K12LEADERS

Author: Jim Flanagan

  • Reflecting on Thinking and Democracy in Greece 

    Reflecting on Thinking and Democracy in Greece 

    Our family was fortunate to visit Athens, Greece this summer, where you cannot help but reflect on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and thinking in general—even while sweating profusely. These great philosophers lived almost 2500 years ago. They had some similar and some different philosophies, but they were all deep thinkers who inspired others as teachers.

    Philosophy is the study of truths about the world and our place in it. Philosophers use reason, logic, and critical thinking to explore questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, morality, and beauty. The term comes from the Greek words “philo” (love) and “sophia” (wisdom), so a philosopher is literally a lover of wisdom. Philosophers seek to learn more about the world and understand the meaning of life. Do we philosophize enough these days? Why not?

    I also pondered the concept of democracy, which originates from the Greek words ‘demos’ meaning citizen and ‘kratos’ meaning power or rule. (My fellow movie lovers are no doubt thinking about Windex.) Athenians practiced one of the earliest examples of Western democracy during this time. (I use “Western” to avoid any false claims of exceptionalism, recognizing that other forms of democracy emerged independently, such as the Iroquois Confederacy, Mayan city-states, the timawa system of the Kalinga people, and the mbari system of the Kikuyu people.) What was the relationship between Athenian democracy and deep thinking?

    Fast-forward to today. Do we, as a society, value thinking more or less? Does it vary based on cultures and other attributes? Do religions and affiliations encourage profound contemplation or blind adherence to doctrine? Do we truly comprehend cognition and appreciate the value of thinking, or are we inclined to blame and delegate governance responsibilities to others?

    I believe that Homo sapiens’ capacity to think has increased, but what about our desire? What does it signify if we neglect cognition, the science of learning, and even philosophy in our schools? I hope that advancements in our understanding of cognition and learning will usher in another golden age of thoughtful inquiry, unhampered by AI. However, I also observe a growing trend of intellectual passivity in favor of information consumption, groupthink, and bias blindness. Perhaps we are simply overwhelmed by the information explosion and need time to adjust. One thing is certain: the promise of collective progress in thinking and decision-making hinges on an accelerated evolution of our educational systems.

  • Why Is US Public Schooling Designed This Way? Or Why Prussia, Mann, the Committee of Ten, and Sloan Continue to Influence Education More than Dewey and the Science of Learning  

    Why Is US Public Schooling Designed This Way? Or Why Prussia, Mann, the Committee of Ten, and Sloan Continue to Influence Education More than Dewey and the Science of Learning  

    This is Part 3 of Jim Flanagan’s summer project exploring instructional design.

    As a child, I watched too much TV, so “sit right back and you’ll hear a tale.” US public schooling, like Gilligan’s Island, seems trapped in the limitations of its design despite readily available means of improving. This quote is attributed to Winston Churchill: “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.” Whether he said it or not, let’s hope that we are ready to do the right things to improve education. But the early signs of the post-pandemic response are not promising as we continue to feed more resources into the same, old coal furnace hoping for greater output. To understand the present, it is necessary to explore the past. So this blog is inspired by David Byrne’s prompt – “You may ask yourself, “Well, how did we get here?” ”

    Seat time, courses, summative tests, and schedules drive the current traditional design of K-20 schooling. We move the students based on time instead of allowing the instructional content to move to meet each student. In grades 6-20, there is a curriculum of courses in approximately 15-week semesters. Teachers develop lesson plans, deliver lectures based on curriculum, and grade students based on coursework and summative tests. Students access static textbooks, other reading, and increasingly digital materials based on a standardized scope and sequence. The institution, not the student, determines the pace of learning. The school building and classrooms are the predominant place of learning. I refer to this as the factory model because the students essentially move on schedule-based conveyor belts through instruction with little regard for their readiness. The traditional model contrasts with a personalized, competency-based model – based on the science of learning – in which students can learn at any path, any pace, any time, any place. In this blog, I outline some significant influences that formed our traditional system and drive our unyielding, nostalgic acceptance of it.

    Education is as old as humankind. On the savannah, our ancestors had to teach their young to survive. With the advent of societies and religious beliefs, norms, and doctrine were added to expected knowledge. Teaching was primarily spoken along with some gestures and imagery – PowerPoint in the dirt or on a cave wall. Stories emerged as a primary way to retain and share wisdom. Then came the technologies of symbols (~100,000 years ago), alphabets, and writing (~ 1900 BC) to store and transmit knowledge.

