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.

Where did this idea come from? According to an official at UMass, it was the fault of the shadowy "education reform movement":

Ms. Willett said the education reform movement had been highly critical of teacher education programs, complaining that not enough weak candidates were being eliminated. An independent measure should reassure the public, she said.

That's right! The general public, always bashing teachers for being weak and lazy and incompetent, you've gone and pushed Pearson into a situation I'm sure it doesn't want to be in at all. Now it has to decide if you're good enough to be a teacher.

And I'm not sure if Pearson really has the time to devote to this effort, to be honest. As the New York Times article pointed out:

In New York, Pearson will be able to test a teacher’s worth from start to finish. The company currently administers the test students must pass to be admitted to a teaching program and is developing the testing system that will be used to calculate each teacher’s annual performance score.

Soon, Pearson will start distributing those little personality quizzes the guidance counselor hands out in the third grade. Surely this company, with its highly paid employees (outsourced, of course, for $75 per test) and transparent system of governance, can tell if an eight year-old really has what it takes to become a teacher, right?

Update: The actual requirements for the assessment itself, titled the Teacher Performance Assessment, are almost impossible to find. Fortunately for you, I've completed a TPA in the field test at Ohio University and have uploaded a copy of the handbook to Scribd for you to view here.

Valve is a video game development company based out of Washington, and they are the geniuses behind some of the most critically-acclaimed games in the last decade, including the Half-Life series and the mind-bending puzzle/platformer Portal. They are also responsible for up to 70% of the digital market for games with their Steam service, packed with more than 1500 games.

Needless to say, they're a successful company. And if they continue to make money and grow, they're going to need employees... but not just any employees, according to a handbook written for new hires that leaked onto the Internet this weekend.

We've known that Silicon Valley and startups on both the West and East coast are famous for the innovative ways in which their employees are made to feel comfortable while at work. Fully-stocked refrigerators, healthy cafeteria menus, massage parlors and game rooms are commonly found in workplaces where creativity is valued. A pool table and complimentary passes to the company gym, though, are not the only essential ingredients for success. These companies also think long and hard about the environment they are creating when they hire new employees and bring them into the fold.

Although this handbook doesn't provide us with a look at how Valve hires its employees, it does show us what new hires are expected to do from Day One and beyond. And while reading it, I had to wonder if Valve's corporate culture and non-hierarchial management system will someday be threatened, not by competitors or investors, but by the workforce our schools are currently fostering.

The entire handbook is well worth a read and shouldn't take you long, but here are some key points:

• Valve has no management system. Every employee is expected to be dedicated to the company's success, so why distrust your coworker and doubt their solutions to key problems? Google tried this system in its infancy and later ended up with a much more rigid structure.
• Valve subtly prompts employees to collaborate. The desks have wheels.
• Valve generously gives its employees "100% time". All work is self-directed and people vote with their feet; projects with obvious potential attract developers to them.
• Valve values long-term returns over lucrative opportunities.
• Valve recognizes that organizational structure forms within teams. Further, they understand that the best teams are the ones created by the members themselves and for very specific, temporary purposes.
• Valve encourages risk-taking. "Nobody has ever been fired at Valve for making a mistake... Screwing up is a great way to find out that your assumptions were wrong or that your model of the world was a little bit off."
• Valve employees review each other's performance. The payroll department is not a part of the process. "... the best quality feedback is directive and prescriptive, and designed to be put to use by the person you're talking about."
• Valve credits the people who worked on a game... alphabetically, without titles.
• Valve hires "T-shaped" people.

Valve isn't so naive as to think that the company, as outlined here, can survive forever without vigilance. In the brief section where they do address hiring practices, they specifically point out that hiring the wrong kind of people will destroy the flat management structure of the company and before long, bureacracy will paralyze them. Unfortunately, Valve may not always have a lot to choose from if we continue to ignore the way modern organizations are run and force students down an assembly-line model of education.

Love him or hate him for his no-holds-barred approach to delivering the truth about the public education system (and I've been reminded several times that he is not an educator but a businessman), Seth Godin does have the masterful ability to make you think long and hard about your attitudes towards life's most important institutions. His most hated adversary is the lizard brain, his catch-all explanation for why humans are fearful of anything that could result in discomfort.

His latest book, a short but powerful read titled Stop Stealing Dreams focuses entirely on education, undoubtedly a result of legions of educators begging him to elaborate on the points he made previously in books like Linchpin relating to school.

