It started  some time  ago when I realized not every student needs algebra to be a productive member of society. I, like all educators, had drank the kool aid.I believed that every student needed algebra.

But it kept nagging at me that I couldn’t give sufficient real world examples of the use of algebra in the real world. And I visited all the time with highly successful people who told me they use little of what they learned in algebra, and NEVER in the context they learned it.

A good friend asked his father after heart surgery if he was ever worried he might die. He quipped that, “No, he knew it wasn’t his time” because his algebra teacher told him he’d need algebra someday, and he hadn’t needed it yet, and he knew his teacher wouldn’t lie to him.

All kidding aside …

I think the myth of algebra began with Larry Lezotte and Ron Edmonds. In their research they found that algebra one was the gateway to the advanced curriculum. They didn’t say that students needed to learn algebra to be productive members of society, but rather the  “system” required algebra I before you could take any of the advanced sciences.

We as educators interpreted that to mean that students needed to know algebra to be successful. I simply don’t believe that’s true. Let me be clear, I believe all of us use some algebra on a regular basis. But as far as I can tell the only profession that requires that you know all of algebra, is algebra teachers.

My second experience that leads me to question our math curriculum began as an accident. We have a shortage of engineers in my geographic area. In discussing this problem I began to hear that our students couldn’t pass the three required calculus courses to become engineers. The three required calculus courses were the “flunk out courses.”

Just by chance, an engineer offhandedly told me how hard calculus had been, and that once on the job he never used it. Since then, whenever I have an opportunity to speak to an engineer, I asked them how much they use calculus on the job. By far, the most common response is never.

Interestingly, if I asked the spouse of an engineer they often tell me that their spouse uses calculus all the time. Go figure.

Yesterday, October 13, 2010, I had another one of those experiences that caught my attention. I was in a meeting discussing project-based learning. The people who were present who are actually using project-based learning were saying that the one subject that they have not been able to figure out how to build into projects is math.

It caused me to think that we are approaching math education all wrong. I reflected on Howard Gardner’s book, Five Minds For The Future, where he talks about the need for our students to not just know about a subject, but to practice the discipline of that subject. Our students need to practice the discipline of being a social scientist, not just know a lot about the social sciences etc. etc..

When I applied that thinking the math, I asked myself the question do we really want kids to practice the discipline of mathematicians. The reality is, statistically speaking, none of our students is going to be a mathematician. But all of our students will use math in their future. We approach teaching math as if all of our students are going to be mathematicians.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It seems to me that we should completely rethink how we teach math. And perhaps the need to abandon much of what we expect students to regurgitate on math tests.

Just a blasphemous thought on school change. – Steve Wyckoff

The whole world is changing, and one of the biggest changes involve social media. But for some reason social media isn’t even on the radar of school change. I am fascinated by the impact that social media has had on our lives. It’s affected how we communicate, how we stay informed, and how we stay connected.

Communicating, staying informed, and staying connected seem to me to be important attributes for schools in the 21st century. But it appears that almost all schools block students from accessing social media during the school day on school technology.

Watch this video, it’s fascinating stuff, it appears that isn’t having any impact at all on education.

If you’re an educator and that didn’t blow your mind you need to seriously think about retirement.

We make kids all across America engage in activities that will have little or no impact on their future, or their success in the 21st century. And at the same time we completely ignore some of the most important influences in their lives, now and in the future.

Wake up educators! Pretty soon it will be too late, don’t think for a minute that if you don’t engage in appropriate school change that nothing will happen to your school. It already is, you just don’t know it! – Steve Wyckoff

Several years ago a superintendent who was a friend of mine sent an e-mail to the superintendent’s listserv. He asked if any of the superintendents who were members of the list had a set of beliefs by which they operated their schools.

I responded to him, okay sarcastically, that based on my observation of what was going on in our schools, I had created a list of beliefs that as educators we must obviously hold, because in practice, we were demonstrating our beliefs.

So here is the list of belief statements that I put together:
1. All kids learn at the same rate.
2. All kids learn in the same way.
3. All kids in the same grade are ready to learn the same things at the same time.
4. All kids enter a class knowing nothing that will be taught in the class.
5. Not all kids can learn.
6. Schooling kids is more important than educating kids.
7. Kids learn best when they are bored.
8. You can’t learn if you’re not there.
9. The purpose of schools is to prepare kids to go to college.
10. Kids who do not get prepared to go to college came to us broken.
11. Textbook is synonymous with curriculum

Perhaps if we really want school change we should start with a different set of beliefs. – Steve Wyckoff

It seems to me that the only acceptable measure of school change is standardized test scores. I have a real problem with that. It’s not that I devalue standardized test scores completely, I do believe that they are one small indicator of how we’re doing. But when I see the over emphasis on standardized test scores I have to shake my head.

