Your passion is palpable, Lillian. "All I can see is conditioning. We actually need genius now." Love it! I'd agree except we have so many millions of children right today who need public schools. I can't agree that throwing out grades is any real solution (nor resolution). I also can't agree with others who say throw out the bot. As I told Eric, I'm a big fan of repurposing. As for portfolios, stay tuned. We'll get there, but we will still have grades. I wrote the book on portfolios:) Btw, check out Eric Borgs really intriguing observation that my article speaks of a "Soviet" style central headquarters type public school. So interesting!!!
Are you not aware of the devaluationn of the cogntive intelligence and the need to switch to growing our other intelligences? Grades are already meaningless. You will just be grading AI.
We need people who think outside of the box. This is why the systems collapse. There is no upgrade here to be done. We should throw grades out. The future is creativity and creatives offer up portfolios. So throw out grades and start in on portfolios. That would have changed my life.
Why are we so blind to the fact that grades are simply conditioning. People who are gifted somatically are not tested for their intelligence. God forbid if you are somatically and cognitively. Those people are so gifted the admin morons running the systems pathologize their genius and medicate them into a cog. I don't understand why we don't simply throw the entire education and mental health system out. All I can see is conditioning. We actually need genius now. The answer is simple. Portfolios, throw out grades, throw out classroom because we are not cattle, class rooms are only to condition you almost got there in this article and then you offered no real change. The conditioning will kill us all. We need people who are slaves. Who can think for themselves to save us. I am tired of slavery. Aren't you? You can mentally enslave everyone and then expect them to figure out how to save their enslavers.
Allow people to learn in life. School should be hands on living. We could all have PhDs at 15 if we simply did this. This is what I am doing and I will put our schools out business before I die. I promise.
Well done Terry! It’s a difficult topic. How might we provide better incentives for learning than standard grades? Or provide better teaching in general? One thing I always hated was professors who would design their tests to measure “IQ” such as processing speed rather than a simple grasp of the material itself. This was a general irritation since I knew I was naturally on the lower end of the spectrum in that regard.
You’ve spoken well here and I can’t say that I disagree with anything specifically. Still to me the entire system seems far too “Soviet Union”. Should the business of education be centrally planned and instituted by means of government institutions? Or rather should governments pay for education that’s farmed out for private businesses to accomplish? If governments seek the same thing that consumers seek, which is to say quality educations that thus makes recipients stronger, shouldn’t more effective private companies tend to be rewarded for their superiority and so grow while less effective competitors diminish? In that case government might be in more of a simple funding position rather than be required to decide which policies educate people best. Of course markets need to be monitored and corrected from time to time given the potential for failures, but “the invisible hand” does often work quite well.
So you believe that education is a business? If I started with that assumption, I would agree that competition would be important. As the Supreme Court has decided in several cases (cf: the Lai decision in 1972 or thereabouts), I start from the assumption that education is a civil right. In many ways we may have to agree to disagree. I’d be interested in what you thought was good in terms of the substance of the post.
I thought it was good that you were trying to figure out how to better incentivize learning given the standard challenges of letter grades. Incentive is key. What gives people hope and so a desire to invest in their own educations? In my own junior high and high school days I often considered my educators to be clueless. Perhaps that’s just “a sample size of one”? I guess I worked things through well enough anyway though. If you’re dead set against market economics for the business of education as opposed to strict central planning however, then yes we’ll just have to disagree for this particular government funded civil right. But I hope not.
You’ve set up a false dichotomy and a straw man, Eric. Strict Central Planning sounds Soviet for sure. That’s absurd if you give my essay a fair reading. Control of learning is properly shared between teacher, learner, and the learning community of the classroom. There’s no “central headquarters” in my vision. Then you gave your straw man some steroids—strict. Yes, there are multiple intersections between the education industry and the public school system. My interest is in public education in a capitalist economy. I’ve got nothing against capitalism. Some of my best friends are capitalist;)
There are two entirely different issues here. You’re trying to help incentivize education under the American system. How could I be against that? As I said, I think you’re proposing productive things. And if you don’t want to talk about something that’s entirely different from this, which is to say that a system where government funded private companies educate people and so market forces rather than government planning will be key, then that’s fine. I didn’t mean to straw man your ideas themselves, or set up a false dichotomy. I’m sorry if I did though.
I’m a big believer in repurposing structures. When there is a building with separate classrooms it doesn’t make sense to try to do more than tweak the norm of geographic isolation in schools. So you have to find a way to repurpose a quad or a cafeteria to stage a cross grade poetry reading. How do we bring poetry into public schools? The structure of public schools is an artifact of history. How teachers reinvent the activities that take place to teach children self-awareness, self-regulation, self-assessment, and reflective analysis is difficult in a system designed to sort and rank. But it can be done. GPA is a holdover structure which could be a bargaining chip for high schools under intense pressures to work for the university. The goal is to teach students how and why focus and attention in this moment and the next moment is much more important than passing a test. Learn deeply and prosper.
