Parents ‘n Schools

I see in an article looking at a school on the island of Maui, in the State of Hawaii, that the students spend half their time outdoors studying marine life and nature as an “authentic learning experience”. In Maui, of course, being outdoors is an authentic experience. In Alberta, authenticity at 30 below is INDOORS.

But the story put me in mind of a family vacation a few years back to Maui, and wandering past elementary schools situated on the beach in this beautiful, comfortable place asking myself “why do we live where we live back in snowy (but sunny) Alberta?”

The question was answered a short few days later, back in Calgary in the middle of an Alberta winter, when I walked my children to their public school. Quite simply, I believe, there is no better place on the planet to raise your children and have them educated than here in Alberta. Maui’s schools are in a gorgeous spot, but Alberta schools are my preference.

I voice a lot of concerns about government schooling generally and government schools specifically here in Alberta (you may have noticed, perhaps). But I do not doubt that schooling in Alberta is at or near the high water mark of schooling on this planet. Having spent a number of years of close involvement and scrutiny, I strongly believe that it is. Alberta educators are league-leaders in curriculum and strive devotedly to maintain a high standard of learning for children.

Maui’s a nice place to visit… boy, is it a nice place to visit… but I choose to school my children here in Alberta. For lots of good reasons.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

If I were to choose a mechanism for fundraising for schooling, I would choose

DonorsChoose (www.donorschoose.org)

It cuts through the bureaucracy. It skirts around the “system”. It flies over castle walls.

It empowers educators. It links giving directly to classrooms. It builds relationships.

Please become familiar with it. Examine how it works. Consider its value, for everyone involved.

It is a bona fide schooling success story.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

P.S. I sat on a provincial committee that oversaw funding of tens of millions of dollars across the Alberta education system each year for initiatives aimed at school improvement. The biggest bang for the buck, I believed, was tapping the “twinkle in the eye” of the classroom teacher, and providing a few dollars more to energize their work. That happened way, way, way too seldom under that program.

DonorsChoose makes it happen with every donation.

If I were to make one change to that Alberta government program, it would be to remove the funding decisions from the schoolers themselves and make it simply a matching program for donations solicited and received from third parties via a mechanism like DonorsChoose. I believe real change and real improvement would be initiated much faster.

Certain political philosophers subscribe to the theory that progress best comes in small, incremental steps. As Professor Tom Flanagan of the University of Calgary has written, “Sweeping visions have a place in intellectual discussion but they are toxic in practical politics.”

There is no more practical arena of politics than government schooling. In my observation, public education is more political than politics… because, in Alberta at least, there are about a million more people who care (ie., families).

The political world around us changes all the time in tiny increments day by day. That, in many ways, is the very job of those employed by government. To find practically effective ways for government and society to adapt to the daily changes of life on our planet in its inexorable journey around the Sun. Just like your business.

And while it is fun and provocative to discuss sweeping visions (we here at Parents ‘n Schools are proud to serve ‘em up when e’er we stumble upon ‘em), it would be a mistake to neglect the incremental changes happening all the time. The “baby steps” toward change. And, in my observation, most of those baby steps are heading in a direction AWAY from government schooling.

Baby steps of technology (from internet distance learning to handheld devices to engaging video games). Baby steps of home schooling (what I prefer to call “self-schooling”) which is being adopted for a growing variety of reasons increasingly to do with accommodating flexible lifestyles of homes and families. Baby steps of choice in schooling. Baby steps of funding reform. Baby steps of industrial and employer demand for labour. Baby steps of appetite for lifelong learning.

And on the government schooling side of things, the baby steps tend toward increasing the challenges it faces and decreasing its sustainability. Baby steps of rising fuel and utility costs. Baby steps of transportation logistics. Baby steps of safety in schools. Baby steps of demographics. Baby steps of “blah” completion rates. Baby steps of decaying infrastructure. Baby steps of technological futility. Baby steps of rising labour costs. Baby steps of competition for dollars from other government services facing similar baby steps.

