Swickard: The Chaos Theory of Education

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  At a recent meeting someone said in frustration, “I wish schools would just educate kids.” The person was vague as to specifics. I asked, “So you think educating is simple?”
            “Yes, you get a teacher and some children and let the teacher teach. It’s no big deal.”
            Perhaps that notion is both right and wrong. Simply put: education is when there is something you want to learn and you listen to someone or read something. But there’s an entire public education industrial complex in our society.
            That system of education is incredibly complex and fraught with dysfunction. Paul Simon wrote in a 1973 song, “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.”
            There is a Chaos Theory in Weather Prediction stating when a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing the weather changes ever so slightly in New York City. We know it will rain but not when. No matter how much money goes into weather prediction, it is limited to perhaps a week.
            In education, we know some children will learn, but not how much each will learn at any given time. Despite the industrial mania for testing we don’t have the ability to say if a teacher does something, students are guaranteed to learn.
            It is a very complex. There are so many factors that it is impossible to name them all. Some major factors are: interaction with parents, student age in months, brain development in the child, the child’s nutrition, eyesight, allergies and other physical issues.
            Some minor factors are: the latitude of the school. The northern schools have more coughing making it harder to hear. If we research the many thousands we might see school lunches are a 1.3% factor and the school having a winning football season a .0001% factor.
            What the Chaos Theory of Education illuminates is that despite the assurances that our educational leaders “know” what they are doing, they are as good as the weather service is at making one year weather predictions.
            In weather and public education, the plan has been that if the endeavor could be broken into a large enough number of measurable steps we would be able to rely upon the prediction. In education, every year there are more and more measures, more and more new strategies and pretty much the same percentage of children doing well or not doing well.
            The all-knowing expression many educational leaders wear should no longer cause us to be silent. That these leaders have impressive credentials or impressive titles or ornate offices does not matter.
            Perhaps the factory model of education which we use in America where all children are similar enough to educate in the same way will finally be proven to be false. Perhaps in the coming years children will spend less time in institutions and more time learning individually.
            Each student learns differently in so many ways. Public education can never function satisfactorily using a factory model.

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Swickard: Developing public school students correctly

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo
             His full name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. He died at age 88, 453 years ago and left us wondrous art that we enjoy to this day. Two of his statements many years ago go directly to problems in our public education system today.
            First, we Americans are not aiming high enough for our students and assuming this generation cannot do things. They can do what they think they can do. It is critical to awaken the curiosity and passion inside each student early in their education.
            Example: public schools are telling young students that they simply must go to college. What about our society’s artists, artisans and trades people? We need electricians and woodworkers. But the Educational Industrial Complex needs students to go to college to keep those educational dollars up.
            The second statement is central to the dysfunction in our public schools. Michelangelo wrote: Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. The educational leadership task is to reveal what is inside of each student as to their curiosity and passion to learn.
            Instead, the Factory Model of Education believes the public schools should mold the students into something useful for the society, not necessarily useful for the students. Public schools are not looking at the wondrous statue inside of the child, rather, they are only focused on their own self-perpetuation.
            Example: in 2009 Sir Ken Robinson gave a talk about creativity. He found a music teacher in Liverpool, England who at one time had both George Harrison and Paul McCartney in his class. He had half of the future band, The Beatles but he noticed nothing creative about them.
            How many truly exceptional people are languishing in public school because the factory model is not looking for exceptionalism or creativity, it only rewards compliance with rules and learning to take tests well.
            The huge problem is that public schools are run by distant autocratic administrators who rarely see the little blocks of marble. Certainly, the administration does not see anything but test scores. How sad.
            The teachers can get a glimpse of greatness in students but are threatened with being fired if they do anything with the students other than what the administrators command. Why even have teachers, eh?
            The leaders of our educational systems must support the students rather than the adults working in the system. Superintendents of Public Schools must see that the students develop according to their curiosity and passion, not just to be a widget in society.
            That is an awesome responsibility that these leaders have. Can they be true to the students? We must watch for the student’s sake. Forget all the testing administrators. Our society needs more public school teachers who understand curiosity and passion in their students.

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Swickard Column: Frustration then and now

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   “Expectation is the mother of all frustration.” Antonio Banderas
            Graduation from high school was May 1968. In technological terms that was at a time when everyone put hay in one end of their personal transportation. Then had just as many frustrations every day despite the notion of a kinder and gentler time in America.
            Speaking of personal frustration: I didn’t have a car so I could go anywhere if I had enough time to walk. In the verbiage of the day, “What a drag.” But I survived that frustration.
            Back then I had three technological wonders: a ball-point ink pen, a Timex wrist-watch that “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” And, I had use of my grandmother’s 1930 Underwood manual typewriter.
            My first newspaper column was written in 1969 on that manual typewriter with carbon paper for a copy. It was nothing like the ease of writing this column using a computer. But I am frustrated today, almost to the level of using a manual typewriter.
            Going to college in the 1960s meant that if you had communication technology it was a phone tied to the wall with a three-foot cord. And a clock radio with only the AM band. I lived a mile off campus with a relative so spent lots of time walking back and forth through mostly sunshine. But there was dust, rain, gloom of night and blisters.
            My expectation those years was that I would survive and get a college degree followed by a good paying job to replace the small paying jobs that kept me going in college. That did happen. So why am I so frustrated?
            Over the last twenty years of having a cellphone, I have enjoyed them except when having to get getting a new one. And, the technological frustration making the new one work. That why I am frustrated. I’d rather have a beating than change cellphones.
            But the new ads for the Samsung Galaxy S8 seemed wonderful though my S5 still worked. In a moment of weakness instead of taking a nap I called my Cell Company. In a long conversation, I was persuaded that the S7 was better than the new S8. I know: buyer beware.
            The short of it is that the unit would not activate but the Cell Company was able to deactivate my phone as I was talking to Tech Support. I have dubbed them: Tech Non-Support. In nine hours of calls and calls the new unit could not be activated which is the uncertainty I was trying to avoid in the new Samsung but got in an older model.
            Yes, I spoke to them nine hours over two days trying to make this technological wonder work. As of now it has little chance to come to life. It is a good thing that I experienced all that frustration earlier in my life so I take this setback well. Other than sarcasm which has flourished.
            I’m frustrated because somehow I was expecting it to work.

