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It’s not that fixing/reforming/restructuring/reinventing schools is too tough for us to do. It’s not that we have failed to recognize many of the problems that children in school are having ; it’s not that it’s too large or complex a task; it’s not that we don’t have enough people who sincerely want to achieve the goal. It just can’t be done.

I was reading the book Everything is Miscellaneous (2007, Times Book – just Google it if you want to find out more) by David Weinberger this evening and enjoying his analysis of the Dewey Decimal System. Easy target right? Weinberger was sharing his analysis of why the System is such an interesting reflection of its inventor. Here are some bio highlights of Melvil Dewey himself. Lived late 19th, early 20th century (1851-1931), graduated from a small Christian college where he received a typical classical education, was fascinated with classification systems and with the metric system. That helps you understand why the system is based on decimals, why “Philosophy” has the lowest range of numbers (the 100’s) as the basis for all knowing; why religion is next (the 200s), etc. OK, so did you know that of the ten subcategories in religion, 7 of the 10 deal with Christianity? Judaism has one number (296) and Islam shares 297 with Baha’I and Babism. And oh yes, Buddhism shares a subcategory (294) will all the other “Religions of Indic Origin”. Interesting, isn’t it? Weinberger goes on to point out that Phrenology (study of head bumps as a key to personality) has its own number (139), just like Aristotle (185) and Oriental philosophy (181).

So why not just change the Dewey Decimal System? Read Weinberger’s explanation if you can’t figure it out for yourself. My mother was a public librarian. I will not be the one volunteering to step into each of the hundreds of thousands of libraries using the system to announce that they need to pick up their razor blades and start shaving off numbers, replace them with new numbers, move hundreds or thousands of books in their collections to new spots, and oh yes, remind them that the librarians themselves will need to unlearn and relearn all those numbers! And by the way, this would be done because someone or some expert committee in 2009 had decided what the system needed to look like to reflect the state of knowing today. And then you could also mention that the decision had been made to do this again in another ten years to reflect the world at that point. Yeah, right! Oh, and don’t forget that every card catalogue card or electronically indexed reference will need to reflect the change. Go ahead and volunteer for telling that to librarians the world over.

Weinberger says that as much as folks may want it “fixed”, it can’t be done – and here’s the kicker. The reason is “The Dewey Decimal Classification system can’t be fixed because knowledge itself is unfixed.” Did you get that???? This is why “schools” and “school systems” can’t be fixed, reformed, reinvented or restructured. You can’t affix knowing or knowledge to a rigid structure. And school is certainly a rigid structure. Need an example? Let’s say “Maria” learns a math formula while taking a physics course. She even receives a grade on a test to see if she can demonstrate her understanding of the way the formula describes one dimensional motion. Where does that grade go? In the physics teachers’ grade book, of course! Her use of that formula to solve that problem never appears in the math teacher’s grade book; maybe Maria wasn’t even enrolled in a math course where the teacher was teaching a formula like that. It was affixed to her physics grade. [OK – a quick insert. I know a few people will lose focus here with a red herring of an interdisciplinary course combining two courses, like physics and math and will try to convince me that in a case like that her learning could actually count in both gradebooks. Give me a break! Do you really believe that is a solution for this example? Let’s go on.] The point is – in the system we have, the learning that goes on is affixed to a class, not to the student. The grade “belongs” to the report card in elementary school, or to the transcript in high school. And it’s a “big” grade. If you are Maria, just try breaking off the part of your physics grade that reflected your understanding of the formula and “glue it” into your math grade the next year. Can’t be done. It’s like the Dewey Decimal system. The number is associated with the system, not with what’s inside the book. That’s why each book gets one and only one number!

Weinberger urges his readers to compare that to Amazon. In a system like that, a book can belong to an unlimited number of different categories, depending on what you are looking for and how you might best use a description.

Now the good news. We can do the same thing with learning. That mastery of a math formula can serve Maria in the physics class, she can offer it as proof of understanding for a math class. If she needs it in her Spanish class (to describe a rocket launch in her advanced class) it will be of value to her there and on and on. Lesson from all this: Student learning must belong to the learner, not to the report card or the transcript!

So why does all this mean that we can’t “fix” schools? The reason is that by their very nature, schools are about ordering knowledge into subjects and courses. It’s inherent in their design. You can’t “fix” the Dewey Decimal System to reflect world knowledge and you can’t keep “fix” schools to describe student learning or the paths that students take to get there.

New national standards? I’ve got news for you – they won’t “work”. Even IF you got every state to agree upon them (and even that is not going to happen with the current effort), you’d never get every teacher in every school to help every student master them. Heavens, we didn’t even manage to do that in the last round – and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Besides that, in a minimum of ten years, you’d need to change them again to reflect new discoveries and new ideas, or new leadership.

