Transition is a verb - do something

In the beginning, around 800 C.E., education was brought to England by the Catholic church in order to perpetuate the Catholic faith properly by the priests and bishops.  As time passed, the Catholic church began deciding to add various other disciplines to the curriculum besides the Latin and Greek languages that were used in Bible transmission and translation, works of the church fathers, and works of important theologians and popes, such as Augustine.  After 1066 C.E., the French took over the court of England and influenced it for about 200 years.  The French were a more liberal group, so they enlarged the curriculum, bringing in some of the literature of the great French and Italian writers, like Dante, modern languages like Italian, and some of the observations in medicine that some of the early doctors had recorded.  Education became, then, what the elite class of England thought was important to perpetuate.  Books were copied by hand, so there was a limited supply of them until people began to work with wood blocks to imprint letters on paper.  Then, in the second half of the 15th century, moveable press became available, and books could be printed by the hundreds.  Education took off... still for the elite class, though, or for those who wanted to  become educated  by the good graces of a patron.  More was added to the curriculum, the classic philosophers, for instance from Greece and Rome, and math made its appearance finally.

As England spread its colonies around the world, the educated elite took their ideas about education with them, establishing universities everywhere their footprints landed.  That was fortunate for America.  Today, the U.S. maintains one of the most developed university systems in the world.  And, of course, the public school system was born  to maintain the ideas on which the country was founded.  The elite of the country wanted to instill what they thought was important into everyone who could take advantage of the system.  Thus, they instilled the need for learning to read and write English, figuring math at a level above the four basic operations, trying to advance medicine through biology, and appreciating the tracks from the past with history.

That should still be the goal.  The curriculum should contain what is important to the perpetuation of a society.  That changes from time to time.  As one tracks change in education across the centuries, it is easy to chart the change.  However, if one is in the transition period of a change, it is not so easy to see the need for a change.  And that is exactly the position the U.S. is in right now.  There is a great need for students to learn what is coming at them, not the perpetuation of outdated modes, models, and subjects.  In the late 1800s, Latin and Greek were not important languages anymore, so they dropped.  As oil exploration became the fuel of the 20th century, Earth science became important.  As we develop our understanding of space and submarine life, we will need those disciplines to take the forefront.  As we change from a tactile society to a virtual society, we will need those who are very savvy in the virtual world, especially in finance, to show us the better way.  Money is already imaginary and virtual.  How can we deal in a cashless, paperless, but highly-valued barter system?

It's way, way past the time to match the curriculum to our modern needs.  At least half of what is taught in the modern schools doesn't apply anywhere in the modern world.  Everyone needs to know how to design and view webpages, for instance.  Learning doesn't need to be from a physical teacher any longer.  Math applications should not be for algebra any longer, but for algorithms and the syntax of computing.  Food will become a real issue as the world's population reaches 7 billion.  Our youth need to know a whole lot more about what the ocean can supply, like algae, or what adaptions can be made to grow plants in different environments such as growth without soil.  Change in curriculum is so very needed.  Those who can redirect need to do so.  India, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil have educational systems that are coming of age.  They will lead the way by default if transition is too slow in the U.S.  Progress doesn't wait on slow humans to act. It merely moves to the population that is ready to lead.

Morning and evening meadows

I often thought that one day I would like to live in one of those places where grounds are maintained, walking paths wind close to my house through a beautiful, natural park...

ponds are within a stone's throw, and a creek lined with bullrushes trickles through a beautiful meadow.

That would be a combination of the places I have lived in my life and my family's place that I get to frequent on a lake.  But, I never thought I would be so lucky.  I have watched other friends get to realize living in their ideal spots, and I had my hopes that one day I would get to see my idea of a great spot.

Well, I get to wake up everyday now surrounded by meadows.  The roads to my work run through forests of trees.  A sign on a bridge just 30 yards from my backyard reads, "Natural Park Area-for resident use, fish are to be caught and released."

People walk on a paved path that runs the length of the park.  I walk with my granddaughter in the mornings sometimes and in the evenings at other times, showing her the varieties of ducks in the pond, the different species of birds that frequent the water around the bullrushes, letting her pick wild buttercups and other flowers that grow in the meadows.

We have a favorite picnic table we rest at in order to view much of what we discuss.  I hope this lasts a long time before I wake up in a different setting.  It quiets my restless soul.

