We Need to Rethink AI in Education

I promise I’m not the stereotypical cranky, old teacher who doesn’t want to try new things. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. I was an early adopter! (Read through any of the first posts of this blog.) This isn’t just a case of me saying “no” before looking at all the options.

The fact is, I really and truly believe we need to rethink the use of AI in education. In fact, I’ve been trying to warn educators and parents for quite some time.

After talking with teachers, I know that many are worried about how to deal with students using AI to cheat. Those same teachers have to use AI to grade student work, because of an unrealistic workload. But cheating and grading with AI are two of the lowest level problems we have with AI.

My bigger concern is using AI to deliver instruction or tutoring to students, and that’s the main focus of this post.

When we use bots to stand in for DEEPLY HUMAN INTERACTIONS, we create problems for children. I am begging educators to push back on this!

Let’s take a step back and think about learning.

Learning is deeply personal and relational.

When you think about how a brain develops– how learning occurs for each individual– every single child is learning about the world, navigating their surroundings, acquiring new information– and building upon previous learning. A very simplified example: I cannot teach a student to write a complete sentence, if that child has not yet spoken complete sentences.

Students crowd around a rectangular table to view another student's project (student presenting has back to the camera)

Multi-age students gather around the table of one student’s presentation on the invention of paper. PHOTO (c) 2019 Michelle K. Baldwin All Rights Reserved

As educators, we know there are building blocks to each new skill and concept, and so many of those building blocks – how they are initially acquired, stored in short and long term memory, retrieved, etc. — can appear in a child’s life very differently than they do for another child. Because of these differences in experience, how we teach students new material must be personal and relational. The more context I can help them create, the better the student is able to create their own “container” for the new learning.

More importantly, the better I know my students, the more effective I can be in helping them to build their own context — observing them during a learning activity, checking for and monitoring understanding, and adjusting the learning activity in real time to meet the needs of every single child.

I have the ability as a teacher to do this at Anastasis, because it’s how we intentionally planned the school experience and culture… and we set up smaller class sizes, without which, I couldn’t possibly be this responsive to all students’ individual needs. But… the key concept here is intentionally planning an environment where we know our students well enough to help them to have deeply personal learning experiences. Students learn with and from each other, across age/grade levels even, and those experiences teach us so much more than simply “how to” or “what is.” Personalities shine through. Strengths and growth are regularly celebrated.

And yes… I know. Deeply personal learning experiences can be messy, time-consuming, and are anything but efficient. But…

LEARNING is just that… sometimes messy, often time-consuming, and absolutely anything but efficient.

So much of US education today is about systems and efficiency. (There’s an argument to be made that it’s the same issue in many parts of the world, but I do not have experience with enough international schools to write about that, so I won’t.) The daily school schedule is a system that we know doesn’t work well for every kid. In fact, we have loads of research on start times and how much more sleep teenagers need than younger children, yet there are still many, many high schools who start earlier than recommended. Why?

We have some research measuring the impact of homework for elementary students and 6-12 students — yet the system often ignores the research findings to continue using homework in ways that don’t support learning. Why?

Many schools continue using grades to rank and sort students, rather than provide feedback and narratives that explain what a student knows and is able to do. Some schools grade behavior with the same measurements intended to show academic growth, resulting in artificially inflated or deflated scores based on behavior. Why?

The answers to all those “Why” questions often have to do with the systems we have put in place.

I get it. There are millions of children in the US, and they are all currently* guaranteed a free and appropriate education. It takes huge systems to be able to educate that many students, and we’re always looking for the next best thing to be able to educate the masses in a way that is efficient, both with time and money. Resources are spread very thin, and yet we still manage to educate children in the United States. (I’ve written a lot about how the quality of that education varies greatly from school to school, state to state… but this post has another focus.)

 

In trying to live within the systems we have created to educate millions of children efficiently, we have often sacrificed what is best for kids.

We sacrifice what is best for kids- human children – for what is best for the systems. Again, we create schedules of 7 to 8 hour school days with compulsory attendance and very little leeway for kids who get sick, who do not have enough to eat, who may not have a stable home life… the list here goes on and on. And yet, in many education systems, we ignore the human parts of our children and treat them as if they are small containers we need to fill with as much information as we can in each school year.

Red plastic puzzle box with different shapes for young children to learn how to sort shapes and fit into specific shaped holes

Square Block, Round Hole – Photo by Michelle K. Baldwin CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

We have long known that the system doesn’t work for everyone. Too often, we insist that kids fit the system, instead of creating something that works for the kids.

 

Instead of changing the system, we keep trying to create new tools to make the current system even more efficient.

In doing so, we further remove the humanity from the equation, and present kids with ideas like AI tutors.

(For the purpose of this post, I’m going to suspend my urge to rant for multiple paragraphs about the ethics of AI tools- their overconsumption of vital natural resources, and how they scrape (read here: steal) copyrighted work from creators who make a living from their craft. AI tools depend upon creators who have NOT consented to their work being used to train any AI tool. Unless you’re training an AI tool on your own work, and only your own work, I will not agree that you can use any AI tool ethically. </end rant>)

I’m not going to call out any single company trying to sell AI tools to schools, because there are a lot of them, and I am not going after a specific company in this.

What I absolutely want to do is BEG educators to stop, take a breath, and think through the moral implications, as well as the potential of extreme harm, in using AI tutors with students. 

I’ve read advertising copy from several companies trying to sell AI tutors to schools, especially those with large class sizes, as a solution to helping meet each student’s individual needs. Some examples (paraphrased from several so as not to target any one specific company):

  • Do you feel like you need more of YOU to be able to get around to each of the students in your class to help them understand a lesson?
  • Are you struggling to help each one of your students to understand the directions for an assignment? 
  • Is it a hardship on you and the other students in your class when a student has been absent and you need to get them caught up?
  • Do you lack a teaching assistant who can help keep groups of students busy while you work with a small group?

Use our AI tutor for any of these situations! Our tutor will ask your student what they need and then deliver personalized instructions and explanations to get them back on track!

 

When I was a younger teacher struggling with too many classes, too many students, and not enough time in the day to make it all work, this would have seemed like a gift that could solve so many issues.

As a more experienced teacher, I see it for what it is. Maybe because I’ve seen snake oil salespeople come and go with the edtech tools that were supposed to make my life as a teacher easier… and learning better and more innovative (!) for students… it’s easy for me to see through the charade.

But an AI tutor is a poor substitute that tries to replace a necessary human interaction. It’s not personal. It’s not relational. You cannot get a true tutoring experience through a simulation.

Let’s break down the harms that come with an AI tutor.

1. Children – including teenagers- do not have the ability to FULLY comprehend abstract concepts.

Abstract thinking is developing in the brains of children through adolescence and even young adulthood. Lacking the ability to fully comprehend abstract ideas, kids can have difficulty discerning between a human interaction and one with a bot. They can verbalize, “I know it’s not real,” and yet we find some young children trying to have conversations with a puppet, for example, as if the puppet has the ability to respond independently of the puppeteer.  Older kids can verbalize that they know Siri or Alexa aren’t real people, but they might respond angrily or with frustration at the bot when they don’t get the response they’re looking for. It doesn’t make sense to be angry at software or hardware, but this is not an uncommon phenomenon.

Bots that “converse” or “teach” children are programmed to be simulations of human interactions. For a child without a fully developed prefrontal cortex, this can create a disconnect between what is real and what isn’t real at time when those distinctions are very important learning milestones.  While kids are more naturally skeptical than they’re usually given credit for, continually blurring the lines with something programmed to SEEM real sets the stage for bigger problems.

2. Anthropomorphization of responsive programs can cause real harm to children… and even adults.

Humans tend to anthropomorphize THINGS, and there’s very real harm to our mental health when we are unable to balance this with real-life experiences. Sure, many of us do this with our pets as well, but at least a living, breathing pet can have an authentic response, not a programmed response.

