How NOT to Get Crazy Over Testing

FROM NUMBER ONE PARENT· TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017
It’s that fabulous time of year. Your child comes home unhappy, his/her teacher is trying to control their blood pressure, and you know what’s coming up soon – STANDARDIZED TESTS.
In my opinion, these tests in their current monstrous form (PARCC/SBAC etc.), are not only unnecessary at this point, they are in-and-of-themselves quite stupid. A test like this can never measure the true value of a child. They do not spark the imagination, nor do they do any service as to how the child solves a problem – all skills needed in today’s workforce.

All they measure is a mere fraction of student competencies and thought processes, and they are actually quite dangerous in their make-up because although they scaffold questions and problems into two to three parts (A,B,C), the human mind calculates at the rate of a mass multiple of thoughts at the same time. How can you measure that by clicking dots or dragging answers on a computer? It’s silly and counterproductive.
For the confident parent, or the nervous parent with the confident child (most of the time, that’s me), let them go through it, but do not give it the weight or value that your school system does. For the parent who has the child that is upset, anxious, shaky, or has real challenges with his or her self-confidence, SIT THEM OUT. It is not only your choice as a loving parent IT’S YOUR RIGHT AS A PARENT OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILD.

This is only one of many areas where the public schools have it better than charter or private schools. YOU HAVE A CHOICE. Private and charter schools often force parents to sign a contract that requires students to take standardized exams under each state. However, if you feel strongly against it, and their reply is “Well, you can always send ______ back to public school,” then you have three choices.

1. Take them up on their offer if your public school is of good quality.
2. Call an attorney, or the press.
3. Make the tough decision, do your homework, and move to a district with a good solid public school system. It’s the toughest of the three with the biggest payoff at high school graduation time.

In the meantime, have an honest conversation with your child. Don’t get mad because your child is scared or angry at tests. S/he has every right to be that way after drilling and practice and sampling testing over six weeks at a time. Just be loving and supporting and allow them to know that they are more important to you than any test score.

With love,
Steph

This Ain’t Grampa’s Train Anymore: STEM Engineering is Vital to Education – Especially for Underrepresented Minorities

We take our new STEM students to a Manufacturing Conference at an incredible school of technology that’s only a 20-minute drive from our high school. In fact, being in Northern New Jersey, we have several world-class Institutes of Technology within our metropolitan New York/New Jersey area.

My students usually have a look of dread on their faces when I announce the trip. I ask them, “Why are you looking so unhappy?”

They answer, “Because we don’t want to run ‘choo-choo’ trains Mrs. Stern-Protz, we want to be scientists (doctors, forensic specialists, chemists, etc.).”

“Oh. So when I say the word ‘engineer’ you think of a train engineer, covered in soot, is that it?”

“Yes. We don’t want to be train drivers.”

“What about astro-engineers?”

“Huh?”

“What about chemical engineers? Bio-engineers? Material engineers? Computer software designers? (They like that – it’s Pokéman-related)”

“Cool! We’re in!”

Takeaway? Engineering today and into the future is, and will be, nothing like we’ve ever seen before.

   We are at a turning point in education. Many nay-sayers believe hat STEM education and its related subjects focus on disciplines that are too serious for students. They point to letting kids be kids. They argue that Asian countries approach education in too much of a rigid and non-westernized style. I say that we are the planters of seeds in primary and elementary education, and planting engaging engineering and STEM seeds is no more rigid than the fun and exciting lesson created by the teacher and called for by the curriculum. I’m not talking about creating humanoids – I’m talking about teaching our children to solve problems through the ever-advancing behavior skills of engineering.

   To NOT teach STEM education as a center of learning from the earliest grades possible (2nd and up), is liken to robbing our children of future careers that may be a ticket out of poverty, unstable home lives, and a super-storm of media-driven messages that are counterproductive to their development. It’s handing good-paying/great-paying jobs over to others. I don’t buy into that idea at all. I’m not a populist – I’m a teacher of children in America, and as long as they and their families risked being here either now or three generations ago like my family did – I have an obligation to create as beneficial an outcome to their lives as possible, and to our future as a nation of a brave generation willing to take on challenges.

