Some Possibly Uncomfortable Truths About Cooperative Learning

Last week, I conferred with a new teacher who was struggling to manage the behavior of her class of fourth graders.  For a variety of reasons, these children have not yet developed the ability to self-regulate, so, when released from direct instruction, their immediate impulse is to flee from the assigned task to anything else.  This impulse was aided by the fact that the teacher had placed their desks in clusters of five.

When I suggested that cooperative groups might not be the most productive arrangement for her students, she looked shocked—for about a second—then audibly exhaled and said, “Thank you!”

For some time now, teachers have been served a pretty steady diet of cooperative learning Kool-aid, and I feel it necessary to clear up some misconceptions.  Lest anyone think I’m simply a curmudgeon with a fetish for desks in rows, let the record state that, for five years, I served as a trainer in Kagan-style cooperative learning for my school district.  I believe in the value of effective cooperative grouping.  The operative word being “effective.”

Truth #1: Sitting together does not necessarily lead to working together.   In my observations, the most common scenario I witness is the teacher’s request that students “work together to finish this problem/ worksheet/ paragraph/ etc.  In most classrooms, what happens next is that a high-achieving, grades-oriented student in each group takes over the task.  I was this child (I am this adult).  This student will not risk allowing others to contribute, and those others are more than happy to surrender to the grade-grubber’s superior will.  In the absence of a high-achieving, grades-oriented group member, students will engage in a dizzying number of stall tactics that may include but are not limited to sharpening pencils, flipping pages randomly and/or accidentally dropping the book several times, asking to go the bathroom, requesting clarification of the task (this after 10 or 15 minutes have elapsed), and conversing on topics of greater personal relevance, interest, and facility.

Truth #2: Just because students are engaged does not mean they are learning.  That said, it is important to recognize that when students are not engaged, they’re definitely not learning.  However, teachers must consider whether and how collaboration contributes to learning goals.  Often the answer is “not at all.”  Students may enjoy the opportunity to talk to each other while working, but unless this talk is focused on building content knowledge or skill it is not helping them academically.  Yes, yes! Some students need to build social skills, but simply placing four kids in a group will not make that happen any more than placing four cats in a bag will.  My experience is that the students who most need help with social skills either shut down or become hostile when forced to work together.  Most groups—whether children or adults—require a protocol of some kind to enable them to distribute responsibilities equally.

Truth #3: The “real world” analogy we keep using to justify group projects is completely specious.  My significant other is the director of a team of software engineers. 

•  His team is made up of individuals hired specifically for their skill in writing code. 
• The team knows he is in charge.  He has more experience and holds institutional authority over them.  As their director, he can request status reports to keep track of how the work is progressing, reprimand any team member whose work is lackluster, and recommend the firing of team members who consistently fail to perform. 
•  Tasks are assigned to take advantage of team members’ strengths.  If they want to shore up their weaknesses, they do so on their own time.
•  In the end, the only thing that matters is that the product is completed on time and according to client specifications.   

Contrast those givens with the typical school project group.

·         Because the material is new, by definition, no one is an expert. 

·         Likewise, no one in in charge.  Even groups that are assigned a team captain succumb to the realities of adolescent social dynamics.

·         The goal of school activities is to help students get better at what they do not already know how to do.  If the activities tap only students’ strengths, they will not lead to learning. 

·         The learning process should be more important than the product. 

Now, I realize it is a poor leader who tears ideas down without providing alternatives.  But it's Friday, and I'm tired.  I’ll get to that in my next post.

Remember to breathe in and out (repeat as necessary),

Dr. Deb  

You are the Grown-up

During a recent classroom observation, I experience particular annoyance with a group of students who seemed ostentatiously inattentive during instruction.  At very long last, the teacher gently requested that they stop talking while she was talking.  Unsurprisingly, the request was not honored.

In our post-observation conference, I asked her, “Did you notice they were talking before you said anything to them?” 

“A little bit.”

“Why didn’t you say something the first time?”

“I don’t want to be mean!”

I asked her, “If you were a parent, and your three-year old wanted to switch to an all-candy diet, would it be mean to refuse?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not good for them.”