So what do we do with schools? Nothing! Leave them. Have they torn down the public library in your community? No. In fact, I still go to the library at times. We didn’t have to shut down libraries in order to start shopping with an online bookseller. Let libraries do what libraries do best – they are a physical location where people can go when they need to, or want to, and have a reason to go there. Same for schools. BUT, Dewey no longer “owns” the classification system for books! That belongs to the readers. I can even take Weinberger’s book that I ordered on line and carry it into the library building and work with it there. But keep in mind that I didn’t find the book because I was looking in a card catalogue for books on “Miscellany” or books by Weinberger, or books on business. I found the book on an Amazon page when I was ordering another book on innovation and got the message that “People who ordered [x] also ordered Everything is Miscellaneous.

Imagine after Maria mastered that formula, this message appeared on her computer screen: “Maria, learners who enjoyed solving equations about one dimensional motion in physics with examples from space science also enjoyed . . . “ Do you see where I’m going? The learning must belong to the learner, not the transcript, and schools just can’t affix knowledge any other way. We can’t fix schools.

Do What You Do Best and Outsource the Rest.

Did anyone else see the eschoolnews.com piece that was picked up in the ASCD hotline last week (http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=58946)? In a nutshell it noted that after spending billions of dollars on the notion of “small schools”, the Gates Foundation had come to the conclusion that what matters most is great teachers.
That’s good news/bad news in my estimation. I’m not surprised at the conclusion, who would be? Who among us that made it through school, doesn’t immediately associate wonderful, terrific teachers with the experience? I think I can still name every single teacher I had K-12. When I think of why they had an impact, it wasn’t because of their knowledge base alone; it was because somehow they let me know that they cared about ME, and in turn, I cared about them. It’s what good teachers have always done – formed a relationship of caring and nurturing with students. In What Would Google Do? Jeff Jarvis suggested “Do what you do best, and outsource the rest!” What if we established environments where teachers could really do that? I’m not talking about coddling students, excusing laziness, accommodating irresponsibility, or giving unwarranted “rewards”. I’m talking about establishing relationships with learning and exploring at their center, with high demands and high rewards, with high measures of encouragement and high degrees of personal investment and involvement. I’m not talking about continuing a system of a “clearly articulated curriculum” where the most important thing is what’s “covered” instead of what a teacher helps learners uncover.
So the good news? The good news is the recognition that, as my Dad used to regularly say: “Whatever it is, it’s 90T people”. Good teachers matter; good teachers change lives. Congratulations Gates Foundation. You figured it out.
But the bad news? I’d divide that into two parts. One part is that the system is not set up to help teachers do what they do best. Artificial time limits (almost always too short or too long), and curricula designed to drive students against it and see how they do is not a way to help teachers and students develop strong relationships centered in expanding learning. It happens from time to time for some teachers and some students, but pretty rarely in my estimation. The second part? We don’t have enough of those wonderful caring teachers that every child deserves. I’m always happy for kids in wonderful schools and districts, but also very saddened by thinking of the millions of kids who, because they live in the wrong place, won’t get to experience the teachers or the school that has, for a period of time at least, gotten it “right”. My familiar theme – In the 21st century we cannot continue to let geography be the main determiner of a student’s opportunity to learn at the highest levels.
Conclusion—we must find ways for Jarvis’ notion to take hold. We must find ways to let teachers do what they do best – create strong personal relationships centered on accelerating student learning, and set systems in place so that those relationships can be sustained over years.
Yes, learning in the 21st century CAN be done very differently; teaching can be done very differently. It’s up to us to see that it happens.

KYHOI – A Knock Your Head Off Idea.

We each keep banging our head against the wall because we can’t figure out how to change the system of schooling in our country! From “School Reform” to individual teacher efforts to combat the system we keep up the valiant struggle.
In responding to the comment to my blog from JBVH, it hit me this morning like a ton of bricks. Mea Culpa! I’ve been trying to focus on how to change the system and that’s the wrong struggle. That throws me against the system time after time. Problem with that is the “System” is much bigger and stronger than I am and has much more historical experience at self preservation. In addition, over the years it has become more and more reinforced internally and externally through policy and practice. Not the fault of the system, in fact there is much I admire about its roots and goals.
We don’t need to “change the system”. What we really want is not a changed system, it’s better and better ways to make sure each child can learn at the highest possible levels. That’s where our focus needs to be, not on changing the system.
Now it’s time to begin considering questions such as What does that mean for each person who shares the desire for that goal? What’s it mean for a classroom teacher? What does it mean for an administrator? What’s that mean for kids and their parents? That’s not easy. If you are, for example, a science teacher then you have a dual role – you have to fulfill your “system” obligations, but at the same time pursue the notion of “How do I ALSO provide opportunities for each of my students to learn science at the highest possible levels?”
Hmmmm. . . let’s think about this together.