Godin highlights the fact that teachers really only have two options available to them in order to keep students engaged - fear and passion. You can guess which one he believes is easier to induce. He doesn't pretend that teachers make this choice because they are lazy, though:

The problem is that individual passion is hard to scale—hard to fit into the industrial model. It’s not reliably ignited. It’s certainly harder to create for large masses of people.

One of the more frustrating elements of any Godin manifesto is the fact that he doesn't always give us the solution to the problem. It's not his fault, of course; if you think that you can fix the education system in 24 hours, go right ahead. Instead, he models the exact kind of thinking and activity that we should be incorporating into our classrooms as much as possible: here's a problem, how will you solve it?

A few quarters ago in a school that I will not name, I listened to a kindergarten teacher talk to a group of students about an upcoming science experiment. They were all excited, eager to have a chance to be scientists. "I love science," one would exclaim. "Science is very easy," another would declare.

And then, like a giant boot coming from the sky to crush the worker ants below, the teacher turned to her classroom aide and said, "We'll have to remind them about this when they get to the third grade... they won't like science then!"

Whether or not she was correct (and from my own personal experience, I would come very close to agreement with her) is not up for debate. I cringed at the words, though, because it is the perfect example of the kind of fear we invoke every day at school without even thinking about it. The lack of passion and drive that our fourth and fifth graders start to exhibit cannot be blamed solely on the boring, repetitive classroom borne from a push for standardized testing. We're to blame too, because teachers love to scare children into thinking that they'd better sit in their seats and listen, or else the rest of their life will be miserable.

Not convinced? Here's a few statements I've heard myself and past colleagues say in the classroom: 

• "I can't help you with that question... on that big (ed: Scary! Terrifying! Life-threatening!) test in the spring, no one can help you!"
• "Boys and girls, you have to learn your multiplication facts before the fourth grade. Your teachers will expect you to know them all!" (ed: And if you don't, they'll feed you to the grue!)
• "An 'F' on this test is going to make it very difficult to get a good grade in science!" (ed: And so really, if you fail this test, don't even bother coming to school tomorrow. Or next year, since your fifth grade teacher is going to expect you to remember this stuff!)
• "Acting like this as an adult will only get you in jail, or worse." (ed: If said to any student below the 11th-12th grade, you're doing nothing but creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

Teachers, principals, and parents don't even have to say anything to scare children into compliance. All of the classrooms I have been in are structured so that mistakes, academic and behavioral, are almost irreparable. Walking out of a single file line might make your stoplight turn from green to yellow or red. Can anything reverse that decision? Does walking in line with everyone else the following day earn you a green stoplight? Most grading systems are set up so that a few bad grades at the beginning of the grading period (you know, when students shouldn't be expected to be experts on a topic or skill) could really outweigh the progress you make in the last three weeks. Don't even get me started on the subject of a one-shot chance on a multiple-choice test to evaluate an entire year's worth of learning.

If passion really is the alternative to fear, then we have to stop leading children to believe that school is such a terrible, unforgiving place.

NOTE: I'm aware of the potential to misread the title of this post. I think the sentiment is clear.

An article in Wired magazine backs me up on this and then takes the idea one step further, to a point where it becomes apparent that the growth mindset is essential for teachers to nurture in their students.

Jonah Lehrer explains:

The question at the heart of the paper is simple: Why are some people so much more effective at learning from their mistakes? After all, everybody screws up. The important part is what happens next. Do we ignore the mistake, brushing it aside for the sake of our self-confidence? Or do we investigate the error, seeking to learn from the snafu?

Students in a study completed by Carol Dweck were praised for their work on a simple task, but in two different ways. One group was praised for their intelligence - "You must be very smart at this!" - while the other was praised for their efforts - "You must have worked hard on this!" The students were then given a chance to try a harder task, one that they were told would be more difficult but would benefit them if completed. The results were unsurprising to me:

But it soon became clear that the type of compliment given to the fifth graders dramatically affected their choice of tests. When kids were praised for their effort, nearly 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. However, when kids were praised for their intelligence, most of them went for the easier test. What explains this difference? According to Dweck, praising kids for intelligence encourages them to “look” smart, which means that they shouldn’t risk making a mistake.

And there we begin another argument for constructive guidance and discipline in the classroom. The surest way to create a self-fulfilling prophecy for the unmotivated or struggling students in your classroom is to imply that they are doomed to continue repeating their failures. By explaining that their mistake isn't a sign of weakness but instead a signal that more work should be done to improve, you can potentially avoid a lifelong cycle of helplessness.