We see this with kids toys sometimes, but most toys can’t simulate authentic, real-time responses. That’s what makes them toys. Mix the two together… some of us even had a Pet Rock growing up! All it did was sit in a box. So disappointing, right?

I was a young teacher in the 1990s, and so many of my students (7th-12th grades) had Tamagotchis or NeoPets. These virtual pets were advertised as a wonderful opportunity to teach your child about the responsibility of caring for a pet. Kids were obsessed with them! Most of the adults dismissed the virtual pets as just another fad and didn’t think much more about them… until someone’s virtual pet died. Maybe the family went on vacation, and the Tamagotchi was left behind. There were all sorts of these kinds of scenarios, and most of the adults brushed off the kids’ concerns with “but it’s not even real.”

What I observed as a teacher: Some kids were fine. “No big deal. I’ll just start over.” However, there were several kids who were devastated that their virtual pet had died. We had to have a conversation with school counselors (who sometimes weren’t as responsive as I had hoped) about helping a child process that the pet wasn’t real… that the child wasn’t a horrible person for letting this happen, etc. Many of the adults dismissed the very real feelings of guilt and loss these kids experienced over a virtual entity. Those kids grew up to make memes about how sad they were when their Tamagotchis died. It’s treated as a joke now, but many of us who were teaching back then observed those kids and their sadness.

And the thing is… kids’ feelings are real. How they respond to something that feels like guilt, loss, or grief is very real, and it affects their overall well-being. Even if you, the adult, disagrees whether something is traumatic or not, a kid’s brain registers trauma regardless of what adults think and feel about the situation. When you cannot separate what is real and what is “virtual,” the lines are blurred again… but the emotional and mental health aspects can and will be very real problems.

If you have not read about the Eliza Effects: Pygmalion and the Early Development of Artificial Intelligence by Lawrence Switzky, I highly recommend you do.

There are apps, programs, games, and other tools that have been developed to sell to kids (or FOR kids) to make money without any consideration to the very real impact those tools have on the well-being of children.

Think I’m overreacting? These are just some of the most recent headlines. 

AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some are ending in suicide. (This article is behind a Washington Post paywall)

Are AI Chatbots Safe for Children?

There Are No Guardrails

AI Companions and the Mental Health Risks for the Young (This article is behind a New York Times paywall)

I know that all these headlines reference at least one or two of the same individuals. There is a tendency in our culture to blame the victim in a way that diminishes the potential for harm from these tools. For me, if these AI chatbots are harmful to the mental health of even one kid… what are we even doing?!?

 

3. AI Bots/Tutors cannot solve problems outside of their programming, and it absolutely matters WHO is doing the programming and packaging of these tools.

(Also… what about student data/privacy?)

I’ve been in education for nearly 30** years, and I can tell you there is always an issue of trust between teachers and community. Children are precious. We cannot allow just anyone to spend hours a day with an impressionable child, right? That’s why teachers are required to be licensed after having been educated in child development and teaching methods. Most schools require its teaching staff to have at least a bachelor’s degree in education, and many schools require ongoing education in order to continue teaching.

So…

  • Who is programming the AI tools? Which groups of people do they represent?
  • What are the implicit biases of the people programming the AI tools?
  • Are there actual certified teachers involved in the programming?
  • Are there actual certified teachers on staff at all in this AI company?
  • Has your district administration done its due diligence by reading all the End User Licensing Agreements (that are often longer than most humans could possibly read)?
  • What exactly is stipulated in the contracts schools sign in the use of AI tutors and other tools?
  • How can these tools make accommodations for students with an IEP? A 504 plan?
  • Can you guarantee students and their families that this company selling you its AI tools will protect student privacy?
  • What is the policy when the AI Tutor leads a student in the wrong direction, or provides factually incorrect information? How does it affect the student’s work/grades?
  • What is the policy when harm is done by an AI Tutor?
  • Can a family opt their child out of a class or teacher using an AI Tutor?

 

Years ago, I worked in the technology department of a suburban public school district. The questions above, although this was long before AI, are similar to the considerations we discussed in meetings with vendors before we would even think about deploying a new ed tech product in our schools. We could not purchase or sign contracts to use a student email product, for example, without ensuring that the laws about student data and privacy were being followed to a “t.”

I know there are lot of educators who work for different AI companies. I hope they’re able to answer some of these questions that would help people feel that their children and their privacy are safe. Past experiences and interactions with ed tech entrepreneurs remind me that a lot of ed tech companies don’t consider these things as much as they want to find a niche market where they can sell a “quick solution.”

 

5. Human Teacher vs AI Tutor – who gets actual face-to-face time with a human is an educational equity issue.

We already know that our educational system is not equitable. By tying school finances and funding to property taxes, schools in the United States vary greatly in resources allocated for students. This is an issue that affects race, kids who live in poverty, kids with special needs, and so much more. 

Now throw in who gets actual face time with a human teacher? Who gets assigned an AI tutor? The “learning gap” will continue to grow into an insurmountable chasm.

If you’re skeptical about this point, please take a look around at the most expensive private schools in your area versus, say, a small rural public school.

Again, I ask… which students will have more face-to-face time with a human teacher if an AI solution is proposed? 

As I mentioned above, tutoring is a personal and relational experience. If a student is struggling with the directions given by a teacher, sure. An AI Tutor Bot could repeat the instructions. But, as a teacher, I have a lot of tools already where I can share the written directions, accompanied by an audio file of ME reading the instructions, available without having to use a bot. I’ve done this in products like Seesaw, Google Classroom, Apple Classroom… or something as analog as having the instructions written on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. I don’t need to use AI as a more expensive and problematic substitution for technology we already have.

Maybe the student needs a more in-depth explanation of what we just learned. An AI tutor doesn’t know WHY that student needs more explanation. Maybe they didn’t sleep well the night before. Maybe they’re hungry. Maybe they need to move around the room. Maybe they didn’t have context for the new concept. There are endless reasons why a student might need more explanation, and an AI tutor cannot read that in a child… NOR DO I WANT IT TO TRY. If a kid needs more explanation, I can bring them into a small group. I can partner that student with other students to learn together. There are numerous options available… why bring in a technology with the potential to do harm when I can solve that problem without it?

Human issues need human solutions… and kids need humans who care about them enough to know this.

 

Final Thoughts

I’m going to return now to my first main point in this post. Learning is deeply personal and relational. As I sit here typing this, soooo many faces of so many students are in my thoughts, thinking about their unique personalities and special gifts they bring to the world. I’m absolutely a better person for having them, even for a tiny bit of time, in my life… and I hope they feel that I KNEW them and helped them learn.

If you’re not designing education around the kids in front of you, you’re trying to make the kids fit a system.

What we have learned at Anastasis is, that challenging the system– the status quo, thinking about the kids as the starting point… all of that is possible. When you design a living curriculum around the needs of children, the learning IS personal and relational. Kids feel successful, and we see proof of growth in every one of our graduates.

If we really want to improve education, AI is not going to save us.

Getting back to really knowing our students, cultivating relationships in the name of helping students grow and learn, and holding true to what learning means to THEM… well, that’s a pretty good start.

Oh, and that FUNDING thing. ALL kids deserve to be in safe, clean, healthy buildings where the adults know who the students are- not just their names, but really know them. We can’t do that when our schools are overpopulated and underfunded.

 

photos of Kelly Tenkely and Michelle Baldwin on a dark blue background; text: "Dreams of Education"

Dreams of Education Podcast

Kelly Tenkely and I discuss learning on our Dreams of Education podcast. We talk a lot about AI in education in episode 9 (released 12/5/24) and episode 10 (scheduled for 12/12/24).