Running counter

A trip to the doctor's office usually results in an additional trip to the blood test location.  Blood tests are then read by the doctor and a list is put on my electronic chart that adds my new results and compares my older results from as far back as I want to go.  The blood panel registers what the normal range for the various tests are (usually about 12 of these per panel), then they give my number.  If  it is out of range, it will have an additional comment about the degree to which it is out of range.  My doctor uses the blood report to keep on top of the medicine prescribed to me.  She can make adjustments to medicine or refer me for other tests. In this way, I have been able to keep myself out of the hospital and in good health.

Educational testing should be more like the blood test and the teacher and doctor should have the same role. The public thinks that the current state testing is the same as a blood test... and they would be wrong.  Although the state test does give scores in comparison to a person's past scores, it does not give a normal range - it is not a normed test.  It gives scores in relation to all the other test scores taken at the time in order to give rank.  The purpose of the state test is to let you know how you performed in relation to others as that relates to the predetermined rank for "passing," (which is not 70% by the way, but is variable from year to year ranging from 60-80%) and it does so without regard to the past or to an overall range of years.  It also fails to compare the scores from students in one state to students' scores in related subjects in other states (which is possible, contrary to what the state says).

Wouldn't it be better to expect to take a test in order to compare me with myself, and then have a teacher say, "In this skill for this subject you are out of norm.  Please do the following to try to get yourself back into the normal range."?  And like the doctor who advises the patient of how to get back into normal range, the advice contains what happens next (negatively) if you don't come into range.  Why, yes it would be better.

Instead, the state wants uniformity and mediocrity from its students.  If the state always uses one year at a time to show student scores on an adapted Bell Curve, it is very hard to show increase of an individual 's score from one year to the next.  Those at the top tend to stay at the top, those at the bottom tend to stay at the bottom, and the vast majority continue to remain in the middle.  That's what Bell Curves do, even adapted Bell Curves.

In addition, the state only tests over its own set standards.  In days past, the curriculum used was agreed upon subjects, but not exact subject matter.  Everyone should know a set of subjects.  Proficiency was gauged by the grading system of the schools.  Of course, that has its pitfalls, but not nearly as many pitfalls as telling what skills in what subject will be taught and tested at each grade level.  And, the skills supposedly increase in complexity grade level by grade level.  Nothing could straight-jacket the mind more than testing over a set standards that are leveled.  Creativity is completely stifled.  That process runs counter to everything cognitive scientists know about information development (synaptic formation) in the brain.

So a blood panel and monitoring for good health have nothing in common with education.  They should.  The goal of education should be the health of our youths' minds so they can compete in a global economy.  The model of having national or state standards, teaching those standards, then testing those same standards is circular reasoning.  The state's own graphs show a circular, or triangular, flow chart when they train new teachers on the need for standards.  The model has got to go.  A better model exists.

Loving the present

When I leave my house, I can lock the doors from my car after I leave via my phone.  I can change the temperature if I forgot to set it in the same manner.  When I return home, I can set the temperature to my level of comfort as I begin my trip, unlock the door right before I arrive, and check a video feed from the camera showing the entrance for the amount of time I set for review.  Setting the alarm and disarming it also happens from my phone.

When I want to go somewhere, I can start my car right from my phone, unlock the car doors, set the temperature ( a great feature to have on 100 degree days), set the position of the seat, tell the GPS my location if I need it, and turn on the radio station of my choice.  Driving isn't what it used to be.

When I get ready to talk to anyone from my house, I can call them from my computer for face to face visits.  I have two applications that will do this.  Or, I can send them texts from my keyboard, if I am in a hurry.  Of course, if I am not on my computer, I can do the same from my phone.

Radio listening isn't what it used to be either.  I can use it if I need it, but listening to streaming music from preprogrammed playlists is more the norm.  And, natrurally, I don't have to be in my car or near a radio.  I only have to have my phone to stream in music.  I can use my own playlists or I can click on a particular set of related songs by theme, by genre, by artist, or by date.  Pandora, Rdio, Spotify are good examples of the streaming available anywhere, anytime.

If I'm bored, I can watch videos from my phone.  If I am headed out of town, I can catch the weather by app or by video report.  If I want to set an alarm, I merely set the time and the tone I want to awake by.  If I have appointments, I check my calendar and schedule - on my phone, where else?  I receive alerts from as many social media sources as I want to be alerted by.  And, if I am a gamer, I'm in hog heaven.  I have thousands of choices by pressing an icon.

