When I look at who is getting hired, purported knowledge almost always matters less than demonstrable skills. The distinctions aren’t subtle; they’re immense. How do they manifest themselves? These hires don’t have resumes highlighting educational pedigrees and accomplishments; their resumes emphasize their skill sets. Instead of listing aspirations and achievements, these resumes present portfolios around performance. They link to blogs, published articles, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts and webinars the candidates produced. The traditional two-page resume has been turned into a “personal productivity portal” that empowers prospective employers to quite literally interact with their candidate’s work.
Unsurprisingly, this simultaneously complements and reinforces the employer-side due diligence that’s emerged during this recession: firms have both the luxury and necessity to find the best possible candidates for open positions. Yes, they’re looking for appropriate levels of educational accomplishment but, really, what they most want are people who have the skills they need. More importantly, they want to actually see those skills — be they written, computed, designed and/or presented. Professional services firms I know now don’t hesitate to ask a serious candidate to demonstrate their sincerity and skills by asking them to show how they might “adapt” a presentation for one of the company’s own clients. Verbal fluency and presence impresses headhunters and interviewers. But the ability to virtually demonstrate one’s professional skills increasingly matters more.
This is part of the vast structural shift in the human capital marketplace worldwide. Firms have the ability and incentive to be far more selective in their hires. But project managers and professionals also have the bandwidth and desire to showcase their skills. The resume is rapidly mutating away from a documentary string of alphanumeric text into a multimedia platform that projects precisely the brand image and substance a job candidate seeks to convey. Did they teach you that in college or grad school? Of course not. Will you learn that by hanging around LinkedIn or Facebook? Probably not.
Is this how human capital markets will become more efficient and effective tomorrow? Absolutely. You’ve got to have skill to show off your knowledge. [Emphasis mine.]
I want to know, how are RTTT, Common Core and all of the curriculum that’s going to drive it going to help my kids build “the bandwidth and the desire to showcase their skills” instead of motivating them (and their teachers) to simply get them to pass the knowledge test? How are schools going to prepare my children for showing off their knowledge if they don’t embrace sharing technologies? If my kids need more than a resume, if they need a transparent, global portfolio, how are we helping them create it?
So last night we had about 40 people join us for Open Mic Night to talk about leadership, and I have to say, it was a really interesting conversation. The key question that stuck out for me, at least, is whether or not effective leaders have to have a strong vision for the uses of social tools and technology in general in the learning process, or whether it’s more important to be open to facilitate that vision as a community. (At least that’s what I took away.) Both would be great, but it seemed like those types of leaders aren’t very easy to find. Anyway, I’ve posted the chat in below, (full doc format is here) and here is a link to the Elluminate archive if you’d like to listen.
It’s been interesting to moderate these Open Mic nights over the past few weeks. Shelly Blake-Plock, my co-moderator, said after last night’s session that they seem to be getting better and better, and I have to agree. As much as I like putting my own opinion of the world out there, I also like the listening/prodding role that comes with being “just” a moderator. (The idea is that Shelly and I don’t voice our own opinions, though we did drop just a couple into last night’s conversation.) And the whole idea of Open Mic is to give people who want to a chance to just have a conversation about whatever the topic is, not to have someone presenting to the group. Kind of like an unconference session. Anyway, I’m enjoying the result so far; if anyone has any suggestions or ideas for improving it, just let us know.
Probably about five years ago now, I remember David Warlick and others trying to frame the conversation around the shifts we’re seeing in learning under the umbrella of “Telling the New Story” of education. And I also remember being frustrated for a number of years after that at our inability to come up with that new definition of schools, that new story of learning at least in a school sense. I’ve come to realize that we’re not going to be able to write “a” new story for schools, that there will be many new stories in the coming years as the institution tries to adjust to the explosion of learning opportunities outside the school walls. Should be fun to watch (or not.)
But through reading the comment thread on the last post here, it looks as if there might be a desire for some type of site or listing of schools that are telling a “new story.” Schools that are doing things differently in terms of taking advantage of what the Web and other technologies afford around learning. Schools that have a more “progressive” approach to learning through inquiry or immersion using social technology or something other than standards based learning. I know there are many pockets of innovation in individual classrooms, and many of those are well documented. But what about entire schools and, perhaps, systems that are modeling a different path? A few come easily to mind: Science Leadership Academy, High Tech High, CIS 339 in New York City, VanMeter High School in Iowa, and Hunterdon Central High School, my old stomping grounds here in NJ. From what I’ve seen and heard, these schools are beginning to significantly rethink what’s happening in their classrooms, not just infusing technology and tools, but really delivering networked learning to their students at a schoolwide level. And I’m sure there are others.