 

NOTE: A lot of what I’ve written in this post is based on my experiences as an educator: a public school teacher, a private school teacher, an education technology/professional development coordinator, an adult ed teacher… and an endlessly curious learner. I’ve cited some (not all) sources in this post for expertise I don’t have. I’ve also made statements that, to me, seem to be common knowledge amongst most educators– and didn’t include citations for those. If you feel that some of these issues aren’t common knowledge and do require citations, by all means, please add them in the comments. Or write your own blog post. 🙂

 

*Let’s hope that free public education remains free and appropriate.

**That number might be over 30 by now. I stopped counting.

Whose Voice Is It?

bestpicko.com- photo of microphone

CC licensed photo – bestpicko.com

“Student Voice” is a term that gets bandied about by well-meaning educators… and when true student voice is honored, it can make a world of difference for kids!

But what does it mean when the voice coming out of kids sounds more like the voice of the system that tells them what and how to think? Is it really the voice of the student, or is it just the same old, tired lines those kids have been fed since they started school?

Let’s take a step back for a minute. I have long been an advocate of finding ways to honor student voice. I’ve facilitated student voice sessions at conferences and EdCamps. I truly believe we don’t GIVE kids their voice. We get out of the way and then help to amplify that voice. For some students, they might need extra encouragement to share their voice in a way that is comfortable for them. Not every kid wants to stand up in front of their peers, adults – any live audience – and speak their truth, expose their vulnerabilities, and open themselves up to criticism. For educators, we need to help our children find that zone that initially provides some safety for them to open up and share their stories. For some kids, they are comfortable in a public arena and just want a chance at the metaphoric microphone to say their piece. Again, educators need to provide that space, and then get out of the way.

But what happens when that student’s voice sounds like something that has been produced by a system that, by its very nature, wants to deny authenticity of experience? That robs students of choice? That this system is “THE ONLY WAY?” That tells kids, “THIS is what learning looks like; and in order to be successful, you need to do x, y, z in that order, and then you can be successful.”

I stepped into an ongoing conversation this morning on Twitter about non-traditional schooling. Some background on my thoughts of non-traditional schooling:
After 7 years at Anastasis Academy and tours of other non-traditional models, I feel that non-traditional schooling is an area where I have some insight. At Anastasis, we don’t do traditional. Our students (ages 5-14ish) are in multi-age classes. We don’t do homework. We don’t do testing. We don’t do isolated content areas. We don’t do grades!  We DO encourage independent thinking. We DO learn through inquiry, a lot of hands-on activities, getting outside the classroom and into learning experiences where we can see firsthand what we’re studying. We DO experience service learning. We DO ask our kids to learn about themselves, each other, and the world- often in ways that challenge what they think they already know and believe. We want our students’ educational experiences to be more than just a boxed curriculum. We want them to learn how to manage their own freedoms, and we want them to think for themselves.

Back to the Twitter conversation… One educator* noted that he hears students specifically ask for traditional schooling, because they feel it better prepares them for high school, testing, and for college. I said that we owe it to kids to challenge that notion, and he replied that we should honor their “student voice.”

A lot of our students at Anastasis have come to us from more traditional schools, and sometimes, they ask us, “What do you want me to write? What do you want me to say?” They just want us to tell them what to do. They sometimes become frustrated with the process of learning. They ask for and welcome worksheets and tests…

Why? Because this is what they have been conditioned to do since they first stepped foot into a school.** Even though they sought something different… traditional schooling wasn’t working for them… they still often yearn for the familiar.

Worksheets and tests are familiar. Sometimes, worksheets and tests are easier, because they don’t often require you to think beyond a simple answer.

Maybe you know people who learned how to play the game of school very well. Those same people can tell you that they didn’t really learn much… they just memorized what they knew the teacher wanted them to answer. After the test, that information was conveniently forgotten so that they could move on to the next part of the game. For some people, they still play the game – in their jobs or whatever vocation they have chosen. Some people will argue that learning to play the game is what it’s all about. I disagree wholeheartedly.

In non-traditional models that require kids to think for themselves, kids can safely struggle, but they don’t always recognize what this type of struggle is. They can become frustrated more often. Sometimes, they just want someone to give them “the” answer.

Of course they do! 

I’m not saying kids are lazy… not at all! But when faced with a choice of just doing what your teacher wants you to do versus thinking for yourself – sometimes, it’s easier just to play the game. This is especially true when you look back at what the system of schooling was intended to do!

Traditional schooling encourages compliance, assimilation, deference to authority, and very little time for true questioning. A “Do what I tell you to do” environment. This isn’t learning. This is TRAINING.  We have trained kids to believe that learning is limited to one right answer, one “true” perspective and point-of-view (aka whatever POV is in the textbook)… and that learning is finite at each level.

Luckily for some kids, there are many wonderful, amazing teachers in traditional models who can help counteract the effects of the system. They inspire kids to think differently. They help kids love learning for the sake of learning. They encourage kids to discover passions they might never have known to explore. They might even show kids how to play the game, but to recognize that the game is not the focus. 

Not all kids are fortunate enough to have these amazing teachers every year throughout their education, though… and some kids never even get that experience at all. (So do we just hope for the best for each kid, or do we say enough is enough and reject the system?)

So-called experts tell kids that they need to start preparing for this in primary levels (read here: “college and career readiness beginning in Kindergarten”)… that each level in school is only there to prepare you for the next stage in your life… and that you must have good grades in school to get into a good college so that you can then have a good job. There’s no joy in learning for the sake of learning. There’s no point in thinking about the process, because the end goal is always about another level. There’s no time for reflecting upon what we have learned, how we learned, and most importantly, WHY. The system was never intended to create independent thinkers, because independent thinkers are unwelcome. We tell kids that their dreams and passions aren’t important, because all of this “stuff” in the curriculum matters more than that. That, if you do well at each level of schooling, you WILL be successful.

We have to stop lying to children.  Because, for a huge number of children, the system is designed for them to fail.

Look at the kids that the current “traditional” system leaves behind in the dust. Kids who don’t learn in traditional ways – kids who have difficulty communicating in a way that pleases a teacher – kids who fail within a system that was never designed for them to succeed in the first place – kids whose lived experiences are different from the narratives in those narrowed POVs in textbooks. If the current system was truly the key to success, it would work for ALL kids. We know it does not. There’s another whole discussion here about the issue of traditional schooling, how racism and other-ism are defining characteristics of the system, and who is promoted as successful or not. It’s vital to how we perceive student voice as well.

Considering all of the above and why I initially began to write this post…  Are we still going to say that we should “honor” student voice when the voice is asking for more of this traditional system? Is it “honoring” to validate a child who parrots something that was intended to keep them from questioning the status quo? Or are we going to be the educators who recognize that this type of “student voice” is corrupted by a system that has been dictating for too long what kids should do, say, write, and THINK?

I honor student voice by listening and amplifying.  But when kids tell me they want more of the system they came from before… I dig a little more deeply. I ask why. We talk. We think through what they’re saying they want. Then I ask them what they REALLY want. If we can get to this point of a discussion, trust me… they don’t ask for more tests and worksheets. It’s not more traditional “sit and git” and “just tell me what you want me to do.” When they know I’m there to help them, guide them, and support them in their learning struggles, they find what they want… and they want to face the challenges they found frustrating and difficult.

When kids are allowed to share their TRUE VOICE, it won’t be that they want to be trained how to take a test… because they know that doesn’t prepare them for anything but taking a test!

So let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we’re honoring kids and their voices if those voices are just echoing what the system tells them is important. That’s not really student voice… and, deep down, I think we know that. 

I’m not waiting for higher education or even secondary education to change. I’m going to keep fighting that “traditional” system, because I’ve seen what an identity-honoring education does for kids. I’m going to continue advocating for ALL kids to be able to learn in a place that focuses on the student, not the teacher. Not the curriculum. Not the “this is just the way we do things” mentality.

I will keep lifting up the teachers who, regardless of WHERE they teach, lovingly inspire their students to know themselves, think differently, and to use their voices to make change happen.