If nothing at all were done, I view the sum of the forces acting on children’s schooling in North America as vectoring away from government schooling as a solution. And since mostly in life nothing much gets done, those forces will continue to challenge government schooling and continue to make space for emerging alternatives with emerging advantages.

But I’d better stop there.

That’s starting to read like “sweeping vision” stuff.

And we’re trying to keep our eye on the children, and observe which way they tend to wander. With their adorable little baby steps.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

Conflict resolution among parents ‘n schools is one of the most challenging aspects of government schooling, and from parents’ point of view one of the most unsatisfying and distressing aspects of having anything to do with their children’s schools. To my mind, conflict resolution in schooling is where that “utmost good faith” thing and that “nobody employed full-time for parents” thing intersect like two waves meeting… and the harmonic effect works to amplify both and generate a tsunami of mutual distrust, dysfunctional communication and inflamed rhetoric. This time of year at the end of the school year tends to intensify things further (the only worse time is… well… any other time of year).

Government schooling is a multi-multi-billion dollar business (often disguised as a one-room schoolhouse). It takes an act of courage for any one person, any one parent, any one family or any one community to even voice a concern with any energy or strength, much less pursue that concern in the face of any counter argument or through the byzantine, lonely corridors that government schooling provides as a route for resolution. It takes even more courage, and triggers all kinds of unhelpful emotions, when you realize there is no independent champion to join “your side”, and no objective “judge” or “court” to look to for a ruling.

Parents in disputes with schooling (from individual student concerns or safety to broader matters of school closures, curriculum and system-wide policy) too often feel they “get the run-around”, with no one willing or able to give them a direct answer. It does not help that schooling communications are seldom written in laymen’s terms, or from the perspective of third parties.

Some school districts are beginning to recognize this and are finding resources to hire and maintain an “ombudsman”, as a whole new way of doing business with the customers they serve. It is always difficult to find money to hire non-teaching personnel in schooling. To find money to hire an ombudsman takes a belief that their mere presence and service will result in savings of time, money and stress that will more than justify their expense.

I think it’s a no-brainer. I think any business — especially a government business — that has a multi-multi-billion dollar advantage in size and resources over its individual customers, has a duty to level the dispute resolution playing field. I believe it cannot, and should not, take advantage of the advantages it holds over such single customers. Nor do I believe that it helps such a business, in the long run, to place themselves in the position of having to resolve their own disputes, because in the long run that is a “no win” job.

One of the tenets of justice in our society is that justice… to be justice… must not only be done, but it must be SEEN to be done. It must be perceived as justice. Any multi-multi-billion dollar entity that structures its complaint process as a series of meetings or hearings with only persons employed by that entity is going to be hard-pressed to overcome the perception that justice is not being served — no matter that it, in fact, maybe usually is.

And in matters of conflict resolution, overcoming perceptions of bias or of any absence of good faith is half the battle. An ombudsman provides a very different perception for parents. Not only does an ombudsman provide an objective avenue of hearing and communication, they by their very existence proclaim a willingness and expectation on everybody’s part of “fair play”. They overcome the “trust issue”, and allow parties to deal more effectively with the dispute, not the process.

I have written that the first thing I would do in government schooling is put in place an “utmost duty of good faith” on everyone involved. The second thing I would do is establish an ombudsman’s office. Schoolers have their hands full teaching. They cannot be expected to handle public complaints, mediation and dispute resolution of a business that generates millions of relationship contacts (and their individual potential for conflict) every business day. It is not fair to anybody to require it of them.

And it leaves a rather poor perception.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

P.S. It does not work for someone with another job title to act as ombudsman. Independence is key. Objectivity is a must. Multiple hats will not serve to overcome perception in matters of conflict resolution.

