Thursday, January 8, 2015
Second Installment on my 15 minutes (of fame)!?
Here's the link to the video of my talk about The Normal Accident Theory of Education at Pacific Lutheran University.
Monday, January 5, 2015
TCU should have played Oregon....Proves that standardized tests are sketchy!
A college football game that didn't happen is a lot like standardized testing of students.
By that I mean, if you read the linked article about whether TCU would have given Oregon a better game in the Rose Bowl than did Florida State, you can see the speculative nature of data.
It seems that all sorts of newfangled (and mind numbingly uninteresting) data analyses seem to suggest that one could argue that the Horned Frogs would indeed have been a better opponent than than the Seminoles, but nobody can definitively say so without the two having actually played. And, if they had (instead of Oregon and Florida State), arguments (and data) would undoubtedly have been mustered that FSU would have been better instead of TCU. Absent actual contests, with definitive results, we will never know.
Of course, even when they play, the only thing that is clearly established is who won that particular contest. As the article points out, if Florida State played Oregon again, the data show that there's nearly a 100% chance they would perform better.
So, claims about who is the "better" team still have something of a speculative nature. One contest is a discrete event, whose outcome we accept as definitive, by definition. But certainly there have been single contests in which the lesser team won. (I know...I've participated in many--as both winner and loser.) A variety of intervening non-football variables affect outcomes, especially in one-time contests.
Apply the same thinking to standardized tests. They are one-time events, which means other non-test factors can intervene. More importantly, this one-shot game--whose outcome may or may not accurately reflect a student's "quality"--supposedly indicates whether or not a student is succeeding--"getting educated," and whether teachers are performing adequately.
But can the test results really validate such claims? Or, like football games, is the most that we can say that a student got this specific score on the that particular test, and no more?
Like arguing over whether TCU or FSU would have played Oregon better, saying that a one-shot discrete event called a standardized test signifies anything other than performance on that test is an arbitrary exercise. Just as saying, by definition, the team with the most points (rather than, say, the most yards, or the cleanest uniforms, or anything else we might value) is named the winner and the "better" team, we impose a definition and marker of "successful" or "at standard" student that may or may not reflect anything worth really knowing about that student.
Indeed, the process is somewhat arbitrary. And, of course, arbitrary invites capricious, so let's get sensible about what we're doing and keep a proper perspective on what these one-shot games--called standardized tests--can really do. And it ain't much--pardon my sub-standard English.
By that I mean, if you read the linked article about whether TCU would have given Oregon a better game in the Rose Bowl than did Florida State, you can see the speculative nature of data.
It seems that all sorts of newfangled (and mind numbingly uninteresting) data analyses seem to suggest that one could argue that the Horned Frogs would indeed have been a better opponent than than the Seminoles, but nobody can definitively say so without the two having actually played. And, if they had (instead of Oregon and Florida State), arguments (and data) would undoubtedly have been mustered that FSU would have been better instead of TCU. Absent actual contests, with definitive results, we will never know.
Of course, even when they play, the only thing that is clearly established is who won that particular contest. As the article points out, if Florida State played Oregon again, the data show that there's nearly a 100% chance they would perform better.
So, claims about who is the "better" team still have something of a speculative nature. One contest is a discrete event, whose outcome we accept as definitive, by definition. But certainly there have been single contests in which the lesser team won. (I know...I've participated in many--as both winner and loser.) A variety of intervening non-football variables affect outcomes, especially in one-time contests.
Apply the same thinking to standardized tests. They are one-time events, which means other non-test factors can intervene. More importantly, this one-shot game--whose outcome may or may not accurately reflect a student's "quality"--supposedly indicates whether or not a student is succeeding--"getting educated," and whether teachers are performing adequately.
But can the test results really validate such claims? Or, like football games, is the most that we can say that a student got this specific score on the that particular test, and no more?
Like arguing over whether TCU or FSU would have played Oregon better, saying that a one-shot discrete event called a standardized test signifies anything other than performance on that test is an arbitrary exercise. Just as saying, by definition, the team with the most points (rather than, say, the most yards, or the cleanest uniforms, or anything else we might value) is named the winner and the "better" team, we impose a definition and marker of "successful" or "at standard" student that may or may not reflect anything worth really knowing about that student.
Indeed, the process is somewhat arbitrary. And, of course, arbitrary invites capricious, so let's get sensible about what we're doing and keep a proper perspective on what these one-shot games--called standardized tests--can really do. And it ain't much--pardon my sub-standard English.
What if we asked better questions?
Education Secretary Arne Duncan asks the question that assumes schools--their design, structure, programs--are the answer, and simply drops out all sociological realities.
