Educational Change Video Marathon

I'm leaving work at the end of the day today to visit my alma mater (Peabody College for Teachers at Vanderbilt University) a few blocks away from my office at MNPS Virtual Learning. I'm going there view what I think is the first local screening of the independent film "Race to Nowhere." This is a movie I've been looking forward to seeing ever since I first learned about it on Facebook. Formerly subtitled "The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture," its trailer, which I share at the end of this post, is intriguing, to say the least.

As the father of two beautiful children and something of an advocate for change (I feel personally responsible for the word "radical" appearing in the National Educational Technology Plan: "...the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies should identify key emerging trends and priorities and recruit and bring together the best minds and organizations to collaborate on high-risk/high-gain education R&D projects. It should aim for radical, orders-of-magnitude improvements by envisioning the impact of innovations and then working backward to identify the fundamental breakthroughs required to make them possible."), I am most interested in seeing this film for myself, even if it means subjecting myself to "heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink..." as advertised at the film's website.

Anticipation has me musing about the trend for change advocates to "Hollywoodize" their views by creating videos or, as this one is, full-length films and promoting their entertainment value, even to the point of profiting from them. Again, I want to share the trailer for tonight's film here, but before I do I'd suggest you beef up your upcoming Education Change Video Marathon by adding one or more of these film/videos to the bill. Here are several I've recently viewed, along links to their own trailers and some descriptive text from their respective websites. Watch each trailer and tell me you aren't motivated to view at least one of them:

Pricele$$, from Habitat Media, about the true cost of our current political fundraising legislation -- "PRICELE$$ is a one-hour documentary journey from 4th of July revelry to America's croplands; from hopeful windfarms to our nation's capitol in search of some answers. Maybe even a solution. The colorful cast of characters will inform, move, and amuse you. You'll be privy to personal accounts of lives upended and hear how postal rates cause global warming. You'll learn the definition of "running clean" and discover the fate of two politicians who actually enjoyed fundraising. Even the third graders in our film know something has to change."


ACT Out Against SAT, from Sam Kaufman, about the unfairness of using SAT scores for college entrance -- Host Allie Kaufman says, "I'm a high school student; my father is an award-winning filmmaker, and together we uncovered startling evidence that proves standardized tests are totally unfair to many students. If you've visited our website and watched our film athttp://www.ACToutagainstSAT.com then you know the tests are biased against females, students whose second language is English, against minorities, students who can't afford quality test prep classes or tutors, and all those students who aren't good on standardized tests--even though they do great in school. And you know that the SAT Essay section is a complete joke." And here's an article from the Huffington Post describing the petition driving effort.


Waiting for Superman, from Davis Guggenheim and Michele Rhee, a stirring (and controversial) film about "the failures of the public education system in America that makes suggestions (also controversial) to "fix" it. Disclaimer--I have not actually seen this film, but just now went into my Netflix queue. I'll weigh in on the debate just as soon as I experience it first hand. 


Okay, here is the Race to Nowhere trailer, posted from TeacherTube so that even working teachers in firewall/blocked schools should be to watch it this very moment:

Mr. Winkle Wakes

Via Facebook this morning I had to reshare a link from Scott McLeod, one leading to an amazing single webpage, a wiki page, actually, compiled by the fabulous Alec Couros, entitled

90+ Videos for Tech. & Media Literacy. 

This page deserves some visitation and exploration. It's a veritable treasure trove of interesting, stimulating, inspirational content. I plan explore it often over the coming weeks, and I hope that you will, too; if, that is, you have any interest in education. My Friday morning gift to you comes from the "Conversation Starters" section and if you share this with others in your PLN I'm wagering it will start some conversations. From Mathew Needleman, "Mr. Winkle Wakes." Indeed:

Sir Ken Robinson Helps Me Out (Again)

Okay, just to make sure you watch this. I've Facebooked, tweeted, emailed, and done everything but run screaming through the streets to share this 11 minutes of reasonableness with others. Here's my last effort (today, anyway) to nominate Sir Ken Robinson for a Global Reason Award. Is there such a thing? Maybe not, but there should be. I started off my MNPS SWAP session by sharing this with the 18 K-12 teachers who were really there for a Web 2.0 learning day. I said it was "to let you know where I'm coming from, here." Here:

Twitter #K12perfectschool to Contribute!

I started a project [hears the Bee Gees "I Started a Joke"] on twitter that I'm hoping gains some legs and provides some interesting diversion from the eternal discussions about "school reform."

Here's the gist: Assuming that prominent futurist/thinker Alvin Toffler was correct when he recently said in an interview:

Edutopia.org: You've been writing about our educational system for decades. What's the most pressing need in public education right now?

Alvin Toffler: Shut down the public education system. just how do we proceed to do that? Well, I don't know, but I do know that Twitter holds some interesting promise as a dialog facilitator, so I thought to myself, why not see?

The image below is the beginning of what will hopefully be a response to my call for educators on Twitter to contribute little pieces of how they envision a changed landscape of the way we teach and learn. Do you have ideas? Open up your Twitter, type the hashtag "#k12perfectschool" and have at it. I'll be noting my ideas along the way. The goal?

After we get 2010 tweets I'll dig in and summarize. Maybe we'll have something of a starting point. Maybe we won't. It'll be interesting, at least, and will be a valiant effort to end-run the timeless and endless talk about reforming a system that is so fundamentally wrong and so clearly failing to invent one that is fundamentally right and that works.

Teachers Prepared for Reform?

THE Journal comes through in the thought-provocation department again with its article entitled "Report Shows Teachers Not Adequately Prepared for Education Reform," By Scott Aronowitz.