So I guess I’m wondering if it might be time to create a resource of these types of schools. Maybe a wiki where if people were interested they could create a page of overview for what they are doing that’s different? Anyone have any thinking to share around whether or not that might be a useful idea and how it might be structured?
Lately, I’ve been finding myself wondering if maybe the best strategy for changing education is to join ‘em, not fight ‘em. I mean, if the only material that we think is important is the stuff that our kids are going to get tested on, well, then let’s have MORE tests! (Play along!)
How about a test that every student has to pass on how to live a more carbon free, planet-friendly life? (Wonder how many of them even know what “carbon free” means.)
How about a test on “managing, analyzing and synthesizing multiple streams of simultaneous information?” (I love the NCTE.)
Or here’s a good one. Let’s make a test for a child’s ability to talk to strangers online, not as in whether or not they should, but as in how they go about doing it. (I want my kids to talk to strangers online, btw.)
What if we made a test to see if every kid knew “20 Easy Ways to Use a Wiki?” (Um, actually, let’s not do that. Too many grownups are doing that already.)
Here’s one: Let’s put together a test to see if our students can “Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts?” (There’s that rascally NCTE, again.)
How about one that checks to see if they can solve a real problem in their communities and create a plan to implement the solution? (Eh, why bother? Probably would never get funded.)
And finally, how about one that tries to figure out whether or not they can effectively use all of the people, resources, technologies and whatever else they have at their fingertips to learn just about anything they want to learn without sitting in a school with a teacher in the room? (Isn’t that our ultimate goal here?)
Not finding too much of that in “Common Core” which will, no doubt, soon lead to the “Common Test” which, no doubt, will be written by folks with a “Common Interest” in making money, deciding what’s right and wrong for everyone, and being able to say that they’ve “reformed” education.
At least those with the means can start getting their kids some not-so-common test prep in kindergarten now. Never too early to think about the test.
Alan Levine wrote a post a couple of weeks ago that’s been stuck in my brain ever since, primarily because it asks what I think might be the seminal “next” question for education:
What is going to motivate the large swath of a society to become educated or to learn something in a self-directed fashion? It’s one thing to be facing a need that I need to to know first hand– how to fix a bike dérailleur, how to stop a leaking toilet, how to bake a lemon meringue pie how to add a widget to a web page– these are all places DIY shines, when I know that I don’t know something and want to fill that gap. It is clear when I don’t know something I want to know. Lots of people do this. But what is going to drive people to learn what they don’t think they need to learn? What they don’t know is worth learning? In a DIY world with people tooling up for a better job, are they going to DIY their way into poetry? French literature? Is the limits of education the things we need to know how to perform/get a job? That a bothersome underlying under toe in DIY U- that the purpose of education is to end up in a job. That feels…. lifeless.
The question grew out of his read of DIY U, Anna Kamenetz’s newish book which brought me to some similar wonderings back in April. Back then, looking at it from a parenting perspective, I wrote
Is it any wonder they can’t “take charge of their own education” when that self-directed love of learning on their own was driven out of them by second grade, when no one has ever allowed them to or taught them how do that?
But Alan’s question raises the stakes a bit, I think. Through my very K-12 centric lens, I’ve always looked at this as a challenge for our education system, whereas Alan suggests, it’s really about us all. At a moment where, if we have access, we can know and learn so much about whatever it is that we might be interested in, what will it take for people in general to actually take advantage of this “Cognitive Surplus” as Clay Shirky calls it and move away from the television set and into the DIY Learning world online?
I still think that a lot of this shift will rest in the “passion-based learning” opportunities that John Seely Brown writes so compellingly about. But as Alan suggests, there is a big difference between being passionate about getting the stupid toilet fixed and being passionate to learn, and more importantly create new learning, around all of those great things that you may not even know you could be passionate about. Just because we now have this cognitive surplus doesn’t mean we’re going to take advantage of it.
So after a couple weeks of returning to it, I’m not sure I know what the answer to the question is, (do you?) at least for the adults in the world. For the kids, and for schools however, I think it’s pretty clear. Our most total, laser-like focus has to be on learning, learning that is “lifelong and lifewide,” and making sure we do everything we can to expose our kids to as many different subjects and experiences as we can early on to help them identify what their passions might be. As a parent right now, I would gladly give up a lot of the “knowing” that my kids are doing, a lot of the content that’s being crammed in their heads, in exchange for time spent on what learning can be at a time when they have 2 billion potential teachers at their fingertips. Do that, and they’ll find the content they need when they need it, but they’ll also then have a much better chance of carrying that seed of self-direction with them throughout their lives.