         Engineering and the skills of design, discussion, build, test, analyze and redesign, are ways in which adults solve problems every single day. Why not teach these very valuable lessons to children early on? Why not reinforce the behavior and social emotion it takes to work in a team-based environment?

And why not give students in underrepresented populations the tools they need to grow up with purpose, and value, and natural curiosity that’s been developed to help them solve problems, and feel as if they are worthwhile beings? Sounds deep right? It is.

The unemployment statistics, according to worldbusinesschicago.com, in four of the largest cities in America – although down in the past two years – is trending upward again. Look at this figure:

Some readers might think, “Well, it’s not seasonally adjusted.” I answer, “So how much longer are we going to keep yo-yoing perfectly bright and needful people into seasonal statistics? Is that what we want for our children? For our students? That’s not what I’d want for my own child, let alone my STEM students, nor any student, period.

     Whether we are parents, teachers, community activists, leaders… we want the best for the children that we are responsible to educate. Engineering, and the skills that go with engineering principles, are parallel with many creative endeavors.

Minority youth – boys and girls – deserve the same chances as any other group of people trying to make a better way for themselves and their families. I could not think of a better route up than through STEM – especially through engineering.

If we can get students to understand that it’s their creativity that drives innovation and not the end of a pencil on a standardized bubble form, we could probably walk back from what I term as the brink of the “pop-culture prison” mentality that plagues our children.

Ask yourself, how many children that you know     want to be pop stars, reality television personalities, superstar athletes that turn into pop stars and reality television personalities? For those who have that artistic or physical athleticism, it’s great. For those who live by the internet alone, it’s scary.

Engineering (along with the other STEM disciplines) is one of the most successful paths we can encourage our students to take to gain the purpose and self-esteem they so desperately seek. With purpose, we work with more drive and clarity, and with self-esteem, we communicate at a higher level of confidence and respect for one another. It’s one of the best ways forward.

It’s for all of us to help each other succeed. Let’s design and engineer a way through.

We Are Doing Plenty of Educating But How Are We Transferring Knowledge?

     In the middle of the last decade, Dr. Mitra created a revolution with “hole in the wall” transference as an osmosis of knowledge that was driven by a challenge through computer-based learning in India. This was one of the most radical turns of education in our recent times… but I do not think it has turned out the way we wanted. I think that the way he championed computer-based learning and what it has morphed into are two separate entities – one of which is devoid of education altogether.

Ken Robinson created another revolution with “Killing Creativity in the Classroom,” also a TED Talk – which brought to life the struggle of teachers to defend their ability to reach out in different ways against a torrent of standardized testing here in the US. That was ten years ago, and the standardized tsunami has not let up.

The question now is “Are we truly transferring knowledge from generation to generation, or are we just throwing enough curriculum at children so they can get through?”

I don’t think we are transferring much meaningful knowledge in any public sector that has to sit for a high stakes examination at the end of the year. And if we are, I don’t know how much is getting through the unending noise of that preparation.

We stand in the middle of a crossroads in education, and I believe that instead of the classical four-direction intersection, there are numerous markers in every direction. Public school, private school, online school, specialized school, home school, no school. Which is it?

Take a look at this portion from Encyclopedia.com:

“Educators observed the deterioration of school programs they had spent years building. Teachers had to try to teach undernourished children whose families had been devastated by unemployment and could no longer afford to eat well. Teachers fought back against retrenchment. Membership in organized teachers’ unions rose significantly. Educators radicalized and called for teachers to take charge of creating an entirely new social order, redistributing the wealth for a fairer America. Experimental schools such as folk schools and labor colleges trained students for the new order by teaching courses in labor organizing, political reform, civil rights, and reform in housing and healthcare.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3424800021/education-1929-1941.html

 

Sound familiar? This is a brief telling of the history of education during the years 1929-1941…now 75 years past. How is today any different? Look at Chicago, Philadelphia, parts of New Jersey and the list goes on. While corporations and industry have seen enormous profits on this edge of the recession bubble from 2008, how is it that we are talking about much of the same problems in education from decades ago…again?