    Let’s pause our sprint to recognize Socrates – of the method and dramatic exit fame. His contributions to teaching and learning are well-trodden. Did you know that he also opposed learning from reading? He believed that reading – instead of memorizing the spoken word – could lead to forgetfulness, intellectual laziness, and misinterpretation. So an aversion to change is as old as learning itself.

    Back to the drive-thru history lesson. The concept of schooling emerged around the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (470 BCish.) They believed that learning should be compulsory, designed to help people develop their minds and souls, and based on inquiry, dialogue, and civic education principles. Socrates preferred to teach on the move, interacting with society. Plato created “the Academy,” so school as a place emerges. Aristotle added ideas about practical knowledge and personalized learning that is lifelong.

    In the last three paragraphs, I summarized 300,000 years of homo sapien education for my fellow short attention spanners. As of 1 AD, we have a concept of school with a place, time, expectations, methods, and curriculum. Before moving on, I recognize this blog has a Western bias. That is because Western influences overwhelmingly inform the US system of schooling. I do not mean to convey that these models are all-encompassing or better than those from other cultures. And most of the people I reference are white males. Unfortunately, most readily accessible history is biased. I recognize that they are not solely responsible for how our systems have succeeded or are increasingly failing. Our understanding of education history can use a healthy exploration of hidden figures.

    Skipping forward to 1452, Johannes Gutenberg used the first mass-produced movable metal type to print Bibles – a game-changing learning technology. For the next 350 years, formal education was elite, private, heavily influenced by the Protestant religion, and primarily reserved for white males.

    The founding of the US had a significant influence on education. Founded in 1635, Boston Latin School is the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States. There was an emerging belief in universal education to provide all citizens with the knowledge and skills they needed to participate in civic life and support this new democracy thing. English grammar schools served as a template. English educational methods were used to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic; reinforce family, church, community, and apprenticeship; and assess progress based on standardized tests. And even the English “six hours” school day influenced our six-period structure. Noah Webster introduced the Blue-Backed Speller in 1793 – a school staple for years with spelling and reading exercises, moral lessons, religious content, and a pro-American perspective. Thomas Jefferson promoted “universal” access to education – with some glaring exceptions to the universal concept. But formal education still remained mostly elite, private, male, and white until Horace Mann entered the picture.

    Why are over 50 public schools in the US named after Horace Mann? Well, he was kind of a big deal. In 1837, he was appointed Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education and took that job seriously. He visited over 100 schools by horseback and chronicled issues in detail. He founded and edited The Common School Journal promoting publicly funded and controlled, non-sectarian education to serve children with various backgrounds provided by well-trained, professional teachers. In 1843, a visit to Prussia led him to conclude that their system was:

    – “assiduously cultivated it in all its branches. The result has been that the Prussian people are the best informed in Europe.”

    – “highly centralized, with the government exercising a great deal of control over the schools.”

    – “very successful. The Prussian people are well-educated, and the country has a high level of literacy. The Prussian system of public instruction is also a model for other countries.”

    The Prussian system also emphasized obedience, duty to country, and general ethics. Mann’s national influence led to the Common School Movement – also championed by the first US Commissioner of Education, Henry Barnard. And the McGuffey Reader emerged to supplant the Blue-backed Speller. Mann (and others) had an incredibly positive impact on most Americans’ lives. And yet the system was still segregated, biased, inequitable, and designed for a time with limited understanding of human cognition and no digital technology.

    Education reform is a small world, as evidenced by Catharine Beecher, who advocated for women’s education along with Emma Willard and Mary Lyon in the early to mid-19th century. Catharine was the sister of author-abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose husband was Prussian education advocate Calvin Stowe. In the early 19th century, men made up the majority of teachers in the US. Catharine believed that women were naturally more nurturing and patient than men and that they were better equipped to handle the challenges of teaching young children. So she championed Normal Schools to professionalize the teaching profession and train female teachers – particularly in the expanding West. By the late 19th century, women made up the majority of teachers in the US and have remained the majority ever since.