“Right.  And it’s not good for your kids if they don’t listen while you teach.”

She thought about it, nodded, and then admitted, “I guess I’m just afraid of what they might do if I try to make them behave.”

In an attempt to establish some common ground, I shared with her that in the early years of my teaching career, I was often intimidated by the more confident students.  They triggered a lot of old anxieties from my own high school career.  I confessed to Kiley, “I wasn’t very popular in high school.”

“I was bullied in high school.”

And there it was, the source of the problem.  Kiley was regressing in her own classroom, turning back into the shy, frightened 14-year old who was taunted by her classmates. 

Many of us go into the profession without realizing how much adolescent baggage we carry with us.  And if we don’t make ourselves aware of how our past impinges on our present, we can buy ourselves all manner of trouble.   

For myself, teaching was a way to rewrite my teenage experience and cast myself as one of the popular kids.  The high-water mark of my career had to be the day I walked past a few members of the men’s chorus, and they spontaneously broke into a four-part harmony rendition of Oh, Teitelbaum!  If forced to choose, I suppose I’d rather be respected than liked, but I liked being liked.  And that led me to make choices that were very much not in my students’ best interests.

When working with beginning teachers, I counsel that most behavioral problems stem from a single issue: the students' lack of respect for them.  “You are the grown-up now!” I explain.  “Even if you don’t feel like a grown-up—especially if you don’t feel like a grown-up—you need to fake it until you do.  Put your hair in a bun, slip on a pair of high heels, and stand in front of the mirror saying ‘I am the grown-up.  I am the grown-up.  This is what I look like when I say, “I am the grown-up,!”’” Of course, it is difficult to be a successful grown-up if you’re still fighting adolescent wars. 

The first step in any recovery program is to acknowledge you have a problem.  To do that, you have to become aware of the problem. I think it would be good practice for every young middle and high school teacher to write their autobiographies, giving particular attention to those aspects of their educational experiences that were not pleasant, not successful.  In this way, we can begin to identify hot buttons and subjectivities that might otherwise remain shadowed, subverting our best efforts to make school better for those we teach than it was for us.

Remember to breathe in and out, (repeat as necessary)--

Dr. Deb

For K-12 Educators Thinking About Gettting a Doctorate . . .

Recently, a number of my friends and colleagues have either mentioned their intention to pursue a terminal degree or have asked my opinion about such pursuits.  It seemed appropriate and useful to take a moment to offer my, albeit limited, perspective on the issue.  I made several mistakes and would like to do what I can to save you from the more heinous of them.

#1: Determine if the degree is necessary for what you want to do
I thought I wanted to be a faculty member in a teacher preparation program, and every posting for these positions  required an "earned doctorate."  What I didn't realize is that being a college faculty member is not necessarily the same as being a teacher of teachers.  Academia lives largely in the world of theory, and my interests were specific: this teacher with this student at this time.  What I really wanted to be was an instructional coach.  I might have been able to pursue that career path without the degree.

#2: Know the difference between a PhD and an EdD
Speaking very generally, an EdD is a practitioner degree.  It deals largely with issues of local, state, or national educational practice, administration, or policy.  Those who pursue such degrees are often teachers or administrators who are seeking promotion to a principalship or a superintendency.  EdD programs tend to be more user-friendly in terms of scheduling--a lot of night and weekend classes--because they realize their constituents have challenging, full-time jobs.  A PhD is a research degree.  By the completion of a PhD, the recipient is expected to be an expert in some small facet of education.  The PhD is generally a more theoretical researcher.  The "best" research is that which can generate a theory which applies to multiple cases in multple contexts.  In academic circles, some PhDs turn their noses up at those who hold EdDs, although this attitude may be tempered by the prestige of institution that issued it.  The general public doesn't know the difference, and either degree entitles you to be addressed as Dr., which, let's face it, is all many of us really care about.

