I like this page in person, but it didn't photograph terribly well, so I feel the need to walk you through some of it so it makes more sense. It is made up of strips of vellum weaved together. On the strips I have written things that have become tightly woven into the way our schools function, so much so that these things like, standardized test or random fact memorization, masks people from seeing the true goals of education (which should not be high test scores). Underneath the layers of vellum you can see the words "life long learners" breaking out of the heart shaped cookie cutter. Kohn is calling for a move away from these deeply ingrained, cookie cutter ideas surrounding education and rather to look deeper to find the true goals of education. If we define out goals and get brave then we can break away from the cookie cutter and peel away the layers until we can develop educational models that serve the students best.
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| Bertie McLaren - Kohn Chapter One |
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| Sadara Evans - Kohn Chapter Two |
In this chapter, Kohn speaks to our educational system in general - arguing what he calls a "radical" point of view - that acheivement is stressed so much in our schools that it is having a negative impact on our students. He says that "the point of school isn't to explore ideas, it's to triumph". As I read this, I wrote in the margin, "What? But it's so true..." and why is that? And more importantly, what does that mean for our art classrooms? If we are trying to emphasize meaningful making, but the only thing our students are concerned with is mastering a particular technique or medium (not to explore all possibilities with it, but to "triumph"), then how will our students ever grow as artists? The five consequences of this mindset that Kohn presents are so relevant to the art classroom - and I think they are worth thinking deeply about. These are: 1) Students come to regard learning as a chore, 2) Students try to avoid challenging tasks, 3) Students tend to think less deeply, 4) Students may fall apart when they fail, and 5) Students value ability more than effort. How can we combat these issues in our own schools, with our own students? I just saw an example of this last week in my field. A class of Grade 4-5 students were working on face templates for an abstract portrait project they are going to be starting. The template exercise was just so that they could get a feel for and be comfortable with the proportions of the human face before starting to abstract the face. One of the students was having a hard time getting his features to fit correctly on his face and he got to a point where he just gave up. He put his head down on the table and didn't want to continue because he "couldn't do it". It was heartbreaking....and I think that "obsessive acheivement" is not what our art students need to REALLY succeed. What I tried to show in my AJ response for this chapter was that if our students can't be "swept away" in their artwork, then how are we to truly do our jobs? How do we compete against the "achievement mindset"?
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| Anna Horine - Kohn Chapter Three |
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| Michelle Livek - Kohn Chapter Three |
Ch. 4:
In Chapter 4, Confusing Harder with Better, Kohn states that the tone of politics, journalism, and general public discourse has reduced the conversation about about standards to this: "Either you're in favor of higher standards or you're presumably content with lower standards. Choose one." Clearly, what's missing here is nuance. I think Kohn sees this, as I do, as a fundamental flaw in our collective cultural thinking and it is this inability to cope with ambiguity, to take a flexible, multifaceted approach to a complex problem...this desperate need to distill every issue down to black or white, this or that...it is the root of so many short sighted, knee-jerk solutions to problems that deserve so much more. I'm digressing a little, but this is the theme that ties both chapters I looked at together for me.
To illustrate this point, Kohn goes on to say that "to judge schools by how demanding they are is rather like judging an opera on the basis of how many notes it contains that are hard for singers to hit." An apt metaphor indeed. An opera, a song, or any work of art for that matter, is an amalgamation of so much nuance. Demonstration of skill evidenced by the performer's ability to maneuver difficult or complex technicalities may factor into our consideration of the product overall, but it's certainly not everything, and probably not the most important thing. If the purpose of the arts is ultimately to communicate concepts effectively and elegantly, often simpler is better. An opera singer with a broad vocal range (or a visual artist with a high degree of formal technical facility) certainly has more tools at their disposal to achieve this communication. That counts for something, but it's only one of many criteria by which we might assess a performance or art product, both as an educator and/or as a casual viewer.
Kohn challenges us to define excellence; what are we educating for, what is the purpose of education, and in a sense, what do we value? What does excellence really look like? What do we really expect students to know? He suggests that perhaps a good metric for this would be to examine a cross section of successful adults. He invokes Deborah Meier saying "No student should be required to meet an academic requirement that a cross section of successful adults in the community cannot." It's an interesting thought to consider; one which inevitably leads us to ask "How many of us need to know this stuff - not just on the basis of job requirements but as a reflection on what it means to be well educated. Do these facts reflect what we honor, what matters to us about schooling and human life?" These questions really point directly to the heart of the issue. What do we value? What do we teach and why? As a society that claims to value advances in efficiency (we consider innovations that make our lives and jobs easier "smart"), it strikes me as odd that we insist on making education unnecessarily difficult and bogged down with busy work and hoops to jump through.
In my journal, I chose to explore "the gray area", nuance, and ambiguity. Many people simply cannot seem to cope with these notions. They want simple answers, measurable data, uniformity of standards and students. This, as we know, is not what the real world is made up of. The real world is driven more by questions than answers.
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| Karen Shortt - Kohn Chapter Four |
My response to this chapter was done in clay. As you guys know clay has to be worked with in stages, so it is not all refined, fired and glazed, etc, but I think you can still get a lot from the idea behind it. I will repost a picture when I finish it all up.