We say that we have innovated, designed, pioneered, conceived, devised, discovered the new great way to educate our youth. I think we are at a moment in time where our public education system is crumbling around us, and we as teachers have been placed in a position of weakness as to not rock the boat for fear of our positions.

Some say that this moment in education is to break the backs of the teachers’ unions and to control the general mass of voters. Some say it’s the swelling of a new generation of immigrants who do not wish to live by our mid-century traditional American standards. Some say it’s the destruction of the nuclear family and the loss of role models for our youth.

I think it’s because we don’t have a clue as to where we are going as a society. Is it leadership? Yes – partly. Is it the impending robot Armageddon? You bet. But is it as big as past our own front doors? Not as much as we think.

I think we need to ask our smallest communities – the children in our homes and under our care. We are looking at a new revolution in education, and I think the smaller we start, the better. If we focus on just the foundations of what was great about our own educations, and what is great about the new subjects in education now – strike a balance – and then open the doors to a whole new alternative archipelago of learning centers – whatever they may be – we can truly transform the way our children learn, and the way we are seen in the public eye.

If we just take one class at a time as a school within itself and reintroduce what was wonderful about the one-room model, add the technological needs of today’s world, and solve problems in the now along the way, then we have a chance. If not, I’m afraid that the next post-recessional education system will not exist at all.

Are we up for the fall of our known institutions? I don’t think so. But if each of us innovates our classrooms and kitchen tables as we go, we can take back what was ours in the first place. The hope of our children to think of their tomorrows.

• Educational Leadership
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This Is My Classroom? Push PAUSE on “Gamifying.” Push PLAY on Planning.

Jan 27, 2016 – from my LinkedIn…

Teachers at our school have embraced technology in an amazing way, and I am confident that they are going to harness technology to engage and enlighten our students. I am not as confident in the larger conversation about educators and parents who use so-called “educational games” as a means of distraction.

Blended learning has not had its day in the sun yet, and I think that we need to continue to include real-life tactile skills when discussing it. Many may think that blended learning is a combination of worksheets, videos and educational games, but that will lead to an even larger gap between students who have access to many different experiences, and students who are limited in their ability to participate in events outside of the classroom.

It’s easy to “let students go” on the computers and get on with one’s day. It’s an entirely different story when the skills taught are directly related to academic lessons, exploratory quests of interests and real-life outcomes. The real skill an educator possesses is the ability to balance them all.

Some “gamifying” is important when it leads to both a technological-tactile comfort, as well as a valuable academic lesson. However, gamifying everything just to further feed a virtual playland in the classroom is not effective, and can even be harmful.

Here is a snapshot of jobs created in gaming and game design. The software/coding developmental skills have great potential. Everything else is marginal in opportunity. If it is a student’s dream to “go for it,” then by all means, s/he ought to pursue what makes s/he happy.

If it’s to get out of working in a tactile industry, and we are furthering the isolationism of thought that is plaguing our youth now, then we really need to pause and redesign a better blend in education.   Bureau of Labor On Some Gaming Careers.

So the next time we want to just “leave them to do whatever…..” on the computers, let’s think of where our students may be and the “this-world” skills they’ll need to possess in 2, 5, 10 years from now.

Why The Lesson Needs To Be Sought

 

Hi. For those of you who don’t know me (which is probably in the billions of people), I’m Stephanie Stern and I’m a STEM Specialist, along with some other roles within education. After visiting and presenting at the New Jersey Education Computer Consortium’s (NJECC) annual conference, I was inspired to approach my own teaching methods and resources differently.

You see, I have the privilege of teaching about 635 students in technology and I design learning in STEM and STEAM and ShTEaMerht (Science, history, Technology, Engineering, arts, Math, exploration, research and teamwork. And yes, this acronym is my creation) for many other students.

So back to inspired teaching. Instead of teaching what I think my students need to know, I asked some of them what it is they wanted to learn using the technology in my lab. Their reactions were deafening. Meaning – no one said a word, and all of them just stared at me as if I spoke in a lost language from long ago.