#3: Realize that, whichever degree you choose, you will have to read A LOT
I have included this in deference to my friend Elizabeth Nogan Ranieri.  The majority of your expertise will not be gained through coursework but through the dissertation process, and the first part of writing a dissertation is the dreaded literature review.  A thorough literature review requires that you read every piece of research that has been conducted in your area of interest, minimally, over the last ten years.  Depending on the topic, you may also have to got back a hundred year to read "foundational" literature.  This can be a long and tedious process, but it is essential.  What you're trying to do is 1) become an expert and 2) uncover the gap(s) in the research that your dissertation will, in some small way, fill.  This process may take years.  I'm not speaking hyperbolically; that is how much reading you have to do.  And almost none of it is particularly interesting. 

This is a picture of my dog, Daisy, who had the same response to Alan Glatthorn's book that I did.  Coffee will not help.  You will have to begin jabbing yourself in the thigh with the business end of a pen to stay awake during much of this reading. 

#4: Choose your school wisely.

If you only want the degree to be in compliance for a job for which you are already qualified, you can select the least expensive, least intrusive option.  There are lots of online EdD programs.  If, however, you are looking to take away from this experience more than a diploma, you need to do a little advance work.  Picking the right program is less about choosing a school than choosing a mentor.  Find out who the experts are in your field of interest.  You do this by reading many books and articles. Eventually, a few authors will emerge who appear to share your world view.  Now find out where those people are employed.  Hopefully, they're faculty members at accredited universities.  Now write to those people and ask them how interested they might be in mentoring you. It's quite possible the answer is "not at all."  That was Howard Gardner's response to me in a nutshell.  Better to find that out before you matriculate.  It's also possible that they're such rock stars that they're never actually at the university.  Again, better to find out before you go.  Spend six months to a year doing this research.  You'll thank me later.

 

#5: Talk to other graduate students

Let's say you've narrowed your choices down to Universities A, B, and C.  Visit each.  Ask if you can meet with your would-be mentor's team of graduate assistants.  If your mentor cannot make this happen, that's a red flag.  If your mentor is only willing to let this happen in his or her presence, that is also a red flag.  If you can get a students-only meeting, ask some hard questions about how your future colleagues are treated by their mentor. 

• Does s/he encourage youto publish without him or her?
• Does s/he insist on having first authorship on every publication?
• Does s/he invite you to co-present at conferences?
• Does s/he introduce you to people who might be able to offer you a job in the future?
• Does s/he make unreasonable demands on your time, like calling meetings on Sunday mornings that last for six hours?

If you notice long pauses before anyone answers, that's a red flag.  Although the stories can be exaggerated, it is not unheard of for university faculty to treat their research assistants like chattel.

#6: Be prepared to leave
Unlike undergrad, success in a doctoral program requires more than maintaining your grades.  You also have to fit in with the priorities and expectations of the people to whom you report.  You can have a 3.98 GPA and still be asked to leave the program.  Alternatively, you may decide to flee the program.  If you've done your research, this is less likely to happen, but, as Robbie Burns noted, even the best laid plans "gang aft agley." Rent, don't buy.

As I mentioned at the outset, this is based solely on my experiences.  I welcome additional and alternative views.  And, for what it's worth, although getting it was a fairly miserable experience, I am very happy to have the degree.

XOX,
Deb, The Know-it-All

More Homework Meme

Paul Cancellieri, my new colleague, co-presenter, and the dude who occasionally occupies the office next to mine, tagged me in the latest meme to strike the blogosphere: #MoreHomework. I appreciate the chance to share more about me, and perhaps enhance my connections. Now, I have to do three things:

First, I need to share 11 random facts about me that you probably don’t already know. Here goes:

1. I have never been outside of North America.  This is a source of tremendous embarrassment to me.
2. I get lost a lot, whether walking or driving.  My sense of direction is so bad that I once accidentally ended up in Tennessee and another time missed the entire state of Virginia.  This explains to some extent my reticence to travel overseas.  Bad enough being lost in a place where you do speak the language.
3. I am extremely domestic.  I take immense pleasure in cooking, cleaning, and folding laundry.  My linen closet is a thing of beauty. 
4. My not-so-secret desire is to be a chanteuse like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys---including singing "Makin' Whoopie" in a red dress on top of a grand piano.  Karaoke is an acceptable although imperfect substitute.
5. I love animals.  When I was about five, I dragged a stray dog into the house by the collar and claimed, "See what followed me home, Mommy?  Can we keep him?"  Mom was not convinced, and the dog was released.  As a substitute, I adopted an ant.  It disappeared from my hand somewhere in the grocery store.  I now have two dogs and two cats and have to avoid all adoption events because I will take them all home.
6. There are a few things that always make me cry: audio of Dr. King delivering the "I Have a Dream" speech, the final chapter of Of Mice & Men, the ending of It's a Wonderful Life, and Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. 
7. I appear incapable of sustaining a long-term romantic relationship.  Opinions vary as to the reason for this.  My well-meaning friends claim that I intimidate men.  My religious friends say it's all part of a plan.  My dark side says I'm inherently unlovable. 
8. I considered going into stand-up comedy until I saw Christopher Titus in concert.  He was absolutely brilliant, and I decided that if I couldn't be that good (and I couldn't) I would not bother.
9. I am a workaholic and a perfectionist.  I don't like presenting anything to the public unless I think it represents the gold standard of whatever genre to which it belongs.
10. I love unusual words.  This explains in part my devotion to David Foster Wallace.
11. I am to regional accents what tofu is to spices.  I pick up the verbal idiosyncracies of wherever I happen to live.  For ha-has, sometimes I'll put on a foreign accent for the evening.  I once convinced a guy in a bar that my name was Simone, and I was an exchange student from Paris.

Next, I am expected to answer 11 probing questions posed by Paul.

1. If you could teach anywhere in the world (other than your current location), where would it be? Well, I don't want to teach overseas (see items #1 and 2 above).  I'd probably opt for a hard-core inner city district like Baltimore or DC.
2. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, or Green Lantern? Why? I reject the options and choose Wonder Woman.  She demonstrates that beautiful, sexy women can also be powerful.  Plus, there is nothing about her uniform that I don't like.
3. What is your favorite comedy movie of all time?  Tootsie.  Dustin Hoffman was utterly brilliant in both roles.
4. Would you rather have the super power of invisibility or flying?  Definitely flying.  If I were invisible, I'd be concerned that I'd accidentally overhear an unflattering comment about me that the speaker would have the good manners to say only behind my back if I were visible.
5. If you could drink milkshakes with any person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be?  I would have pretzel-salted caramel milkshakes with Dorothy Parker.
6. Favorite dipping sauce?  Depends on what is being dipped, but if I have to limit myself I'll go with a pesto mayonnaise.
7. What one quality is your greatest asset?  It's either my sense of humor or my honesty, although both have gotten me into trouble inadvertently.
8. Put in order of most awesome to least: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, The Lone Ranger, Walker Texas Ranger, Galaxy Rangers, Army Rangers.  I've never heard of Galaxy Rangers.  Army Rangers, Lone Ranger, Might Morphin Power Rangers, and Walker Texas Ranger.  Walker would be rated higher if he had been played by someone other than Chuck Norris.  I simply can't stand that guy.
9. What is the best way to reduce the number of school shootings in the United States?  I suggest something similar to what Everett Koop did to discourage smoking.  He didn't attempt legislation; he made it socially unacceptable to be a smoker.  As a county, we need to figure out how to make violence less sexy.  For a start, the news media could stop covering these shooting with such obscene joy.  School remains one of the safest places for children , but you can't get new viewers by telling them that their kids are more likely to die because of their bad driving than in a school shooting. 
10. What mobile app do you use the most often?  My name is Deb, and I am addicted to Candy Crush.
11. On a scale of 1 to 10, how dope do you dance The Robot?  What is this--1978? 

Now, I come up with 11 questions for others to answer.

1. What is the worst piece of advice you ever received?
2. What weekly household chore or errand would you pay someone else $100 to do?
3. If you ran in circles where it was not only accceptable but expected to give your child a ridiculous name, what would you name your child?
4. New York or Chicago style pizza?
5. Describe a turning point in your life.
6. What is the least  erotic behavior that your significant other could engage in that you would consider "cheating"?
7. What major life goal do you anticipate accomplishing in the next five years?
8. On a scale of 1-10, how important is it to celebrate New Year's Eve?
9. If you could change one of your physical features, what would it be?
10. What do you wish people asked you more often?
11. Make up a new way to acknowledge that someone has sneezed (Note to Seinfeld fans: "You are soooo good-lookin'" is already taken.")