Terry you delude yourself if you think it is not a businesses. It was created by the robber barons of the 1920/30s and it serves corporations. We are all dumber for it. We are all enslaved for it. There are no big picture thinkers anymore. Everything will collapse because you can't step back from metrics. You can't creativity. This is why Genius is misunderstood. When will you see that you are destroying our future by making it average.
Education is a business for sure. I suffer no delusions. Just happy we still have public schools. Until we morph into a utopia, I'm worrying about the millions of children who are starting school this month. Teachers are in a period of trauma, still reeling from the psychological effects of COVID , faced with AI. Sorry, Lillian, but I am a teacher, and teachers really don't have the luxury of standing on the sidelines. Hope this helps. Can you come up with some constructive criticism?
School is the prison. Children learn best by creating. There is zero creating going on in school. Meanwhile our creatives languish in job that do not pay livable wages. The cognitive has already been replaced by AI. You would be better off turning all schools into boys and girls clubs and hiring all the starving artists and college students to create with the kids. Let the kids roam from room to room making, watching, relating. I don't see any value in teachers. AI could provide the theory around what the artists are making. Big picture is the future. Figuring out how survive is the future. This would be a 1000x more impactful that what we do now. But you and I both know the focus on metrics with destroy any good change we try to make. The People in charge are psychopaths and who just serve themselves.
Now we’re talkin’. You’ve reached the far side of the paradox. What do we do with the children? Do we force them to sit in a chair and listen to adults tell them what to do and what to think? This, Lilian, is the authoritarianism we agree is not the answer. The other horn of the dilemma is the Noble Savage. Let them play together—wander from room to room—free from the stifling dullness of adults try to speed up their becoming adults. Children are not adults in miniature. Metrics are useful tools when applied ethically. It really is the use, not the tool, that creates the homogeneous dehumanizing impact. The big picture. What do we do with the children? Control them? Abandon them? A find another way? Once upon a time in a world far away existed a utopia where there was no paradox and everyone was happy…in this world such isn’t the case.
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate this. I feel like the tenor of the times during the Depression are replicated in this current moment. People are getting tired of being treated as raw material for yachts and palaces. John Dewey provides a light in the dark
Your passion is palpable, Lillian. "All I can see is conditioning. We actually need genius now." Love it! I'd agree except we have so many millions of children right today who need public schools. I can't agree that throwing out grades is any real solution (nor resolution). I also can't agree with others who say throw out the bot. As I told Eric, I'm a big fan of repurposing. As for portfolios, stay tuned. We'll get there, but we will still have grades. I wrote the book on portfolios:) Btw, check out Eric Borgs really intriguing observation that my article speaks of a "Soviet" style central headquarters type public school. So interesting!!!
Are you not aware of the devaluationn of the cogntive intelligence and the need to switch to growing our other intelligences? Grades are already meaningless. You will just be grading AI.
We need people who think outside of the box. This is why the systems collapse. There is no upgrade here to be done. We should throw grades out. The future is creativity and creatives offer up portfolios. So throw out grades and start in on portfolios. That would have changed my life.
Why are we so blind to the fact that grades are simply conditioning. People who are gifted somatically are not tested for their intelligence. God forbid if you are somatically and cognitively. Those people are so gifted the admin morons running the systems pathologize their genius and medicate them into a cog. I don't understand why we don't simply throw the entire education and mental health system out. All I can see is conditioning. We actually need genius now. The answer is simple. Portfolios, throw out grades, throw out classroom because we are not cattle, class rooms are only to condition you almost got there in this article and then you offered no real change. The conditioning will kill us all. We need people who are slaves. Who can think for themselves to save us. I am tired of slavery. Aren't you? You can mentally enslave everyone and then expect them to figure out how to save their enslavers.
Allow people to learn in life. School should be hands on living. We could all have PhDs at 15 if we simply did this. This is what I am doing and I will put our schools out business before I die. I promise.
Well done Terry! It’s a difficult topic. How might we provide better incentives for learning than standard grades? Or provide better teaching in general? One thing I always hated was professors who would design their tests to measure “IQ” such as processing speed rather than a simple grasp of the material itself. This was a general irritation since I knew I was naturally on the lower end of the spectrum in that regard.
You’ve spoken well here and I can’t say that I disagree with anything specifically. Still to me the entire system seems far too “Soviet Union”. Should the business of education be centrally planned and instituted by means of government institutions? Or rather should governments pay for education that’s farmed out for private businesses to accomplish? If governments seek the same thing that consumers seek, which is to say quality educations that thus makes recipients stronger, shouldn’t more effective private companies tend to be rewarded for their superiority and so grow while less effective competitors diminish? In that case government might be in more of a simple funding position rather than be required to decide which policies educate people best. Of course markets need to be monitored and corrected from time to time given the potential for failures, but “the invisible hand” does often work quite well.
