Eric Kalenze Twitter - @ erickalenze Email - erickalenze@gmail

1. Like Hip-Waders for the Bullsh-initiatives Research’s role in teachers reclaiming their profession Eric Kalenze Twitter - @erickalenze Email - erickalenze@gmail.com A Total Ed Case blog - erickalenze.wordpress.com

7. Foundation: Observations & Actions Mismatches, pre-professional training & practice Provided professional development experiences ‘empty’ Independent Research (Arranged by successive ‘gateway drugs’) Education history (Ravitch, Kliebard, Cremin) Education critique/history/philosophy (Hirsch, Delpit, Egan, Zoch, Heclo, etc) Cognitive science: Literacy (Sticht, Recht/Leslie, Cunningham/Stanovich, etc) Cognitive science: Memory/attention/perception/linguistics (Lakoff, McWhorter, Chomsky, Haidt, etc)

8. Foundation: Observations & Actions Teacher-leadership: PD design/delivery, continuous school improvement, district action teams Externally provided school improvement & research Publishing (Ed is Upside-Down, blog, articles), speaking, researchED conference organizing, etc. MISSION: To Eliminate (or at least mitigate)Educational Over-Correction & Bullshit

9. Over-Correction, A Quick Primer

10. Over-Correction, A Quick Primer A severe, abrupt reaction to an identified challenge, …executed before challenge is thoroughly understood …executed with insufficient consideration of actual best course …ultimately interferes with actual positive progress …or, worse,

11. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being Ed enterprise continually seeks to legitimize/fulfill ideals & claims of early Progressive Educators

12. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being Ed enterprise continually seeks to legitimize/fulfill ideals & claims of early Progressive Educators From Trilling & Fadel’s21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (2009)

13. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being Ed enterprise continually seeks to legitimize/fulfill ideals & claims of early Progressive Educators Compare to these ‘New Articles of Faith’… Freedom vs Control Child Initiative vs Teacher Initiative The Active School Child Interest as the Basis of the New Educational Program Creative Self-Expression Personality & Social Adjustment …from The Child-Centered School (Rugg & Shumaker) 1928

14. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being Ed enterprise continually seeks to legitimize/fulfill ideals & claims of early Progressive Educators Substantial progress expected, and quickly Eternal faith in ‘cool practices’ as missing pieces for generating substantial progress (media- and ‘philanthropically’ fueled)

15. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being 3. Eternal faith in ‘cool practices’ to generate quick positives (media- and ‘philanthropically’ fueled) NAME THAT ED TECH INNOVATION & DECADE (courtesy of Tyack & Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform)  __________ was going to be different, said reformers. When the ______ Foundation entered the arena…with its subsidies and publicity, the campaign for instructional _________ gained momentum. [LONG STORY SHORT: BALLYHOOED PROMISE QUITE UNFULFILLED.] Disappointed reformers complained that teachers were laggard and fearful if not incompetent. Teachers gave other reasons. They pointed to problems with hardware: there was not enough, or it was broken or complicated, or it took too much time to arrange for its use. They criticized the content …as inappropriate to the curriculum, as not fitting the class schedule, or as of poor quality. Top-down implementation provoked many teachers to dig in their heels or simply to put technology in the closet. **TELEVISION, 1950s**

16. Educational Over-Correction Reasons For Being Ed enterprise continually seeks to legitimize & fulfill ideals of early Progressive Educators Substantial progress expected, and quickly Eternal faith in ‘cool practices’ as missing pieces for generating substantial progress (media- and ‘philanthropically’ fueled) 4. DESPERATION

17. Educational Over-Corrections… Activate & Catalyze Bullshit

18. Academically speaking, of course… Bullshit Moral philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, 1986 (2005 monograph, p. 57) ‘…the bullshitter…is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false… He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.’

19. More specifically… Bullshit Bullsh -initiatives Moral philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, 1986 (2005 monograph, p. 57) ‘…the bullshitter…is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false… He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.’