The opportunity most desirable in the most successful schools is likely something a school can't replicate--the family and socio-economic circumstances of the student body/neighborhood. The opportunities that matter are not a better curriculum or more computers or a particular pedagogy. Stable families with enough resources (not just money, but time and willingness) to engage in a child's learning do a lot more than those things.
But schools, districts, bureaucrats, etc., have to do something, so they grasp for things that are possible within the organizational capacities available to them. For bureaucrats who live and work far away from the schools they're governing that something might be to ask vapid questions like this.
Education is complicated...
Free Pre-K doesn't make it less so...
Obviously, the immediate benefits of intensive support are clear. But this story does not discuss (likely because there really isn't so much available to "do" about it) the lack of subsequent family or institutional support down the years. An early foundation is critical, but on-going support of the work to build on that foundation is also required.
This is why the whole "get them reading by 3rd grade or they'll have trouble forever" discussion tends to miss the point. The answer isn't to give them all kinds of extra support to read by 3rd grade (then withdraw that extra support, thinking that everything is now fine). It's not that children's brains couldn't learn after 3rd grade, but that the engagement, support, involvement by adults in learning activities outside of school (reading, talking, singing, asking, wondering, solving, etc....) that was missing before third grade will likley still be missing after third grade. And institutional school--perhaps even with the extra support programs--just isn't enough to make up all the deficits.
In other words, a student's inability to read by 3rd grade might (likely) be an indication of a deeper systemic problem in that student's academic environment. Extra support to get to reading is treating a symptom rather than the root issue. On-going treatment of symptoms isn't really a long-term strategy.
The problem is that learning is a complicated and variable, and programmatic responses tend to focus on the effects of the program, measured more in the short-term than long.
The problem is that learning is a complicated and variable, and programmatic responses tend to focus on the effects of the program, measured more in the short-term than long.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Some thoughts on race education...mine!
We--my wife and I--adopted a two-week-old boy 7 years ago.
She and I are both white, and he is black. Or, if you prefer,
Caucasian and African-American (well, technically, African-Jamaican-American).
Or, if you follow our son's lexical preferences, white and brown.
Since adopting him, we have been learning
a great deal about race. It all seemed interesting and even fun when our son was very young. I could enjoy some sociologically forbidden
fruit, such as reading the book N--ger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word,
without apology, and, more to the point, have open and earnest
conversations with friends and colleagues about topics of race. The difficulties and distresses--about which
my wife and I would ponder, read, talk, etc.--were still in the future, and we
could delight ourselves that we were so very forward thinking about our son and
his imminent race "issues," etc.
Seven still seems young, and the
distresses still seem ahead--in the future, but that's probably more denial on my part than anything else, for that future intrudes more
readily and more frequently. Years ago, I heard a talk from a biracial
man about the unique identity perspectives and processes that biracial and
multiracial children experience. I told him about our situation, and he
said our son was biracial of a sort, and would have some of the struggles he
detailed in his talk. Specifically, once a child becomes aware of skin
color differences the biracial child has to figure out "which" or
"what" s/he is--a member of which parent's group.
This identification process includes the
child into one set of sociological patterns while it excludes, at least in some
degree, him/her from the patterns of the other group. If the child
identifies "white," s/he then identifies as "not black," or
vice versa. And that has implications for their sense of who they are and
how they live.
For our son, this has taken the twist that
he easily observes his difference from his parents, but does not have one with
whom he can identify. A few years ago, we could tell he had begun to
notice skin color differences. He would look at black (especially) men
with an increased attentiveness--obviously greater than he attended to other
skin colors. This came almost right on schedule with what that seminar
presenter had said. First would come observation of the differences.
Then would follow active mental processing of where/with whom the child
fits, which would instigate a kind of identity confusion and--possibly--anxiety
that a child from a racially homogeneous family would not have.
Our son is supremely self-confident
(sometimes too much so), so I'm not exactly sure how or to what degree this
confusion will play out, but he already thinks about race in ways children from
homogeneous families might not otherwise have to do, especially white parents
and children, who--according to survey research--talk about race much less and much later than do parents of
children from all the groups of "color."
Our son has expressed some interesting
thoughts on the matter--thoughts whose origins we do not fully understand.
For example, when I retold my son and his mother the sequence of a petty
theft that I had witnessed at a local store, his first response was, "Were
they brown?" When I asked him why he would think of that and why it
mattered, he rather nonchalantly said, "Brown people are tougher."