The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence — the “smart” compliment — is that it misrepresents the psychological reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is when we learn from our mistakes.

I'm at the end of my undergraduate education and I can name several examples of colleagues who become frozen with fear when faced with a difficult challenge. Unfortunately, these are men and women who will soon be entering into a classroom themselves and if they don't begin to recognize the necessity of a growth mindset, another generation of students will become fixed upon their failures as well.

The study itself is not at fault, of course (and rarely is). I did take issue with the researchers putting teachers in the uncomfortable position of actually choosing their favorite and least favorite students and describing them. Sure, we all play favorites, but I'm already wary of these teachers' disposition toward education if they can readily name their least favorite student in the classroom. I'm willing to bet that you'll find little Johnny in the back of the classroom, possibly facing the opposite direction of his classmates and working on uncompleted homework from the day before. But I'll get back to the point.

The results of the first part of the study showed that these teachers described their least favorite students as more creative (as defined by a list of characteristics deemed creative). Their most favorite students, on the other hand, were described as less creative.

At this point, the study could go in a few different ways, analyzing the elements of the classroom and our nation's schools that might lead to such results.

But that's not what the headlines are going to say.

What we all suspect but educators don't like to admit: Teachers don't like creative students marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…

— Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) January 3, 2012

Alex Tabarrok even titles his article on the study, Teachers Don't Like Creative Students, and uses this as an opportunity to promote "personalized learning" via the Khan Academy. Nothing says creative expression like watching a series of 10-minute videos on math and science. The ruse worked, though; in a year-end review of the most popular posts on his blog in 2011, this one came in at #2 and snagged him valuable pageviews and a boatload of Twitter buzz.

Fortunately, not all of the recent write-ups about this study have completely missed the point. Jonah Lehrer, whose post led to Tabarrok's follow-up, pointed out that it's the institution of public education, specifically standardized public education, that leads to this distaste for creativity. I'd go even further to pose the more important question: does society like creative people?

This shouldn't be too surprising: Would you really want a little Picasso in your class? How about a baby Gertrude Stein? Or a teenage Eminem? The point is that the classroom isn't designed for impulsive expression - that's called talking out of turn. Instead, it's all about obeying group dynamics and exerting focused attention. Those are important life skills, of course, but decades of psychological research suggest that such skills have little to do with creativity.

Of course, daydreaming is less helpful when we're supposed to be learning our multiplication tables, or studying for a standardized test. In such instances, the lack of focused attention is a classroom failure, and not a potentially useful state of mind. The danger, however, is that we're teaching our kids a very narrow and stultifying model of cognition, in which conscientiousness is privileged above all.

I'd even go further to pose the more important question: does society like creative people? It's not as if children themselves created the public education system, and classroom teachers aren't wholly responsible for the nation's slow march towards a system driven by standardized testing. Maybe teachers are guilty of viewing creative and nonconformist children as obnoxious, but they aren't alone. And to what extent does the common classroom teacher (e.g. the ones who aren't already passionate about creating a flexible learning environment) have to make the necessary changes to promote creativity? Schools adopt district-wide discipline policies that throw a blanket rule over all children's behaviors, and subjects are being eliminated from the curriculum simply because they don't carry as much weight on the all-important standardized test. Those elements and more are to blame for the destruction of creative behavior in our students, not simply the teacher's own beliefs.

It's fine if you choose to eat more Domino's pizza just because you think it's suddenly more healthy for you. Go right ahead and subscribe to the belief that any discontent with the ever-widening gap between the upper and lower class in America is socialist thinking. And please, spend a few hundred bucks more on a smartphone that you think is going to download YouTube videos faster than yours does now. There's no long-term harm in any of that, besides alienating your more liberal relatives during the holiday season.

The field of education, however, needs to avoid adding any more buzzwords to its repertoire. And if there's one buzzword that really rubs me the wrong way, it's this one: 21st century learning.

How do you know that you are a 21st century teacher? Simple.

You live in the 21st century, and are a teacher.

I'm referring to a post I saw float past on the Twitter feed (some might call it a PLN, unless you're receiving tweets from other teachers right alongside the latest news about Kim Kardashian, and then its relevance becomes a little harder to observe) listing the 21 signs that you are a 21st Century Teacher. And since the first item on the list referred to a PLN, I knew that I wasn't going to like this one.

What are some of the other signs that you are a 21st century teacher?