I hear the stories from teachers and parents about the crazy things we do in order to raise test scores. I’m completely convinced that we spend more time on test taking strategies, and memorizing material for tests, then we do on real learning.

I am constantly reminding myself, and usually anyone else that will listen, about the analogy of getting your drivers license. When you got your drivers license you took two tests, a written test and a driving test. It’s obvious which one is the more meaningful. In fact in most states, perhaps all states, when you renew your driver’s license, send you the test in the mail along with the answers. That’s because the stuff that’s on the test is meaningless in the real context of driving and we don’t remember it. The truly important stuff we remember because we practice it on a daily basis, and because for the most part it is non-conscious.

It’s not that the stuff being tested isn’t true, it’s just that out of context of driving its meaningless. For example, how far before you turn are you supposed to turn on your turn indicator? When I ask this question of an audience most of them get it wrong, not because they can’t drive but because the context of driving often times dictates using your turn signal sooner than the law requires.

It’s the same on our standardized tests. The stuff we test our kids on is true and in many cases used in context would be meaningful. But taught, and tested out of context makes what the student is learning meaningless.

We should be testing the student’s ability to use the context in new and, predictable and unpredictable situations. That’s when the material is useful.

I always cringe when I hear an educators talk about “improved achievement.” Real school change would include authentic assessment of the use and application of knowledge and skills in a contextually based problem. – Steve Wyckoff

When we talk about school change we automatically fall into the mindset that what ever changes we make should apply to all schools. Every elementary school should look like every other elementary school, every middle school should look like every other middle school, and every high school should look like every other high school.

But in the 21st century that makes absolutely no sense. Why, in this day and age, would we want to “mass-produce” students that were all exactly the same? We have never lived in a time that is more customized and individualized. Furthermore, we’ve never had the tools that we have today, that we could use to customize an individualize for every school, and for every student.

Having one set of defined requirements to graduate from K-12 schools, defined by a central authority of 10 people, and regulated by the Department of Education, is insane. It’s worse than insane, it’s criminal.

I’ve used this line many times including in testimony to the House education committee, and the state Board of Education, but it still applies, “If we had a state department of bookstores they wouldn’t have allowed Amazon.com to exist!” You see, Amazon.com didn’t look like a bookstore, get it sells more books than any traditional bookstore. Furthermore, it has contributed greatly to the dramatic change in how people shop and buy today.

We need to be creating the Amazon.com’s of schools. Yes, some would fail, but many would not. If we would unleash the creativity and innovation inherent in Americans we would create the kind of schools our children need and deserve. Real school change is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, it’s a customized and individualized proposition. – Steve Wyckoff

Even former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch agrees! Well she didn’t exactly say it’s a curse but she did say when speaking about No Child Left Behind, “… I’ve looked at the evidence and I’ve concluded they’re wrong. They’ve put us on the wrong track. I feel passionately about the improvement of public education and I don’t think any of this is going to improve public education.”  And I couldn’t agree more!

Her primary concern is the same as mine the emphasis on standardized tests.  I believe that we have created a culture of test taking skills, she believes we have created a culture of “cheating and dishonesty.”  I think that she believes the tests are important and that the scores mean something, I don’t think they’re important and I don’t think they mean nearly as much as we like to believe.

I see all too often schools that are focused on strategies to raise test scores, that have nothing to do with students learning more, and being able to apply the knowledge under real-world conditions.The net effect of the strategies is that our students by school more boring, and more irrelevant than ever. And boring and irrelevant are not desirable conditions for learning to occur.

However, it is encouraging that some high-level people, mostly former policymakers, are seeing that the top down, centrally controlled strategies for improving education aren’t working. Hopefully, those in charge will abandon these well-meaning but misguided strategies and focus on real systemic change that leads to the kind of educational system our kids need, and deserve, in the 21st century. – Steve Wyckoff

I had the pleasure last week of listening to Randy Rivers, superintendent at  Bluestem school district, and Jerry Cullan, currently superintendent at Medicine Lodge but formerly Superintendent at the Ashland school district. While superintendent at Ashland Jerry implemented and managed a four-day school week for six years. Randy, has led his district to the decision to implement a four-day school week beginning in the 2010-2011 school year. Randy and Jerry, facilitated by Deb Haneke, engaged in an hour-long discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of a four-day school week.