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Swickard: What it means to be an American

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  Talk show host Dennis Prager was asked: What’s the biggest danger to America? He said, “We have not passed on what it means to be an American to this generation.”
            Our country was founded because British leaders acted oppressively. The English King and his Parliament changed the course of history for the entire world by planting the seeds of rebellion in a society strong enough to resist and wise enough to construct a lasting representative republic. There were no free countries when Americans revolted.
            The King and his advisors were arrogant and ignorant, two traits that infest oppressive governments. A reasonable British government would not have inspired rebellion and I would be drinking tea while writing my columns instead of coffee.
            Americans hold three American ideas: the presumptions of innocence, commerce and freedom. But these presumptions are under attack in our country and not taught in schools as often as they were when I was young. They are some of the reasons that America is the shining light of liberty. Or was.
            As to innocence, we are supposed to assume those accused of a crime are innocent unless convicted in a court of law. The media has lead an assault on that presumption. There really is no longer this presumption.
            As to commerce, except where the government has made winners, our rich have gotten so by public free exchange where both parties walked away happy. Steve Jobs became rich by anticipating what we wanted, not because the government poured money into his pocket.
            Our country became a great example for all of the world because of our principle that a willing buyer and a willing seller, both happy with the outcome are the cornerstones of our nation. Little by little over the last one hundred years the government has intruded and we no longer have free markets.
            Finally, American freedom is the ability of citizens to not have to do what they do not want to do so long as it does not harm someone else. However, our government lives to impose its will upon Americans. I pray we retain enough freedom to teach our children what freedom means along with the other two presumptions.
            The great question for us geezers and geezerettes is how to teach something to the young people that isn’t prominently on display in our country. It is tough to do but must be done. It isn’t just restoring Civics to the public-school classrooms, we must change some of the narratives. One is the country is basically unfair.
            While the founding of this country involved men who kept slaves we are long past that and we should not reject the good with the bad. The men who put their lives, their possessions and their sacred honor on the line so we could be free were magnificent
            And the Constitution is unique to our nation even though it has been under assault for a hundred years. We must teach these uniquely American ideas to our young people.

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Swickard: It isn't smart to be that stupid

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “Stupid is as stupid does.” Forest Gump
            Sometimes there is a fine line between genius and stupid so it’s hard to know which it is. But with New Mexico the mantra for the state is: let’s always do the stupid thing. Shuckins.
            In a state dead last in education it would seem to call for a change, but no. In a state that is the only state in the Sun Belt to be losing citizens it would seem to call for a change, but no. In a state with institutions of higher learning losing students it would seem to call for a change, alas, but no.
            Let’s start with the colleges. Most have been having financial difficulties because their student population is dropping. Concurrently that have raised the cost of attendance dramatically. At New Mexico State University in 1993 the cost of Tuition and Fees was under $600 a semester. Twenty-five years later it is around $3,000 a semester.
            This is important since some jobs will only pay about $18,000 a year. The cost of getting a degree becomes a limiting factor. Certainly not so with Electrical Engineers but when five years cost $6,000 in tuition and fees, any degree was fine. Make that cost $30,000 and some graduates will have trouble making ends meet.
            The population at these colleges is dropping. That should signal to drop the cost of tuition and fees to get students back. Instead, they are raising the cost of attendance. It isn’t smart to be that stupid.
            In a state that is in a budget crisis because oil and gas is much lower and the state is losing businesses and citizens the idea of increasing taxes should be labeled as a stupid thing to do. But no, that is the solution which of course won’t work long because more businesses and citizens will leave the state. Sad.
            Finally, in education all of the high powered smart people who have screwed up the New Mexico public schools are doubling down on bad advice. Again sad. What the public schools need to do is release so much administration and experts while going back to the teachers.
            The research is compelling that all of these supposedly new programs are nothing but educational fads which have not worked in the past, will not work now and sadly, when the experts try to use them in the future they will not work then. Over the last fifty years there are many fads that experts bring back to not work again.
            New Mexico has many very smart people but the leaders are not listening. To get students back in New Mexico colleges these colleges must be student centered. They are administration centered now and that why every solution does not work. Same in the legislature and in the public schools.
            After the next few years of stuff not working could we have a moratorium of stupid in the state? Just a few years of doing intelligent things would be so welcome.

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