Our billion-dollar local school board (”The Biggest School Board West of the Pecos”) has in recent years taken to publishing a multi-page insert in the local newspaper at the start of each school year celebrating its work and aspects of local public schooling. It is titled “School for Everyone”.

Parents are almost never mentioned.

One year, the word “parent” only appeared once… and that was in a quote from somebody who… well… didn’t work there.

School for… everyone? Really?

The insert, and the Board, routinely promote and celebrate the Board’s own fundraising foundation. That foundation raised about three-quarters of a million dollars per year each of its first two years (after 6 years of work to organize it). Which maybe sounds like a lot of money, until you realize a couple things:

1. Calgary is home to the second most corporate head offices in Canada; and

2. Parents, via school councils in some 200 schools in the city, raise about $4 million per year for those schools.

Which suggests to my mind that business cannot be convinced to give money to government schooling (corporate giving is becoming increasingly leery of backfilling government, and its standards of accountability are becoming increasingly hard for government schooling to attain). But parents are reliably easier to… persuade.
Even while school participation is celebrated for everyone except them.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

An article the other day caught my eye about a school study (San Diego schools) that concluded children likely to fail high school could be identified as early as the 4th grade. The authors of the study viewed their results as evidence for the old-as-time-itself wisdom that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure, and that money might be better spent moving “extra tutoring” dollars to earlier and earlier grades, rather than try to make up for lost time so much later in the game. [GLO — in other words, move remediation ahead, rather than accountability backward… like as in measuring high school completion rates 2 and 3 years AFTER families were envisioning their children completing high school.]

This brought back to mind for me the need to introduce you good readers to the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and describe its connection for me to government schooling. Moneyball is a book about the impact that objective statistical analysis has had on professional baseball, specifically as it has been applied successfully by the Oakland Athletics in their efforts to get the best baseball team year over year for their money. Which, when I write it that way, is a lot duller description than the book actually is. I highly recommend it (and most of Michael Lewis’ stuff). It holds your attention. And makes you ponder.

Moneyball describes in detail the world of baseball, where they keep track of everything and have statistical records of everything going years back and can trace and analyze who did what and when and how by way of boxscore evidence for games ever played… and how all of that follows individual ballplayers practically from birth (and certainly from high school), and how looking at individual records of ballplayers “coming up” can be compared with statistical performance in the Big Leagues of ballplayers who had similar stats “coming up” themselves, and how that can help better predict what today’s draft picks might actually look like tomorrow (and, importantly, what stats are “red flags” that signal potential failure tomorrow). And they do this for literally thousands of ballplayers over dozens of years — all of which can be reliably compared because… well… they play on mostly the same field under mostly the same rules. And while it is, none of it, foolproof… it is nevertheless becoming increasingly apparent that it is not a totally inexact science and increasingly apparent also that the stats are a much more reliable indicator and measurement tool than the “by definition inexact” opinions and anecdotal reflections and assessments of the so-called “experts” (the old-ballplayers-turned-scouts).

And all the while I’m reading Moneyball, I’m thinking… this is just like government schooling. They grade and track everything, individually, nearly from birth (Kindergarten, anyway). They, too, play mostly on the same field under mostly the same rules (ie., curriculum). And there are thousands and thousands of kids going through that similar program year after year.

Surely to goodness the things that get kids to high school completion (and, vitally, non-completion) can be tracked and traced back to similar tendencies and similarities years in advance. And while you can’t turn the clock back for those kids… you can “travel back in time” for kids who are at those earlier stages today showing very similar tendencies… and help those kids now before they become those same stories later.

Government schooling likes to proclaim that “every child is unique and special”. But, really, statistically and practically for the 600,000 Alberta schoolchildren and 6 million Canadian schoolchildren and 60 million North American schoolchildren who are in K-12 grades RIGHT NOW… well, they’re really mostly the same. Statistically. If they weren’t, it would be impossible to create such a thing as a “report card”. Or “core classes”. Or curriculum of any utility. Or even know when to start school on any day and when to end it.