Some said programming and coding. That was a terrific answer, but we just finished an eight-week course on this. Some said website design. That was a wonderful answer, and I think that it is highly achievable. What my students did not realize is that they will be researching what they want to learn, and thereby teaching themselves over at least the next 10-20 weeks. With that, they still did not quite understand that I was untethering them.

The next part of the conversation was even more fun. I asked them a leading question: “Do you learn everything at school?” At least half of them answered “Yes” with the confidence that they got the answer right. Now it was my turn to look dumfounded. I repeated my question with trepidation that I was going to get the same answer.

“Do you learn everything you need to know at school?”

“Yes!” The answer was given with even more confidence.

So here is what parents, teachers, administrators and students need to do. STOP TEACHING for a while. We’ve flattened education into a single dimension and we had best “knock it off.”

The ability to learn anything outside the realm of a classroom is being crushed to the point of complete dependence on the teacher to teach everything. If we do not allow students to wander where their own minds want to learn, we will be fouling up our own future. Teachers, professors and mentors must find a way for the student to meet them at the next level without the means of a graphic organizer.

Maybe this is alright with some sort of narcissistic educator that wants to be an all-powerful force amongst his or her students, but I’m NOT that teacher and I’d like to see more than one dimension of my students develop before I am finished with them before they go onto another school.

Therefore, I said to my students… “NO! You do not learn everything and anything in the confines of these walls, and it’s about time we get you to start learning subjects and what makes you learn best now. You will now seek what it is that you want to learn.”

“What if we get it wrong?”

“Get what wrong?”

“What we want to learn?”

“How can you get that wrong? It’s what you want to learn?”

“What if we get a bad grade?”

“How will you earn a bad grade?”

“…. [chirp chirp]”

A hand goes up.

“Miss Stern, is there going to be a rubric?”

“Yes. Here it is. You will seek what you want to learn using the technology we have here and the internet, and I will be observing you and guiding you in how to ask questions that will lead to answers you seek. That is your rubric.”

“What if we get it wrong?”

“Are you going to take notes like we’ve taught you all of these years?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you going to get wrong?”

 

So it is time to let them seek their lessons. I’ll keep you posted as we go.  I’m giddy with the prospect of teaching nothing and learning everything. This is going to be fun.

 

On Homework…Again. For those who think homework is unnecessary…

A conversation keeps coming up about homework, and the trend to discontinue homework after the book “The Homework Myth” was published. I have a simple and rebellious answer to this question. If homework is not necessary, then maybe school isn’t either.

I hear many teachers discuss the necessity for school in teaching teamwork skills, social interaction, working with adults, and opportunities in trying sports, art, music; all as comparable reasons to have a traditional institution around (as well as the staff and professionals) for students to attend. This makes little sense to me. If our students do not practice what they learn academically, as well as in class, then how do teachers and parents expect the students to actually master the skills they are introduced to in their subject areas?

Students can stay home and learn online through K12.com, Khan Academy, Newsela, Scholastic, TIME Magazine, History Channel, Biography, Science Channel, Museum websites…the list is endless. Dr. Mitra stated that one of his visions is a center where children come to sit in pods with computers, and each comes with a “granny cloud” for inspiration and motivation. There are your teachers. Most towns and cities have recreation programs for children who live in these places, and there are plenty of art and music teachers in the private sector to go around.

I think my point is that the traditional school is challenged by today’s technology-driven ideal, but that doesn’t mean that homework is off the hook, so-to-speak. If anything, technology allows for the kind of practice that is available through a simple cell phone or tablet. I happen to teach in a district that is a Title I area, over 90+% free and reduced lunch, and English in the home is for the 30% of families that speak it here. Otherwise…not English. That does not mean that homework is obsolete. If anything, blended learning in these scenarios can include a host of online adventures that are accessible, either through means of technology in the house or at the local library for FREE.

My other point is that without the extra practice to master skills – even technology skills themselves such as programming and coding to create macros and other helpful applications (apps) that students are so adept at doing at this point, then HOW? How will they master? I’m not talking about learning for the moment. I’m speaking of true independent inquiry and mastery of a subject.

