In the Global Activism class, we asked students to work with us to create an overall grade for the semester. We didn’t have assignments or grades all along, as it were, since we were all working collaboratively to create an activism project for the Global Studies Program. Despite several requests, the students refused to even suggest a grade, let alone discuss assessment in depth. So, this morning i’d had it, and posted the following on the class wiki. Didn’t help that i have spent hours grading other classes, and have many hours more:

i certainly appreciate all of these reflections thus far. What i don’t understand, however, is why you all continue to pass the buck on grading. You acknowledge how different this has been, then you fall back to being traditional students. Why?

Because it is hard? Holy $&#^! So what you have learned in activism is to avoid the really hard stuff?

Instead of walking away from it.

What a contrast!

A year ago, when my co-instructor and i found out that we were team-teaching the year-long Global Studies Capstone course, we sent out an invite to the then Juniors to join us to discuss Capstone and get their ideas about it.  We held two meetings, one in the Fall, another in the Spring.  Many of them attended one meeting or the other.  We stressed the importance of thinking about potential thesis ideas.  They had a few ideas about what we might do in the seminar, but it was clear they were content to leave it to us and wait until Fall.  Most of this class did not know each other but relationships have been growing over the course of the semester.  They still, however, are excruciatingly passive.  Part of that comes from the fact that they trust us and and we have come to love this group of students.  While this is a good thing in some respects, it means they rely on us to carry the seminar.  And we don’t push them very hard other than the assigned work.  But this just isn’t consistent with this major, at least in theory.  After all, these are the students, we hope, that will find ways of dealing with the myriad problems faced by our planet.

Now, the two of us are team-teaching Capstone again next year and we, again, sent out a call to next year’s Juniors to gather together and discuss Capstone.  Thanks to some ideas that came from this year’s Seniors, we also decided to create a Capstone task force, comprised of a few Juniors, a few current Capstoners, and the teaching faculty to share ideas and collaborate to create next year’s seminar.

We gathered for our first meeting a few weeks ago.  The contrast between last year’s awkwardly quiet, mostly one-way information sessions and this year’s loud, chaotic, and definite two-way session was startling.  Towards the end we asked for volunteers for the task force and, instead of giving us names, they told us they all wanted to meet again, before semester’s end, since some were headed abroad in the Spring.

Between then and now we found out that, just after meeting the first time (after Thanksgiving recess), they created a Facebook group and have been discussing next year and making fun of their instructors.  Well, ok, of me.  But i deserve it.

When we asked  our seniors what should we discuss with the Juniors, one comment was that, although it was good to think about the thesis a bit before senior year, we should not make that a requirement; let them enjoy their Junior year.  And yet, we found out that at least one Junior has already begun the thesis and will continue it throughout next Spring while abroad!  i think this is a very telling contrast between these two classes.

At the first meeting of the task force yesterday–in which 10-12 of the class of 28 met for 90 minutes just a couple of days before they face final exams–there was tremendous energy, a lot of playful banter, and many very creative ideas thrown out for next year. . .and it’s just the beginning.  It was a remarkable display from students who have enthusiastically embraced the idea of taking responsibility for their education.  They aren’t waiting for us to come up with ideas and yet they are interested in working with us to create the defining experience of their college major, likely of their four years here.

i sat there in awe. . .of what the Global Studies Program–both students and faculty–have created, working together to challenge almost every limitation higher education and our college creates for students, for all of us.

i said in a Capstone blog post today that these Juniors have a lot to learn from our Seniors and that  the converse is true as well:  the Seniors can learn a lot from this group of people.  i think this task force has great potential to facilitate this.  i can’t wait.

Results of a study comparing students-centered with teacher-centered learning.  Particularly insidious with regard to consequences:  ”. . .the efficient learning of specific facts may lead to the assumption that when the adult has finished teaching, there is nothing further to learn—because if there were, the adult would have said so.”

Sadly, because teachers do not critically challenge the system of which they are a part, they are–for the most part–unaware of such subtleties.  i have met some who believe they encourage creativity in their assignments.  i have never met one who looked deeper, who saw the paradoxes inherent in an adult asking a child to do something, no matter how “creative.”