One of my favorite features is banking by phone.  I can get any number of assorted of alerts, such as balance alerts or withdrawal alerts.  Transfers are handy.  A couple of times I have transferred money from savings to checking before paying a bill at a restaurant.  Depositing checks and paying other people are two other great uses of this feature.

I look forward to the future.  I can't imagine being more comfortable or having it more convenient.  I'm a little nostalgic tonight.  I'll just check out Picasa (Google +1 now) and look at some of the albums I have stored there.  It should be a good evening.

Ragged, not uniform

What schools today are most concerned about is showing progress.  That's simple enough, and it should be good enough.  But, there is a slight problem with this approach.

An analogy to physical growth is a way to illustrate the problem.  When children are taken to the doctor's office.  They are weighed and measured for height.  It is recorded each time.  If one asks, (s)he can receive the percentile that that visit's weight and height represents.  On the next visit one can do the same.  If one were to ask at every visit, (s)he would have a picture of the growth of his or her child, both in individual growth and in comparison to every other child.  It changes each time, showing growth sometimes, and not showing growth at other times.  No one is upset about the growth or lack of growth because growth or lack thereof is genetically controlled.  When it is time, the body develops.  When it is not, the body waits.

It's pretty much that simple with the brain as it allows its owner to grow or not in its ability to comprehend.  It will happen at the cue of an individual's DNA.  Personality is also genetically controlled and also plays into when, how, and how much the brain learns.  One's personality and brain work hand-in-hand in producing what gets learned over the years from birth to adulthood.  So, how does a person measure the development of these two areas.  No one has really figured that out yet.  Giving a single test to measure the amount of information one can comprehend or compute really doesn't measure growth or development for either brain or personality.

I suppose the argument could be made that comprehending certain information at a given age does measure if the development of one's brain is in the same norm range as everyone else's development, but it is a weak argument.  First and foremost, developmental growth of children is ragged.  They don't all grow at the same rate nor at the same age intervals.  And that's a real problem for those wanting to measure progress of what children should know in academic subjects.  Second, there has never been an attempt to combine personality development with brain development.  For that matter, there aren't any tests developed to show the development of personality.  People are still busy defining personality or reducing it to a few traits if they have defined it.  Its influence on education is mainly disregarded.

Progress as measured by testing (or grading, for that matter) doesn't really show the same idea as weight and height for growth measurements at a doctor's office during childhood.  Once a person understands what showing progress means when it comes to learning, then serious reform can be made in showing growth and progress in this area.  Until then, people are calling testing (and grading) by a name that really doesn't measure much of anything.  One would never know it by the millions of dollars spent to produce, analyze, and perpetuate such a false notion to the public.

Believe

The battle for keeping reading and writing alive began in 2007.  At that time there were few believers that the two skills would have a shelf life.  In 2017 the predicted ten-year war will end with the stage set for what will take us into the future - without reading and writing.  That's 3 1/2 years from now.  The future is all about the virtual, the visual, and the oral.  Watch this and believe.

Why not?!

My external world is a dream world.  I could not have designed to live in a better place.  I am located at the end of a very quiet cul de sac.   A walking path passes alongside the house that runs the length of a natural park area, a long meadow with willows lining a creek full of bullrushes.  Not  but 150 yards from my front yard is a pond surrounded by bullrushes, willows and cypress trees, and large boulders at the foot of a ridge.  Just on the other side of the ridge, about another 150 yards is a private air strip, which is the backyard for about 6 people who keep their lawns verdent green around the runway.

As I make my 45 minute trek to work every day, I spend my first 15 minutes passing other green meadows that open among the wooded hillsides.  Nestled among the trees are unbelievable estates of some of the wealthiest people in the state and nation, living lavish lifestyles.  Office areas, hospitals, and golf courses that also appear along the highway are partially hidden in the beautiful forests blanketing the area.

The next 20 minutes I pass through an area that would rival Georgia or Tennessee for highways cut through the thickest forests.  Beautiful varieties of trees line both sides of the highway, and even from bridges and overpasses,  the view is of trees stretching miles in any direction.  Any human development that exists is set behind creeks, parks, and trees, out of view.  No one would believe it's a metropolitan area.

