More Coffee, Please

It’s nice to know that, when people can’t get a real job, they’re willing to turn to teaching. Can’t get that six figure salary? No problem—go teach. It’s like working at McDonalds—it’ll get you by until something real comes along.

I’ve no problem with service—actually, a year or two of mandatory national service would probably do a great deal for our citizenry and our people. But it does say something pretty terrible when teaching is the option for those who can’t find a “good job” in a poor economy.

And I’m not sure if I like the idea that the classroom ought to be a place for someone who doesn’t necessarily want to be there. Teach because you want to teach, not because you can’t find something better.

Let’s try this the next time there’s a vote or a school board meeting that shows someone just isn’t getting it.

NYC Educator posted some thoughts about the “education myth” that I’m not entirely sure I agree with.

It’s a strict rule of economics that work will go where labor is cheapest. When labor is also—in many cases—willing to work harder and longer for less money than an equivalent American, then there’s an even bigger problem. The problem is not with the ability of Americans to do the work, it’s in their willingness to work hard to make it happen.

There’s an old Chinese proverb: Wealth never survives three generations. The first creates it, the second maintains it, and the third is fat, lazy, and squanders it.

We’re in our third post-war generation, and we’ve raised a generation of kids who feel entitled to a lifestyle they didn’t earn.

I do think that the solution to that is going to be more education. I do think that a hardworking, well educated population will entice enterprise to stay and start here. But it also matters what kind of person we’ve decided to educate.

Well educated people are out of work. But it’s interested that the degree discussed was an MBA.

Now I’m in no way trying to say that there’s anything simple or easy about getting an MBA. It’s work I don’t claim at all to understand—but there are many, many who do.

That’s the problem. If other nations are training millions—or billions—of them, then their value collapses. ¹ None of that means globalization is the problem—it means that we can’t keep doing the same old work and expect it to be enough. What we create, what we make, is going to need to become better, and we’re going to need to work harder for it—and we’re going to need professions and people who are trained in “hard” sciences, things that will add value, that will change lives to make it happen.

A baby born in America will consume twenty times the resources of an African or Indian baby. The top twenty percent of nations will consume 80% of the world’s resources. Trust me, the nations that are not in the top twenty are going to work much harder than your average American to get to the top.

We should not begrudge them that. We should not begrudge—or expect—business to not go where business will be done best. What we need to do is make sure that the best is done here.

I wonder—often—what that looks like. I also think back to that Chinese proverb. There are many who believe we need a new system of education to meet the changing global landscape. Part of me agrees. Watching a kid fail to know how to operate a computer—beyond checking their Facebook account—makes me cringe. Looking at US broadband penetration makes me shudder, especially compared to our Asian partners.

Still, I’m mindful of that Chinese proverb. I’m mindful of Bill Gates’ comment, “I have never met the guy who doesn’t know how to multiply who created software…”

Prom is coming up. Normally, I’d lament it—but with the economy the way it is, we probably need the investment in frilly things and limos.

April Vacation is travel time at MRHS.

If you know a kid who’s fortunate enough to be going², the last month has been nothing but “I”m going to Italy!” or, “I can’t wait for England!” or “France is going to be awesome!”

Having led a few of those trips myself, I know the excitement. I also know the work it takes for teachers and adults to plan a safe and rewarding trip. The foreign language department at MRHS is amazing—it happens every year, without fail. That’s a huge responsibility, and a ton of work, on a very small number of teachers.

And they do it, year after year. And then there are all the other teachers who lead trips, because they’re excited about something wonderful and they want to share it with their kids—which is really what learning and teaching is about. We’re fortunate there are so many who are willing to spend their time—and given the realities of globalization, of cooperation on a world-stage that will dominant the next century, getting our students out to see the rest of the world seems like a smart move.

The fact that it’s a life-changing event that will need to be mentioned every year in a series of emails starting with “Guess what we were doing last year at this time!”³ is a bonus.

Need your mind blown? Check out Gapminder.org. Makes some things I’ve talked about become much more clear.

Skills vs Knowledge—probably among the biggest debates we have in schools right now. What’s more important—knowing stuff in their heads (that could probably be found online in very little time) or being able to do things (such as looking stuff up on line in very little time.)

I’ve discussed a few times that I don’t believe all knowledge is the same—that there are things that are worth learning over others. It doesn’t always feel like that, especially in “soft” disciplines. Trust me, I’ve gotten into the argument of which book should be read by what kids more times than I can count.⁴ Every so often I bump into a wonderful description of taking core knowledge and putting it into a format that makes sense to kids as well—and then how to do it.

I guess I would argue that knowledge—especially of key cultural ideas and conceptions—is needed in order to apply the skills to operate effectively in a society. I might be educated by Western ideals, certainly not by Eastern ones—and if I were to be successful, I would need to know some things in order to apply the skills I already have.

Something like that.

1 It’s the same for English, Social Studies, and other teachers in the humanities, and not for science and math, and a host of other areas. There’s much to be said about intelligently picking your major. ↺

2 The sad thing is how few kids are fortunate enough to be going—it’s very much those who can afford it, and those who have a close enough connection with some adult to be made aware of, and encouraged, to go. I’d love to see it be made more available to all our kids, though I’m realistic enough to know that there are probably learning opportunities we could focus on a little closer to home. ↺

3 Yeah, I’m talking about you, AB, FB, KJ, and a host of others. :p↺

4 I’m reasonably certain that, were we to focus on writing as the competency side of the English curriculum, we would solve the problem of “the ancient-useless-written-by-dead-white-men-who-have-nothing-of-value-to-say-in-our-world-today vs the vegetarian-politically correct-post-feminist-tree-hugging-Oprah-book-club-flavor-of-the-month-what’s-on-Amazon” argument. As soon as we decide that our primary job is to create good writers, then we start looking around for good writing to show as examples. And I think we can agree as to whether or not something is a good piece of writing. What we can’t agree on is what is worth sharing with our kids—but that’s a philosophical argument, and though I have my position, I appreciate it’s not absolute.↺

Gregarious

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