This semester i finally got the opportunity to team-teach with the VP of Hasbro’s Future Now division. We had nine students, seven seniors (during the Spring semester??? They’ll have senioritis!)   Seven management majors and two global studies majors.  We led them through the process Hasbro uses to develop new ideas and initiatives.

They could choose any idea they wanted to pursue. They chose to research the problems that people have as caregivers to their aging parents and find solutions to those problems.  They developed a proposal, in the form of a video known as a “visual business plan” which paints a picture of what the future looks like when their products are adopted, then works backwards to now.  They also drew upon their resources to produce professional drawings and a prototype of one potential product.

They presented their work to approximately 40 people, including college deans, executives from Hasbro, representatives of the Business Innovation Factory, and staff and residents from a senior living center.  They wouldn’t show my co-facilitator and me their final work or the presentation they developed.  i showed up an hour early for the presentation and they were still rehearsing, they wouldn’t let me in.

They so impressed the audience that a recruiter at Hasbro has asked for their email addresses; he wants to contact each of them to determine whom might be interested in a career in the play / toy / game / entertainment industry.  With the second largest company in the world in that industry (i now have to figure out how they can bring down the system and save the world with a Hasbro job!).

And all we really did was break most of the rules of a college class.  We made visits to places like the MIT Media Lab for ideas and inspiration, and encouraged their creativity and playfulness.  There were no assignments, and there were no grades.  No judgment, just continual improvement.  As far as a final grade goes, i asked the audience at the final presentation.  It was a no brainer.

There will be videos, i’ll post the links.

This was about them, it was about learning a process they can use the rest of their lives.  It was about freedom of expression and the pure joy of collaboration when you are at your best.

i always thought that’s what college should be.  Silly me.

Another (academic) year spent in the land of the absurd.  i need a good scriptwriter who will develop this with me: picture a world where students, faculty, and administrators walk around, interacting, while all three speak a completely different language, none of which are understandable to the others.  And yet they all act like they understand perfectly.

If anything is clear to me in this world it is this:  What you believe, how you act, your ideas to make higher education less absurd depends on whom you place at the center.  Faculty or students.  What’s your focus?

The corporate mantra, said wholly without any thought whatsoever, is:  ”Our people are our greatest resource.”  The equivalent in higher education is:  ”We are here for the students.”

i just listened to a very thought-provoking presentation by Anya Kamenetz, who clearly is focused on student learning.  The very first question she gets from the audience, in part, is:  ”. . .academics are concerned about relevance, will my job be sustainable?”

So relevance in higher education is defined in terms of us keeping our jobs?

Is there a better illustration of absurdity?

Again, from reading Facebook and Twitter updates, i have learned that almost all of my former students feel the EXACT same way about snow days now, as when they were in college.  They STILL don’t believe that following their passions is worth the struggle.  They’d rather struggle at tedious work and feel incredible on snow days.

i’m the idiot who’s ecstatic that FINALLY, a snow day didn’t involve canceling a class!

According to hundreds of Facebook updates and Tweets (i have more time during breaks), these are typical reasons to be optimistic about 2011:

• it’s a new year and 2010 really sucked;
• New Year’s eve partying was so great, the rest of the year just has to be as amazing;
• the new year started on a weekend;
• I have new resolutions!

Based on these, my guess is that their optimism for 2011 will last about as long as what they had for 2010.

If you really like feeling optimistic (and who doesn’t?) and you want those feelings to last, here is a suggestion:  step outside yourself, engage with the world, make a difference to someone or something else.  i assure you, until more people do, there will be less and less about which to be optimistic.

This Fall’s OrgTheory class put themselves through a particularly intense semester.  They struggled mightily until finally, with only a few weeks left, they gave up.  Once they did, they finally came together and accomplished a great deal.  It was a bit too late for their fundraisers, but they learned a lot about themselves, and about building community.

Last week, at the end of the semester, i asked them to write letters to next semester’s class, giving the next class the advice they wished they had before taking the class.  i have posted those on a separate page, accessible from the menu above.

More relevant today than when it was first published.