Government schooling couldn’t even EXIST if kids weren’t, educationally and statistically, so very much the same.

It does not surprise me that studies may reveal that high school completion challenges can be linked back (and, presumably, predicted) as early as Grade 4. Those challenges have to come from somewhere, and they can’t all happen overnight.

Moneyball examines how professional baseball is seeing ballplayers differently than it used to, and it is doing that because ballplayers are so much more EXPENSIVE than they used to be (to identify, acquire and retain). It should be no surprise that schooling could start seeing schoolchildren differently, too, for the very same reason. The investment in schooling a single child is increasingly massive. The costs of failure are increasingly high. There is SO MUCH more at stake in schooling for today’s children than there ever used to be.

Paying closer and closer attention to children at every step along the K-12 path, examining what can be found and then BELIEVING WHAT YOU SEE (whether it is what you anecdotally “knew” or not) is increasingly important in schooling, as it is in baseball. Not every ballplayer will make the Big Leagues, but every child can complete their schooling. Paying attention and spotting red flags early enough… and doing something effective about them… is the Moneyball key to getting their money’s worth.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

P.S. To my Moneyball way of thinking, it should be entirely possible to have in the corner of every report card (or in a confidentially sealed school-parent communication if more desirable) and updated quarterly the “Percent Chances of Completion” as calculated by a calculus that factors in any variety of relevant indicators that can be monitored for each individual child and compared against the statistical universe of millions of children that have passed before them through the government school system. That Index could be “100%” for most kids at the start of Kindergarten or Grade 1… and for many it may always stay there (or nearly there). But for many, also, it will begin to slide downward as the system gets to “know them” better, and as their record develops. And if it were in place today, 70% of children in Grade 12 in Alberta would have very close to 100% as we celebrate graduation… while 30% would be down to zero.

But it might not have reached that point, if that Index had been marked from years before (say… just to pull a point out of the San Diego air… GRADE 4). Because that Index would have graphically illustrated that the child was slipping closer and closer to the “red zone”, and that high school completion was already becoming a risky proposition.

Sure, I know… lots of such indicators are utilized today. But do they really grab attention? Do they really make it live? Do they really cause the rubber to meet the road, and focus everybody, all the time, on that end goal and “bottom line”?

In New York City is a program that works to make zoos and museums an integrated part of school curricula. Not just field trips. Not just kids visiting, but kids-as-researchers with clear expectations.

The civic and school authorities are partnering to take advantage of these out-of-school resources.

“Partnering” is always a red-flag word for me in government schooling. Partnering — genuine partnering to everyone’s mutual advantage — is not what government schooling does best. Particularly large urban school boards. In schooling, as in most things, the bigger they are the more they prefer to do things themselves and their own way.

So I admire New York City’s efforts to bring genuine schooling into zoos and museums and to bring zoos and museums into genuine schooling. They have a lot in common. Right down to the fundraising.

On travels to San Diego I observed the luckiest elementary school in the world. It shares a parking lot with the San Diego Zoo.

Imagine going to a school right next door to the San Diego Zoo. Walking distance to the most intriguing collection of flora and fauna on the continent. What an “out-of-school resource” that must be. What a handy, ready-made “naturalization” feature for the school.

Here in Calgary efforts are underway to build a new Science Centre. It will share a parking lot with the Calgary Zoo. Smack dab in the middle of the city.

What a great place to build a school, I think. For any ages. Share the same parking lot. Walking distance to both places. If I were to build a physical school, that’s where I would build it.

I have volunteered extensively with both government schools and government museums. I have learned neither partners particularly well with “things that are not them”. Not even with each other. Which is unfortunate. Because I have also learned that their purposes are very similar. Kids should be able to readily “go to school” in zoos and museums. It should be a resource akin to the Public Library. It should be tightly integrated into curricula, scheduling and lives.