You know what I really think? I really think there is a great chasm of disconnect between the administrator’s and educator’s ability to teach in a tech-driven world, so that homework has become a “mishmash” of trial and error. Hence the book about the “myth.” But there is no myth about practicing to perfection. We all know that without the hours of study, we do not attain our masters and doctoral degrees. Why then, would one think that without that extra 45 minutes of skills practice, can a 12-year-old master percentages, reading pronouns, early American Colonies, and eco-systems? It’s actually mind-boggling.

Can we really cover, thoroughly, all of the content in pedagogy that we need to in a 40-minute period? With interruptions? With assemblies? With absenteeism? With vacations? Holidays? Moods? IEP’s? BIPs? PLPs?

There are reasons educators have dulled on homework. The students have home lives that are difficult; parents do not have the educational or lingual skills to support independent learning; teachers are under pressure to show student work as back up for a meeting or review; the students who don’t need the work are the only ones who do the work. It’s hard to manage a class. It is.

I teach over 600 students a week in technology, and I also create STEM initiatives for the district every year. I get it. I really do. But I make sure that when critical skills are at stake, either I take more time in the classroom, or we look at students’ time online through an interactive site in practice at home. We must be able to monitor and get the students to master the skills. I look at my students’ emails on the weekends. It honestly takes about an hour or two. THAT’s the crux of teaching.

My friend posted a picture off of Steve Spangler Science of Michael J. Fox with the caption “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” This means a lot of work to understand the new digital age. It doesn’t mean throwing out the homework baby with the bathwater.

As a practical sense, no homework is not a reality. It will further lead to us teacher being placed squarely into the sites of people who want to end our leadership roles now. It seems to me like a way to give up on the extra. I don’t know why, it just does. There’s something fundamentally wrong with not practicing skills.

To accommodate no homework is a way for us to admit that we do not have the nerve to place SOME of the responsibility for enriching knowledge and curiosity and urges to learn. Are we living in a dome of fear? A better question might be, if you as a teacher, had nothing to impede you from asking for the support you need, might you then actually feel good about looking at, curating, assigning, and reviewing homework for assessing where your students are at? Might you ask administrators to give you the time, care and resources to learn digital technology and disseminate the vast amount of free interactive learning that can enrich and not replace your presence in the hearts and minds of your learners? Something to think about and some Stern Advice. 🙂

When In Rome…Oh, I Think We Are…

I was flipping through the channels on television, looking for a show to watch, and noticed that we are feasting on contests of who can beat out whom in cooking, decorating, racing around the world, living in Caligula-style in a house in LA. More examples? No problem. We watch rich women around the country (and now in the UK), scream at each other about problems, that we cannot even fathom as regular folk. I look at some guy screaming at pub owners about their filthy establishments, and how they can make more money through bar science. Let’s not forget about regular people and semi-celebrity personalities running and jumping into gigantic stuffed machinery at the risk of falling into a watery pool below. No lions here, but that may just be in the 2014-2015 TV lineup! And we remain glued to our seats…fascinated at the outcome.

Sport star salaries are through the roof, and it was mesmerizing to see the drama that unfolded in the LA Clippers scandal. I heard on the radio that a low-level, last-minute NFL trade would still net the new player millions of dollars each season.

Stadiums are still designed like high-tech coliseums. And we pay and watch, pay and watch, pay and watch. We watch videos, play video games, stare for days-on-end into a vast amount of game boxes, hand-held devices, computer screens, phones and televisions. We read commentaries and posts on “Buzz Feed.” We want to know the “buzz.” We want to feel the hum of something “happening.” Video games are a whole other conversation, and frankly, I don’t have the energy to include them here…but I will soon.

The question to pose here is simple.

What isn’t going on in our own lives that are worth our paying attention?

Why is getting up, being a productive person in our work, community, and religious organizations worth paying attention to? Why is making our neighbors smile, saying something funny to the toll collector, packing an extra pudding in our kids’ lunch bags enough for us to feel like a success anymore? Why do we say “yeah, yeah, yeah” to our child who runs into the TV room with a new drawing worth clicking off the remote? Why can’t we go outside for a 15-20 minute walk to contemplate the world around us? Why? Because we are on hyperdrive and no one’s at the switch. It’s the beginning of August, and I feel like I haven’t slept in two years. Do you remember an August growing up where there wasn’t some moment where we could breath and let go?

