The Green Cup

The Associated Press made news this week by warming up an old (and undated) quote from President Obama:

Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.

The lengthy article quoted Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, saying that we are no longer an agrarian economy. The idea is that parents in Chicago (and even in rural Georgia) don’t need their kids to help harvest the corn these days. So why shouldn’t they be in school if they’re not in the fields?

The story quotes a couple of students who, predictably, are against the idea. It also cites statstics on class time in countries like Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan – places that are evidently “beating us” on tests in core subject areas. The irony is that in those countries kids spend less time in school than we do – not more. They go more days, but fewer hours.

The article also talks about charter schools – and uses the example of a single charter school as evidence that longer school days and school years can result in better test scores. But the fact that charter schools generally receive mixed reviews makes news on a regular basis.

I think there’s pretty good research to support the idea that students do better in a “year round” school year, where the normal summer break gets divided up into two or three week vacations at then end of a nine week school term. The tradition school year with it’s large chunk of down time results in regression. Students lose skills and knowledge over the summer; year round school prevents that.

Longer school days and longer school years mean more money for teachers and probably more teachers. I’m skeptical that keeping primary school kids in class longer would have positive effects. I’d consider the issue, if there were research to look at. There might be, but I don’t know about it if there is.

The obvious first step would be to go to a year round school calendar. That wouldn’t require increased funding or staffing changes. Yet it’s a step no one is really talking about – despite the fact that the idea seems to be supported by research. That puzzles me…

One of my colleagues watched President Obama’s speech to students on Tuesday – during her lunch hour. Her students were at lunch, as well. IN fact, every student at my small school was at lunch. So none of them saw the speech live.

I had planned to show the canned version of the speech in the afternoon. Whitehouse.gov said it would be available at 1pm. It wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t available at all as a recording on Tuesday afternoon.

This morning I discovered that the speech was available as an Mp4 file and as a flash video from YouTube. Of course, YouTube is blocked at our school (and statewide, I think), so I downloaded the file. The result was frustrating. It took an hour on the first attempt. I left the computer working and came back to discover that Windows had decided to update in the middle of the download and the computer had restarted. I tried again and succeed. But then I figured out that most of the older XP computers in our building couldn’t play the MP4 file.

I succeed in playing it for a group of third graders. Their classroom has the school’s newest computers – and. thus, had the software needed to play an MP4 file. For other classes I’m going to have to take my laptop in to the school tomorrow.

Reaction from the third graders? The sat gathered around a PC and watched the video on a normal-sized screen. The general ed teacher an I kept our distance and watched from a distance. When it was over the third graders applauded spontaneously. It wasn’t a reaction we expected from third graders. A pleasant surprise…

My issue of Educational Leadership arrived a few days ago. It included an intriguing piece (What Would Socrates Say?) that contrasts the view of Socrates with the pop culture of today’s digital generation.

The author, Peter W. Cookson Jr., sums up his worry for today:

My greatest fear about 21st century education is that Socrates’ humility will be turned on its head. The noted philosopher once said, “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.” My fear is that instead of knowing nothing except the fact of our own ignorance, we will know everything except the fact of our own ignorance. Google has given us the world at our fingertips, but speed and ubiquity are not the same as actually knowing something.

I share some of his concern. We stand surrounded by a fog of information, a mist of data and opinions that often does more to obscure the truth than to help us discern it.

I liked the article in part because it gives me a chance to use one of my favorite words: epistemology. I’m not quite as humble as Socrates. I know a few things – and I know how I know them.

I Google. I Twitter. I blog. Those tools serve their purpose. But the idea that I found something on Google (and that that somehow makes it true) is a pitiful epistemology.

Cookson’s article reaffirms for me the need to teach digital literacy as an essential 21st Century skill. I agree with him that critical thinking skills (even when they are not used in a technological context) are more important than ever today. And I think Cookson’s has an insightful point when he argues that metacognition (or ability to monitor our own learning) is growing in importance.

You can read What Would Socrates Say? here.