My response to this chapter is trying to express that if our aim is happy studnets that are excited to learn than "raising standards", ie. standardized test scores has actually made our target harder to hit. Our current educational system is leaving many kids out and the meat of education is dwindeling. This apple won't nourish anyone. In short this educational model isn't helping anyone those tyring to educate students (the ones shooting the arrow) or the students (the ones trying to be fed).
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| Roberta McLaren - Kohn Chapter Four |
Ch. 5:
A little bit of trepidation, some thoughts on the reading, standards, rectifying my two minds, following complex directions to get something beautiful and amazing, and references to tests and fear.
My Thoughts:
Is it possible to agree and disagree at the same time? As I started reading, I thought I might not agree with Kohn's premise for this article. I have seen standards been extremely helpful in the art room. However, I am also seeing the importance placed in the testing of these standards turn them into something detrimental to the learning in the classroom. Now keep in mind I am speaking from my experiences, which take place in the secondary art room which is different than courses such as ELA or Math that are core subjects and treated differently because of their testing requirements.
I noticed in the first page of reading Kohn says that warnings were raised early in the days of championing standardized testing. (yes, everyone freaked out when NCLB was enacted) Many experts I align my thinking with were mentioned as being alarm ringers, but then this quote stood out: "the field seems to have closed ranks around the idea that it is permissible to criticize tests, but not the standards." Kohn goes on to point out that the tests and the standards are linked, that we can't endorse one without keeping in mind the other. That the tests are the enforcers of the standards, and that standards might be as big of a problem as the tests. The explanation of the difference between OUTCOME based standards and CONTENT based standards was helpful. I had missed that nuance as a beginning teacher during all this. I am picking up through other research that the more outcome based standards were rejected, where the content based standards were more easily accepted.
I felt better as Kohn went on to say that we should not just accept or dismiss standards uncritically. That we need to judge them by a set of four criteria: How specific are the standards; How quantifiable; How uniform; and are these standards Guidelines or Mandates? {I keep thinking here of our little role defining lesson this summer - Are you a leader, a rule follower, or a rule breaker? I'm a good blend of all three which I think is what might make me the leader archetype. And why I felt comforted when what I was reading I could agree with.} As I was reading I also kept thinking of the difference between our Missouri Fine Art GLE's and our previous National Standards. I liked the way the National Standards were phrased to allow for open ended interpretation (and more skills that were unquantifiable) but they were also frustrating for me in their ambiguity. It seemed the more ambiguous, the less my colleagues wanted to discuss or think about what that would mean for us as teachers and how that would affect our students. In my mind, my school of 6 art teachers needed to be somewhat on the same page since we would often be teaching the same students at different points in their art development. If we could come together, play up each of our strengths and come together on an end game, we could work well as a team and really do our students some good. I'm digressing a bit though.
I still think that the over emphasis on our current accepted form of assessment is what is harmful in developing standards-based learning. Using those 4 criteria above, we can use standards to guide our instruction while still allowing for flexibility and differentiation that will meet each students' developmental needs. As I started to think about my district's move towards more stringent standards and their implementation, it made me wonder about when this article was written. Was it predicting the future or was it documenting the present? It was amazing to me to learn that it was written in 1999. '99!! That is almost 15 years ago! Back in a time when I felt standards were doing some good. It seems like it took until 2009 for people in my district to start to use standards in the negative way Kohn outlines, and for people to start to balk. I'm curious how Kohn's outlook has changed since he wrote this and what he seen change. I wonder what he would say about the Common Core movement. I wonder if he would dismiss it out of hand as another poor example of how standards based education is detrimental to student learning. Or how it would stack up in his mind to his four criteria. Like most of what I see in education, each district, each teacher, each student is different. What works in some cases, won't in others. Seems we could do to remember that across the board.
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| Michelle Ridlen - Kohn Chapter Five |
Ch. 6:
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| Katherine Amos - Kohn Chapter Six |
Ch. 7:
What do we have to give up to make room for standardized tests and accountability measures that inhibit learning? In this image, I wanted to devise a way to show that the targets of the assessments are typically firm, grounded, separate from each other, somewhat overlapping, and uni-directional. But, the figure at the top is creating her own learning target, and it is radiating out of and on top of the smaller targets at the bottom. She can also fly above the targets and when in flight she can move at 360 degrees in any direction. In the Chapter Kohn speaks primarily about the large amount of authentic learning that is being squeezed out to make room for time. TIme that is spent primarily on test prep. I wanted to present an image that represents the hope of what schooling could feel like for its learners and teachers. The question is, how do we convince others that the freedom that the students will have will create an atmosphere of learning, respect, personal responsibility, and assist in the development of amazing humans?
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| Michelle Livek - Kohn Chapter Seven |
Chapter 7 Sacrificing Learning for Higher Scores
Kohn highlights some of the changes schools have made to allow more time to prepare for standardized testing. Schools are decreasing instruction time in social studies and science while increasing english language arts and mathematics. The fine arts have continued to be cut along with time spent in physical education classes. Kohn’s big question he raised, “What was taken away from my children’t education in order to make them better at taking standardized tests?”