During a recent evening of channel surfing, I stumbled across a great show on the History Channel dealing with the development of the typewriter. I knew some about the history of the typewriter, including the fact that they key placement was designed to slow the typist down so that they machine could keep up and that key jams would be lessened.

The IBM Selectric was a revolution. No more jammed keys! Instead, IBM thought of a new way to make the typewriter work better — put the letters on a ball that whirled around, striking the page as directed by the typist’s keystrokes. Not only that, but the balls could be interchanged, allowing for different fonts, etc. No doubt about it, the Selectric represented a tremendous reform in typing, allowing people to produce better documents, faster and with fewer headaches.

Here’s where business is different from school. If you check info on the Selectric now, you’ll find that the last innovations on the Selectric were in the early 80s. A twenty year run that was tremendous for the company and the consumer. The end came because consumers didn’t want better typewriters, they wanted to produce better and better documents and publicatons! While the typewriter was the way to do that for many decades, almost no one uses a typewriter now; we use our computers!

Education is stuck in a “typewriter” mentality. The government keeps trying to improve on the “typewriter” of education — which is the school model. We don’t want/need better schools — we want and desperately need better and better ways to help learners learn! Schools, like typewriters, used to be the best means to the end. No more.

My personal resolution is to help lead the transition away from the IBM Selectric mentality of improving schools, to the revolutionary possibilities that are available with a PC, online learning and a connectivist mentality!

My latest “read” has been What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. I had picked up the hardcover when strolling through the Orlando airport when I was stuck there on a 36 hour flight delay a couple of weeks ago.
I decided I’d take some of the passages that grabbed me as I read and blog about them. Of course, I read everything through the lens of school and learning. Here are some of my thoughts. I hope they spark some thoughts and discussion from some others.
Jarvis starts out: “It seems as if no company, executive, or institution truly understands how to survive and prosper in the internet age . . . Except Google” (3). Grabbed me right away. Sure seems to me that very few of the people in education in this country have really understood that notion. He goes on to talk about a “world that has changed radically and forever”. Well, not yet; not in American education at least. That change hasn’t occurred. We’re still in some sort of weird time warp.
The internet has changed everything? In education we just don’t quite understand the word “change” I guess. Most teachers, educators, districts and education organizations think the net has perhaps “improved” their world, not changed it. Let me give you a few examples. If we step back we see the same structures that have been firmly in place for the last hundred years. Every morning for about 9 months a year, kids leave home Monday through Friday and gather in a school that is within a reasonable distance of their home (reasonable in some places means subjecting them to an hour ride each way, but that’s a local decision). The daily schedule varies slightly from school to school or year to year, but those changes are administrative or cosmetic and certainly have not resulted, in and of themselves, in significant changes in student achievement, graduation or dropout rates. No silver bullet there, but the changes make a school feel that they are “reforming” and proactive. What a joke. Well-intended to be sure, but a joke when it comes to change in the last 100 years.
Look at what is going on in classrooms in the internet age. Pretty much what always has. Students go through lessons at the same teacher-dominated learning environment, teacher-determined pace, along the same linear curricular track. Who chooses the pace? The adults. Who chooses the content? The adults. Who chooses how long it takes a student to learn? The adults.
And what of changes brought about by the “internet age”? Fancy baubles on the lifeless manikin.
Two of my litmus tests for change? In 2009 every child in a classroom is given the exact same amount of time to master a subject, and despite the amount of brain-research, learning theory, and the millions and millions spent on professional development, the same amount of time is given as when my mother was a student in those same classes 80 years ago. She studied algebra for approximately 180 days. Students today? Just the same. Even more remarkable, the same goes for U.S. History. At least when she took history, it didn’t matter that the teacher only made it through WW I. Think of all the events in world and US history of the last 80 years, from the stock market crash and the Depression to WWII, Viet Nam, the Civil Rights movement, and on and on, and? Yup, still exactly the same number of days. Every other subject – same story. Same number of days. Why doesn’t this strike anyone else as being crazy?
Everything has changed with the internet? Oh, I forgot, now teachers can assign students to include internet sources and video clips in a PowerPoint assignment. Sorry if I am less than thrilled.
Who else thinks it’s insane that “SCHOOL” is unchanged in the internet age? Can real change happen? Yes, of course. We’ll get to that another day. How about some more examples of the old French proverb “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” [The more things change, the more they remain the same.]
Tom Welch
tom@twelchconsulting.com
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