3.  You conduct virtual meetings with faculty and parents using the Google+ Hangout feature.

7.  You not only allow but fully support and encourage the use of social media inside school.

15.  Interactive Whiteboards have replaced nearly every overhead projector throughout the school.

16.  Upon entering the front doors, students make sure they have their mobile devices with them …and that they are turned on. 

17.  You collect classroom walkthrough and observation data via Google Forms.

Yes, I cherry-picked these examples. Yes, many of them were very valid suggestions for professional development. Yes, collaboration and communication is made much easier by the Internet. My biggest problems with the buzz around 21st century learning and teaching are these:

1. It's a little embarassing to say that you are just learning how to become a 21st century teacher when we're approaching the 12th year of the century, isn't it?
2. There is a lot more happening in the 21st century than whatever Google or Facebook is doing.
3. We're losing our focus.

Hand a student a smartphone and an Einstein you do not make. If you don't use that expensive SmartBoard for anything besides taking the lunch count in the morning or pulling up the worksheets McGraw-Hill sent you at the beginning of the year, your classroom hasn't received a dose of interactivity. Simply using the hottest new feature of your favorite social media service isn't going to create a respectful, reciprocal relationship with your students and their families if you just use it to deliver more bad news about Timmy's math grade.

I understand that we are in a transformational time in education and people are still learning. Being 22 years old, it is very easy for me to forget that technology hasn't been an integral part of my life. But if you continue to believe that technology, and only technology, is going to "flip" your classroom, you're wrong. The principles of learning and teaching still stand, but they can't be ignored or covered up by the latest gadget.

I've spoken with several teachers who have watched as their schools invest money in entire sets of iPads, but fail to invest time in training teachers how to use them. And if you watch any Apple commercials and have never used an iPad before, you're probably going to assume that your entire classroom is going to be playing Angry Birds or watching YouTube while you teach. You're not going to automatically see the benefit or potential if you're worried about how to plug the damn thing in.

An unpopular opinion these days, I know, but I'm simply warning everyone. The curriculum should guide your practice, not the technology.

But it's not the only reason that we teach. Effective teachers are able to bring a classroom's test scores up a few points on average, and if they're lucky, they'll get by without any conflicts with the families of their students. Effective teachers look at a full classroom and see several distinct groups forming, often based on ability, age, and sociability. Effective teachers don't harm children and they aren't bad teachers. But they could do better. And I want to do better.

Below you will find my revised philosophy statement. I realize that this is essentially Cory “talking the talk” and not demonstrating any real, practical understanding of the education field. If looked at as a series of goals, however, you’ll soon find that your guiding principles shouldbe based upon the most perfect utopian vision of education. Will you reach those goals? Will your students leave each year with a halo around their head, their craniums packed with knowledge, and their hearts filled with the determination to succeed at everything they attempt? Probably not, but striving to be the kind of teacher who can unlock a child’s true potential is harmless when compared to the teacher that decides that the system doesn’t allow them to do what needs to be done. And gives up. And becomes part of the cycle.

Feel free to ridicule me for my beliefs. Feel free to tell me that I will burn out, that it’s just not possible. If, in two or three years, I am homeless, living on the streets and picking up aluminum cans in order to get some spare cash… well, then you can say “I told you so”. Until then, let me have a shot at this teaching business.

“The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.” – Jean Piaget 

I believe that children are constantly constructing knowledge about their environment. Facts, figures, dates and times will be doomed to short-term memory if we treat children like boxes that can be stuffed with knowledge. True learning requires children to be active and engaged in meaningful tasks. It requires children to build upon the knowledge that they have already acquired. Our role as teachers is to provide students with the opportunity to apply their newfound skills, and to determine what they are capable of mastering with assistance from a peer or teacher.

I believe that an exceptional teacher uses every resource at his or her disposal. Why apply only one theory of learning to your curriculum if you can combine elements of several in your classroom? Lev Vygotsky teaches us that socialization is essential, and that teachers scaffold a child’s learning by providing an appropriate amount of support. Jean Piaget stresses the importance of children manipulating and interacting with objects. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development leads us to form respectful, reciprocal relationships with children and their families in order to maximize their potential for learning.

I believe in the importance of authentic assessments that help shape the curriculum. Tests do not determine a child or teacher’s worth. Tests should be used to evaluate a student’s progress, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and meet their unique needs as individuals. Furthermore, students should be invited to assess themselves whenever necessary.