I think that’s what they’re trying to do in New York City, and I expect that’s part of the experience in that San Diego school. I hope, anyway.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

I really appreciate your comments. More comments, please. — GLO

There was a time when power plants, pipelines and refineries could not be operated without a lot of people watching every dial and every flow (those times were characterized by less than optimum power generation and refining). There was a time when factories teemed with people attending to every detail (those times produced far less from factories). There was a time when traffic cops directed traffic (and traffic moved more slowly).

Someday down the road people will reflect on this time, when children were congregated daily in government educational facilities to be tended by crowds of people and delivered of live learning at a regimented pace (organized as much for their socialization opportunities as their scholastic ones). And they will note in that future that the learning proceeded more slowly in these times.

For children of certain ages, there is no better companion than a fully engaged parent. There is nothing like “being there” for a young child. When that can’t happen, substitute engagement can be deployed. A teacher in school. A sitter at home. A video. A colouring book.

The challenge kids present for each of those (including the parent) is providing patient, ever-present oversight and feedback. Which is the challenge in pipelining, refining and factory production, too. Technology does that bit really well. Even parents have their moments of inattention. Technology falters, too… but not that often, really. And less and less often as the “bugs” get worked out.

A major challenge for schooling — whether delivered by government or at home or elsewhere — is that engagement and oversight. The demands increase with each passing year. The expectations grow higher. Personally, and across society.

I believe government schooling is “maxed out” in its capacity to engage children, and beyond its capacity to oversee them in their care. It was reasonably OK when standards in regard to these things were much lower. Government schooling, in general, has not, and cannot, keep pace with the increasing expectations.

From an oversight point of view, schooling deals with this by increasing security measures — to the point where schools increasingly resemble penitentiaries. With the resources available, and the expectations visited upon them, there are few other alternatives.

Technology offers hope in both these elements. Computers are endlessly patient. They are unblinkingly watchful. They remember precisely. They record faithfully. They feedback instantly.

The world of gaming takes full advantage of these things. It constantly pushes the envelope of engagement. The challenge for children in their gaming is to push the game itself. A few children succeed, but most will not.

The opposite seems the case in schooling.

I believe technology will be required to keep schooling, and engagement of learners, usefully beyond the reach and bounds of young learners of this generation and generations to come. That same technology will provide new solutions in oversight, assessment, monitoring and protection toward meeting and exceeding the rising standards in that area, as well.

Fortunately, those are things technology is really good at. Industries and enterprises across the spectrum of human endeavour rely on it for these qualities.

Schooling, in the long run, will be no exception.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

P.S.    Think back on all the things in your lifetime that you used to rely upon, but now find “quaint” but unhelpful. That’s Schooling 1.0 down the road.

(Hold on a second… how come an image of my parents just entered my mind?…)

P.P.S.     It has been said long ago that the computer (and the internet) “changes everything”. That it has not yet dramatically changed schooling in North America is, to my mind, merely evidence that government schooling as an industry has more in common with impoverished states, Soviet economies and other such places not much altered by technology. Technological change has been slow in penetrating schooling’s castle walls and labour-cost-dominated budgets. Change in general struggles to penetrate those things.

In his National Post column on entrepreneurship recently, writer Rick Spence described seven skills that Canadian inventor/innovator Ron Gdanski maintains are necessary for success in bringing new ideas to market. It occurred to me upon reading them to ask what is K-12 schooling except bringing children with new ideas to “market”? How is success in schooling for students not like success in bringing their ideas forward and “catching on”?

Well… maybe it’s not EXACTLY alike… but let’s apply those seven skills and see, okay?

1. Creativity. Bringing something of “you” to the challenge. It doesn’t have to be totally original. It “just” has to be how you see it. In your schoolwork, capture how you see ideas like a camera captures how you see imagery.