This, and many other race topics, fill up
plenty of my wife's and my conversation. Recent rumors in Seattle (near
which we live) about black teammates supposedly questioning whether Seahawk QB
Russell Wilson is "black enough" (which echoes the same discussion
about Candidate Obama in 2008) reminded me of how central a role race plays in
the self and group identification processes for people from all but the
dominant race group.
When we asked our son's soccer coach--a
30-year-old black man--about this, his uncomfortably (for us) straightforward
reply was "everything is about race." Again, as a member of the
dominant (in terms of social and political power) group, this is an idea I can
think about, and possibly understand, but it is not an experience to which I
can relate. When Bill Clinton was oddly called "the first black
president," white people might have been irritated--politically, but not
racially. But I heard no academic conferences, no media talking heads, no
pundits wondering whether he was "white enough." Perhaps, the comparable aspersion would be to say one is "white trash," but that is a claim about that (white) individual's character. To wonder whether someone is "enough" of something is to question whether he's even part of the group. Obviously, the accuser (if you will) is probably displeased with the target's character, but it's an even more powerful claim to exclude the person from the group.
These questions about color, identity, self-identification, etc., got no clearer when I asked my son about a series of stories I make up. For several months now I've been telling an on-going story about "Ned," well, a series of Neds. The Neds have seen and done almost everything, and it finally occurred to me to ask my son whether he saw Ned as brown or white. He said white. I asked him why, but he didn't really know.
We asked the soccer coach about this and he suggested that Ned is a white name and, besides, our son is being raised around primarily white people, so that's what he'd think of. My wife has been pretty intentional to speak celebratorily about our son's skin, knowing that his observations of color and race would necessarily arise soon, but such discussions apparently cannot transcend the learning that his eyes have been doing these last several years.
I don't really know if the color-branding of names works with 7-year-olds. My son is a big fan of the Seahawk Richard Sherman. When I asked him if he would like Richard Sherman as much if he were white, my son uninhibitedly, and without hesitation, said, "No." His explanation--Richard Sherman seems more like a black name, which is, I assume, his groping for an explanation to something that he really can't explain, but must try, for my benefit.
All this to say, I don't really know where to go from here. We want to be thoughtful and foresightful about our son's life in this regard, but...I don't really know how to do that. Are race issues ultimately insoluble? Individually? Socially? Or, am I missing something?
These questions about color, identity, self-identification, etc., got no clearer when I asked my son about a series of stories I make up. For several months now I've been telling an on-going story about "Ned," well, a series of Neds. The Neds have seen and done almost everything, and it finally occurred to me to ask my son whether he saw Ned as brown or white. He said white. I asked him why, but he didn't really know.
We asked the soccer coach about this and he suggested that Ned is a white name and, besides, our son is being raised around primarily white people, so that's what he'd think of. My wife has been pretty intentional to speak celebratorily about our son's skin, knowing that his observations of color and race would necessarily arise soon, but such discussions apparently cannot transcend the learning that his eyes have been doing these last several years.
I don't really know if the color-branding of names works with 7-year-olds. My son is a big fan of the Seahawk Richard Sherman. When I asked him if he would like Richard Sherman as much if he were white, my son uninhibitedly, and without hesitation, said, "No." His explanation--Richard Sherman seems more like a black name, which is, I assume, his groping for an explanation to something that he really can't explain, but must try, for my benefit.
All this to say, I don't really know where to go from here. We want to be thoughtful and foresightful about our son's life in this regard, but...I don't really know how to do that. Are race issues ultimately insoluble? Individually? Socially? Or, am I missing something?
Monday, December 1, 2014
My favorite poem...I think.
The Joyful Reality of Fatherhood
An old friend introduced me to this poem, and it reminded me that (nearly) every son has his struggles with his father. And every father worth his salt makes the sacrifices he must for his children.
THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
A haiku in response...
Furnace blows heat now
Wages earned in warm darkness--
Lonesome bright future
Junior Achievement Poetry
Today, we played something called the Savvy Shopper game as part of our preparation for doing the personal finance simulation at Junior Achievement. I handed out word magnets (for making refrigerator poetry) as game pieces. Each group's words make up one line of the poem. Word order within the line, and line order is up to me, the "poet." Herewith, Savvy Shopper Poetry!
Version 2
Version 1
Purple Winter Evening, Erase Blossom
Water Spring Garden
Mushroom, Then Skin
Whisper, “Investigate Smile?!”
Version 2
Skin, then mushroom
Evening Blossom Erase Purple Winter
Garden Spring Water
Investigate Whisper Smile
Leave yellow happy side
Cloud soon beneath,
Birch dawn autumn song--
“Rise, cold grass!”
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