Think-Thank-Thunk

An interesting article relating data from a survey done at Careerbuilder.com

There’s an interesting discussion going on right now over at Freakonomics about whether or not grades in school are a good predictor of future success.

The discussion centers around these five premises:

1. The definition of success is elusive.
2. How do you measure the validity of grades?
3. Most middle schools and high schools put so much emphasis on homework versus actual understanding that they are measuring behavior and compliance far more than what has been learned.
4. Creativity and creative people tend to mess up metrics at each level.
5. Any research I could find was done at some university which tended to bias results using university metrics of success.

Its a good discussion with some smart participants. Some of it makes me bristle a bit, but I guess that’s healthy. I particularly enjoyed this quote:

If you look at those who have commonly advanced our thinking, our abilities, our technologies, and our economy (through business sense), many did poorly in schools, yet they persisted. The persistence may have been the critical element, and it would have perhaps been lost had they been encouraged more.

So does this mean we need more of those mediocre middle school and high school teachers acting as the forge to both create the worker bees we need, as well as the best [and most successful] by trying to destroy them?

CNN Money uses numbers to paint an interesting picture of teaching nation-wide. Lots of jobs opening up, lots of layoffs, lots of larger classes to teach, little (relatively speaking) money to be made.

. . . In addition to the relatively low pay, heavy workload and bureaucratic pressures that have become synonymous with the profession, many more teachers throughout the country face layoffs because of budget issues, according to the National Education Association, the union that represents 3.2 million education professionals nationwide.

. . . Despite the layoffs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said that teaching K-12 is one of the top-growing job markets nationwide, in terms of sheer volume. The Bureau estimates a nationwide increase of 479,000 jobs between 2006 and 2016, to more than 4.4 million.

My take on money and teaching?

I’m not going to complain. I made my own bed when I left a higher paying job as a plant and production manager, and now I’m sleeping in it. I started teaching full-time seven years ago. We couldn’t make ends meet on just my salary so I got a second job purchasing supplies for a nursing home. Last winter, however, I left that job to pursue a Masters degree in Teaching and Learning.

I love the study (this blog was actually born of it), but it’s a professional development move that I’m paying for in more than one way. The degree itself will cost over $10,000. The lost wages from the second job I left will combine to over $20,000 before my degree is complete. Of course my district will (or at least they’re supposed to) start paying me $2,500 more a year 4 months after I get my Masters. So it’s pretty clear that this doesn’t really make a lot of sense when you look at my immediate bottom line.

Still, I pretty much love what I do. I just wish I didn’t have to go into such debt doing it.

I started a Masters program this fall and have to tell you–it’s a blast. I’m learning so many cool things! Recently we were asked to revisit our “Philosophies of Education.” So I got to play around with this the other night.

I’ve mentioned stuff like this in passing before. But I’ve never formulated (and articulated) what I believe “education” is all about so emphatically.

We had some choices for presentation, and I went with a pamphlet type of thing that we could give to students or parents, which is pretty tough to recreate here, but I think you’ll get the gist.

I imagine I’ll continue to tweek it. I’ve already changed a couple of things even after turning it in last weekend. I’m just that way I guess.

Okay, enough chit-chat.

All the stats and images came from, Shift Happens, over at Slideshare.

Learning is Heroic

According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.

I believe that real, lasting and valuable teaching and learning is a creative process anchored to a framework of ideas about what is possible. We live in unique times. Technology is fueling an information explosion. This has profound implications for teaching and learning. Consider, for example, these two statistical bits from one of my favorite presentations, “Shift Happens,” originally developed by Karl Fisch:

• The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38.
• The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

It’s statements like these that lead me to believe that teaching, learning, and curriculum should focus less on content, and more on the skills needed to communicate, as well as creatively and critically solve problems.

In order for this to happen, I think our entire educational landscape will have to undergo paradigm shifts that will change the very structure of what we do. We must shake the very bedrock.

Big shifts like this mean risk. They mean venturing into unknown territory. They mean adventure.

10 years ago, who could have predicted Google? Who then could even foresee the problems that search engines would solve? Today, there are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month. Information is expanding and change exponential. Tomorrow’s great thinkers and leaders are today’s risk takers and problem solvers.

They are our hero’s.

I believe we desperately need a new and heroic vision in education. One that can grow and adapt at today’s rate of change. One that leads in the exploration of new ideas. One that not only reads and writes and shares and analyzes information, but that also recognizes, values and nurtures a creative spirit–the spirit of the hero, unafraid of failure, able to take a hit and recover after setbacks, reassess the terrain, learn, adapt and continue on toward victory.

Students need skills that will allow them to solve problems that don’t exist yet—true. But to do this, they will also need adventurous and creative attitudes to be able to adapt to the ever-changing landscape.

Learning has just become heroic. It’s a shift, I know. But . . .

Shift Happens.

The Hero Path
“We have not even to risk the hero’s adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known.
We have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god.
And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
—Joseph Campbell