Rome was a very powerful empire. It had interests all over the known world, and was cruel to its enemies. Time and again, the people of Rome learned of its emperors acting in the most heinous and scandalous ways that would make our own current-day politicians feel like amateurs. But they are doing a good job trying to catch up.

The US is also a powerful entity in the global scheme of things, and we have interests in places so far away, regular people don’t know why we’re there. Our Senate, and House of Representatives have more millionaires than at any other time in our history as a country. That’s troubling. We say a lot, sign many online petitions, and don’t do much about it. Because there’s always something more exciting to “watch.” How long has it been since you’ve heard about an “Occupy” or “99% vs. 1%” event? We are too easily distracted by the want to be entertained. Hyperdrive takes a lot out of us. Ever wonder who wants us to be so drained that we can’t even appreciate the little moments?

You may be wondering why I bring this up on an education and tech/STEM learning blog. The reason being is that our children…are…watching…us.
How can we ask our students, our children, to solve the world’s problems when we, as a generation (or generations if you count end-boomers, ‘gen-x’, ‘gen-y’, and the new silent millennials) have in essence, given up? They watch us give up. They’ve been watching us give in to the problems and this past year; I’ve heard so many people say “Well, that’s just the way it is. We have to deal with it, in order to keep our…. [Fill in the blank here.]” Our jobs, our status, our way of life. Our perceived safety. But it’s simply not true.

If we are going to go into the 2014-2015 year, bound to make a difference, then our students have to witness us being innovative, not scared. Not terrified of a ridiculous system of teacher bashing, not a ridiculous and antiquated belief system of who can and who cannot come up with inventive educational ideas and products. In addition to our students, we certainly cannot teach our own children that we are lemmings led by the nose into a losing game – through a dark tunnel out to a coliseum floor, stained with the blood of silence and complacency – to be eaten by the lions. I am a lion. I posses intelligence, the ability to recognize the potential of my students, and the want to forge the future of my child. We don’t need to be giant linebackers. We need to be focused, dedicated human beings that have the power of big cats in our hearts.

I don’t like this visit to reliving ancient Rome. I like living in the current moment of hope that I am having as I write this blog. The immediate moment – looking ahead to the potential that can be created with such focus on success, that it defies my own limited perception of limitations. They (the perceptions) need to be lifted off. I can move forward from the resurgence of a newromian existence, to one that advances enlightenment and the hope to believe in being an educator and parent in the US.

From LinkedIn – Which Would You Prefer? An Honest Employee or a Loyal Employee?

When I went to this thread, there were already over 200 comments. Most saying “of course honest!” “How can this even be a posted question?” Wow – I didn’t know so many people were actively trying to not know real-world human dynamics. And from the Harvard Business Review Group Site? Yeeeeechhhh. Anyway…

Having worked in corporate and education, I can honestly state that politics often breeds loyalty over honesty. If one believes otherwise, he/she is clearly trying to sound good on this thread. Everyone starts out a position with absolute integrity, and honestly shares, collaborates, supports and teams up.

Then time goes by and certain powerful players need help. Loyalty shifts. There is a mis-statement, misunderstanding, and one feels “slighted.” Next time, that person may withhold information until he or she himself or herself gets that chance to interject and shine. That works, so even more information is withheld and less collaboration happens. People shift, teams change, and in time, honesty has been overridden by loyalty and favors.