    Immigration and religion were two other significant education influencers in the latter half of the 19th century – especially battles related to Protestant versus Catholic doctrines. And the civil war should have eliminated all racial barriers to education, but we know it did not. We cannot ignore the racial and nationalistic exceptionalism that led to horrific phrases like “Kill the Indian, save the man,” first used by Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. (I recommend the book Path Lit by Lightening: The Life of Jim Thorpe, who attended Carlisle.) This thread runs through the history of US education and continues to impede our progress toward high-quality education for all based on inquiry, evidence, and critical thinking instead of doctrine and cultural bias.

    Participation in public education was increasing but still not meeting the demands of the growing US industrial economy. So the National Education Association (NEA) created the Committee of Ten to study the state of secondary education. The members were all white males, and the majority were university presidents. In 1893, the Committee recommended that all high schools:

    – offer a common core curriculum that included English, mathematics, science, history, and foreign languages.

    – focus on college preparation, and offer courses that would prepare students for college-level work.

    – use standardized tests to assess student achievement and to compare the performance of schools.

    The Committee also recommended that teachers be better trained with opportunities to learn about new teaching methods, including the use of textbooks, lectures, recitations, labs, and libraries.

    Around that time, Gary, Indiana school superintendent William A. Wirt developed a “platoon” system in which schools were open eight hours a day, alternating groups of students between classrooms and recreational or vocational activities so that every facility was in constant use.

    In the late 19th century, John Dewey – philosopher, psychologist, educational reformer, and founder of the Chicago Lab School – authored The School and Society. He called his philosophy “progressive education” and argued for education based on the child’s experience, learning by doing, exploration, and experimentation. He also promoted social learning and cooperative work. Maria Montessori and later Loris Malaguzzi (from Reggio Emilia, Italy) had similar ideas – and differences.

    In 1906, the Carnegie Foundation developed the Carnegie unit to measure how much time students must spend in class to complete a course. It was based on seat time and determined that 14 units would translate into four years of high school education. (Note that the Foundation recently announced a project promoting competency-based assessment.)

    At this juncture, the powers that be convened and committed to redesigning teaching and learning based on a balanced, research-based evaluation of progressive and traditional models with a global perspective and appreciation for all cultures. Fake news alert! Of course that never happened. Instead, people like Dewey became both the most quoted and most ignored in favor of the status quo. More on that later.

    The first half of the 20th century saw steady increases in school participation driven by expanded compulsory attendance. And increased use of testing – including IQ tests – and academic tracking to sort kids into college-prep or vocational courses. The explicit and implicit bias against groups other than white males went largely unabated.

    Alfred P. Sloan Jr., President of GM and founder of the Sloan Foundation in 1934, significantly influenced public education. Scientific Management Theory, which emphasizes efficiency and productivity, was used to develop standardized tests, curriculum frameworks, and the departmentalization of schools. The Sloan Foundation also supported the Advanced Placement Program and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP.)

    In the latter half of the 20th century, we finally started to chip away at the inequity with court decisions or legislation, including but not limited to Brown vs. Board of Education (1954); Civil Rights Act of 1964; Bilingual Education Act of 1968; Title IX (1972); and Lau v. Nichols (1974.) But our education system is a reflection of our society so equity is a work in progress and the ideal of a high-quality, personalized, education – freely available to every child – remains an aspiration.

    While I have generally described US education nationally, public education is controlled primarily at the state and local levels. Everyone tells me that their state is the most local control. It is close enough, so I just agree with them all. Unfortunately, governance, funding, and accountability differ by state and zip code, but local control has yet to drive instructional design innovation at scale.

    The last 50 years feel like No Acronym/Catch Phrase Left Behind. It started with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 and the eight subsequent reauthorizations with hollow names like No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act. And targeted programs and policies like IDEA and Title I. And funding booms like Race to the Top and ESSER. And requirements like IEPs and MTSS. They were all important with positive intentions. Unfortunately, they all reinforce rigid instructional designs meant for a different time and purpose other than human fulfillment. And few political or educational leaders are calling that out. This inertia is on a collision course with advances in our understanding of cognition and the Science of Learning in areas such as plasticity, differentiation, context, feedback, encoding, retrieval, etc. Grab some popcorn because The Science of Reading is just a short before the full-length feature reckoning of the largely ignored Science of Learning.