Citing the report released in December by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL), the author reports that in California, despite top-down efforts to reform education into sync with the demands of 21st century living and working, though many teachers possess the skill set to function effectively, "many more are simply not up to the task."

Details are at the article, and I'm only here to point you to that, but when you go, please budget a few minutes in your busy day to scan the comments and to add your own. This is a discussion worthy of your attention and your contribution. It certainly got me on my soapbox:

"Education reform?" A buzzphrase so hackneyed it's beyond cliche. Alvin Toffler said it, echoing some of the other best minds amongst those focused on the future: "We don't need to reform the system; we need to replace the system." Is there any hope for doing so? A tad, and active administrators like Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in PA, are fighting the good fight. An essential issue that is seldom mentioned is the need for any realistic system of education to value and reward creative, scientific, literary, social, vocational, etc. learning outside of 8 to 4 schoolday instruction. Another is to flex around changing family work and play schedules, perhaps offering something like 20/7 availability of synchronous instructor time, face-to-face or online, with group meetings and their necessary experience with social skills offered the same way. Sit them in rows (or in circles--the "new rows") in classrooms from their least productive circadian hour to a time when a little more non-academic scheduling can keep them in line until their parents can pick them up and shuttle them home? No longer justified. Hope for those kinds of reform? Only a tad from a set of systems so entrenched by custom. The most destructive and inhibiting words in the English language? "We've always done it this way."

The complete report, "The Status of the Teaching Profession 2009," along with summary materials and recommendations, can be found here.

ETAN Letter, If You Please?

Despite Federal funding being raised to all-time highs in the current flurry of economic stimulus, the 650 million dollar level its at is still just a wee fraction when we're talking about trillions of dollars budgeted for education. This thwarts congressional will, as indicated in the letter below:We can make a difference. Please visit the EdTech Action Network and take a few minutes to customize the beginning of the lobby-created letter the Network will deliver to our congresspeople. It's important...

Here's the letter you'll be sending. A personalized introduction at its top might catch the eye of at least staff members! I'm including mine in bold as an example...

Sure, the following is a lobby-created template, but it explains issues in much more cogent terms than I can muster. I hope you will take a minute to read it. As a 13 year elementary education technology teacher at a Nashville independent school who is sending his 8th grader son to an MNPS school next year for the first time, I am writing to share my opinion about the funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program that was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Both the House and Senate passed bills included $1 billion for the EETT program, and yet the final bill reduced this commitment by 35 percent to $650 million.  I am very disappointed that this program suffered such a funding decrease during conference deliberations.

As an educator, I certainly appreciate and applaud the unprecedented investment in education that is included in the economic recovery package. The EETT program provides economic stimulus to our local communities through the creation and retention of high skilled jobs, stimulates the business sector and at the same time provides our students with the skills they need to compete in the global workforce.  

 

President Obama has spoken many times about the need to bring computers and modern technologies and skills to our nation’s classrooms.  I hope that as the FY10 appropriations processes continue you will make the EETT program a top funding priority.

David Jakes asks: how innovative are you?

David Jakes is at it again. His blog post today at Tech&Learning is at once stimulating and challenging. If I were a negative person I'd be a little discouraged. Since I'm not, I'm driving you to his thought-provoking views on the value and acceptance of innovation in education:

David Jakes asks: how innovative are you?

David quickly gets to the point: "I’m not interested in being satisfied with pockets of innovation. Yes, they can be recognized, which for many schools, is the end point and the final rest stop of innovation in most schools. There can certainly be more however, with those same pockets analyzed for what works and why, amplified to increase their visibility and importance, and systematized to make a difference for all."              READ MORE...  

Wednesday Evening Epiphany

I don't know how I've gotten so scattered lately, but my wife has more than once looked at me and said, "You're multi-tasking too hard, you: You're going to make a big mistake soon."

She may be right. The whole thing is a train rattling down a steep mountainside toward...what?

The place where it encounters a steep upturn, a clean end to the track, and the vehicle takes wing and soars adroitly, elegantly, gracefully into the flattering ether?

Some long, level, languishing, loverly lane where the train (remember, that's the metaphor) lolls along indefinitely, its laughing engineer sipping a tasty adult beverage and learning lots of things?

The wall?

Heck, I don't know.

Anyway, I'll continue to update you as I can. This very day, by the way, I spent a nice hour in the midst of wonderful folks, the sophomore class at the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt. These are my peeps, ya'll, 25 kids I filmed, recorded, and witnessed as they grew in their freshman year last year. I haven't spent any time at all with them this year, involved as I've been with podcasts and with trying to etch out a Second Life presence for the School's hosting organization, the Vanderbilt Center for Science and Math.

What I saw today indicates the program works--it is possible for kids to be yanked out of their public school routines one day a week for intense, hands-on, research based science learning, and for them to grow in self-confidence and knowledge in incredibly impressive ways. I'll be working next Monday (in my own bizarre one day a week work model for Vanderbilt) to concoct a Snacks4theBrain! podcast to celebrate all that. But here's the question for now:

Everyone's looking for a way to make education work. Is this model something that could be extended to other disciplines? Could we have a "School for Creative Writing at Vanderbilt"? Could dedicated Engineers create and facilitate a "School for Architectural Innovation at Vanderbilt"? What about a "School for Environmental Sociology at [plug in your own university]" or a "School for Health and Wellness Education" at [plug in your own university]"?

Is there truly a role for higher education communities to reach out to our struggling public school systems to offer innovative solutions for the terrible fix our national fascination with "accountability" has gotten us into, Ollie? My favorite quote here is, "You don't fatten the pig by weighing it."

Look no farther than the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt. Really. Now you come up with a way to extend that incredibly effective model into your own discipline.

Talk at ya soon.

Change PIE--Proponents for Innovative Education