If You Want Students to Learn, Value Learning

Here's a little discussed fact about our education system:  We don't value learning.

We pretend to value learning.  We use the term lots.  We add it to our mission statements.  But we really don't care about it.  At least not enough to actually focus on it.

What we care about in schools are grades.  This is obvious to anyone who's spent 15 minutes in a school.

Grades reflect intelligence.  Grades reflect compliance.  Grades reflect socio-economic status.  Grades reflect parent involvement.  Grades reflect family stability.

Grades do not reflect learning.

Let's explore a few examples.

We all knew the really smart kid in school who didn't have to study but got a report card full of 'A's anyway.  Did those 'A's reflect how much that kid had learned, or how much they already knew?  Think about how much better that student would be served if we eliminated the grades and asked him/her to show evidence of new learning.

How about the kids we all know who learn early on in school that they will never be the 'A' students.  Many of them figure out early on that there is no point in exerting any effort in school.  What if we asked them to show evidence that they learned something new instead of punishing them for not complying, being smart enough, having enough family support, etc.?  Think of a system that encourages them to maximize their potential instead of pushing them toward dropping out when they hit high school.  Think of how much better they, and society would be.

If we really did value learning, that's what we would report.  Instead of a meaningless letter or number on a report card, we'd have a list created by students and their teachers of new things those students have learned along with links or other evidence to proof of that learning.

Instead of "Math - 88", we may see something like this:

Jimmy learned basic statistics and data analysis, including using the mean and median of data as a part of the decision making process.  He also learned how to write a business letter and how laws are made within his township.  This learning is evidenced by the attached letter and diagram which he sent to the Smith Township Supervisors in October in which he used traffic data he collected on Main Street to support the need for an additional traffic light.

Which do you think is more meaningful to the student?  To his/her parents?  To potential future employers?

Often I'll hear in response to this push for a more learning-centered approach to education, "Colleges don't care about all that stuff.  They only care about GPA and SAT scores."  This is not true.  Many students who come from homeschool situations and schools (like the Circle School in Harrisburg, PA) that don't give grades get into our top universities every year without having a GPA.  They get accepted because they provide those universities with detailed descriptions of what they've learned and what they've done.  They provide those universities with the same thing that others provide potential employers all the time - a good resume.

The time has come for our schools to stop pretending they value learning, and to start actually valuing learning.  It's time to stop defining students by meaningless numbers and letters.  If our students learn to love the extrinsic rewards of good grades and praise, they'll have trouble succeeding in life after school when grades are non-existent and praise is rare.

But if our students learn to love learning instead of those extrinsic rewards, their futures are bright with opportunity.  If we help them become the "life-long learners" so many mission statements describe, they will have the skills they need to meet the challenges that are inevitable in life.

Preparing our Students for the (1950's) Workforce

This morning, while getting ready for school, I was getting my daily dose of news by flipping through different stations on TV.  One station shared a Forbes report of the top 10 skills you will need to find employment in 2013.  They were:

1. Critical Thinking
2. Complex Problem Solving
3. Judgment and Decision Making
4. Active Listening
5. Computers and Electronics
6. Mathematics
7. Operations and Systems Analysis
8. Monitoring
9. Programming
10. Sales and Marketing

Watching this list unfold on the screen a belief that I've had for a while was reinforced.  Out of those 10 skills that are being sought in the workplace, we focus on exactly one of them in our schools.  And the way we go about focusing on mathematics is so damaging that the majority of our students graduate without a real knowledge of what mathematics actually is, let alone the ability to apply it to real situations.

We talk about graduating students who are college and career ready, yet we focus almost all of our time, energy, and resources on things for which neither colleges nor employers are looking.

Not only are we not preparing our students for the workplace of their futures, well beyond 2013 and the list above.  We're still preparing them for the factory jobs of the 1950s in which compliance, basic reading and writing skills and the ability to calculate were all you needed to be successful. 

The more we focus on standardized tests as the driving force in education, the more we make it impossible for our students to develop the skills they most desperately need.  You cannot measure critical thinking, active listening, complex problem solving, or any of the above skills on a multiple choice test.  As much as the corporate reform movement of the past 15 years has complained that schools are not properly preparing students for the workforce, nothing has forced schools to shift focus away from those skills our students most need more than the corporate reform movement. 

Our students need to be able to critically think, problem solve, evaluate difficult situations, and actively listen, yet we continue to put the greatest importance on multiple choice tests, ensuring that none of those things can be a focus in schools.  Our students need to learn to use computers, electronics, and to program, yet we put policies in place to prevent them from even taking the electronics they already own - the very electronics they will need to utilize in the workforce - out of their pockets. 

Basically, we have turned schools into places where we prepare students for the realities of our past.  While some overcome this insanity to become successful, pointing to them as a reason to continue with this broken system is like pointing to the 90 year old smoker as a reason to give our children cigarettes. 

It is time to confront the realities of the 21st Century.  We don't know what jobs will be available to our students in the future.  Many of them don't exist yet.  We do know that skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making are becoming more important.  That should drive what we do in schools.

Ten years ago, the world was very different than it is right now.  The phone in your pocket didn't exist.  No smartphone did.  There was no such thing as an iPad or a digital tablet.  Now, those items are ubiquitous. 

My fifth grade students are 10 and 11 years old.  What will the world look like when they are looking for jobs?

I don't know, but I do know it won't look like the 1950's. 

So stop trying to force me to prepare them for that.