    Admittedly, I missed a lot – especially technology and the pandemic. Unfortunately, technology has yet to effectively personalize learning without breaking the human connections critical to learning and human development. To date, edtech has just tweaked or reinforced the status quo. Consider data analytics and dashboards. How much time is wasted analyzing inputs like attendance and performance gaps created by the traditional system instead of redesigning it? And artificial intelligence won’t have an impact without the required instructional redesign that recognizes the importance of maintaining the instructional core of student, teacher, and content relationships. And the pandemic exposed how dated and rigid our system is more than it caused the problem. The cracks were all there.

    For another perspective on the history of US education, check out this brief video from 2012 by Khan Academy’s Salman Khan and Forbes’ Michael Noer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqTwDDTjb6g

    In my next blog, I will address the barriers to improvement and why the obvious is so darn hard to realize.

  • What Mindset is Required to Effect Change in Public Education?

    What Mindset is Required to Effect Change in Public Education?

    This is the second blog post in my summer series on instructional redesign in K-12 public education. Before I dive into the nitty gritty in future posts, let’s consider what mindset is required to effectively investigate, generate, evaluate, and implement the needed changes.

    George Bernard Shaw quote “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

    Growth Mindset – It never hurts to start with some Carolyn Dweck, right? I’ll delve into her work in a future blog on the brain, cognition, and the science of learning. From a change management perspective, I like this definition from a Harvard Business School Online Blog: “When you have a growth mindset, you believe you can gain the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed, which makes every challenge a learning opportunity. People with a growth mindset tend to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as a path to mastery, learn from criticism, and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.”

    Open-minded – How often do we find ourselves instinctively defending the status quo? It is understandable. In fact, it is human. Millions of years of evolution have conditioned us to resist change due to uncertainty, loss of control, fear of failure, and perceived loss of status. And there are times to defend – like from harmful groups like the Marms for Flibbertigibbet. (Using the words moms and liberty in the group’s actual name is an affront to both.) And, of course, we need to protect children. But that can’t keep us from considering new ideas that can better educate them. The principle of risk-reward applies to all improvements. And we need to honestly assess whether aspects of the traditional instructional do more harm than good.

    Check for bias – In Thinking, Fast and Slow , Daniel Kahneman explains System 1 or “fast thinking” – the ability to perform tasks unconsciously, automatically, and effortlessly. Based on his work with Amos Tversky, he also reminds us that this ability is vital to our survival but comes with a dark side – cognitive biases. (Here is a shortlist of 24 cognitive biases that are warping your perception of reality.) We know biases contribute to serious issues like institutional racism. Bias also influences perceptions of new ideas. We like homeostasis – things in balance – so we are more likely to be dismissive of new ideas or protective of traditional practices. It also means we should have a healthy skepticism of things that seem too good to be true. In short, I recommend ABtC, always be thinking critically. And since I’ll posit solutions to complex challenges in the coming blogs, please let me know when my Dunning-Kruger effect or illusion of explanatory depth are showing.

    Listen to the other side and challenge your side – I serve as a Town Meeting Member. (It’s an old New England thing.) We were fortunate to hear from Arthur Brooks recently that it is harder – if not impossible – to convince the other side in an argument. So it is better to listen and seek longer-term consensus. He said the best near-term change often comes from addressing issues on your side as a critical friend.

    Beware the False Dichotomy and binary thinking – I have worked with virtual schools for many years. If only I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, “Is virtual school good or bad?“ I wonder if we seek simple yes/no answers because we don’t consume K-12 education directly. I answer that it depends on which virtual school and the unique student needs they serve – which stops the conversation cold. My biggest peeve is the statement “teachers are,” followed by anything. Even if empathetic, it denies recognition of teachers as individuals. When administrators make blanket statements about teachers, it patronizes and contributes to teacher turnover. Education is complex. To improve it, we must use the appropriate lenses and be willing to disaggregate and think deeply.

    The Power of ”and” / “I don’t know” / “why?” – We have an incredible ability to hold two or more multivariate ideas in our head. So why do we offset, reconcile, or cancel things out? We need to focus on the idea and not just the person. For example, I agree with E.D. Hirsch, Jr.’s belief in core knowledge because you can’t think critically about nothing. And I disagree with his Core Knowledge curriculum’s Euro/Western-centric bias. A disagreement about some content does not cancel out the concept.