But I live in two worlds.  My other world is inside my heart and soul.  There, the world is missing the charm, warmth, and cheer of one whose presence once brightened every corner of it.  It's as if life decided to treat me to replacement therapy, giving me an external paradise in exchange for robbing me of the meadows of laughter, forests of smiles, streams of a cheerful voice, and bullrushes of vibrance, beauty, and anticipation of the one who once enthralled me and lavished me with happiness.

I wish I could have the paradise of both worlds.  And why not?!  I register my vehement objection with life for its decision.

How long? How long?

I saw a headline yesterday: New Test, Same Results.

Of course, the story was about the test in Texas for students to take that is in its second year.  The test was supposed to have been an improvement over all the tests that had come before - 5 of them over 4 decades. At first the test was to evaluate students' academic skills and to establish a minimum level so that the public could see if their children were learning what the schools were teaching.  Very soon afterward, legislators raised teachers' salaries.  That triggered the need in legislators' minds to show the community that teachers deserved their higher pay.  So the emphasis changed from a student focus to teacher scrutiny.  Tests were seen as a measure of how well a teacher taught particular concepts.  Publishing teachers' results followed.  Then equality struck the school district consciousness and they wanted to show that the district was strong no matter where a student went to school or what teacher a student had.  The state bought the idea and began publishing a district's "report card" based on the results of a single test.  In the process of all the testing, a standardized curriculum was introduced (at first as a ruse for the equality of schools, but now as a basis for manipulation of test results to reflect the percentage needed to show progress).  The newest, most improved version of the test is supposed to show a community that the curriculum is a good predictor of work and college readiness (as if those two readiness outcomes were ever aligned).

Of course, the story was about the test showing a familiar pattern of failure on the part of the schools.The evolution of testing over the last four decades shows a very close link to what legislators want the public to see in their schools.  It's a hilarious notion to link the testing to learning or even what is in the standard curriculum... hilarious.. as in absurd... like ludicrous... such as the rip-roaring, gut-splitting laughter echoing across 4 decades.

If I wake up in the year 2018, I will see a headline for the day:  New Test, Same Results.  It will be meant as a lament, but all I will only hear is ridiculously loud laughter.

Preparing what's inside

Intrinsic motivation is one of those ideas that people think is so hard to see or know.  Perhaps, but consider the life of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  Both had childhoods that indicated what motivated them.  In 4th grade, Jobs' teacher had to bribe him to do well in school.  It wasn't that he couldn't do well.  It was that he wasn't motivated to do well.  Jobs could score well on standardized tests.  Administrators offered Job's parents to promote him to high school from middle school, but his parents declined.  So, Jobs remained somewhat of a prankster throughout his school career.  Eventually, he went to college only to drop out.  Gates, on the other hand was very competitive.  He thrived because making good grades was competitive.  But his interest was not in school subjects.  It was in something the school couldn't offer.  Gates ended up at Harvard, only to drop out.

What motivated Jobs?  Electronics.  His adopted father taught him electronics all through his late childhood and adolescent years.  That's what he lived for.  That's where he applied his creative genius.  He learned his discipline and  innovation at the hobby table at home from his adopted dad.  And, what was Gates' motivative source?  Why, programming BASIC of course - at a time when very few people were learning BASIC.  He would go to bed at 9:00.  Wake up at 3 AM.  Walk to the university lab that was empty at that hour.  Finish at 6 AM.  Walk back home.  Set his alarm for 7 so that his parents would think that he had a good night's sleep.  And then go to school where socially he didn't really fit into a larger group.

It didn't matter that school didn't offer what they wanted.  They had the incentive to do what intrinsically motivated them on their own.  (Incidentally, almost a century before these two creative giants, Edison and Bell had much the same experience with their existing school systems).  The rest of their stories illustrate that they didn't need college either.  I can only imagine what would happen in a world in which we paid attention to young people's patterns of discipline and creativity.  I believe we would find that four core subjects is the same as wearing a straight jacket.  Could we not help our youth to be creative and fascinated by something beyond punctuation, multiplication tables, two-tiered science experiments, and date-filled state histories?  I think our country's educational system should cater to what motivates people from the inside, not grade-leveled information surrounding 4 subjects packaged in text.  Our country could stand another Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.  They will surface, of course, but wouldn't it be nice to have 10 times as many of them if intrinsic motivation were to be considered in what our schools formally trained people in.