So you believe that education is a business? If I started with that assumption, I would agree that competition would be important. As the Supreme Court has decided in several cases (cf: the Lai decision in 1972 or thereabouts), I start from the assumption that education is a civil right. In many ways we may have to agree to disagree. I’d be interested in what you thought was good in terms of the substance of the post.
I thought it was good that you were trying to figure out how to better incentivize learning given the standard challenges of letter grades. Incentive is key. What gives people hope and so a desire to invest in their own educations? In my own junior high and high school days I often considered my educators to be clueless. Perhaps that’s just “a sample size of one”? I guess I worked things through well enough anyway though. If you’re dead set against market economics for the business of education as opposed to strict central planning however, then yes we’ll just have to disagree for this particular government funded civil right. But I hope not.
You’ve set up a false dichotomy and a straw man, Eric. Strict Central Planning sounds Soviet for sure. That’s absurd if you give my essay a fair reading. Control of learning is properly shared between teacher, learner, and the learning community of the classroom. There’s no “central headquarters” in my vision. Then you gave your straw man some steroids—strict. Yes, there are multiple intersections between the education industry and the public school system. My interest is in public education in a capitalist economy. I’ve got nothing against capitalism. Some of my best friends are capitalist;)
There are two entirely different issues here. You’re trying to help incentivize education under the American system. How could I be against that? As I said, I think you’re proposing productive things. And if you don’t want to talk about something that’s entirely different from this, which is to say that a system where government funded private companies educate people and so market forces rather than government planning will be key, then that’s fine. I didn’t mean to straw man your ideas themselves, or set up a false dichotomy. I’m sorry if I did though.
I’m a big believer in repurposing structures. When there is a building with separate classrooms it doesn’t make sense to try to do more than tweak the norm of geographic isolation in schools. So you have to find a way to repurpose a quad or a cafeteria to stage a cross grade poetry reading. How do we bring poetry into public schools? The structure of public schools is an artifact of history. How teachers reinvent the activities that take place to teach children self-awareness, self-regulation, self-assessment, and reflective analysis is difficult in a system designed to sort and rank. But it can be done. GPA is a holdover structure which could be a bargaining chip for high schools under intense pressures to work for the university. The goal is to teach students how and why focus and attention in this moment and the next moment is much more important than passing a test. Learn deeply and prosper.
Terry you delude yourself if you think it is not a businesses. It was created by the robber barons of the 1920/30s and it serves corporations. We are all dumber for it. We are all enslaved for it. There are no big picture thinkers anymore. Everything will collapse because you can't step back from metrics. You can't creativity. This is why Genius is misunderstood. When will you see that you are destroying our future by making it average.
Education is a business for sure. I suffer no delusions. Just happy we still have public schools. Until we morph into a utopia, I'm worrying about the millions of children who are starting school this month. Teachers are in a period of trauma, still reeling from the psychological effects of COVID , faced with AI. Sorry, Lillian, but I am a teacher, and teachers really don't have the luxury of standing on the sidelines. Hope this helps. Can you come up with some constructive criticism?
School is the prison. Children learn best by creating. There is zero creating going on in school. Meanwhile our creatives languish in job that do not pay livable wages. The cognitive has already been replaced by AI. You would be better off turning all schools into boys and girls clubs and hiring all the starving artists and college students to create with the kids. Let the kids roam from room to room making, watching, relating. I don't see any value in teachers. AI could provide the theory around what the artists are making. Big picture is the future. Figuring out how survive is the future. This would be a 1000x more impactful that what we do now. But you and I both know the focus on metrics with destroy any good change we try to make. The People in charge are psychopaths and who just serve themselves.
Now we’re talkin’. You’ve reached the far side of the paradox. What do we do with the children? Do we force them to sit in a chair and listen to adults tell them what to do and what to think? This, Lilian, is the authoritarianism we agree is not the answer. The other horn of the dilemma is the Noble Savage. Let them play together—wander from room to room—free from the stifling dullness of adults try to speed up their becoming adults. Children are not adults in miniature. Metrics are useful tools when applied ethically. It really is the use, not the tool, that creates the homogeneous dehumanizing impact. The big picture. What do we do with the children? Control them? Abandon them? A find another way? Once upon a time in a world far away existed a utopia where there was no paradox and everyone was happy…in this world such isn’t the case.
A thought provoking post...food for thought and fuel for action!
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate this. I feel like the tenor of the times during the Depression are replicated in this current moment. People are getting tired of being treated as raw material for yachts and palaces. John Dewey provides a light in the dark
Hmmm…. Things are getting interesting in this comments thread for sure.
The issue of grading and measuring children ain’t for the faint of heart, eh?