That’s a huge shift in the role of schools, no doubt, and it ain’t going to come easy since “learning” isn’t near as easy to assess as “knowing.” But looking at the world as it is, not as it was, how can we not begin to make that shift?
Starting on Thursday, we’re (PLP) going to be sponsoring some “Open Mic” nights in Elluminate, a chance for people to just drop in and spend an hour talking about various education/tech/shift related topics. We know there are lots of opportunities for “Perpetual PD” out there already, but a number of folks have expressed an interest in just sitting down and chatting with other folks from around the world around topics of shared interest, so we thought we’d provide the structure and see what happens. Think of it as a virtual coffee house (or tavern or whatever works…)
In terms of format, we were thinking that to maximize the participation time, we’d give those that wanted the mic one minute before passing it on. (If they wanted to say more, they could always get back in the queue.) If you have other ideas, please add them here. And we’ll use the tag #edopenmic unless we get a better suggestion.
Looking forward to extending the conversation with all of you throughout the summer.
I’ve always been a fan of Seth Godin who is one of those people who pushes my thinking on a regular basis and who can articulate the issues in an unusually clear way. And, I love his passion for what he believes. That in and of itself makes him great reading/listening.
My kids turn 13 and 11 next month. Homeschooling is not an option for us, for a variety of reasons. (I know, I know…we could make it happen if we REALLY wanted to.) One of my kids is in public school, the other goes to an independent school. While I love their teachers, I don’t love either system. I don’t love the “we’re going to do what you need to do to get yourself to college” path they’re both on (whether it’s articulated that way or not). I don’t love what’s lost in that equation.
What really resonates is when he says that we’re not going to test ourselves out of this problematic moment. “We need to essay ourselves out of it, sketch ourselves out of it, or we need to debate our way out of it” instead. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Thinking about all of this makes me more convinced that unless my kids develop serious passions for doing whatever good work they want to do, sending them off to college as Grade 13 is just a horrible idea, and that I will continue to advocate that their schools become less focused on the one-size fits all education and allow them instead to see their school time as an exploration of what the world can hold for them. To nurture their willingness and ability to seek their own topics, question everything, and participate with others from anywhere in meaningful ways that change the world.
We’ll try to do more of that at home as well, obviously. But I really want my kids to have meaningful choices about their “education” when they get to the point where they can make those decisions. What I wrote here four years ago now still holds…
So here’s the question I’m grappling with: why aren’t parents more angry about the education their kids are getting? I know, I know…it’s the same system they went through, most schools are getting over the traditional bar, the whole technology is changing learning thing isn’t dinner time conversation…I get all that. So what?
Humor me. Bring some imaginary sets (or onesies) of parents into a room and ask them these questions. What kind of responses do you think you’d get?
Do you want your kids to be problem solvers?
Do you want them to be able to work constructively with others to create useful stuff?
Do you want the things they create to contribute to the community?
Do you want your kids to be able to distinguish between relevant, truthful information and the alternative?
Do you want your kids to be creative, imaginative and curious?
Do you want your kids to work on their own, to self-direct their own learning?
Do you want your children to use technology to learn and create?
Do you want your kids to be passionate about learning?
Do you want your kids to be engaged in school?
Do you want your students to learn from/with different cultures?
Do you want them to be independent?
(Add your own here.)
I’m thinking few if any parents are going to say, “um, no, I don’t really want that for my child.” Right? Ok, so now ask them, “How’s your kid’s school doing with all of that?” Unless I’m just totally being delusional here, I think they’d struggle when pressed to assess the problem solving, collaboration, information sifting skills et. al. that their children are getting. I know I do. I mean, where is the grade for all of that? How many parents actively try to make qualitative judgments about all that stuff based on the conversations and work that their kids bring home?
Not many.
The other night, I asked those kinds of questions to some parent friends of ours as we went deep into the night talking about education. These were really smart, caring folks who absolutely wanted all of the above for their own children but didn’t really know if it was happening. I got the sense that they had an implicit trust in the system to do right by their kids, and that the grades their kids received pretty much told the story of their education. They struggled with those questions. Not to say they weren’t frustrated with some of the things that happened in the school. Not to say they were always happy. But they seemed powerless, even resistant to change it.
They weren’t pissed. (I am.)
We read everywhere that US school kids are lagging behind, and we all go through the requisite amount of hand wringing and worry. And I know that in the mostly white and privileged communities in which most of us live (have you really looked at the picture/avatars in your Twitter list lately?), it’s easy to say that it’s the other kids that are lagging, not ours. And I also know that for many, many people, just being able to go to school and do well on the traditional tests is an amazing blessing. I’m not suggesting this isn’t complex.