Here are the 11 bloggers I nominate to continue the More Homework meme.

1. Camron Jalayerian (@iamcamronj)
2. Denise Kiernan (@denisekiernan)
3. Rebecca Gholson (@rsgholson)
4. Matt Duffy (@mattjduffy)
5. Mike Else (@professorkliq)
6. Elizabeth Beck Wiggs (@e_wiggy)
7. Nick Davis (@sandiegonick8)
8. Ted Lyde (@tedlyde)
9. Jeanette Rogas (@runnindwnadream)
10. Toby Gray
11. Chrissy Wojdyla (@chrissawoj)

Here’s how it works:

1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
4. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer.
5. List 11 bloggers, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you.
6. Post back here with a link after you write this. Go on, you have homework to do.

The Common Core is NOT the problem

I was thumbing through a professional journal whose title shall go unnamed.  I became annoyed, although not particularly surprised, that the author had led with the assertion that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Language Arts were a constriction on the expansive and creative teaching of literature and composition.  Not only was this assertion made, but it was undergirded with an assumption that anyone reading this article must agree.

Let me say for the record, here and now, that not only do I not agree, I disagree in the extreme.  The CCSS are not responsible for the absence of creativity or rigor or divergent thought or mastery or any other quality one might find in a high quality classroom.  The CCSS are standards--not techniques. 

Let's use a fairly one-to-one analogy--building standards.  In North Carolina, Chapter 15 of the building code, which deals solely with roofing, is fifteen pages long.  It requires, among other things, that whatever you use to fasten the shingles to your roof has to extend at least 3/4" into the shingle.  This is not unreasonable.  In a high wind, loose shingles are a danger to the structural integrity of your home and the bodily safety of anyone wandering by. 

That's just Chapter 15.  There are no fewer than fourteen other chapters covering everything from sheet rock to plumbing to electrical systems.

Now, I'm going out on a limb and assume that most of you live indoors.  Your home, be it ever so humble, probably conforms to these standards or something similar in a different state.  I will further assume that few of you would credit or blame your home's aesthetic value on the building standards. You probably have some choice words for that contractor, though.

Frankl Lloyd Wright, Mies Van de Rohe, Louis B. Sullivan--these men didn't revolutionize architecture by ignoring builidng codes. And good teachers should not find themselves hamstrung by learning standards that represent the minimum expectations for our children.

The standards are not the problem.  The rampant ignorance of what the standards are--particularly by those leading their implementation--is a huge problem.  I'm reminded of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, who asserted that there are no problem breeds, only problem owners.

The biggest problem that I have witnessed is a failure on the part of superintendents, curriculum directors, department chairs, and principals to READ the documents.  I would be willing to bet my car--it's a 2011 Rav 4--that fewer than half of these people nationwide have read the entire document, including the appendixes, and fewer still have taken the time to understand the instructional implications of it.

I will go a step further and wager that implementation of the standards in most districts involved pulling up the old curriculum document, locating the CCSS that most closely resembled each standard listed in the old document, and doing a series of copies and pastes. 

If that is in fact what has happened in most school districts, it should come as a surprise to no one that the process is not working.  Note, please, that I didn't say, "The standards aren't working."  Standards simply are.  It is up to us to reach or exceed them, to use them to our benefit.  They don't do anything.

I've been ranting rather generally for a while.  Let's get into some specifics--say, writing. 

FYI, I'm not ignoring the math standards; I just want to get a running start into them.

In the fourth grade, students should be able to "write opinion pieces . . . supporting a point of view with reasons and information," "convey ideas and information clearly," and "write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences." 

Persuasive, expository, and narrative writing.  Does anyone object so far? 