Teachers are doing heroic jobs.. – President Obama

i do agree with his observation. i’m watching the stories this week, as NBC is presenting Education Nation, and good for them, although like most entertainment media, they’re years behind the actual crisis and they wouldn’t dare challenge the status quo.  And i have former students, currently teaching, who agonize daily over the best possible ways to connect with their students (this includes you, b.e.).

But all i can see is people working heroically, in the wrong direction.

After all, we have always had heroic teachers, even a few heroic school administrators.  Why have things been steadily getting worse for decades?  We always hear of a school here and there that improves.  We never hear of patterns of improvement.  And sadly, most “improvement” now refers to test scores as if that denotes education.

At some point the sacred cows of schooling and education and teaching and learning in this country must be slain.  i wonder how much heroism, how much of Mark Zuckerberg’s and Bill Gate’s millions, it will take before this happens.

Sisyphus was heroic.  It’s just that his work never made a difference to anyone else.

OK, you saw the video (if not, see below), now see the lessons learned in its making.

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organisation. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

–Marge Piercy

In class on Monday, after a written response posted Sunday to readings, we discussed that many had not really answered the question i posed.  It was the first response and we haven’t yet determined what is going to be assessed this semester.  i asked them:  how would i  have graded these?  A student suggested that i not grade them at all.  He made the case that, they might feel more free to write what they really thought and could put more creativity into their responses if they were not being judged.

i said,

Let’s try it.  If it works, great!  If not, we’ll discuss how to improve and try again.  If that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.  Experimentation is key.

They read articles for tomorrow on critical thinking, on questioning assumptions and posted their responses earlier this evening.  So how did the experiment go?

Before we have had even three classes together, there are people questioning their education, themselves and each other, looking at the assumptions they make and even noting how absurd their behavior is at times.  What i wasn’t prepared for is this:  some questioned me and my teaching methods!  AFTER THE SECOND CLASS!  Not because they don’t like them, rather because they see that we need to understand why we do the things we do and want to know if these things are the best for our learning together.

And all of these amazing applications of the reading aren’t graded.  And it was their idea.

After our meeting in the theater i walked into the class, this time meeting in the regular classroom, to find them sitting in rows.  So i went to sit in the back.

For the first fifteen minutes of class, each person left their moveable desks in place while they turned their bodies and craned their necks to look at me.  Not one person took the initiative to move his or her desk until i finally asked them to do so.

i post this not to embarrass, make fun of, or humiliate these good people in any way.  They are representative of all of the students that pass my way.  i post it as graphic illustration of how deep their conditioning runs.  By their expressions and knowing glances, they all knew the absurdity of it, but they also felt deeply compelled to wait until they were told what to do by the prof.

The fear runs so deep and my heart just aches for them.  They’ve been rendered powerless to change their absurd behavior by teachers and profs who, in so many ways, made sure that they did nothing until they were told.  A teacher’s power is total in classrooms like mine and so many of them get off on exercising it.

The time has come for these folks to see what has been done to them and to find ways to, once again, express their own thoughts and feelings.  It’s a tough, sometimes painful process, but there is liberation on the other side if they have the courage to try.  And this semester i am committed to try and make it as much fun as possible.

i had OrgTheory meet me in one of the theaters on campus today.  Interesting venue for the first class of the semester.  ”OT or not OT, THAT is the question.”

My first question to them came quickly:  ”What is an organization?”  Followed, of course, by the requisite silence.  i only let it go for a few seconds and then something came to me.

There are three responses to this silence.  i can wait you out, but we only have 75-minutes together and i have no interest in wasting time.  Second, i can call on someone but, quite frankly, i’m not crazy about setting that kind of tone on the first day.  Finally, flash groups!  Walk around, get in groups of three.

Which they did; i let them discuss until the theater started quieting.  That took about 30 seconds, then i asked a group and got a great response.

Two minutes later, another question, another pause, so i said “find another group of three.”  And yet again, after less than a minute of discussion i got solid responses.

And no silence.

i’m not sure how this came to me and i’m even more puzzled why i haven’t thought of it before.  It was probably the setting.

i hope they take this lesson from class today:  your silence is unnecessary, you can initiate a flash group yourselves, and you do much better when you work together.

