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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Gamification
Your vocabulary word for the day is "gamification", "the use of game design techniques, game thinking and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts" (Wikipedia). The field of gamification was kicked off just over two years ago by this video.
Now Coursera, a group of 16 universities (including U of T) that organizes free online courses, is offering a gamification course. On the first day of registration, 65,000 students from 147 countries signed up, and registration will continue for another week or so. Here's a report from our roving reporter Tom Berend, who is taking the course.
"When I signed up, the messages were streaming into the discussion board at about three a minute. It has slowed down, but even today it is one every two minutes - more than anyone can read. An empty search returns 8805 results, which I think is a good estimate for the number of postings and, while there are many 'hello' postings, there are also serious discussions on every topic you can imagine and the tone is always polite, serious, and professional.
"A few days ago, they added a link to MEETUP, and already thousands of Courserians have started making arrangements for group meetings, including 50 of us here in Toronto. It makes perfect sense. Face-time is desirable but too valuable to spend listening to the instructor read from his powerpoints, and opinions typically offered in classroom discussions are more useful if they are seasoned a bit first. So we will do the traditional learning part online, and move the face time to a pub."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Through the Looking Glass
Apparently, the Toronto District School Board is not the only school board that has to give its construction business to only unionized firms. The Greater Essex County District School Board finds this obligation so onerous and expensive that it is taking the Ontario Labour Relations Board to the province's highest court (more) because the Labour Board has ruled that the local public board is a “construction employer” and must use only union workers. In a particularly rich irony, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers deplores the board's "waste" of taxpayers' money in its efforts to be able to accept bids from non-unionized firms as well.
This story raises lots of questions in my mind. For example, how many other Ontario school boards have to use only unionized firms? For example, does anyone really think that school boards are "construction employers", whatever that is, and that it's reasonable to force them to use only unionized firms? For example, what is going on with the Ontario Labour Relations Board? If it can make such peculiar rulings, why does it exist in the first place? H/T MW
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Do publicly-funded schools create community?
Yesterday, I wrote that a discussion for another day was the question of whether publicly-funded schools were crucial in terms of creating community. And, what do you know, today's another day.
I know most people tend to assume that sending kids with different backgrounds to school together will promote important assimilation. But people assume lots of things that turn out to be false - for example, that the earth is the centre of the universe or stomach ulcers are caused by worrying. Let's look at the evidence.
One way to examine this assumption is to think about how many neighbourhood schools are actually composed of lots of kids from widely-varied backgrounds. These days, neighbourhood schools tend to be stratified according to income because people generally live in the same area with people of similar backgrounds. And even when it comes to schools that are composed of kids from widely-varied backgrounds, it is still a big question how much positive interaction there is among groups, especially given special programs like French immersion, gifted classes, special ed, and the International Baccalaureate. Studies in the US have found that private school classrooms are actually more racially-integrated than neighbouring public schools, while private school students are more likely to eat lunch with children of other races.
Another way to look at the social glue assumption is to see what has happened in other jurisdictions. In the Netherlands, a country with a previous history of religious strife, the introduction of fully-funded denominational and secular schools almost 100 years ago has resulted in a marked lessening of religious divisions. Yugoslavia had one state school system under the Communists for over five decades, yet the ethnic hatred there is worse than ever. There is no evidence that Ontario's Catholic schools, or publicly-funded religious schools in Alberta, Quebec, B.C., and Manitoba are producing religiously-intolerant or disconnected citizens. In fact, several recent studies suggest that private schools are more successful than publicly-funded schools in instilling tolerance in their students.
A final way to think about social assimilation is to look at students' entire lives. There is a very strong connection between how well a student does in school and his future employment, income, lifestyle, and social circle. If students are deliberately jumbled up in one-size-fits-all schools, some students (typically, advantaged students) will receive an education tailor-made for them - while other students (typically, disadvantaged students) will flounder. In this scenario, the children may get to rub shoulders with children from other walks of life for the 10 or 12 years they are in school, but afterwards their social stratification is stronger than ever. It's hard to see how a deliberate policy of assimilated publicly-funded schools benefits these children.
The evidence suggests that publicly-funded schools are a very weak vessel for assimilation purposes. In my opinion, publicly-funded schools are far more suited to their original purpose - namely, giving children a good grounding in the three R's.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Are you a reading person or a melting pot person?
A new feature in the Globe and Mail is its assemblage of "more than 100 bright minds from across the country – teachers, parents, policy-makers, even a few brilliant students – to weigh in on education issues throughout the school year." On Thursday, they looked at home-schooling.
The most provocative comment, on the basis of how much discussion it generated in the comments section, was made by our own (well, formerly our own) Stephen Hurley: "Given that a good deal of the social values, visions and ideals that we have are shaped and communicated through our social institutions, it would be interesting to ponder what might happen if a large percentage of families took up the home-schooling banner and became their own mini school districts. I tend to think that a significant portion of our social fabric would begin to unravel, and we might end up with a degree of instability."
It all comes down to what parents and taxpayers want schools to accomplish. I recall (still with astonishment) one mother's calm acceptance of the failure of her daughter's school to teach the child to read. It just wasn't a big deal for this parent. The only explanation I could come up with is that this woman was looking for other things from the school, things that the school was delivering.
I, on the other hand, think that schools' primary mission is to teach kids to read. Numero uno!
So, even if you accept that public schools are crucial in terms of creating community glue (which is a discussion for another day), you still have to prioritize. If, as seems to be happening in Ontario at least, it's an either/or deal - either schools teach academics to a high standard or else they serve as a melting pot - then you have to ask yourself which is more important to you.