Here's where the problem comes in.  To write an effective persuasive piece, for example, requires that students must learn the differerence between a reason and a piece of evidence.  The standards further require that they connect the ideas within their writing with transitional words and phrases.  Most difficult, students must be exposed to ideas and topics about which they are encouraged to develop, express, and support opinions.  This takes time.  In fact, it takes the entire school year to gradually layer in that instruction and allow studentstime to practice and develop mastery.

What has unfortunately happened in too many schools is that each type of writing has been shunted into a single marking period.  And in more than a few schools, all writing instruction is limited to language arts instructional time. This very new wine has been stuffed into dusty, old bottles.

This will not work, nor was it the intent of the consortium that developed the CCSS.  The whole point of this endeavor was to have a common set of expectations.  Local accents notwithstanding, are the skills needed to read and write effectively markedly different in North Carolina and Michigan?  If a child moves from Lansing to Raleigh, should she have to repeat or skip a grade because the states' standards are so disparate?

I urge every teacher, parent, and interested citizen to read the standards for themselves.  Read the appendixes and the introductions, too.  That's where the intent behind the standards is found--and it's remarkably jargon-free. 

Having informed yourself of what is in these documents,  ask your child's principal how teachers have been supported in implementing the standards.  Go to a school board meeting and ask the members and the Superintendent what they think about text complexity or performance assessments.  If you hear crickets, you'll know where to direct your anger.

XOX,
The Know-it-All

My Continuing Beef with the Academy

I'm sick of people misunderstanding what a scientist is, what a scientist does. . . . It isn't looking for a better cigarette filter or a softer face tissue or a longer-lasting house paint, God help us.  . . . When most other companies brag about their research, they're talking about industrial hack technicians who wear white coats, work out of cookbooks, and dream up an improved windshield wiper for next year's Oldsmobile. . . .Here, and shockingly few other places in this country, men are paid to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that.

Dr. Asa Breed, Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Okay, I realize this is my second Vonnegut reference in as many posts, and this is in no way intentional.  Serendipity is a driving force in my life, which may account for the fact that I earn approximately $20,000 less now than I did ten years ago, but, as usual, I digress.

I had another run-in with a member of The Academy last week that further cemented my opinion of it.  I'd like to state for the record that there are exceptions:  Dr. Eric Houck of the University of North Carolina, Dr. Tricia Reeves of the University of Georgia, Dr. Jude Preissle (retired).  Clearly, this list is not exhaustive, but, in my experience, it's also not very long. 

A professor's primary function is not teaching.  I cannot stress this enough.  At most universities that you've heard of, the faculty work load is typically 50% research, 25% service, 25% teaching.  In fact, the big joke in academia is that if you receive a teaching award, you might as well kiss you chance of getting promoted good-bye.  [Ha-ha.]

Professors are experts in a particular field.  Their job is to identify holes in the body of knowledge of which they are experts and then perform original research in an effort to plug the holes.  Over time, this web of information should yield changes in practice and perhaps in how the general public understands the universe (or some small part of it).  Theoretical physics is a great example of this process in action.  In the 1920s, the average Joe might have yawned and asked, "Okay, E=MC2.  So the #@(* what?"  Several decades later, we landed a man on the mood using that information.

Teachers are not experts, per se.  They have expertise.  This is a subtle but crucial distinction.  I taught high school English.  An English professor might know everything there is to know about Mark Twain and his body of work.  I knew more about Twain than the most people, but I was not an expert.  I couldn't afford to be since I also had to know more than most people about the life and work of Toni Morrison, Shakespeare, Esmeralda Santiago, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Upton Sinclair and a host of others.

My primary role was not to "profess" my expertise.  It was to use my expertise in both the subject matter and the science of teaching (called pedagogy) to lessen the likelihood that my students would say, "So Toni Morrison's Beloved is post-modernist.  So the #@(* what?"

The bumper sticker wisdom in teaching circles is that your students won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.  Teachers, as opposed to professors, have to take into consideration such thins as

• Mike doesn't have his homework because he put his backpack in the car last night so he wouldn't forget it, but then his father got drunk, cursed out the entire family, left in the car, and hasn't been heard from since;
• Paula has been absent eight times this quarter because she was forced to take out a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend--who also attends the school--and has been either in court or avoiding the ex's friends who have begun harassing her;
• Adam doesn't write very well, but he built a working grandfather clock in his industrial technology class.