If you’re an educator, you should expect and encourage student voice that differs from your own. You should honor student voice, even when you disagree with what is being said. However, if you recognize something in that student voice that sounds like it’s nothing more than an echo, dig a little deeper. Ask more questions. Help the student to question the WHAT and especially the WHY of what they’re saying. 

I think we do a disservice to kids if we don’t help them question a system that dictates to them what they should think.

 

UPDATE: Please also read this post by Aviva Dunsiger about the social construct of SCHOOL! 

* I’m choosing not to name the educators in this conversation, because I’m not intending this as an attack on their perspectives, nor am I asking for people who agree with me to pile on in additional debate with them. Feel free to comment here on my post. My comments policy is noted in the sidebar.

**One of the most interesting things I’ve witnessed as a teacher at Anastasis is observing students who have never been to a traditional school. They started as “littles” at Anastasis. These kids flourish in learning experiences where they can dig in, ask a ton of questions, use their hands to create something, ask MORE questions, and then talk a LOT about the process. When they go on learning excursions, they are not your typical school children on a field trip; and usually, the adults who are leading the tour or experience are thrown for a loop. They don’t know how to react to 5-6 year olds who ask really in-depth questions. When these kids create projects that fail, they don’t worry about a bad grade, because they don’t know what grades are. They start looking at each step in their process, ask more questions, and then reflect on what they could do to improve. These kids ideate and iterate in ways you don’t typically see in more traditional models… because this is just what they do. They have never known any other way of learning in school. I don’t worry about them not being prepared for the next level of school. They know how to learn and advocate for themselves. I worry that the next level of school is not prepared for THESE KIDS!

Thoughts on Motivation

I had a Twitter conversation last week about motivation for teachers. Since then, numerous posts, tweets, and situations have popped up right in front of me, and I knew I needed to write about this.

The gentleman¹ I was debating on Twitter (the actual thread isn’t important to recount in its entirety) about motivation was correct in his statement that motivation is intrinsic. I can’t truly motivate another person to change behavior. I can, however, provide an environment that helps to inspire, challenge, and provide opportunities for autonomy and creativity. That was my point in the debate. When the environment is lacking, it’s difficult to stay motivated. We can’t and shouldn’t always blame an individual for a lack of motivation.

Since that tweet thread, I read tweets from an account called AnonymousProfessorAngus Johnston quoted this one and added his own thoughts:

This resonated with me and led back to the conversation I’d had earlier. How do we expect students to be motivated when they’re treated as adversaries? Even if the kids aren’t treated in that manner, they still sense it. Kids are entirely more perceptive about their teachers than most people believe.

This goes for teachers and administrators also. If the environment in which we learn and work stifles who we are, how we learn, how we help others to learn, it is very difficult to be motivated. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but day after day, month after month, the drudgery wears on a person’s ability to remain motivated. In some instances, it’s quite soul-crushing.

I read another post on Facebook this morning by a former teacher who watched a video of a guitar-playing youngster on Steve Harvey’s show, Little Big Shots. His comment with the video was something along the lines of “I wish some of my former students had shown this kind of drive.” My first thought after reading that was… what did YOU do to help those kids recognize their own passions? Knowing this person, I’m sure he did a lot. He was a fantastic teacher… but this comment still wore on me.

Do we recognize and honor our kids’ passions? What could they be excited about and want to learn more? Because the drive to excel at something is personal, we have to ensure that kids have the opportunity to show us those things that excite them! Additionally, we have to help introduce concepts/skills/topics to kids in a way that might create a new spark. If kids don’t know what they don’t know, how can we help them explore new ideas that might generate a new passion? This is all about the culture of learning in our schools. Is the culture in YOUR school open to these ideas to help kids explore their own interests, or only that which is in the written curriculum?

Drive… motivation… whatever you want to call it. You can’t be motivated about things that aren’t interesting to you. You might summon up some willpower to trudge into the things you just have to get through, but that’s not motivation.

I don’t want kids to have to see learning as something to suffer through. I don’t want classroom teachers to feel like they just have to make it through until summer break… or worse, until they can retire. In either case, for students and teachers, that’s a lot of years to go uninspired.

I get it. We are human beings. We’re going to have ups and downs. If I’m in a classroom (which I am currently), it’s up to me to stay motivated for my students. And I’m not a superteacher… I have my sucky days like anyone else. Where I’m fortunate, though, is that I am in a learning environment where I have autonomy and room to be who I am… to teach in a way that suits me, but also inspires my kids.  I am inspired daily by our school leader and my colleagues, and we have each others’ backs. Our students benefit from that, because that’s what we hope to provide for them as well. But not everyone has that type of environment.

So what can we do? Collectively, there are ways to help.

  1. Recognize and be aware that some people – students and teachers- go to school/teach in a place that wears on their emotional well-being. It’s not always a matter of “just suck it up.” You can only do that for so long.
  2. LISTEN. Don’t interject ideas of what they could do better… just be a listener. Sometimes people who feel they are trapped in a no-win situation at a school just need a friendly ear. Yes, it’s probably going to be negative, but just be there for that person. Use supportive phrasing, such as “I can imagine that would be very difficult,” etc.
  3. Instead of giving them platitudes, motivational memes,  or “go get ’em, tiger” suggestions, ask them how you can provide support.
  4. Probably the most important: If YOU are in a place to help change the surroundings, DO IT.
    • If you’re a teacher with students who don’t seem motivated, don’t blame them. Look at yourself and make the changes your students need. ASK THE KIDS ABOUT THEMSELVES. <– This is a good place to start.
    • If you’re an admin, and there is a morale issue in your building, that’s on you to help change. Enlist some people who are willing to step up and help you turn things around. Change “business as usual” by asking for input, and then actually read it and implement some new practices.
    • Ask for help. Ask other people what they do to inspire.
    • Find someone who inspires you, and then model some of those same practices in your own leadership.

I think the most important way to help another individual to be motivated is to look around, reflect on the surroundings, and be brutally honest with yourself… how are you contributing to a place where it’s easier to be complacent or just go through the motions? I know from experience how hard it is to admit that YOU might be the problem… but YOU can also be part of the solution.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

¹I’m not sharing his name here, because this post is a) not about our debate, b) not a wish to prove him wrong, nor c) an attempt to out or shame another person in any way.

² This account makes me embarrassed for the people who contribute and for those who like/share its contents. This is a shameful practice for educators, and you can #dobetter.

Learning vs Teaching

Do you ever write a blog post and leave it in “drafts” for so long… you forget your wrote it? That happened with this post. This post was initiated last spring and completed today with some additions.

For too long now, we have equated “learning” with the “result of being taught.” I’m not refuting the fact that we can learn from great teachers… in fact, that’s not my point at all. Teachers make a significant impact in whether students have an opportunity to learn or not in a school environment.

Rather, the point I want to make is that, for too long, we have equated learning with consuming what has been delivered TO learners. Traditional schooling has tried to make learning a passive activity, and I feel the damage we’re doing to children is resulting in generations of people who cannot think for themselves. Additionally, they have a difficult time learning anything that is new or unfamiliar – if a problem is put in front of them that doesn’t resemble a problem they’ve already seen, most students will struggle.

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of educators talking about how we need to help students learn “how to learn.” I vehemently disagree. Children come to us as innate learners. If anything, most schooling conditions children to turn off their learning brains and substitute with their compliance/consumer brains. If you think you have students who need to be taught how to learn… you’re wrong. They just need help reprogramming themselves to actually learn, and that requires removing almost everything they have been conditioned to do in a traditional school environment.

Learning isn’t memorizing something and then performing on a test. If you disagree with me, pull out a test from one or two months ago and give it to your students. Most of them will not be able to pass this test, even if they aced it before. Now, if those same students created something through building, baking, composing, painting, etc. – something where the learning was meaningful, my guess is that they would be able to replicate (and most likely improve) their creations over and over again.  