To be honest going into the discussion I believed that schools went to the four-day week for the sole purpose of saving money. I’d never considered the educational advantages that might be experienced in a four-day school week. But I have to admit that after listening to Randy and Jerry I believe  that there may be many valid educational reasons for switching to a four-day school week.

However, the barrier of tradition is an unbelievably high hill to climb. There are many high-ranking educational officials who oppose the four-day school week simply because it’s not what we’ve always done. If you are interested you can watch the entire discussion at  Crisis In The classroom. You can also watch two podcasts with Deb Haneke and Clint Corby who are discussing the same subject. Clint is the superintendent in the Haviland school district which is also on a four-day workweek. –  Steve Wyckoff

I think kids at Erie high school have the best opportunity to receive an educational experience that prepares them for their future in the 21st century than any other total school population in the state of Kansas. I had the opportunity last week to speak with Mike Carson, Ted Hill, an architect Allan Milbradt about the transformation of very high school.

We had a wonderful discussion about the steps they took and the lessons learned. But today I wanted to share a video with you featuring Allan Milbradt discussing the project at Erie high school.

“And yet most of the trouble businesses get into – in serving their customers and in general getting things done with dispatch – is directly attributable to the ugliness of their systems and processes. Over time, even a beautiful system tends to get elaborated and elaborated … and then more elaborated … with every change. Each one made of course, for a “good reason.” Until the whole ugly, sloppy, inefficient, demoralizing, dehumanizing, mess makes everybody unhappy. We end up “serving the system” rather than having the system serve us.” – Tom Peters

I spent a lot of time thinking about what needs to change in schools, how we do school reform. I also spend a lot of time listening to books. Over the last several months I’ve listened to six books that make great connections for me. I’d recommend the following six books for every educator.

Drive – Daniel Pink
How We Decide – Jonah Lehrer
Talent Is Overrated – Geoff Colvin
The Talent Code – Daniel Coyle
Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
The Element – Sir Ken Robinson

So what do all these books have in common? They all deal with motivation, learning, and great performance. Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version of what I took from these books, but please read them and let me know what you think their importance is.

First of all there is a common thread through the six that motivation and excellence are linked to interest. Individuals who have high intrinsic interest in what they’re doing are better learners. So for schools this means that we must allow students to have choice in what it is that they’re learning.  School reformer Phil Schlecty always said that teachers don’t know what their job is. He said, ” That a teacher’s job is not to teach kids. A teacher’s job is to create work that is meaningful and engaging to the student, whereby they learn the things that we want them to learn.” He’s right on target according to these authors. We have to give kids work to do, but it has to be meaningful and engaging to them.

The second thread that runs through these books is that there is no such thing as inherent talent. There are several studies that are referred to that show two things. One, and individual must spend approximately 10 years and/or 10,000 hours involved in the pursuit to become an expert. But time alone is not enough, the individual must also spend that time in what the authors referred to as, “deliberate practice.” That’s practice that focuses on improving each and every facet of the performance. By the way, the performance can be physical or cognitive, it doesn’t matter.

So what does that mean to us in schools? Well the sad truth is what we have students practice most often for 10 years and/or 10,000 hours, is passively being compliant. We ask them to sit in the seat, do what they are told, do it when they are told, and do it how they are told to do it. If they run into trouble we tell them to raise their hand and we will answer their questions, and solve their problems.

Our current system is designed to reduce the deficits that our kids have. We identify what they’re not good at and we try to raise them to mediocrity. What we should be doing is identifying what they are good at, and letting them become experts in that area. In the real world if you can shine at something you can be a success, in spite of your deficits.

Does that mean that we ignore their deficits? Absolutely not, but we should improve on those deficits as part of the deliberate practice they do in the area that they have a high interest. So they will become experts in an area with the supporting skills and knowledge necessary.

So schools, start figuring out how to create educational experiences that are, long-term, engaging to each and every student on an individual basis, and allow the student to become an expert in what rows their boat in the 21st century. – Steve Wyckoff