You get the idea. 

I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory (full text of said episode available at the preceding link) in which Sheldon receives horrible reviews for his teaching.  Wounded by their comments, including one girl who wrote, "Dr. Cooper has made me want to start cutting myself again," he seeks advice from his girlfriend, Amy.

Amy: Have you considered improving your socialization skills, thus allowing you to communicate more effectively with other people?

Sheldon: Isn’t that their burden? I’m the one with something interesting to say.

While much of TBBT's portrayal of academia is pure fiction, this interchange is kind of right on the money. 

Which brings me to my current beef .

The facility for which I work is offering a professional development seminar in a subject area in which none of our full-time faculty have expertise.  We therefore contracted with a scholar who has both research chops and K-12 teaching experience.  In looking over the proposed schedule, I became concerned because I saw a lot of activities that appeared to assume fairly high ability levels in the children, whereas I was anticipating that the teachers attending would be in need of remediation techniques for students with low ability levels.  Because the schedule was written in bullet points, I realized there might be material there that I just didn't know about.  So I called the scholar and asked for clarification.

Any man who has ever said to his wife, "Hey, honey, you want to take a walk?" and had his head bitten off with, "Why?! Do you think I'm fat?! I need more exercise?!" will recognize what happened next.

Unbeknownst to me, Madame Scholar took extreme umbrage with me.  Apparently, she felt I was questioning her credentials.  I'd like it noted that she did not share this with me directly; I only found out after another faculty member had to do damage control when Madame Scholar threatened to renege on her agreement to teach the seminar. 

I am not a diplomatic person.  However, I'm rarely intentionally cruel or disrespectful--at least not to someone's face--and I'm quick to admit it and apologize when I've behaved like a jerk.  I plead complete innocence on this one.  The upshot, unfortunately, is that I've been removed from any further responsiblities regarding this seminar, including sitting in on it to increase my own knowledge. 

When I was at UGA,one of my professors--a fully tenured professor, I might add--had us read several of his articles. Part of the final project was a critique of the literature, so, assuming he meant ALL the literature, I pointed out that his work ignored the implementation difficulties that are inherent in transferring research to the classroom. He was not grateful.

Scholars like to consider themselves part of a conversation in which they make their work available to other scholars who read and respond critically to it.  My experience has been that many of them are interested only in the give, not the take.  They are defensive of their work, almost to the point of childishness. 

I look forward to finding out how Madame Scholar responds if the teachers in this seminar dare to ask her questions similar to those I raised.

XOX,
The Know-it-All












It's not JUST your opinion

I thought I'd take a break from education policy for a moment to address what is fast becoming my least favorite expression: "Well, it's just my opinion."

This is the desperate response of someone who has no response.  

"Obamacare is unconstitutional!  You can't force people to buy insurance."

"Um, you have to buy car insurance if you own a car."

"Well, Obamacare sucks.  That's just my opinion."

Don't get me wrong; liberals do this, too.  

"The Patriot Act is a violation of the 4th Amendment!"

"Isn't gun control a violation of the 2nd Amendment?"

"That's different."

"How?"

"Well, that's just my opinion."

What both these desperate individuals really mean by "it's just my opinion" is "I don't want to lose this argument, but I have no intelligent response to what you've just said.  On the other hand, opinions are subjective.  If I claim that mine is an opinion, you can't disagree with it.  Ha-HA!"

As you well know, opinions are like . . . well, Kurt Vonnegut offered this lovely sketch of what opinions are like.  And everyone has one.

What separates valuable opinions from merely talking out of your ass is the ability to support them with facts.  If you have no facts, your opinion is worth no more than anything else that comes out of that part of your body.  If you do have facts, then it is no longer JUST your opinion.

Let us agree to a moratorium on this expression.  If you've taken the time to educate yourself, to have logical and actual reasons for holding this opinion, we'd love to hear it.  

If all you have is an opinion, keep it to yourself.  

XOX,
The Know-it-All