The Tempered Radical

The Handcuffs Holding Us Back [SLIDE]

In a recent bit over on his blog, my buddy Tony Baldasaro argued that the decisions schools make are often designed to support the system rather than to support students or to advance learning.

He writes:

"I’m trying hard to not be so cynical about the institutionalization of our public schools and I remind myself all the time of the amazing people that my kids get to learn from everyday, but when I get notifications of things such as that which I wrote above, I am reminded of how powerful the institutional machine really is."

In a lot of ways, Tony's right about the damage that "the institution" has done to education: The incredibly sad reality is that the principals and teachers working inside of our schools rarely have enough influence over "the system" to intentionally control much of anything that happens inside of our buildings anymore.

(click to enlarge)

Instead, we spend the vast majority of our professional time and energy doing little more than responding to the #edpolicy decisions that govern our work. 

Everything from the time that our students spend in class, to the content that must be covered in our curricula, to the way that we can spend our budgets is often explicitly defined by legislators.

To make matters worse, experimentation and innovation is literally crushed in high-stakes environments that tie our evaluations -- and our public reputations -- to the "results" we produce on low-level multiple choice exams that do little to encourage the kind of progressive thinking and instruction that REALLY matters in our classrooms.

Don't get me wrong: Schools need to change.  And yes, I believe that teachers and principals are the right people to lead that change.

But the simple truth is that practitioners are all-too-often handcuffed by the #edpolicy choices made by legislators working a thousand miles from the classroom. 

Until that reality changes, I'm hesitant to lay the blame for a stagnant system at the feet of principals and teachers.

Any of this make sense?

______________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Walking the Moral Tightrope

Are #edpolicies Turning Schools into Brainpower Wastelands?

Value-Added Teacher Evaluation Fails Kids and Communities

Declaring War on Teachers

A Minute for Change: Biographies Matter [Podcast]

Let me come clean with y'all:  I LOVE reading nonfiction.  In fact, if you were to look at the 200 titles on my Kindle, you'd find about 12 that are fiction. 

More importantly, I think we do students a disservice when we fail to introduce great nonfiction reads to middle schoolers. 

The fact of the matter is that the majority of reading students will do to prepare for careers will be nonfiction. That means they've GOT to learn to love it -- and that's why I think biographies are so important.

Because biographies resemble the stories that kids have spent their whole lives reading, they are the PERFECT gateway into the world of nonfiction.

That's the theme of this week's Minute for Change podcast:

 

 

Here's three biographies that your students are likely to love:

The Great and Only Barnum : Not only will kids chuckle at the hilarity in Barnum's life story, they'll love wrestling with the morals behind a man who made money hand-over-fist by putting bearded ladies, Siamese twins, and crippled old women on display for the entire world to gawk at. 

Escape - The Story of the Great Houdini : There's something magical about magic, isn't there?!  And even today, there's something magical about the life of America's greatest magician.  Even in an era where seeing it is believing it, the stories of a long-forgotten Houdini will capture your kids' imaginations.

Mao's Last Dancer : Let's face it - Middle schoolers are passionate about wrestling with what's fair and what's unfair.  That makes any book connected to life in Communist China -- a place of almost incomprehensible injustice -- an interesting read. 

This title -- which details the life story of a poor Chinese boy who grew up hating America only to discover that everything he'd been taught was nothing but a lie -- gives students the chance to think about the role that governments play in keeping people down. 

So when ARE you going to start taking practical steps to introduce students to interersting biographies. 

#theymatter

___________________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Reading is NOT Optional

Real Men Read

 

 

How to Use Podcasting to Personalize Your Blog

Not sure if you know it or not, but I'm a pretty big fan of Dean Shareski, a Canadian #edtech guru who has changed my own thinking about teaching and learning over the past few years. 

Recently, Dean blogged about the power of a person's actual voice. 

He wrote:

I think about the way a person's voice builds connection and relationship is unique and important. It's amazing how, if I've heard someone's voice in person or online, I read their stuff in that voice.

Makes sense, doesn't it? 

I know that when I'm reading text-based blog entries, I almost always make up imaginary inflections for the authors -- and I LOVE meeting people in person to see if their real voices align nicely with my imagination. 

In today's day and age, y'all, incorporating audio and video into your blog is ridiculously easy.

Whether you decide to roll hardcore and use YouTube's Video Recorder or keep things simple and whip up content with your cell phone, there is NO REASON that your readers should have to wonder what you sound like in real life. 

To personalize the Radical, I've decided to use Spreaker -- a free service complete with an Android Mobile App -- to start my own semi-regular podcast called A Minute for Change focused on the #edreform and #schoolchange questions that are spinning my intellectual wheels. 

Here's the first episode -- which is built around a conversation that I had with Steve Goldberg and wrestles with the notion that schools just aren't doing enough to measure the skills that parents really care about:

 

 

Now let's be honest: The audio quality on my Spreaker recording isn't fantastic.  While I was experimenting with different podcasting apps, I found SEVERAL voice recorders that produce a far better final product -- particularly Tape-a-Talk. 

But Spreaker does a TON of other things REALLY well. 

Most importantly, I can post new episodes to my Spreaker page on the web as soon as I'm done recording them on my cell phone.  That eliminates all kinds of second and third steps that I'd be unlikely to take if I were using other services.

Spreaker also automatically generates embeddable text for each episode that I post.  That makes it really easy for me to put players like the one above in my blog. 

That made Spreaker the most "all inclusive" service that I explored.

I'm certain that some of y'all won't bother to listen to the podcast episodes that I share.  Listening takes more time than skim reading, right? 

For those of you who crave the human connection that text struggles to convey, however, here's to hoping you'll get a kick out of my podcasting adventures!

And get ready:  There are DEFINITELY video episodes on my agenda!

#mybeautymaydistractyou