That is, after all, why we have organizations.

Back in the classroom after five weeks. Felt great.

As the Capstone seniors begin the research phase of their theses, conducting interviews and doing some ethnomethodology, i thought i would talk about symbolic interactionism. . .how, socially and culturally, we make things up.   Or how, as Milan Kundera says, “We live fictions.”

What i wasn’t able to ask them today is one of the primary questions that has been driving me for thirty years:  If, culturally, the possibilities for organizing ourselves are nearly infinite, why do we choose this configuration?

i’m here. i’m alive. i had a very relaxing semester break. Classes resume on Tuesday and i find i’m already overwhelmed. Such is the nature of this life, extreme down time followed by extreme chaos. i love every minute.

i’m contemplating a comeback, there is just so much going on and i have a lot to say. i just need to commit.

In the second semester of last year’s global studies capstone, the students wanted maximum time to spend doing the research for their theses. One of my team teachers and i were uncomfortable simply calling off the once-a-week class meeting. So we used the first hour to meet with students whose theses we were advising and then told all of the students we would be in the classroom to hold what we called “free conversations.” They were “free” in the sense that 1) they were not mandatory, and 2) there was no agenda. Students could discuss anything they chose.

This led to some of the most powerful discussions of the year. In the middle of the financial meltdown last year, students wanted to discuss their job prospects and how they were going to survive the recession. We moved on to other issues but all were very different than the performance discussions students do without thinking.

We are integrating this into the seminar this year, as well. Tomorrow is our first.

Last week in the informal chat before the start of seminar, i overheard one of the students say that she wished that she could take a class where all she did was read the hundreds of books on her list.

After seminar i was thinking about her statement. This is a student who simply loves to learn; although she is too busy and overcommitted as many of them are, she always finds time to read for her own pleasure. So when i got home i sent her the following proposal:

1. If you were serious about the independent study, i propose the following based on the model of free. During the course of Spring Semester:
2. you read what you want, when you want;
3. we meet to discuss when you want (i will read along with you whether we meet or not);
4. discussions include whom you want;
5. you write written reflections if you want, when you want;
6. the grade (A) is determined beforehand and can’t be changed by either party. . .in other words, make it a non-issue;
7. since i receive a few hundred for each independent study i supervise, we’ll use that to purchase books.

The objective is for you to LEARN.

She accepted. And then told me she has 200 books on her list.

To be part of institutional education requires most to live in denial. The whole issue of teaching to the exam results in training, not education. It would be less of a scam to simply call teachers, trainers.

This isn’t found just in primary and secondary institutions, we have been undergoing accreditation in the skool of bidness for years. Every faculty meeting involves lengthy reports about “assurance of learning” (translation: measuring things that can be measured but have almost nothing to do with learning). Thus, it requires collective conspiracy and silence. Don’t think about it. Academic don’t ask, don’t tell.

Education and learning are not mechanical processes, they emerge from the curiosity of human beings and involve relationships. Learning means the freedom of following one’s own questions and interests and involves those who care as much about the learner as they do about themselves. It can’t be controlled, and that is the major problem for society: Institutions can’t exist without control at the extreme. That is why the whole dialogue about education has become focused on the test. No child left behind means left behind on the grading scale. Period.

i have always broken as many rules as possible and encouraged my students to do so as well. It’s much harder for them. Unlike me, most of them are successful in institutions. The only rule i don’t break is one that i won’t: coming up with a final grade. And the only reason i won’t break that one is because it would hurt students in the larger institution. i do, however, encourage students to be as involved as i am in assessment.

i have to give a lot of credit to my current Dean. She fully recognizes the importance of experimentation, creativity, and learning as an organic, emergent process and sees the value of protecting those who engage in counter-cultural practice. Oh yes, it is up to me to demonstrate the value of what i do in the classroom. But she is also wise enough to understand that it requires a different way of looking at learning . . . looking up from the pages with all those numbers and observing and listening to students.