But if we really believe in the value of all that problem solving, collaboration, self-direction, passion stuff, and we take an honest look at what the current system values by what it assesses, it’s hard not to see the gap. I know, we get the assessments we can afford. I know at the end of the day, assessing all of that really important stuff doesn’t fit the “easy” model we have for schools right now. But what I don’t know is why there isn’t more urgency coming from the home. Do parents think that all of that stuff is just folded into the class grade somehow? Really? Or is there a fundamental reality about all of this that I can’t see (or maybe I’m not willing to admit?)
This year’s ISTE 2010 (the conference formerly known as NECC) was a pretty different experience for me due to one decidedly different fact: I went as a (wait for it…) VENDOR more than as a speaker/learner. That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn some good stuff on the vendor floor in our PLP booth. But it does mean that my lens for this year’s conference comes not so much from my conversations in the Blogger’s Cafe (which, unfortunately, were mostly brief catching ups) or in the session halls (I only saw one) but from the evil dungeon (or in this case, attic) where ISTE shows its dark side.
I’m only half kidding.
I’ve reflected on the vendor floor at past ISTEs (NECCs) before, lamenting the oversized Best Buy bags and the gobs of swag people would carry around in them (99.87% of which is now in a landfill this year) and just trying to figure out how many meals for homeless folks you could buy with the money that’s represented there. In short, it’s not my favorite place during the conference. But Sheryl and I made the decision to have a presence this year, and I’m glad we did. We had more of an opportunity to talk to a wider cross section of educators from literally around the world and get some very different perspectives than I’ve ever had in the Cafe. The short story is that pretty much everyone is hurting right now, and there is a lot of frustration in general, but that people still want to do well by kids. It’s not all bad.
Yet, you can’t help but be taken in a bit by all the shiny new stuff that all the folks in the bright neon orange and green and blue shirts were hawking. (Thank goodness we nixed my idea for a tie-dyed PLP booth shirt pretty much as soon as I brought it up.) There were more SMART, black, IQ, vision, Promethean and insertyourtechynamehere boards than I thought possible. (There was also the lonely guy in a faded white button-down shirt spending most of the conference flipping through a magazine in front of a “cutting edge” dry erase board a couple booths up from us. Remember when?) There were clickers and booger-proof keyboards and video conferencing systems and security systems (oh, the security!) and all sorts of other stuff that probably won’t be on the vendor floor in five years. As one friend who stopped by the booth lamented, it was a sea of “buggy whips.” And it once again just felt like it was mostly all about teaching and very little about learning.
But here’s what struck me most during my 45 minutes of so of wanderings around the exhibit floor: Education. Is. Easy. Did you know this? Almost every toolsy vendor that I saw was pushing the “we can make it easy on you” button, as if students will simply be mesmerized (and, therefore compliant) if only we had the tools. When I was talking to Sylvia Martinez (who, thankfully, was a VENDOR with Generation Yes! as well), she said it felt like one of those Geico commercials…”So easy, even a teacher could do it.” Case in point, this poster flaunted by a software company that will remain nameless. I mean, seriously, look at that list. Online safety is easy. Differentiation is easy. STEM? Easy. And my personal favorite: “Teaching 21st Century Skills-Making it Fit in the School Day.” The irony is, dare I say it, oh, so easy. And the best part? If that easy thing isn’t enough to draw them in, well then, hell…let’s give ‘em some swag.
The good news? I bet at least 50 percent of the conference attendees didn’t even make it to the floor. At least I hope not.
From all accounts from folks who actually got to see some sessions this year, ISTE 2010 was as good if not better than the NECCs of yore. I’ve read a lot of great blog posts coming from sessions, heard of many being inspired by the great work that teachers are doing in their classrooms, and I know that on a very real level, I missed the best of the conference. It actually sounds like things moved a bit more this year as well in the grand scheme of things. Thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to capture it for us all. (And thanks to all of you who didn’t throw me under the bus for my VENDOR status this year.)
But my not so secret love/hate with this annual gathering continues unabated. When people ask me what yearly conference they should attend, there’s only one answer. We love EduCon not just because we get to spend a few days with friends new and old in a pretty special place. We love it, or at least I love it, because everyone who attends knows that the good stuff that happens in classrooms very rarely ends up on an exhibit floor, and because we know the problems and challenges of education and schooling aren’t going to be solved with free t-shirts and iPad raffles. We love it because our voices as educators (and students) in this conversation matter, and we get to use those voices in every session, for every idea.
We love it, in short, ’cause it isn’t easy at all.