I believe that I am responsible for supporting a child’s cognitive, physical, and socioemotional development. A teacher’s role is not only to help students acquire knowledge, but to help them grow into healthy and happy adults. Trust, autonomy, and initiative are important qualities that are first attained in early childhood, but can be irreparably damaged if the classroom does not foster it.

“A poor teacher complains, an average teacher explains, a good teacher teaches, a great teacher inspires.”

As a kid, I played hours and hours of video games. My favorite genre was the fantasy RPG. I could be sucked into a role-playing game almost instantly. The world, the characters, the story… it all fascinated me. As I got older, the stories didn’t become any less interesting, but another goal came into focus: character improvement. I found that if I just devoted some time to hacking and slashing my way through more and more rounds of creatures, I would gain experience or items that would increase my character’s strength and abilities. The Final Fantasy series began treating this aspect of their games in a very unique way, giving you access to a vast grid full of new skills and power-ups that had to be unlocked. Oh, and did I mention that you had to make important decisions about which path your character would take?

This isn’t a video game review, so I’ll wrap up the analogy. Ever since those days I have been fascinated with the idea of living a life that is much like a Final Fantasy game. No, not with swords and diabolical villains… with a growth mindset. The attitude that every day doesn’t have to be a reiteration of the days before it, and that you can learn and develop as a multi-faceted person.

It’s helped me shape my philosophy of education, also; there is nothing that cannot be learned if you are willing to work hard enough at it. That’s the key, of course, and it’s what separates me from the world class athletes or the brave soldiers sent overseas by our military.

And now I’ve got to admit that I’m a hypocrite.

I don’t feel as if I’ve grown enough. I don’t feel as if I’ve changed enough. I don’t feel as if I’m really all that different than I was on May 31st, 2010. It’s not true, of course, but the actual change is probably equivalent to going from version 1.0 to version 1.25 in the operating system known as life.

Learn how to speak Spanish. Take up photography. Travel outside of the United States. Learn to play a musical instrument. Write more. Read more. Be more honest with those you care about. Speak up for yourself. Be more assertive. Take a stand, make a difference.

I haven’t done any of it, yet, but I scoff at the people who are satisfied with the status quo. I cringe when I see people content to just keep doing things the way they were done before. I get frustrated when people don’t care to add anything to their lives, when they feel as if they can never amount to anything more than the person they became when they graduated from high school or left college.

So I’m a hypocrite. But if there is one thing that I despise more than anything else in the world, it’s hypocrisy. And so beginning today, I’m going to work on version 1.26, and then 1.27. And maybe soon I’ll get the courage to jump to 2.0.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

And then, I watched as her on-screen testimony went from joy to sadness and bitterness in just minutes.

For she was the kind of teacher that I know is out there, working their way through pre-service education or their first year or two in a school. Still driven by a passion for learning, still motivated to make lasting changes in the lives of her students. And slowly but surely, her internal flame was snuffed out by the kind of school that we want to make all of them more like.

Teach this, not that. That can’t be covered on the test, don’t waste your time. Get rid of recess. Get rid of time for play. Focus less on social skills, you’re not devoting enough time to mathematics. Your methods? They’re taking up too much time. They’re inefficient. You don’t assign meaningless homework? You’re not doing your job. You disagree with formal grading? You are coddling my child. You can’t be guaranteed that your students know the material. They’ll never learn. Your students will fail.

You will fail.

I’ll just admit that I came just as close to tears in this segment of the documentary as I did when Vicki Abeles sat down with the mother of Devon Marvin, the 13 year old girl whose suicide prompted Abeles to begin working on this film. Watching this young teacher confess that she had to resign from her position as a schoolteacher or watch her own well-being spiral dangerously out of control was simply terrifying. I immediately began to worry that this was my future: a brief career as the kind of teacher that I have always wanted to be, stopped dead in its tracks by a system more worried about numbers and averages than students and young minds.

And so what do we do? President Obama and the Department of Education have plans to attract more qualified teachers to struggling classrooms, but what are we doing to ensure that they want to stay? Because motivation isn’t only important in the context of pedagogy and classroom management; without autonomy and purpose, young and seasoned educators alike are going to find themselves making a difficult decision. Is it worth it to abandon your ideals and subscribe to a brand of education that you do not agree with, a brand of education that eats away at your passion for teaching?

I’d like to think that I know myself very well. I know that I am determined to make a difference in this field, but I also know that I sometimes back away from things out of fear and uncertainty. And I can’t think of anything more terrifying than not being a teacher.