When I speak to other educators about learning, they usually agree… except when it comes to facts and skills they strongly believe must be TAUGHT.

EXAMPLE: I am constantly asked how I TEACH my students to read, considering I do not focus on teaching and drilling sight words, phonemic awareness, etc.
 
I usually answer, “I don’t TEACH my students to read.”
 
I get the same questions when it comes to math… “How do they learn math if you don’t practice math facts?” *
 
And the question, especially from other educators, “How will your students learn to read, learn their math facts (etc.) if you don’t TEACH them?”
 
Yet… my students DO learn to read. They do learn their math facts, and so, SO much more!
 
How is it at all possible that the students in my classroom are reading, are applying math facts to actual math problems that they find (not necessarily problems I give them to solve)?
 
The answer is simple, and it’s one we’ve forgotten over years – nearly a century really- of delivering information to kids to “learn.” Consuming information that is delivered from a teacher is not LEARNING. 
 
When I memorize a bunch of stuff that someone else decides is important for me to know, that process takes one of the most important facets of learning out of the learners hands– the agency of the learner.
 

Human beings learn about the world around them when they’re curious… when they see a need to know and understand something… and then want to USE that newly found knowledge/skill. Good teachers know this and help provide an environment where kids are able to learn and pursue those things that make them curious. Master teachers know how to expose children to new experiences – those they may not discover on their own – to create new opportunities for learning to occur. 

Inventing, planning, and building a new form of mass transportation for water.

Inventing, planning, and building a new form of mass transportation for water.

 
When WE (educators) decide what students should learn, it becomes a chore. Curiosity lessens. And the opportunity to actually use that new knowledge is rarely provided outside an artificial environment.
 
Case in point… I have observed years and years of children sitting in science class “learning” from a textbook. THAT is not science! That’s reading comprehension. When you have never practiced actual science and only read about it… that is not learning science.
 
In discussions with other educators, I often hear things along the lines of “Well, if I don’t explain it to them first, how will they learn it?” This line of thinking misses the beauty of true learning. Ask any adult what they remember the most from high school. I guarantee it won’t be anything they were “taught” and memorized for a test. Delivered information resides in our short-term memory if we don’t do anything beyond memorizing it. We KNOW this… it’s not new to teachers. We learn that memorization is the lowest order of thinking. So why do we still concentrate more in this area in education than the others? Short answer: it’s the quickest and easiest to test. Efficiency for the win (or not). The longer answer is much more complicated.
 
I’ve written several posts like this before with explanations about what learning IS and what it IS NOT.  So have a lot of other people. I’ll add some to comments and welcome your additions as well! 
 
So to get back to my original example (and reason for writing this post)…
The answer to the questions I get from educators who see what we do at Anastasis Academy  – and wonder how on earth my K/1s learn how to read, write, understand math, etc.  -without teaching via traditional methods educators are used to seeing –  is THIS:
 
I don’t teach kids to read.
I don’t teach kids to write.
I don’t teach kids to memorize math facts… or vocabulary… or any of those other delivered items/standards to which we have clung so tightly in traditional education.
 
I facilitate a learning environment where they are curious.
 
I facilitate a learning environment where they want to learn to read.
 
I facilitate a learning environment where they want to make sense of numbers.
 
(I could go on, but I think you get the picture.)
 
We do not drill phonics or math facts. We read all the time. We talk about letters, sounds, word endings, rhyming words, patterns, etc. IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT WE ARE LEARNING. Always.
 
Let me emphasize that…
Yes, sometimes we’ll stop and talk about how verbs in the past tense sound like they end in a “t,” but the patterns we see in our books are “-ed.” We remark about this pattern every time we see it, and then we also start noticing it in our writing.
Pretty soon, the students start to think and edit themselves in their writing of past tense verbs. It makes sense to them, because it comes up in the context of what they’re already doing. These types of little mini or “pop out” lessons happen all the time, but the most important part is this: it’s always in the context of what we’re learning. I cannot stress this enough.
 
So if you ask me how I teach my kids to read if I don’t focus on all the traditional 20th/21st century methods of teaching reading, I will tell you…
 
I don’t teach them to read. They LEARN to read.
You can substitute any other concept/skill in the above sentences, because the emphasis is always on LEARNING, not teaching.
 
 
 (My class and I blog at architectsofwonder.edublogs.org… we share a lot of what we do and how we learn there. We also tweet from @TeamBaldwin and would love to hear from you!)

*Two of my “learning and math” posts that are relevant:

Trust, Compassion, and Love

Think about this:

Why do we cheer on Katniss Everdeen and company in the Hunger Games? Katniss sees a wrong and wants to fix it. The authority (the Capitol) abuses its power. When a person in one of the districts breaks the rules or speaks out against the Capitol, they’re physically and publicly punished. Katniss doesn’t trust the Capitol, and she leads a revolution… and we cheer.

When our STUDENTS communicate to us something they see as a wrong, do we applaud them for speaking up? Or do we try to shut them down and force compliance? When they break our rules, do we sit down and talk with them? Or do we punish? How often is that punishment public and/or physical?

 

What if…

  • we showed kids that we trust them?
  • we stopped requiring absolute compliance with no questioning? (because we wouldn’t want that requested of us, right?)
  • we looked at their acts of defiance as courage to stand up and advocate for themselves?
  • we taught them how to respect others by showing them respect first?
  • we looked at “discipline problem children” as who they really are? Human beings who need our care, trust, compassion, love… and no labels. They are children. Period.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the video* I watched where a young girl was thrown around her classroom while still in her chair… because she didn’t put her phone away. People commented that it wouldn’t have happened if she would have just done what she was told. Comply with my rules, or we will physically cause you harm? In my eyes, the ONLY justification in putting hands on a child is if he (or she) is endangering himself or others… and then only to restrain.

Reading more about her story is heartbreaking. What if an adult in that school had taken the time to simply stop and TALK with her? I’m betting we wouldn’t have seen a video of her being thrown around the room.

It’s extremely obvious that we do not trust kids… and that the depth of our fear OF those children (yes, children) goes so far that we allow them to be hurt by us. We allow them to be treated as LESS than. Less than human. And when you account for the suspension/expulsion rates broken down by race, you see an even more sinister story. We don’t trust kids, especially children of color.

I say “WE,” because each of us is complicit in allowing to this happen over and over again when we don’t stand up to make it end NOW.

I’ve come a long way from my first few years of teaching. Those years when I required absolute compliance. Those years when I didn’t listen to a “sob story,” because I didn’t trust the kids to do what they were “supposed” to do. Those years when a lot of my students hated me and didn’t trust me at all. I didn’t trust them. I didn’t respect them. As their teacher, I was supposed to anticipate that these students would try to get the better of me… would try to be lazy… would try to do anything but what they were supposed to be doing… if I didn’t have the upper hand.

Now, I look back on some of those kids I had… the really defiant ones… and I know they were hurting. I know they needed me to teach them that life was more than what we learning in the classroom… that someone could care about why they were upset. That sometimes an adult who will just LISTEN is more important than following the rules every step of the way. And I wasn’t that teacher.

I’ve read and heard a lot of comments about how “kids are so disrespectful nowadays,” and how they need to be taught respect properly. (Read here: we need to teach them to fear us). Any time I’ve ever heard someone use the phrase, “they need to be taught to respect me,” it always comes across as derisive. Full of contempt. As a child, why would I ever want to respect someone who wants me to fear them?

How can we teach kids to respect us if we don’t respect them?

How can we teach kids to trust us if we don’t trust them?

I am the adult in the classroom. THE ADULT. I need to ensure the safety of my students… yes. But they are in my care, and I take that very seriously. My second priority as a teacher is to help these children love to learn. My first priority is to make sure they know they are cared for. They are trusted. And yes, they are loved. When they make mistakes… and they WILL… I need to be the adult who can think past the mistake. I need to be the adult who sees the child in front of me. The child waiting to see how I will react.

