Stephen Krashen is one of the bigwigs in language acquisition theory, and one of the main reasons we have shifted from the grammar-focused, drill-and-kill methods of the past to a listen-and-understand model of language instruction. He also has lots of interesting things to say on the subject of teaching as a professon and teachers; generally he is opposed to approximately everything that reformers want to have happen.
In this post he links to another post that predicts that by 2018, the teaching profession will be a very tightly-controlled, 1984-type dystopia. Then Krashen suggests that the author is being too generous, that by 2018 there will be no more teachers. I have very much been wondering if that isn't the ultimate goal of a lot of big-money reformers. I'm not sure what to do with this, but I thought I should link to it. I imagine I'm going to want to find this again.
Showing posts with label education reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education reform. Show all posts
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Education reform, unions, first principles
Or, More Questions than Answers
I'm bashing my head against two posts: this one from Shawn Gude, and this one from E.D. Kane. trying to figure out what it is that bothers me about them. I agree with nearly everything they both say, but neither of them quite...do it for me. In 6 Traits writing speak, I would give them a 5 out of 6 in Ideas, without quite knowing why.
Favorite lines:
"Ends are often regarded as self-evident. It’s a bit more complicated than agreeing that, yes, we all want an education system where students are well-educated. Reform discourse needs to include discussions of first principles, end-games, and educational values" --Gude
"[T]here is no doubt in my mind that corporate for-profit charter chains would be a mess; that the influence of the big foundations can create perverse incentives; and that the top-down approach of many reformers is a bad approach." --Kane
Things I have trouble with:
"So I support the unions, I just think they also need to reform. And I support the idea of charter schools and school-choice, I just don’t support the profiteering off of education that some reformers and corporate interests seem to want. I think charters, like unions, can be a great force for progress." --Kane
How do unions need to reform? He seems to be in favor of all the things that unions do.
How can charters be a force for progress? What do they bring to the table? I'm glad that both of these people (much better than me at this stuff) are leery of charters run by for-profit companies.
In the end, we're left with the beginning. Why do we educate our children? Do we want to make our students ready for the workplace? Well, yes, but is that all schools are good for? If so, then we should probably just go back to apprenticeships as our primary vehicle for education. That way, the cost is borne by the companies who will benefit from their labor. If we want our schools to do more for our students than that, if we want students who think about things, if we want inventive, creative thinkers, that's something different.
And, of course, if we want schools to be vehicles by which the children of the rich and powerful remain rich and powerful, we have models for that, as well.
I'm bashing my head against two posts: this one from Shawn Gude, and this one from E.D. Kane. trying to figure out what it is that bothers me about them. I agree with nearly everything they both say, but neither of them quite...do it for me. In 6 Traits writing speak, I would give them a 5 out of 6 in Ideas, without quite knowing why.
Favorite lines:
"Ends are often regarded as self-evident. It’s a bit more complicated than agreeing that, yes, we all want an education system where students are well-educated. Reform discourse needs to include discussions of first principles, end-games, and educational values" --Gude
"[T]here is no doubt in my mind that corporate for-profit charter chains would be a mess; that the influence of the big foundations can create perverse incentives; and that the top-down approach of many reformers is a bad approach." --Kane
Things I have trouble with:
"So I support the unions, I just think they also need to reform. And I support the idea of charter schools and school-choice, I just don’t support the profiteering off of education that some reformers and corporate interests seem to want. I think charters, like unions, can be a great force for progress." --Kane
How do unions need to reform? He seems to be in favor of all the things that unions do.
How can charters be a force for progress? What do they bring to the table? I'm glad that both of these people (much better than me at this stuff) are leery of charters run by for-profit companies.
In the end, we're left with the beginning. Why do we educate our children? Do we want to make our students ready for the workplace? Well, yes, but is that all schools are good for? If so, then we should probably just go back to apprenticeships as our primary vehicle for education. That way, the cost is borne by the companies who will benefit from their labor. If we want our schools to do more for our students than that, if we want students who think about things, if we want inventive, creative thinkers, that's something different.
And, of course, if we want schools to be vehicles by which the children of the rich and powerful remain rich and powerful, we have models for that, as well.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Teachers' unions
I did a brief spiel on Cesar Chavez for Hispanic Heritage Month, and in it I emphasized the role of the National Farm Workers' Association. My seventh-grade class, which often calls out anything I say which even hints at political overtones, asked me many questions which made it clear they'd heard that unions were bad. My eighth graders just wanted to know what unions did for me.
As I answered their questions, I tried to make it clear to them that I was a biased source of information, that everything I was going to tell them was pro-union, and that therefore I couldn't be trusted to provide the whole story. (It's more important that they know valid information when they hear it than that they like teachers' unions.) But it made me think again about what unions are, what unions do, and why unions are generally unpopular in the US and generally getting less so.
And then I came across this excellent post by Audrey Watters, about why almost everything they say about teachers' unions is wrong, or at least skewed. I would only add the following things.
When teachers' unions oppose reform, it is not because we (the teachers, and the members of the unions) are opposed to improvements. We are, however, opposed to being taken advantage of. Part of what unions do is make sure that their members' working conditions improve over time, or at least not get worse.
And part of the argument that a certain flavor of education "reformer" makes is that teachers do not deliver value for money. The obvious solution to this is for teachers to increase their work load and complexity by an undetermined amount up to infinity without an increase in compensation in other areas. They call it--and this might be the worst part--accountability. (As this paragraph currently exists, it's awfully straw man. I'll find some examples--well, honestly, probably when I retire and write my book in the history of education at the turn of the century.) Unions (at their best) try to slow that process down somewhat, to force consideration of whether each change is going to actually improve the students' education experience, and whether it would place undue hardship on the teachers.
This is the take-away quote from this article: "If unions oppose merit pay, it isn’t because they want to just reward long-time teachers with higher pay, quality of instruction be-damned. It’s because what counts as “merit” in these proposals is not the same as being a good teacher."
As I answered their questions, I tried to make it clear to them that I was a biased source of information, that everything I was going to tell them was pro-union, and that therefore I couldn't be trusted to provide the whole story. (It's more important that they know valid information when they hear it than that they like teachers' unions.) But it made me think again about what unions are, what unions do, and why unions are generally unpopular in the US and generally getting less so.
And then I came across this excellent post by Audrey Watters, about why almost everything they say about teachers' unions is wrong, or at least skewed. I would only add the following things.
When teachers' unions oppose reform, it is not because we (the teachers, and the members of the unions) are opposed to improvements. We are, however, opposed to being taken advantage of. Part of what unions do is make sure that their members' working conditions improve over time, or at least not get worse.
And part of the argument that a certain flavor of education "reformer" makes is that teachers do not deliver value for money. The obvious solution to this is for teachers to increase their work load and complexity by an undetermined amount up to infinity without an increase in compensation in other areas. They call it--and this might be the worst part--accountability. (As this paragraph currently exists, it's awfully straw man. I'll find some examples--well, honestly, probably when I retire and write my book in the history of education at the turn of the century.) Unions (at their best) try to slow that process down somewhat, to force consideration of whether each change is going to actually improve the students' education experience, and whether it would place undue hardship on the teachers.
This is the take-away quote from this article: "If unions oppose merit pay, it isn’t because they want to just reward long-time teachers with higher pay, quality of instruction be-damned. It’s because what counts as “merit” in these proposals is not the same as being a good teacher."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