Right now, the melting pot people seem to be in charge. Is this fair to the reading people? H/T TA
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Two Bad Policies and Two Good Articles About Them
Readers might find the following couple of articles very interesting since so much of education policy and teacher training revolves around them.
The first is a very good piece by teacher and author Michael Zwaagstra (who SQE readers may recall was a guest speaker at our 2010 AGM) of What's Wrong With Our Schools. Michael's latest is a review of no-zero policies in Canadian school boards, Zero Support for No-Zero Policies. You may remember the grief that one Edmonton high school teacher went through when he gave a student a mark of zero. Michael finds that there is little evidence that these policies lead to student success, and they may actually harm their post-school experiences. They also affect the professionalism of teachers to assess grades.
The second article comes from the UK, but could have been written in Canada and is on a topic that SQE has written about so many times I've lost count. Child-centred Learning Has Let My Students Down is an excellent article by teacher Matthew Hunter. (I note that Mr. Hunter has to use a pseudonym.) He argues this philosphy of teaching, pervasive throughout North America as well as the UK, is not working especially for the most vulnerable students. He also slams teacher-training as source of the problem:
"The faults in this pedagogical outlook are normally obvious to those who have not been through the indoctrination of teacher training. By moving the onus of authority from the teacher to the child, we neglect our responsibility for teaching, which is to prepare a child for the adult world. If a child directs his own learning, his potential for advancing from the condition of childhood is unsurprisingly diminished.
"As Keynes might well have written, practical teachers who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct educationist. The great tragedy of this process is that once released from the ivory tower and transferred to the classroom level, child-centred education becomes less a philosophy, and more an excuse for slack, ineffective teaching. If a teacher does not have a responsibility to direct the pupils' learning, then this is a ready justification for the directionless, chaotic atmosphere in so many of our nation's classrooms. On the ground, child-centred learning is an ideology of low expectations."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Howard Fuller)
This week we feature Dr. Howard Fuller whom SQE brought to speak in Toronto a few years back. Here's his speech to the 2012 Louisiana Education Summit.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
A Notion From “The Fringe”
Last week a blogger, Wendy's Education List, cited the Chris Blizzard Toronto Sun article in which I was quoted. If you scroll down to Sunday, Aug. 19th in Education News from Ontario, you will see she also added her comment, "Warning: Complete BS alert! Quotes the fringe neo-con SQE which supports all of the right-wing notions that don't work anywhere." We must be doing something right if such an "all-knowing expert" OSSTF staffer has to make such a ridiculous statement!
Here's one "notion" that we KNOW works--systematic, explicit phonics. There are decades of sound research to back up the claim. Our own Stairway to Reading was developed to help students who are struggling, but it is also a good way for parents to prepare younger children for school.
So "Wendy" don't complain when you get a high school student that can barely read beyond a grade two or three level. Those "fringe" experts such as Stanowich, Adams, Chall, et al. must know something.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Best Friends No More?
With school set to start in a little over a week, the heat is on Ontario high school and elementary teachers' unions and any school boards that have failed to knuckle under the government's direction to sign on to "the deal" freezing wages and eliminating banked sick days.
Legislation is pending next week to essentially outlaw any labour action for the next two years. While the province might make try to make teacher strikes illegal, this wouldn't preclude wildcat strikes or local work to rule actions. The recalcitrant unions have rebutted with a threat to take legal action against the proposed legislation calling it undemocratic. (This is rich considering teachers in this province have no choice BUT to join the union if they want to teach in a publicly funded school.) Union leaders have promised no strikes this fall, a neat loophole considering the strike votes are being taken by locals in the fall anyway, in some cases the same date as the September 6th by-elections. Meantime a Queen's Park protest is planned for next week just before school starts (when everyone should be returning back from vacation.)
So here we go again--From Bill Davis on to David Peterson who had rallies against him over their penson plan; to Bob Rae who had a Day of Action in response to Rae Days; and then Mike Harris had a two-week illegal wildcat strike and a Day of Protest and many "work to rules" for good measure. I think this "education" premier is about to find out what every premier before him has learned--the teacher unions are your friends as long as you do their bidding and your worst enemy (and here) if you don't.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sick of School?
I noticed many benefits the year I home-schooled my daughter - huge academic progress, enhanced social skills, improved family dynamics - most of them more or less expected, but there was one benefit that was totally unexpected. That was how healthy the whole family was that year - not one case of flu, no colds, nothing. It was wonderful!
This Canadian Press article discusses the miasma of germs that surrounds schools - and the inevitability of illness after illness - concluding that it's a rite of passage and a way of building up immune systems, and that there's not much parents can do about it.
Except, of course, not send their kids into germ factories in the first place. Perhaps online schooling will turn out to have unexpected advantages....
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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Education leaders are letting teachers (and students) down
The latest issue of Scientific American has a great article about how teachers can't tell the difference between fads and fallacies and proven methods. Here are three examples from the article.
- A common misconception is that teaching content is less important than teaching critical thinking skills or problem-solving strategies.
- Scientists have also long known that kids must be explicitly taught the connections between letters and sounds and that they benefit most when such instruction is planned and explicit. Yet some reading programs, even those used in large school districts, teach this information only if an instructor sees the need.
- Many teachers, for instance, need to be disabused of the notions children have different “learning styles” and that boys' brains are hardwired to be better at spatial tasks than girls'.
The author makes the following important point: "This job of bringing accurate scientific information about thinking and learning to teachers might arguably fall to schools of education, states, districts and teachers' professional organizations, but these institutions have shown little interest in the job."
The author is actually being kind here, as the schools of education, states, districts, and teachers' professional organizations - far from showing little interest - for the most part promote the fads and fallacies and pan the proven methods. H/T FG