    Penn Jillette shared this nugget in a show, “The most important revolution in human history – more important than agriculture, more important than writing – is the scientific revolution which came down to three words – I don’t know. No institutions, no church, no king, no power structure had ever said in history I don’t know.” How often do we use those powerfully honest three words instead of blurting out an opinion to protect our ego? The older I get, the more I have learned. And yet, the more I accept all that I do not know. I guess I am developing greater intellectual humility. And the wisdom to ask questions and listen more.

    Regarding questions, I just finished reading The Great School Rethink by Frederick “Rick” Hess. He encourages us to use intellectual humility to challenge our assumptions of the “whys” of public education and collaboratively explore new, old, or remixed ideas of what might be. Rick emphasizes, “Resets start with recipes; rethinking with the right questions about what comes next.”

    Sorry this blog is so long, but I often think about barriers to change. Before focusing on education, I consulted on organizational and strategic change management for companies like GE and GM. Managing change in these companies was easy compared to public education. But they also had less at stake. I once asked Michael Fullan, a Canadian educator and researcher who studies educational change, why change in the education industry is so hard. His answer was something like, “I don’t know.”

    In the next blog, I’ll explore the history of school system design and how it influences instructional delivery. 

  • My Summer to Explore Instructional Design

    My Summer to Explore Instructional Design

    I am reflecting and writing about my K-12 public education experience and perspective this summer. After starting my career in finance and management consulting, I have spent 30+ years serving public education in many roles for many types of organizations – as you can see from my LinkedIn profile – linkedin.com/in/jimdflanagan, I also consumed it as a student for 16 years, including public university. And I am a parent of twin boys entering their 14th year of public schooling, including pre-K. Finally, I am the proud son of an elementary teacher and took a year off to volunteer in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms to inform my work. But I am certainly not a teacher, so I continuously cycle my ideas through educators for a much-needed reality check. For all the public education I directly or indirectly consumed and all of the educators I cherish, I’ve always viewed the industry with some skepticism – more as a critical friend than an advocate or cheerleader.

    I’ve observed that we overwhelmingly address change at the state, district, or school level. We change variables such as funding, school size, construction, school choice, governance, standards, course offerings, and staffing. But we spend little effort pursuing changes in instructional redesign based on the science of learning. (The delayed recognition of the science of reading is just one example.) Therefore, school improvements, reforms, and transformations all regress to the mean – if successful. So instructional redesign will be my focus. Along the way, I‘ll reference topics like personalization, differentiation, blended learning, student ownership, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL.) And I’ll explore the potential of edtech, but only as it advances the human relationships fundamental to effective learning. I’ll go deepest on the science of learning, cognition, bias, and critical thinking. How can we design effective teaching and learning without that basic understanding of how the brain works?

    I’ll use two models to ground my inquiry as I explore topics. First, The Instructional Core developed by Dr. Richard Elmore. I’ll ask how any change impacts the student-teacher relationship to each other and content. Early in my career, I did not fully appreciate how social and relational learning is, so I advocated for technological solutions that isolated more than connected. Most failures I’ve seen – especially in edtech – disrupt the relationships between and among humans – teachers, students, parents, mentors, tutors, etc. – instead of strengthening the social bonds. Second, I’ll consider how the proposed instructional practice impacts the lifelong love of learning. Does it degrade or support our innate curiosity and hunger for knowledge and understanding? Too many adults feel defeated by learning and are even skeptical of thinking because of their experience with “schooling.” According to a recent Gallup survey, on average, students give their school a C+ rating in making them feel excited about learning – and ratings decrease as students advance.

    I use K12Leaders as a platform because I believe in the mission and value the community. I welcome any feedback. If you agree, that is fine. But I prize a challenge or a different perspective – especially when accompanied by evidence or research. And additional reading or research recommendations are golden.

  • Job posting – Asst. Superintendent for Instruction and Innovation 

    Job posting – Asst. Superintendent for Instruction and Innovation 

    Exciting leadership opportunity to join our great community and team of educators in Needham, MA. Are you interested in leading the implementation of innovative, research-based instructional practices to help us realize the district’s Portrait of a Needham Graduate Strategic vision and competencies? If so, please apply.

    https://needham.tedk12.com/Hire/ViewJob.aspx?JobID=449