Heads in the Clouds- Let's Not Get Fooled Again!

Via www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and the miracles of technology, I was privileged to listen to Dr. Yong Zhao speak last evening.

Dr. Zhao, if you’re not familiar, was until recently, University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education at Michigan State University. He has now assumed the Presidential Chair of Global Education and Online Learning at the University of Oregon, where he also will serve as the Associate Dean for Global Education and Online Learning and the Director of Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE ). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education.

Dr. Zhao is a speaker, researcher and author of “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization” (ASCD, 2009). One of his speeches is “What knowledge is of most worth in the age of globalization and digital revolution.” A biography of Dr. Zhao states that he is passionately involved in the U.S. education reform debate and wants to bring his unique global perspective to the conversation. He is strongly opposed to what is being done in the U.S.

An introduction of Dr. Zhao: “At a time when globalization and technology are dramatically altering the world we live in, is education reform in the United States headed down the right path? Are schools emphasizing the knowledge and skills that students need in a global society—or are they actually undermining their strengths by overemphasizing highstakes testing and standardization? Are education systems in China and other countries really as superior as some people claim?

In this presentation, Dr. Yong Zhao addresses these and other questions based on his new book of the same title. Born and raised in China……, Zhao bases many of his observations on extensive research and firsthand experience as a student in China and as a parent of children attending school in the United States. His unique perspective leads him to conclude that “American education is at a crossroads” and “we need to change course” to maintain leadership in a rapidly changing world.”

As we listened to Dr. Zhao speak to our group , one of my insightful colleagues asked the question “Why, do you think, when testing and merit pay and removal of collective bargaining and punishment of teachers is so clearly contra-indicted to improvements in education, are the so-called educational leaders of this country moving in those directions?”

To answer Dr. Zhao related a Chinese concept- “Yinzhenzhike” - “You drink the poison to quench the thirst.”

I understood this to mean that as the educational “leaders” and the politicians are pressured by media forces, the misled voters, the whiny billionaires, and the business people about what they perceive is the state of education and they become anxious to jump on to any solution bandwagon or drink any Kool-aid that sounds good.

They are especially anxious to jump on if the people with the money are driving that bandwagon. That kind of Kool-Aid can look extra yummy you know, especially when cookies (read: lots of money) are served with it. No reason to bother to see if the Kool-Aid or the cookies have any real nutritional value.

And it has to be extra comforting to know that if the Kool-Aid does turn out to be poison, it won’t affect you or your job or your re-election campaign. If it turns out down the line to be toxic, you’ll have no direct line of responsibility and you can say you were only trying to help. And after all, it will only poison children.

Yeah, it’s an insidious insanity. So many are fooled by it.

I’ve got friends on Facebook and in real life who cringe and protest every time I post something pro- teachers union or in support of the House Democrats in Indiana who are staying away to prevent more Kool-Aid from being consumed in our state. They write me off as a radical. They want to know why I spend my time and energy on these issues and not directly (all the time) on the students that I have.

And I can understand them for thinking that way. I used to be quite isolationist in my thinking too. I just wanted to stay in the classroom and do my best and hide from the world.

But you see, the “real” world kept creeping in- in the form of unwise and unresearched mandates and policies- that started getting in the way of my ability to teach and my students' abilities to learn. And also you see, I too, have been fooled by the people holding the Kool-Aid pitchers sometimes. I actually cried in joy the night Obama was elected over the good days in education that were going to come. Only to find out later, that Arne Duncan might as well have been George Bush’s right hand man. So yeah, I drank some Kool-Aid too. I was so very thirsty you know.

Dr. Zhao explained that the “cure” that Obama, Duncan, Gates and others are pushing on us in education is only going to make “us” sicker. He spoke about how we need to start looking at schools as training grounds for entrepreneurs rather than producers of blind followers and accomplished test takers. He indicated that we in education actually need to be instilling confidence, encouraging creativity and risk taking, and strong social skills. He indicated that these were all things that were lacking in the Chinese educational system and that this is why despite the manipulation of facts and data by many, the Chinese are not really producing the most productive and successful mathematicians, scientists and engineers and citizens.

He also spoke about the type of environment you need to create to encourage budding entrepreneurs. He related that a diversity of talents need to be encouraged to develop a melting pot effect and that we need to allow people autonomy.

Hmm. This is not exactly what we encourage when we tell teachers how they must teach and it’s not exactly what we encourage when we bludgeon kids with tests and then use those tests to rank and rate them or their teachers.

While Dr. Zhao was speaking, I kept remembering a man from my very own small rural county that my father wrote about once. His name was C. Carey Cloud. http://www.c-carey-cloud.com/news-articles/reception-for-artist-carey-cloud.htm. He wrote a book called Cloud Nine: The Dreamer and the Realist. Interesting title, huh?

You may not have heard of Mr. Cloud, but I can bet you that you’ve heard of one of his contributions to the world- the Cracker Jack prize. Mr. Cloud was an artist by profession and from poor and humble beginnings he became quite successful. Let me re-print here what my father wrote about him (Keep in mind that when this was written they hadn’t even dreamed up the ISTEP yet, but my father seemed to know it was coming and he does not seem to appreciate it much):

“It may be enlightening to know that Carey Cloud recalls being something of a slow learner in the Jackson Center School of Wells County, where he was supposed to be absorbing the "basics" but wanted to draw all the time.

The fortunate thing, as he now recalls, is that he found teachers who could extract the best from this without kicking him out of school for dragging down any SAT standing. They really encouraged his art, while pushing him along in other subjects sufficiently to graduate.
Math apparently never became Cloud's top subject, nor did he seem to catch on to the computer or calculator age. When this writer bought books from him last summer, he used longhand pencil computation to figure that the 5 percent sales tax on an exact $20 purchase would be $1.”

Mr. Cloud just doesn’t sound like the kind of person who might be successful in today’s educational world, does he? Can you picture it, if his teachers had consumed today’s Kool-Aid? He’d have been discouraged from wasting his time drawing and doodling. He’d have never have passed ISTEP or a Math End of Course Assessment. He and his parents would have been told he was a “loser” and worth pretty much nothing to society. He’d have been lucky just to find employment and stay employed at the local Piano factory until it went out of business. Instead, because no one had drunk the Kool-Aid yet, he became something of an entrepreneur.

Because, while you might not think that Cracker Jack prizes are an important contribution to the world, you maybe ought to think again. How many jobs were created in order to manufacture those toys? How many people were employed because Cracker Jack sales were increased by the simple marketing ploy of including those little trinkets? Mr. Cloud himself was an employed, tax paying citizen rather than a welfare case or a person struggling to keep a minimum wage job.

Personally I’d call that a success in the world and of the world of education. And it’s why when we are all so seemingly thirsty for educational reform we really ought to be thinking before we drink from the Billionaire Boy’s club cups. We should not let ourselves get fooled again.

Please join us at www.saveourschoolsmarch.org this April Fool’s Day and help us try to stop our country from all of this tom-foolery that will destroy so much of the good in PUBLIC education. Dr. Zhao is a strong supporter and I believe that if Mr. Cloud were still alive, he would be as well.