Most of us have forgotten that training, preparing young people to be employees and consumers, where primary focus is on our answers and the numbers, is diametrically opposed to education, where primary focus is the character of those same young people.

ok, ok, after getting nasty comments from five people now about not posting anymore, i will do something i dislike intensely: succumb to peer pressure.

Maybe

Here is one reason i haven’t posted: Things are just going TOO well. i’m having a hard time knowing how to express the joy i feel every day on my way to class, and then again on the way back.

It’s much easier to write about things that are not going well. SO. . .i blame the students this semester.

i will now stop using the term “facilitator:”

RT alfiekohn To ‘facilitate’ learning is to make it easier. Great tchrs stimulate students “by making problems more complex & involving” -Carolyn Edwards

Since 01/07 i have committed to writing a blog entry each day i have been in the classroom.  i have done it more for my own discipline.

At the beginning of a new year i feel like i have nothing left to write.  i feel like there is so much more to write.  And i feel both of these very strongly, at the same time.

So i might continue. . . let’s see how i feel on Thursday.

On the other side of the news about unemployment and the economy is a magical world of new possibilities.  Everything is breaking down which means that opportunities abound if we have the courage to question and rethink everything.

This year i will be working on an idea for a class entitled, Play 101.  It is based on the idea that observing infants suggests that, if there is such a thing as human nature, it is all about learning and creativity.  We take all of this energy and beat it out of humans by the time they show up at university as freshmen.  As far as learning and creativity go, they have become severely retarded.  They have learned to figure out what others want from them and that is the extent of their interest in education.  Teachers at all levels create their classes and other learning experiences as if education was the focus of student interest.  But beginning with the first grade, our methods and focus (e.g., standardized testing) ensure that, students see what we do as merely passage to the next level.  They just can’t wait to be done with it all.

So is it even possible to create experiences that refocus our students (not to mention ourselves) on THEIR learning, using THEIR creativity, and rekindle some of the energy they had as young learners?

But can we take this further?  What if we believed that infants are actually smarter than adults?

Well, some researchers already believe this.  Take, for example, this op-ed piece in yesterday’s NYT.

What would curricula and pedagogy look like if they were based on self-learning and creativity?

Hi readers (i know you are out there, i keep getting hits even though i don’t post in the summer). . .i hope you are having as intellectually challenging a summer as i.

i had to jump in here and provide a link to this article.  FINALLY we will have to confront the myth that we exist to educate people.  We will either have to expose what our roles in society really are (e.g., regulating entrants into the job market) or we will have to get very serious about really educating, doing so in ways that make a difference in people’s lives.

What an amazing time for us!

i have been reading and thinking a lot about sustainability recently.  Mostly, it seems to be a term, like “green,” that points us in a direction but lets us off the hook in dealing with profound changes taking place in our world.  Our whole way of life is based on the idea of growth, we define anything else as stagnation or decline.  We are so caught in our mythology we can’t, or won’t, think about the implications of running out of resources that sustain life on this planet.  ”Going green” and offering MBA programs in sustainability help us feel better.  Quick fix du jour.

But i really want to say something about awareness, prompted by c.s. and b.e.’s comments on my previous post.  Perhaps instead of thinking about sustainable toilet paper, we should think in terms of how we sustain things like awareness.

Given just how sophisticated corporate media is at controlling information, it is quite easy to open most people’s eyes.   Reading and watching documentaries can create awareness, but can that awareness be sustained beyond one semester?

For many people, i don’t think so.  Once you leave the classroom, the seduction of our culture is too powerful, too all-encompassing.  The challenge of living in modern times with awareness is just too difficult for young people trying to find a job, pay off student loans, and develop a whole set of new relationships.

There is a point, however, of no return, where you cannot go back to sleep, where you cannot pretend that things are ok or will be again, very soon, where awareness is sustained without effort.  You keep reading, keep learning, keep looking for ways to act on your discomforts.  Throughout my life, i have never seen a person who, once they got to that point, was able to go back to sleep, to be, in the words of Jackson Browne, “. . .a happy idiot, and struggle for the legal tender.”

Keep reading outside the mainstream, keep thinking, keep acting, keep stretching yourselves beyond your limits.  i guarantee it will completely destroy your life. . .as a happy idiot.