Time better spent

History teachers love the saying, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."  The saying gives them justification for their jobs.  I don't think it's true, however.  In fact, I prefer one of the slogans from the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, "History is bunk."  The slogan is one of the secondary themes of the book.

The idea behind the slogan is that no amount of history could have prepared the people of the very advanced and future world presented in the book is not a repetition of anything that had gone before.  There was no way people could have prepared for it.  Maybe from about 3500 BCE to 1400 ACE history tended to repeat itself in various aspects.  But since about 1400 BCE with the advent of the late Renaissance period, the world has presented many new scenarios and with ever-increasing rapidity.  Nothing learned about the Sumerians or the Romans, the Goths or the Mongolians, the Vikings or the Samurai could prepare the people today for anything in their world.

What should the proper stance on cloning be?  Should we continue the experiment with educating the masses or has it run its course?  Does anyone really cook with an oven anymore when the 5-10 minute microwave meal suffices?  Can you believe the panoramic views from the Mars rover Curiosity - they're stunning and majestic, a picture of Earth millennia from now?  And what about the moon Titan circling Saturn? That is a future world whose time will come before long.  It is exactly like Earth with the exception that water is liquid methane in the same amounts, complete with atmosphere, rain, lakes, and rivers.  And, of course, much much more like totally electric cars.

History has been included in school because it teaches us a few lessons about citizenship and a few ideas about connecting the dots of the evolution of our own history.  In the name of well-roundedness it has been a core subject.  But, no more.  It is more well-rounded to know about terra-forming other planets for future survival, or to know about nanotechnology, or to study the plans for colonizing and commercializing the moon.  It is more well-rounded to teach how to defend oneself against identity theft, cyber-hacking, and combating phishing and malware.  It is time better spent to know how to globally network than to know the dynasties of Egypt, Persia, and early China or to explore harvesting the ocean to stave off hunger for 4 billion of the world's inhabitants instead of learning what the government of the Roman Empire or the societal structure of feudalism was.

We need brave people with new thinking for a more advanced world.  That's the main message of Brave New World.  And the secondary theme is also true.  "History is bunk."

Call it liberation

I remember hearing that Einstein had developed a theory on time when I was in high school.  None of the teachers understood it very well.  It was called the theory of relativity.    In college, I remember hearing about the special and general theories of relativity.  The instructors there at least knew what each was, but they didn't really believe it, since it was in a relatively (love puns!) new state.  But, by the end of the 20th century, the theory had been proven many times over.  Now,it is a staple of today's science knowledge.

Today, the theory has spawned new thinking because it is the foundation which allows some really great progress, progress that is a quantum leap from the days of my high school... and that quantum leap happened in a very short time.  The same can happen to our own thinking.  It is time for a quantum leap.  But, we have to loosen our grip on what education is.

The space-time continuum is not merely a concept in a science book.  It has been emancipated into reality. It is not an impossible idea to wrap our minds around.  The idea has been bound up in words and with teachers and their understanding of science and relativity.  I challenge you to emancipate your understanding from some locked up bias from the years you went to school and found the words from a book or the wordiness of a teacher to confound such a simple idea.  In a mere 8 1/2 minutes, you will understand the idea of space-time as a concept.

Time-space

That's what I mean by quantum leap... from an idea in a scientific theory... to a book and/or teacher explaining the theory... to 8 1/2 minutes for understanding.

Yes, quantum leap.  Let's end the incredibly slow snail's pace of reading about things and being slaves of words that we don't understand or explanations that we have to wade through or that confound us because they are poor.  It's a waste of precious time.  Let's emancipate our thinking.

Let's get serious

If I could choose what to teach in a school it would be the ability to communicate in a visual way, a logical order, and with words that stimulated, not that dulled.  It would be to teach students how to do the following:

AWE

This type of presentation fits modern media and follows how the brain learns.  How to make a presentation through video is so easy a fifth grader can do it - and well.  And if one were to learn how to do this beginning in first grade, what would the quality and content be like by age 16? It should replace the English curriculum, if not the speech curriculum, probably both.

Yes, this is how one should learn to present information and knowledge.  Something that inspires learning and showcases knowledge.