduating high school and college and being dumped out into a society rife with unemployment and uncertainty, depended on the advice (for better or for worse) of their own peers. You can see how that'd quickly cause some problems, most of which I'm sure could never be attributed to any of the late 20th century's social uprisings. But my generation, on the other hand, retains a symbiotic relationship with our parents and guardians that may not be the worst thing that could happen to us.

A personal example. This week, I discovered that my income (or complete lack of any, considering that I haven't had a job since February) wasn't going to raise my cash-on-hand up above this coming month's expenses... the credit card companies were going to be asking for my hard-saved money and when they pried it away from me, I was going to be left with, uh... less than enough for my countless expenses (food).

25 years ago (or with the mindset that "I can take on the world all by myself, I don't need anyone's help!") I might have closed my eyes and randomly picked one of my three credit cards to carry over a balance, leading to increased debt. And just like those Comcast commercials, this simple decision would have led me to joining a gang, losing an arm, and missing my chance to become a blackbelt in karate.

But instead, I called my mom! And 15 minutes later (and with a small, but generous, loan) I had a plan for how I'd stay afloat for another few weeks. Now I can pursue my dreams of martial arts glory.

In closing, a large part of the world doesn't see any problem with this. Many cultures actually expect children to live with their parents into adulthood and someday support them. Other countries are faced with the actual need for children to contribute to their parents' income and well-being... at least in America we have the choice, and I don't think it's one that we should be ashamed of having.

Got a Budget Surplus? Raises for Everyone!

As I said yesterday, giving kids access to fun games that teach them math is not going to solve any of education's big problems... because access to fun educational games is not one of education's big problems! But what is?

From the Washington Post:

But as their budgets begin to improve, boards now face choices about spending increases: Should they raise salaries, lower class sizes or restore programs that had been cut?

Several local boards have opted this year for pay increases, in response to demands from teachers and other employees whose salaries had stagnated.

And so what priorities were left on the cutting room floor? Restoring arts programs, pre-kindergarten and other early intervention programs, summer-school, and decreasing class sizes. (One concerned father expressed worry that his daughter's kindergarten class would max out at 25 students this coming year, which probably sounds like a dream scenario for leagues of kindergarten teachers across the nation.)

The Prince William County district has been pressured in recent years to make budget cuts, and decided this spring to push the limits of its middle and high school class sizes in order to find some extra money. But the money saved, where did it go? Raises for its employees:

'This year the priority was keeping pace with salaries around the region,' said Philip Kavits, a spokesman for Prince William schools. 'We don’t want to lose people.'

On behalf of countless unemployed teachers across America, I think I can safely say that you'd be able to find a few people to take the spots of those who left because teaching just wasn't paying them enough.

Yes, Let's Encourage Big Business to Further Influence Public Education

Ugh, Fast Company. When I saw this headline, I expected that a trip to The Onion was in order. I hadn't heard the news of AT&T's investment in educational games yet, but I was certain that this article was lampooning whatever decision had actually been made in an AT&T boardroom somewhere.

But I was wrong, and this article was dead serious. The authors, Judah Schiller and Christine Arena, are the founders of AIKO, an "intelligent agency" (no, seriously, their website states their intelligence right in the header) that basically consults with large corporations seeking to improve their public image by taking on causes important to their customers. In this case, they chose to pat AT&T on the back for giving a grant to GameDesk, a nonprofit/startup focusing on educational games for children. A disclaimer on the article also notes that GameDesk is one of AIKO's flagship partners. Just sayin'.

My beef, so you know, is not with GameDesk (or the larger goal of AIKO). My problem is with Schiller and Arena taking a relatively small example of corporate philanthropy, raising it up in significance above a "tried and true" donation to the United Way (apparently as long as kids are playing games, they won't be worried about their parents' unemployment and their inequitable access to healthcare), and then giving AT&T executives all the credit for disrupting education. Furthermore, we're supposed to believe that other companies should follow this trend and start giving more money to so-called disruptors in education.

Can we all start to agree that the problem with our public education system has nothing to do with games?

I may be especially cranky these days, but this just reeks of the same "investments" and "innovation" that companies like Apple, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson are bringing to the table these days. All of which end in huge profits for those companies and fodder for articles about how ebooks and tablets are going to ensure that every child graduates high school and competes with China lives a happy, successful life.

Educators know best the realities of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it can be applied to organizations and communities just as easily as it can be applied to individual lives. Until our basic needs are met (by combatting rising inequity between minorities in schools, widespread budget cuts to districts, and a baffling disrespect for teachers and education professionals in the media) we can't even begin to ponder the ways that games and tablets are going to revolutionize education. Apple doesn't profit from hiring more teachers, and Pearson's massive testing centers actually benefit from a populace who believes the people teaching their children need to be vetted better. So remind me again why we should be looking to those companies for the secret solution to our problems?

The answer to my question comes from another one of Schiller and Arena's blog posts earlier this year:

We expect to see many more companies invest deeply in education, not simply as a cause du jour, but as a means of innovation and marketplace survival.

Want a Teaching License? Just Pay Pearson!

A generous and forward-thinking company has finally stepped forward to help colleges and universities weed out those prospective teachers who just shouldn't make the cut... and it's Pearson, the company known for every textbook and basal reader not published by Scholastic, McGraw-Hill, or Cengage! They've offered to take on one of the most important roles that university faculty play in preparing students to become education professionals, the process of approving graduates for licensure.

Colleges (including Ohio University, which I'll get to in a moment) have already begun field-testing this system in the last year or two, but it's in the news now because instructors and student teachers at the University of Massachusetts are choosing to opt-out of sending their portfolios and final reports to a company best known in 2012 for introducing children across America to the story of a talking pineapple and other ridiculously unfair and biased test questions. (Pearson has since stated that its tests are valid and reliable. As always, it's the student's fault for not recognizing the moral of a story in which a group of animals inexplicably eat a pineapple because it doesn't have sleeves or something. I'm just as lost as everyone else.) I sure hope the 15-billion dollar company can maintain a profit in 2012.

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