20. Bullsh-initiatives Purport to solve fundamental (over-corrected) education issue Solutions guided by over-corrections’ weak evidence bases, operate on accordingly intuitive and/or innovative appeals

21. How weak? From James G. Lengel’sEducation 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools (Teachers College Press, Columbia, 2013) *In all, ‘Recognize the Need for Change’ chapter features 10 citations—including a Cisco whitepaper & 2 regarding Thoreau’s Walden

22. Bullsh-initiatives Purport to solve fundamental (over-corrected) education issue Solutions guided by over-corrections’ weak evidence bases, operate on accordingly intuitive and/or innovative appeals Exert substantial impact on operations, professional development, spending Very often do not deliver promised outcomes, and sometimes opposite

23. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiative, Illustrated Skills-focused Instructional Methods & Scheduling (reading & math time expanded, other content areas decreased; workshop models implemented) Alternatives to Exclusionary School Discipline Strategies (implementation of restorative practices, extensive racial bias training, mandated suspension reduction, etc.) Technological Expansions (interactive whiteboards; 1:1 iPad initiatives; various interventions delivered digitally) Professional Development Model Adjustments (PLC/job-embedded formats, coaching protocols/cycles)

24. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiative, Illustrated Skills-focused Instructional Methods & Scheduling (reading & math time expanded, other content areas decreased; workshop models implemented) Alternatives to Exclusionary School Discipline Strategies (implementation of restorative practices, extensive racial bias training, mandated suspension reduction, etc.) Technological Expansions (interactive whiteboards; 1:1 iPad initiatives; various interventions delivered digitally) Professional Development Model Adjustments (PLC/job-embedded formats, coaching protocols/cycles)

25. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine MEDICINE ACTION Surgery Initial Examination Office Checkup Pain Identified ‘Shoulder Hurts’ Treatment Plan Additional, More Intensive Examination

26. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine EDUCATION Pain Identified ‘Need for Grit’

27. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine How Children Succeed (Paul Tough, 2012) “In past decade, [many experts] have begun to produce evidence that…what matters most in a child’s development is not how much information we can stuff into her brain…but whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence.”

28. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine EDUCATION Pain Identified ‘Need for Grit’ Analysis (Over-Correction) ‘Grit Essential to Teach’ (Even if we’re not sure how, or if it can be done successfully) Action (BSI, ‘Spin’) ‘Teach, Evaluate on Grit’ (Clarified by Tough, Duckworth in later works, seldom so lucky. Tough:)

29. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine Helping Children Succeed (Paul Tough, 2016) “But in my reporting for How Children Succeed, I noticed a strange paradox: Many of the educators I encountered who seemed best able to engender noncognitive abilities in their students never said a word about these skills in the classroom.”

30. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine Helping Children Succeed (Paul Tough, 2016) “…among the skills [Elizabeth Spiegel, an exemplary character-building chess instructor spotlighted in How Children Succeed]’s students were mastering were many that looked exactly like what other educators called character: the students persisted at difficult tasks, overcoming great obstacles; they handled frustration and loss and failure with aplomb and resilience; they devoted themselves to long-term goals that often seemed impossiblydistant.

31. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine Helping Children Succeed (Paul Tough, 2016) “And yet, in all the time I spent watching her teach, I never once heard Elizabeth Spiegel use words like grit or character or self-control. She talked to her students only about chess.

32. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine “She didn’t even really give them pep talks or motivational speeches. Instead, her main pedagogical technique was to intensely analyze their games with them, talking frankly and in detail about the mistakes they had made, helping them see what they could have done differently. Something in her careful and close attention to her students’ work changed not only their chess ability but also their approach to life.” Helping Children Succeed (Paul Tough, 2016)

33. How (Schools Should Help) Children Succeed from Education Is Upside-Down (2014)

34. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine EDUCATION Pain Identified ‘Need for Grit’ Analysis (Over-Correction) ‘Grit Essential to Teach’ (Even if we’re not sure how, or if it can be done successfully) Action (BSI, ‘Spin’) ‘Teach, Evaluate on Grit’ (Clarified by Tough, Duckworth in later works, seldom so lucky. Duckworth/Yeager:)

35. Over-Correction Bullsh-initiatives: Contrast to Medicine EDUCATION Pain Identified ‘Need for Grit’ Analysis (Over-Correction) ‘Grit Essential to Teach’ Action (BSI) ‘Teach, Evaluate on Grit’ Not so good when you’re holding THIS… A lot of THIS, basically…

36. For all the Bullsh-initiatives, Teaching Force Needs These… …and sound research habits can provide them

37. Like Hip-Waders for the Bullsh-initiatives Notes, Guidelines RE Using Research Make your waders water- (and BS-) tight Get current w/‘what works’ research (especially cognitive science), explore states of bullsh-initiatives at home and elsewhere Be skeptical, be sound: Interrogate ‘Why to’, not just ‘What to/How to’ Examine all information & new initiatives for evidence verifying why an approach is worthwhile. Look especially for if it’s worked for kids, not just that it will or that it could or that kids agreed they loved it (also, examine context, sample size, etc) Challenge experts—and writers!—for evidence Where you don’t see evidence as described above, ask for it. (Repeat: No, this is not unreasonable or rude. You’d ask your doctor, right?) Don’t wait: Get networked, get going If waiting for schools/districts to provide proper time & space, may wait forever. Find people (researchED a great place to start) interested in similar questions, pick brains, compare findings & insights.

38. Questions, Discussion Eric Kalenze Education Is Upside-Down @erickalenze erickalenze@gmail.com

39. Presentation References Brodsky, Sascha. “​​​​​​​Is Discipline Reform Really Helping Decrease School Violence? .” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 28 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/school-violence-restorative-justice/488945/. Duckworth, A ngela, and Yeager, David. “Measurement Matters:Assessing Personal Qualities Other Than Cognitive Ability for Educational Purposes.” Educational Researcher, May 2015, vol 44 no 4, 237-251. Eden, Max. “’Disparate Impact’ for School Discipline? Never Has Been, Never Should Be.” Manhattan Institute, Manhattan Institute, 19 Jan 2018, www.manhattan-institute.org/html/disparate-impact-school-discipline-never-has-been-never-should-be-10897.html. Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005. Print. Herold, Benjamin. "Personalized Learning: What Does the Research Say?“ Education Week. Education Week, 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 23 Oct. 2016. Huang, Mike. "Student Driver on (ice) Skid Pad Exercise." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 Aug. 2015.. Lengel, James G. Education 3.0: Seven Steps to Better Schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2013. Print. "The Mirage." The Mirage. TNTP, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2016. Moats, Louisa. "Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of "Balanced" Reading Instruction." 2000. MS ED 449 465, Opinion Papers. Thomas B Fordham Foundation, Washington, DC. National Right to Read Foundation. Web. 23 Oct. 2016. Rugg, Harold, and Shumaker, Ann. The Child-Centered School: An Appraisal of the New Education. Yonkers-on-Hudson: NY: World Book Company, 1928. Print. Steinberg, Matthew P., and Johanna Lacoe. "What Do We Know About School Discipline Reform? Assessing the Alternatives to Suspensions and Expulsions." Education Next. Education Next, 12 Oct. 2016. Web. 15 Oct. 2016. Stern, Laurie. "St. Paul: New Discipline Policy Sows Dissatisfaction." APM Reports. American Public Media, 25 Aug. 2016. Web. 15 Oct. 2016. Tough, Paul. Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Print. Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Print. Trilling, Bernie and Fadel, Charles. 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 2009. Print. Tyack, David and Cuban, Larry. Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Print.