If you do not believe me, and you think that I’m loopy for saying it out loud, just answer one question. If this is the Harvard Business Review Group, and you are a graduate of Harvard, who do you think will give you a leg-up, even if you don’t measure up as well as another Ivy League graduate? Another Harvard graduate? Or a Stanford Grad? Who helps you find your first position? Your family? Your friends? Your auntie? And who helps you leap from one company to the next? The person your were honest with? Or the person you were loyal toward? As I smile wryly writing this – knowing the answer (which I basically stated above), I’m wondering how many here will dare to agree? 🙂

Are You A Moron? I’m Not – I Hope

Not for nothing, but I’m pretty sick of people writing articles telling me how to teach, what to teach, and how to incorporate such rudimentary practices as basic conversational communication into my classroom. Number one, I am highly technologically literate. After 36 years in computers, and teaching and formulating computers, I ought to know a thing or two about technology. Number two; why do these articles say the most “Captain Obvious” phrases about teaching students to communicate face-to-face, or working in real collaboration with a live group. Sorry, but I am so tired of thinking that I’m a 50-something moron. Did we NOT go to Kindergarten? Do we, as educators, NOT know how to teach sharing? Taking turns? Listening attentively? Did these skills JUST hit the curricula in 2014?

And I’m not letting another article like this one say differently. Wake up Teachers. We’re actually intelligent and have so much to offer!

I can understand how collaborative communication may prove well in a lower-level classroom, such as a primary grade, maybe, through fourth grade. But I would hope that by fifth grade, students understand that when directed that they will be set up in groups or teams, that they know how to practice those skills. Let me pose this instead. We are now on the SECOND generation of tech-driven minds, and we have now lost the ability to communicate effectively, face to face – for over 19 years.

As I have said very often, technology is a tool to use, to enhance or support our minds. Technology is not here to replace our minds.

On Importing Talent Versus Homegrown – Like It Or Not, Parents Are the Key

Peter Johansen, Webmaster at ECH24, posted that his organization recruited “local talent” to fill a position at his company. By “local talent,” they meant a sub-continent Indian technologist, because it was only a 14-hour flight to LAX from New Dehli.

Seven years ago, I started cautioning my middle school students about jobs being hijacked by foreign workers. Now, the problem/challenge is that these seven years have proven that management of industry knows that the competitive study skills of Indian, Chinese, and other non-US workers is much more rigorous than US students. Recruiting from the Asian continent – including Russia – is commonplace, because decision-makers see the difference.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, more talent will be flown in, in order to get the kind of focused worker needed to accelerate the growth of a company. From the standpoint of an educator, it is frustrating to see that our own students are hardly accountable under the current federal and state guidelines of Title I, and that I cannot even assign required reading, unless I provide books. In other areas, such as homework, class participation/conduct, and projects, parents have the power to complain that I am assigning work that is too difficult, and find it easy to pressure administration to lower expectations and standards.

Unfortunately we cannot have both “rock star kids” who are only interested in minimal academic achievement; and the outcome being that they can obtain any job they want. I have India-sub-continent students. They work night and day, summer and winter, and they achieve the kind of goals needed for these jobs. Their parents are the most vocal about their tracks and paths in school, and will be open to advice and guidance from educators.

The parents I encounter in my urban school from the Western Hemisphere…not so much. They vehemently defend their child as “special” or “in need of special services.” Worse, they accuse me of being too tough on their child and that “computer education and STEM” are not important, because what you teach (meaning that I am a special subject) has no bearing on whether my child graduates eighth grade.” They tell me I raise the bar too high. 

Unfortunately, many parents have not matured enough to outgrow their own childhood wishes, so they impose those dreams on their children. They think their child is the next pro-athelete, or the next super-model, or rock-star, rap-star…super-glamorous careers that will solve all of their problems. This thinking is highly dangerous to the community at large, because it teaches children that school is not important, until it’s too late. I am frustrated with many of my students’ parents. They are able to wield a great deal of influence on administrators who do not want to make waves, and we are trapped having to spec their children’s education based on these unrealistic expectation.

Indian and Asian parents do not think this way. They know the formula for success. And over the past seven years (almost eight), I have seen them use this formula to propel their youngsters far past the westerners. If my other parents do not believe this will be true into adulthood, they best start reading the statistical data on success and the Bronfenbrenner’s model of Ecological Development. Parents are the FIRST line of developmental success.

When are we, as a whole community, hold parents accountable? When are we going to have solid-REQUIRED programs to teach them how to enrich their children, regardless of income, demographic and their own educational limitations? When are we going to save US jobs for US citizens? Our politicians are too scared to rock the “parent-vote-boat.” It’s time to make waves.