DaveShearon

Quality in Schools

Measuring and Managing Customer Satisfaction, by Sheila Kessler (ASQ Quality Press, 1996) p. 70 states that a Gallup survey of 352 elementary and secondary school principals stated that their school had a "formal program" on quality.  Huh??  What could they possibly have been talking about?  Here are just a few questions that would have to be answered for such a statement to make sense:

• Quality of what?  What's your product?  Daily attendance?  Lessons?  Test scores?
• Who's the customer?  Who does a school's leadership really try to please and engage?  Students?  Parents?  Central office administrators?  The community?
• How are you measuring the quality of whatever is your product in the eyes of whoever is your customer?

Gallup's a great organization.  But, frankly, I can't imagine that this survey actually captured anything meaningful at all!

Competition, teamwork, and individual strengths

Comments are pouring in to a post at Joanne Jacobs about an administrator who set out to reduce (eliminate?) competition in her district.  I'm going to skip the I'll-tell-you-how-to-teach nonsense that permeates education leadership and comment on competition, teamwork, and individual strengths.  First a current post from the business world:

Letter from Mindjet CEO, Bob Gordon Project teams, planning teams, sales teams, exec teams. When was the last time you did a project all by yourself? In business, I would say it's rare. I think for me it was my 7th grade science project. We weren't allowed to share back then. It was called cheating. Now, sharing is a key component of daily work. From departments to boardrooms, we are finally recognizing that teams working together on a project usually arrive at better results than individuals. Yes, we compete.  But, as this letter suggests, it's usually in teams.  (Not always, but even in individual sports, there's a team behind the competitor, whether it's just Mom and Dad at the lowest levels, or the entourage that travels with a top tennis or golf competitor.)  In business, it's virtually always teams.  Why?  Because, as noted above, individuals just can't produce enough -- both because of time and because no one has ALL the strengths needed -- to compete in "the real world." Second, can anyone seriously think that competitions are the best way to get kids to learn any specific knowledge or skill, much less to discover and develop those personal strengths that will let them contribute in the future?  Think about it for a moment.  The teacher announces a competition based on _________ and what happens?  Two or three, may be even four kids who have the ability to "WIN" gear up to "go for it."  But, they also face a sense of pressure that lessens the chance they might learn something unexpected.  And, they face a definite "turn off" after the competition to the subject matter involved.  The rest of the kids, including some that might have had the ability, decide to put in a lesser effort than they might have otherwise since they have no intention of trying to "WIN" and don't want to be seen as having tried and failed.  The higher the stakes, the more severe these consequences. Finally, the artificiality of most competitions -- narrow rules forcing the competition onto equally narrow fields of performance -- is very different from "real life."  Take the competition most folks are thinking positively about when they praise competition -- the free market.  Yes, there is competition for my money by potential vendors.  But, it is not on narrowly circumscribed terms.  Each individual, team, or company is free to come up with wonderfully differentiated offerings to attract my money.  And, since buyers differ in what they value and the ways in which they value it, what "wins" with me may not even be in the running for you.  See the difference to the artificial competition in schools?

Now, I'm not against narrowly-circumscribed competitions such as sports.  I've loved watching my older son play baseball.  We're enjoying the Tour de France on OLN.  But, all such competitions ultimately become mental games.  Can I perform to my capacity without getting in my own way?  Can I call forth from myself something more than I've ever done before?  And, these questions can only be answered in the arena of top-level competition for those athletes who have world-class capabilities.  Is there an equivalent in academics?  Yes -- academia.  The pursuit of contribution and recognition at the highest levels of intellectual achievement.  But, just as running a high school athletic program with what's best for future pro athletes in mind is a bad idea, so running a high school academic program (much less elementary or middle school) with what's best for the occasional future college professor is likewise a bad idea.  And, even if that were the goal, who's to say that constant, grinding competition is what's best for those kids?  Lots of kids get burned out on sports, and the same can happen with academics.  Get 'em to engage, to read, the think, and to write.  Help them learn to think mathematically.  Try to get them started aquiring the breadth and depth of knowledge that citizens of advanced economies and democracies need.  That's enough.  The rest can come later.

The Dialectizer

The Dialectizer.  How in the world do people come up with things like this?  Here's one of my posts below dialectized (?) in "redneck" -- pretty appropriate don't you know?

Whut in tarnation a town! Fry mah hide!