I didn’t do that when I first became a teacher, and that still haunts me. I will not make that same mistake again.

 

 

 

*I didn’t link to the video. There are too many of these types of videos. This is a crisis, and we have to step up. Do better.

Start With The Kids

School started for us at Anastasis Academy last Wednesday. We’ve had three days with our classes so far, and I’m so excited about all the possibilities in store for our students.

My students on the playground (c) Michelle K. Baldwin 2015

My students on the playground
(c) Michelle K. Baldwin 2015

I have nine kids in my class this year, four of whom were with me last year, too. They range in age from 5 to 7, and watching every little aspect of the school day through their eyes is an incredible experience already.

I should back up a bit and explain that we have meetings with each child individually before the first day of school. We call these meetings “Learning Profiles.” We ask the kids about themselves, their favorite movies, what they like most about school, their best vacation ever, etc.

One of the questions we ask is, “If you could change anything about yourself, what would you change?” Every single one of my littles replied with either “Nothing!” or “I don’t know… probably nothing.” (Wouldn’t it be awesome to go back in time to that place when we really liked exactly who we were?)

I always enjoy these learning profiles so very much. The kids make me smile, laugh, and sometimes even cry. Most importantly, I get to know quite a bit about these little friends before they join the rest of their classmates for their first day.

Before school even starts, we spend time getting to know each child… even those we’ve had in class before. We start with the kids.

Not the curriculum. (We don’t have boxed curriculum at Anastasis, but even the thoughts about what we want to do with our students come later… after we actually know something about the kids in our care.)

Not the rules.

Not the routine of each day.

Not which gimmick or trendy education panacea will be best for our students and help raise their test scores.

We start by having conversations with every single kid and really listening to them. And these kids have a lot to tell us about what they want to learn about, how they like to learn (spoiler alert: none of them likes to sit still all day!), etc.

Our school’s founder, Kelly Tenkely, often talks about how she started our school with specific kids in mind. That these are “kids with names.” That kids are more than test scores. That children are NOT data points.

As a teacher, I think very intentionally about every single child in my classroom… and I start truly considering what each of them needs.

Many of you reading this post know I’m a connected educator. I believe very strongly in connecting my kids with other classrooms, educators, and experts around the world to learn from them and share what we’re learning with them. I love bringing other connected friends into my classroom, either in person or virtually, to expand our learning beyond our classroom walls.

But I don’t start with those connections.

At Anastasis, we like to get our kids out of the classroom to other learning experiences – museums, performances, and service learning opportunities –  just to name a few.

But we don’t start there.

We start with the kids. If any one of us thinks we know what’s best for these children BEFORE we get to know them, we are doing a huge disservice to those in our care.

My advice to you as you continue with your newly started school year or before those kids walk into your classroom for the first time in 2015-16:

  • Forget the gimmicks. These are not the things that are going to help your students learn.
  • Forget the outside connections for a while.
  • Take the time to get to know your students. (I know that many of you are in situations where you have two or three times as many kids in your classes as I do. I also know that you’re not able to have Learning Profile meetings before school like we do.But that doesn’t mean you can’t get to know your kids before everything else grabs your focus.)
  • Take the time to ask them about themselves.
  • Give them a reason to open up to you, and then keep that privilege sacred. When a child trusts you enough to share something personal, show her that you value her and what she has shared.
  • Ignore the advice from your undergraduate training that told you to hide your “humanness” and to be the “firm, but fair” teacher. Instead, show the kids you really care about them (not just their learning).

THIS is where you start when you want to improve a child’s education. It always starts with the kids.

 

Children Are Not Data Points

I can’t read one more post or tweet about data-driven instruction today. I CANNOT.

What most people attempt as educational reform is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You can make the round hole bigger, but the square peg will just fall through. It doesn’t fit, and neither does the system.

Today, I read a wonderful post by my friend Eric Johnson – “Fighting For Their Lives.” Does anyone actually think kids like the ones Eric describes are able to do their best on a test that measures the most narrowly defined (and least important) part of what learning actually is?

Yesterday, I read a great stand by a teacher who is first and foremost a parent. Karl Fisch posted his letter to his daughter’s high school, which is also the high school where he works. In this incredibly well written and passionate letter, Karl and his wife, Jill, explain why they are opting out of the PARCC test for their daughter.

Two weeks ago, I was on an emotional and professional high with visitors to our school exclaiming their amazement of what our kids are able to do. They were pleasantly surprised about how much and how well our students of all ages can articulate what they’re learning. They saw examples that demonstrate how much these kids are learning, and they heard Anastasis alums talk about how their learning at our school prepared them for what came after.

The best endorsement I have from the educators who attended our conference is the number of times I heard, “I want to enroll my own children in this school RIGHT NOW.”

But yet, we don’t give homework at Anastasis. We don’t give standardized tests. We don’t give grades. We don’t rely on traditional data* to inform and shape our instruction. (No standard curriculum. No standard grade levels. We don’t do anything standard here.)

So obviously, our kids aren’t really learning, right?

WRONG.

There is no sound bite in the world I can give you to explain what happens in our school.

There is no blog post that could ever adequately explain and describe how deeply our students think.

I know that Anastasis is not the perfect world. There is no such thing. But what I know is this…

CHILDREN ARE NOT STANDARDIZED.

CHILDREN ARE NOT MEANT TO COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER IN LEARNING. (I already wrote about that before.)

CHILDREN ARE NOT DATA POINTS TO BE PLOTTED ON A GRAPH. (Repeat this one over and over and over.)

If you want to truly reform education, stop trying to make kids fit into a standardized curriculum. Stop testing them over things that should never define who they are. Stop treating children as widgets the minute they walk into the door of their school. They are not packages rolling along a conveyor belt with a barcode affixed to their foreheads. You want to talk profits, inventory, and sales? Standardization is great for that… but our children do not deserve to be treated as such.

You want to reform education? Stop standardizing everything, and look at the amazingly wonderful and unique human beings who walk into your school. As Eric said in his post, for some children, school is the safest place they will encounter on any given day.

Help them feel safe.
Help them feel nourished, both physically and emotionally.
Help them feel important and valued.
Help them feel loved.

THAT is how you start to reform education.

It is about the KIDS. Anything else is a cheap, tired, and overused excuse.

And if you use the word, “accountability” when you try to debate this issue with me, you’d better be certain you can answer this question: how are you accountable to the children you serve? 

Do they feel safe? Nourished? Valued? Loved?

I can answer that question at our school, because that’s how our school was started– with the children at the center of our focus.

How does this play out academically? Come visit our school. Seriously. We have visitors all the time. Or go visit Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Kids know they matter in these places.

And on that visit… don’t talk. Watch. Listen. Ask questions. Reflect.

 

 

*By “traditional data,” I mean test scores. We use data at Anastasis all the time… it just doesn’t look like most schools’ data.

It’s All About Context

Apologies to Meghan Trainor and her 2014 earworm… but it really is all about context

Have you ever heard a parent or teacher say something to the effect, “My child/student has regressed in the last 6 months. She knew this stuff last year! She passed tests and everything.”

Learning is fluid. Period. Brains are remarkable and in constant states of learning, unlearning, and relearning.  (Research in neuroplasticity is fascinating, and if you have any contact with kids, I hope you are reading about it.)

But here’s the deal: if your child has truly LEARNED something, she most likely won’t forget it or regress. While there are exceptions, most kids do not forget things they have truly learned.

What is more likely the case is that something was introduced without context. Kids- and adults- forget things they have committed to short-term memory that do not connect to something meaningful and relevant in their lives.

(OR… the context was only briefly visited because there wasn’t enough time to develop a real connection. Mile-wide curriculum that’s about an inch deep doesn’t leave a lot of room or time for context. But I digress…)

I’m on a math kick, so let’s use this as an example.