2. Goal-setting. Have an end in mind. Don’t merely go to school because the law and your parents make you. Think down the road at the universe of alternative futures, and select some that appeal. Then hold those thoughts.

3. Language. Expand your language all the time. It expands who you are, too. Learn and use new words. New words and an expanding mind extend your mental reach, the way a growing body extends your physical reach.

4. Communication. Ask a lot of questions in school. Listen well and provide compelling answers. Seek out opportunities to communicate. Where better than school to “crash and burn” in that regard? Public speaking… even one-on-one… is mostly about a willingness to do it. Be a willing communicator in school.

5. Selling. Just handing assignments in on time is no guarantee of success in school. Most assignments get handed in on time. Being a successful student is about projecting a confidence and belief in yourself as a learner, even after the assignment is handed in. Know who you are and be passionate about you and your work. You are the best person in school for that job.

6. Marketing. Selling at a distance. Title pages help. They really do. Make a good impression. Make your work something people want to reach for. Make it look like someone took pride in delivering it.

7. Reputation. Your reputation as a student WILL proceed you in school. Good, bad or indifferent. Become known for your integrity and your willingness to work. You will be rewarded for that, along with your learning.

Your teachers and your school are really the first people in life that making a good impression upon… and regularly impressing with integrity… will make a difference in your life. (Impressing Grandma wasn’t a real challenge in that regard, perhaps you should now be told… although your hockey coach may have been.) Developing good habits with them will serve well with the rest of the people you have occasion to make an impression upon down the road. School’s about learning, and learning how to package and deliver the ideas that aggregate to form “you” out to the world successfully is part of what you are learning in school.

Even though it may not be described that way in school.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com

I read an article recently describing how some schools are purchasing and using video game equipment in their physical education programs (eg., WiiFit and Dance Revolution). The technology is praised, in part, as “mechanizing” the education process as well as individualizing it. They like how it “keeps track”, and how that keeping track renders the students immediately and individually “accountable”.

Hmmmm…. Do you see what I see?

That’s what technology does. That’s what it brings to enterprises of all kinds.

These video games are BETTER at teaching physical education… and BETTER at engaging the children in physical education… and BETTER at monitoring their individual accomplishment and progress… than physical education classes. Which is, perhaps, the thin edge of the wedge of asking “why are we spending all that money to bus kids to school… and hiring all these teachers… and operating all these buildings… to have them utilize technology that many already have… at home? And if they don’t ALL have that technology at home, might it be less costly to get them the technology and network it all together than maintaining those buildings, paying those salaries and operating all those busses?”

If not right now… maybe not long from now?

When children go to school, to utilize technology they have handy at home… why GO to school?

I know… I know… this is just a few video games in a few minutes of a few days of school… don’t make such a big deal about it. But toeholds are toeholds. And schooling EMBRACES devices and aids that make their job easier and make engaging the children easier. Exergaming becomes mathgaming becomes languagegaming becomes… and it already is doing that, in pockets here and there.

What is the “tipping point”? And what is the point that parents wonder “why am I sending my kids to school… and that hassle of late slips and bus rides and fees to pay and… when they have the same or better tools here at home and are accessing the same programming at school as they have here?”

And it won’t be the parents who wonder first. It will be the children. “Do I have to go to school?” That’s a question they’ve asked for a hundred years. But during most of that hundred years, school was where they HAD to go to ACCESS the learning.

Not anymore.

And when even PHYSICAL learning is becoming VIRTUAL… the physical schooling becomes increasingly questionable.

None of this bothers me, any more than it bothers me to buy books on Amazon or find my news on the internet (or my music or my airplane tickets). The cost savings, and efficiency gains, are potentially enormous in schooling as in other aspects of life. And those savings and added efficiency translate to SUSTAINABILITY for schooling of children in general… and not just sustainability but advances in quality, quantity and reach. And the potential for genuine “lifelong learning”.

And Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong shall lead us.

GLO

gordotto@parentsnschools.com