Jest got through walkin' a painter through our house t'git a bid, cuss it all t' tarnation.  In gittin' t'knows him befo'e we started we foun' out he's a songwriter/perfo'mer.  In Nashville, no suprise.  He said a friend at a songwriter's bootcamp (who knowed?) larned thar is 30,000 songwriters in Nashville.   ah doesn't doubt it a bit.

Also foun' out he's fum a town of 2,900 in Vermont.  An', like so menny, he said Nashville t'him is jest a trimenjus li'l town, as enny fool kin plainly see.

Jest got through walkin' a painter through our house t'git a bid, cuss it all t' tarnation.  In gittin' t'knows him befo'e we started we foun' out he's a songwriter/perfo'mer.  In Nashville, no suprise.  He said a friend at a songwriter's bootcamp (who knowed?) larned thar is 30,000 songwriters in Nashville.   ah doesn't doubt it a bit.

Also foun' out he's fum a town of 2,900 in Vermont.  An', like so menny, he said Nashville t'him is jest a trimenjus li'l town, as enny fool kin plainly see.

Presence

Based on Synchronicity, I've just ordered this book.  I don't know exactly what I'm pursuing here, but I'm going to follow my instinct to read more in this vein.

Talented Guy

There are some incredibly talented folks bloging in the Nashville are, and this guy is one of them.  Be sure to look at the art.

The Carnival is up!

The Carnival of Education is up at The Education Wonks.  I don't know how anyone ever hosts the Carnival, but I'm glad they do!

A little help?

Don't you just hate it when you can't find that blog or article with the interesting fact that you just saw?  That's me right now.  Over the weekend, I was reading posts on aid for Africa, and one pointed to an article about how the answer may be in selling to the poor in those countries.  Micro-markets, was the term, I think.  Anyway, one company mentioned had developed prosthetics for only $25 apiece.  Anyone see anything like this?  Or any links to similar stories?  Thanks.

Blogs

Went looking for posts about farm subsidies, and ended up at

PaveFrance: the British need more parking

and

E-nough!  Croak, if You Dare.

Funny!  Recommended.

Biting Time

Historical novels are great, but, as I have suggested before, I think "alternative history" offers a great way to engage folks.  At least, I enjoy it, especially the science-fiction kind.  And one of my favorites is the "Ring of Fire" books and stories by Eric Flint and other contributors.  The following is from "Biting Time" by Virginia DeMarce in the Ring of Fire collection of short stories.

For background, the first book in this series, 1632, sets the stage for this universe by having a late 1990s town in West Virginia called Grantville moved to 1632 and central Germany in the middle of the 30 Years War.  Also interestingly, Mr. Flint lets not only other professional writers, but also good amateurs (fanfic) create stories that drive future developments in the universe even before the second and third books come out.  Gutsy.  Anyway, I think those readers to come to this blog looking for thoughts about education will like the following excerpts from “Biting Time”.  It follows one storyline (more background as we go along.  Warning, it’s about 2,000 words.  Warning #2, don’t think you’ve got the point of the story until the end.  Here goes:

Attracted by the pictures of cute children, Annalise opted to supply Grandma with Parenting.  "Some things are hard though.  What does it mean to ‘enhance your child's self-esteem‘?"

“In German?  I dunno.  I don't even know exactly what it means in English.”

The outer door slammed.  Julie looked up and shuddered.  "But whatever it is, Maxine Pilcher has done it.  Those kids of hers are the worst brats in town and here they come now.  Two simple checkups, but we'll get tantrums."

Howls of fury echoed throughout the clinic as a thin, harassed-looking woman forcibly dragged a five-year-old and a seven-year-old through the inner door.  Julie added hurriedly, "She's the kindergarten teacher, too, of all things for her to be!"

Historical Novels, Part 2

I posted about Cynthia Claussen's first column in the Wall Street Journal on historical novels last year.  She's back today with a second noting that she got way more mail about that column than any other.  Some complained that not all "facts" in such novels are correct, and others assumed she was either "old" or "young" based on the list she suggested, or "politically correct" or too focused on "depressing atrocities.  And, of course, they weighed in for their own:

• Patrick O'Bryan's English navy series , beginning with  Master and Commander
• the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett
• and real histories, such as Saratoga  by Richard Ketchum; A Year in the South by Stephen Ash, and The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

Then she went on to suggest

• Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
• The New Confessions by William Boyd
• World's End by T.C. Boyle
• The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
• Restoration  by Rose Tremain

One woman noted that her high-school history teacher assigned one historical novel a quarter corresponding to the area they were studying.  "Her forced reading program planted the seeds of my love for history, which has lasted to this day."  A good teacher strikes again!