Young children who learn to count to ten do not actually understand counting. They’re simply mimicking a verbal pattern they memorized. Put 4 objects in front of a child who has just learned to count to 10, and he’ll point to each object, multiple times, and count to 10, not 4. This is a developmental issue, because the child does not connect the numbers he learned to say versus the number of objects in front of him.

If you put 3+2=5 in front of a child, she might memorize it easily, but if you give her the same number of objects to count, can she separate it into a group of 3 and a group of 2?

Children do not have context for numbers in print UNLESS they have something concrete in front of them. Even still, they need more exposure and experience with the concrete long before they begin to comprehend the abstract (number sentences in print).

I feel the same way about teaching music. Children should be singing songs and playing instruments long before they ever learn musical notation. You can memorize where the notes go on a staff and which note’s duration is a “ta” or a “ti-ti,” but if you have not had extensive experience with playing and singing those notes, you have no context for the notation. Some really brilliant man named Karl Orff believed this, too. (My fellow music teachers are laughing at me right now, because Orff is a really big deal).

Think about this: small children learn the alphabet song long before they’re able to make sense of the letters in the alphabet. You can recite the alphabet but not know which letters make which sounds. And you most definitely cannot read simply by reciting the alphabet.

I can sing hundreds of songs in various languages –  Italian, Portuguese, German, etc. – but I did not LEARN these languages. I memorized them and how to pronounce words in these languages. There’s no context there, other than what’s in the songs.

Those in real estate have their mantra, “Location, location, location.”

Educators should add to their repertoire, “Context, context, context.” Context helps kids make connections and move to deeper understanding, even if that deeper understanding happens down the road.

A recent example…

My 5 and 6 year old students have been using base ten blocks to help them think about adding and subtracting larger numbers. They know that, to subtract 35 from 50, they will have to swap out a ten for 10 ones. If I gave them 50-35 and taught them to “borrow,” some of them would remember HOW to do this, but they would not understand WHY. Most of them would not understand how to borrow and would become easily frustrated. Developmentally, they’re not in this place yet, but when working with the base ten blocks… every single one of them knows he has to swap a ten for 10 ones. There’s context there.

When I asked them to help me cover a wall with some paper, we learned that we had to measure the wall first. Our tape measure wasn’t long enough to measure the entire wall, so we measured in two steps. The tape measure ends at 120 inches. The second measurement was 58 inches.

I asked them to add 120 and 58. Blank stares. (Of course)

When I asked them what 120 would look like in base ten blocks (without actually using the blocks), they were able to tell me it was one blue (100) and 2 greens (10). I asked them to pretend the blue one was put off to the side for now. “You have two greens and 58. What does that mean?” They counted 58… 68… 78.

The said, “The answer is 78!” When I reminded them we still had a blue one off to the side, they were able to quickly say, “it’s 178!”

They did all of this in their heads without actually handling the base ten blocks. Because of our previous work with the blocks, they now have context about place value and adding larger numbers. Are they consistently able to do this? No. Not yet, and I want to really emphasize yet. They are 5 / 6 year old kids! But if they are able to get context in everything we’re doing – math and all the other things we learn every day – think about where they can go!

I could share so many more examples, but this post would never end. I will share a “part two” soon, because I have another wonderful example of poetry and context with my students.

A Math Tale – How I Know They Are Learning

Backstory to this post:

Teaching in an inquiry-based school, we don’t isolate “subjects” as most traditional schools do.  The beauty of this model is that kids really get to make connections. Science doesn’t just happen at a certain time of day, and it usually involves many other content areas as well. I love when my students are able to connect on their own that music is science is math is history is communication… and so on.

Although we don’t teach subjects in isolation all day, we do spend some time looking at content areas on their own for supporting understanding.

Math is a great example of one “subject” in our school that receives some supplemental time. It still looks different, though, because we meet each child where he/she is and help to move more deeply into understanding.

(I started to type “move forward,” but that’s not necessarily what happens, nor should it.)

 

The FOCUS of this post:

The problem with math in so many traditional schools is that there is a push to move kids along, rather than guide them into understanding. If you memorize facts easily, you’re going to do well in math early on. The problem with how math is often taught – and how most people think it should be taught – is that we focus so much on the “abstract” — the written facts. My friend Rafranz Davis says, “experiencing math starts with the ‘why,’ not the ‘how.'” I love this! Multiplication tables and formulas, for example, are the how, not the why.

Because so many of us, educators and non-educators alike, were taught with a focus on the math facts, we tend to forget that the conceptual understanding — the “concrete” and “representational” aspects of numbers — is entirely more important than what we memorize. A lot of students who do well in elementary or primary math classes find themselves struggling in pre-algebra or other math classes that require an understanding of what those facts mean, how numbers are related, the underlying patterns in those facts, and how it all connects. <— The WHY

Flash cards, worksheets, and apps that only focus on drilling facts are not what our kids need. They do not show us what our children have learned and understand about math.

BUT… this is where so much time, effort, and concerns lie. If students do not have their multiplication tables memorized by 3rd or 4th grade, they’re labeled as behind their peers. As a teacher, this frustrates me immeasurably. Yes, we want kids to be fluent in their facts, but the problem is when we assign a date and time to when they must have these facts memorized.

You might have a child who memorizes easily, but doesn’t truly understand what the fact means. I once had a student who knew that 5×3=15, but did not know that 5 groups of 3 items was the meaning behind it. Another one of my students understood that multiplication was grouping, but she could not recall fluently each fact if put on the spot.

Teaching a K/1 class for the first time has reinforced my philosophy of how I teach math- they WHY comes before the HOW. An example from today sealed the deal:

I have four students, all boys, in my class. (I know. Yes, I typed “four.”)

Every one of these boys, ages 5 and 6, is in a different place in his understanding of addition and subtraction facts. Some can skip count by 7s. Some are still struggling with addition and subtraction facts up to 10.

Today, we did some problem-solving with an activity I found on MathPickle.com: Addition Boomerang. (Watch the video – it explains how the boomerangs work. Definitely worth the 5 minutes.)

I started with all 4 of the kids together and demonstrated how the boomerangs work. We started with one boomerang with a +1 to reach the target of 10. Then we changed it to +2 to the target of 10. The boys were seeing this as an easy activity, and liked the idea of going around the boomerang circle.

Next, I changed it to two boomerangs: +3 and +4 with the same target of 10. I asked them to find every combination, both successful and “fails.”

This is what we produced together:

Boomerang1

 

After we discussed other combinations, they determined that they had found all the successful combinations. Anything else we we might try would result in similar fails. This discussion was incredible, because some of them still don’t always remember the commutative property of addition. We often have to review that if 3+4=7, then 4+3 also equals 7. Epiphany moment!

After our discussion, I paired them up and gave them their own boomerangs to solve. One group had to get to the target of 20 with +4 and +5. The other group needed to get to 12 with +2 and +3.

Boomerang3

Boomerang2

Here’s the beauty of what I witnessed today. One of my boys who is very fluent in addition facts well past 10 struggled with this activity at first. He didn’t understand what we were trying to do. After working with his partner, he exclaimed, “Oh! I get it!” Exuberant smiles followed. Those facts he memorized are beginning to come to life for him.

Another one of my boys who is not fluent in addition facts to 10 whizzed through this activity. He was counting so quickly, his partner had to ask him to slow down so he could figure it out as well. I can still ask him, “what is 4+5?” and it will take him as long as it takes to put up 4 fingers followed by 5 fingers. But when I asked him which combinations would work in his boomerang, he amazed me at how quickly he could come up with different combinations, AS WELL AS explain WHY. This is a kid who would fail a standardized fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice math test on addition facts to 10. Give him a method in which to find a pattern or solve a puzzle, and he is able to show exactly what he understands.

When parents have come to me over the years with concerns- or outright nervousness- about where their kids are in math, I have tried to reassure them that a) kids don’t learn at the same pace, b) knowing facts is NOT understanding mathematics, and c) kids need a variety of activities that help them explore the relationship of numbers in meaningful and relevant ways.

Drilling facts, and even emphasizing facts over understanding of the concrete and representational aspects of what numbers and operators mean does a lot of damage to how kids view “math.”

So here’s my advice:

  1. Take a deep breath. Your child’s math progress does not reflect poorly on you as a parent. I promise.
  2. If you have taken your child to a math tutoring business*, remember that it is a business. They will find something (anything!) wrong with your child’s progress to sell you their services.
  3. If you really want to help your child understand the relationship of numbers, find activities that involve, but do not focus on math. Baking, building, measuring, counting, budgeting for groceries– all of these are great ways to involve your child in something that requires some skills and concepts without it being the only focus. Math facts, by themselves, can be tedious and tiresome for a lot of kids (especially for those who have been told they are “behind”).
  4. One of my students can count by 7s because he is a huge football fan. Ask him how many points have been scored with 6 touchdowns… he knows the answer. And he is SIX. Football matters to him, so groups of 7s and 3s are meaningful to him, too. What matters to your child? Build on that.
  5. Puzzles and patterns are fabulous ways to help kids make sense of numbers. If your child loves patterns, but hates “math,” there is a disconnect here. Find puzzles that your child might enjoy and do them together. Be patient, and don’t feed answers.
  6. Do a little research on Concrete-Representational-Abstract instruction (CRA). This has been my underlying philosophy of how I help kids learn concepts in math (and music, for that matter), and I’ve seen kids’ understanding improve significantly. This method connects the HOW with the WHY.
  7. If you’re teaching math, where is your emphasis? I know many of you have pacing guides, material/textbooks to cover, and even scripts you are required to follow… but are you helping your students understand? If yes, please add some of your resources or suggestions in the comments. (Thanks!)

 

I’m fortunate to teach at a school** where we MAKE time for kids to explore and have those epiphany moments, whether it’s in their mathematic abilities, reading, asking questions, creating, building, or discovering their passions. (It’s a pretty awesome place to be a kid AND an adult who gets to witness it all.)

Above all else, I want to do what’s right for each of the children in my care every day. There’s a reason “Drill and Kill” became a thing in describing math practice activities. I don’t have any place for that when I want to help children understand.

(+10,000 points to you if you read all the way to the end. TL:DR is not in my vocabulary.)

 

*”math tutoring business” in this sense refers to corporate and for-profit businesses, not individuals.

**Shameless plug: if you want to witness in person what we do in our school, please join us at 5sigmaeducon.com next month!

I’m Bad At…

When I first started teaching over 20 years ago, I remember asking little kids questions like, “Who is a great singer?” Every single one of them raised their hands. For every grade level “older” I asked the same question, fewer and fewer kids raised their hands. The same pattern emerged if I asked them if they were good artists, good basketball players, good dancers, etc.

As we get older, we start to compare ourselves more with the people around us, and that’s a very human thing to do. Eventually, we start understanding what it means to be a good _______, because we have more experience from which to make those comparisons.

Sadly, the trend I’m seeing in the last decade or so is that I see fewer hands raised when I ask those questions of little kids now. When I returned to the elementary music classroom in 2009, I actually had kindergarten students tell me they were bad singers. WHAT!? How does a 5 year old kid think he’s a bad singer?

When I started at Anastasis in 2011, I remember an 8 year old who told me she couldn’t draw at all. When I asked her if there was something wrong with her hand that made it impossible to draw, she laughed a little but then remarked that she just wasn’t good at drawing. We talked about how we’re all still learning and that practice is important, but underneath it all, I wanted to cry listening to this child’s defeatist attitude at 8 years old.

Where is this coming from?

While I’d like to blame Malcolm Gladwell and his pseudoscientific (and factually incorrect) 10,000 hours claim, I can’t. It’s not Gladwell.

It’s all of us.

I stopped to think about the number of times I’ve apologized to my students or my own children before doing something that I wasn’t really great at doing. There are too many examples.

cc licensed photo by anna gutermuth

cc licensed photo by anna gutermuth*

Whenever I’ve gone up to the chalkboard or whiteboard to draw a diagram or an image, I have apologized to my class before: “Sorry, I’m not a great artist, so this won’t be that good.”

I’ve just set them and myself up for judgment about what is good, and I’ve also given them an example of an adult who is so insecure about drawing that she has to apologize before she even starts.

Additionally, I’ve put a poor value on something that might be better than what my students might have drawn. If I say “this is bad,” then what does that mean to a kid who might not have drawn as well as I did?

“Wow, Mrs. B must think my drawings are REALLY bad then.”

I’ve stopped doing that.

And now I think about all the images and statements we unknowingly pass along to kids:

  • I’m bad at math.
  • Ugh. I hate my body. I’m going on a diet!
  • Karaoke? No way! I can’t carry a tune in a box!
  • I wish I could play tennis as well as Serena Williams, but I can’t… so I don’t even try.

I’m sure there are many more we could add to this list.

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect about certain things in the last week, and I’ve come to some very sad conclusions:

  1. My fear prevents me from doing things that I would probably really enjoy.
  2. If I’m not good at something, I don’t do it.

I love to sing and I was a voice major. I love singing karaoke with my friends, because it’s fun… not because I want to show off. However, it’s also a comfort zone. I’m not afraid to get on a stage and sing, because I’ve been doing that almost my entire life.

It really bothers me when I hear people say that they can’t sing. Of course they CAN, they just don’t think they’re any good at it. So, I encourage them… karaoke isn’t about who is the best singer; it’s about having a good time and enjoying yourself.**

I’m such a hypocrite.

My husband wants us to play tennis. I really, really suck at tennis. REALLY. So, I’ve been balking at the idea. When I finally told him that I’m afraid to play because I don’t know how, he just said, “So what. Let’s just go have fun.”

Permission to not be an expert and to just have fun. 

That’s incredibly freeing.

Hmmm… giving kids permission to try, not be perfect, and just have fun with it. I SAY that to kids all the time.

But I don’t DO it.

We all need to be better models for our kids, and DOING is more important then SAYING. We know that.

Time to walk the talk.

Time to stop saying, “I’m bad at...” and start saying, “I can’t wait to try (or practice)… and just have fun!

This doesn’t mean we should take away anything from people who are truly gifted in specific areas or erase competition from everything. Competition has its place, although I’ve written about its overemphasis, too. There is a need for expertise and talent to be recognized. However, there’s also a need for encouragement to SIMPLY TRY, and then practice to improve if it’s something you’re interested in improving.

ACTION:

  1. What things have YOU said, “I’m bad at…” to other people or kids?
  2. What steps can you take to eliminate that negative self-talk, whether you’ve been saying it aloud or just in your head?
  3. What would you like to try, but your fear has been holding you back from doing so?
  4. What can you do to start trying?
  5. How will you change your approach with children?

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.

 

*photo credit: CC licensed photo by anna gutermuth, “124/365

**While I know karaoke might be a bad example (lots of “not great” singers get up to sing, usually after some form of liquid courage), singing is a great example. Singing is very personal, and I notice that, in the US especially, very few people in the crowd ever sing the national anthem at sporting events anymore. There’s always some professional at the microphone, and everyone else just listens. In Canada, I’ve noticed more people tend to sing along with their anthem. When I went to a Denver vs Australian Army rugby game a few summers ago, the Australians in the crowd were singing along, quite vigorously, with their anthem. So, is this just an American thing? Are we more insecure in the things we’re not great at than other nationalities? Maybe the Star-Spangled Banner is a bad example, because it truly is one of the most difficult songs to sing, but I still think there’s something about insecurity here that prevents people from singing.