I believe we are deciding what subjects are the most important. Yes students need to learn how to communicate...is the language room the only place this can occur? As a parent I would like my child to have a well-rounded education. Some children thrive in P.E. being a leader and competing against others while others work best showing their skills through music, art, or writing. I believe we are attempting to create every student alike not allowing for differences or encouraging critical thinking.
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| Caila Linneman - Kohn Chapter Seven |
Ch. 8:
This is Chapter 8: Explaining why we should get rid of the SAT. I have been seeing a lot of cartoons lately, which was the inspiration for my pages this week!
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| Erika Atterbury - Kohn Chapter Eight |
Ch. 9:
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| Kelley Schotte - Kohn Chapter Nine |
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| Sadara Evans - Kohn Chapter Nine |
Ch. 10:
I went into this chapter thinking it may be a little boring . However it was super insightful to the harms of how grades have been used. Learned a ton!
Response #1: My son is brilliant, and I'm not just saying that because he is my son! He has a near photographic memory, and can converse at length on nearly any topic you could bring up. He can not, like Amy admits, spell worth a darn and the mechanics of handwriting are almost painful to him. He had an IEP for almost all of his K-12 education and earned mostly low grades. Every year on standardized test, however, his scores were among the highest in his grade level. Absolute recall and the ability to bubble put him in the 98 - 99% bracket every single year. His teachers were continually amazed and I was continually pissed off! Some of the teachers actually seemed to take pleasure in giving him bad grades. He has a pretty healthy level of self-esteem, and somewhere along the line, we all stopped caring about grades. Makes me wonder what makes a "good student" anyway?
- You would have enjoyed the chapter slamme! It said that at the elementary level they tend to confuse "excellence with victory" and "quality with difficulty." At the higher ed. level the depth and value of classes typically depend on how much reading they assign, how hard tests are, and how rarely they award good grades. That is crazy!
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| Whitney Carnahan - Kohn Chapter Ten |
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| Alex Brechbuhler - Kohn Chapter Ten |
Ch. 11:
Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job
| Sheryl Lamme - Kohn Chapter Eleven |
My building is a PBS (Positive Behavior School), last year we were one of eleven schools in the state to get the prestigious “Gold” for our levels of deep implementation. In a nutshell, we establish and teach rules and expectations and then praise kids for following those rules. Teachers are given stacks of school money, AKA Tiger Bucks. Every couple of weeks the PTO opens the Tiger Buck store and teachers sign up to take their kids to buy cheap stuff. Everything about this process has always screamed “WRONG “ to me! It’s unnatural, overlooks the kids who make good choices because it’s the right thing to do, and contributes to students displaying the behavior they know you want to see, but frequently, only when the teacher is looking. I am not a big fan! As I’ve mentioned previously, my administrator already believes that Daniel Pink is a “Whack job”, I can just imagine his opinion of Alfie Kohn!
So, after reading this chapter I decided to monitor my comments and responses to students. I thought that I tended to use observations versus praise, but I was surprised to notice that my observations were frequently delivered in the form of a compliment. Then, I’d have everyone at the table questioning me, is mine good? Do you like mine? LOOK at mine! Elementary kids really are praise junkies! As the week wore on, I was extra careful to only say what I saw, be it their artwork or their behavior. The rare compliments I delivered were genuine. Taking more of a VTS approach with my observations encouraged reflective thought. My students were just fine with that, and it felt more natural to me.
Yesterday I learned that soon teachers will soon be rewarded with teacher Tiger Bucks which can be redeemed for things like duty free lunch or jeans days. (These will be handed out when the teacher’s class is observed doing what they are supposed to be doing in the first place.) I’ve already worked myself into a tizzy because I know that classroom teachers will be the ones who get these rewards while non-classroom teachers will be overlooked. I can only imagine how it must feel to be that student who is always overlooked.
Chapter 11 “5 Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job!’”
Kohn discusses positive reinforcement and the affects it can have on children. He believes that individual praise can have a negative impact on students. They will begin to expect praise and only work to receive praise again. I am guilty as charged by Kohn. Students are always asking me “Is this ok? Hows this look?”. My first reaction is good. Yes that is fine. Teachers should encourage students, reflect along with them, be interested in their work, be proud, notice and point out their achievements and most of all support them along the way.
One interesting thing is that I relate this to parenting as well. I’m always praising my children but he made me think about explaining why we are cleaning up toys, dusting the house, or taking good care of our possessions. If they understand why we do these things maybe it will help them personalize the thought/task and complete it a little more willingly setting them up for the future.
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| Caila Linneman - Kohn Chapter Eleven |
Ch. 12:
In Chapter 12, Constant Frustration and Occasional Violence, Kohn again points to our dualistic, over-simplified understanding of a deeply complex problem. He suggests that it is all too easy to simply dismiss violent youths such as infamous school shooters in Columbine, Littleton, and Newton,laying blame on violence in media, lax gun laws, and lacking mental health interventions. Indeed, all of these issues may have a role to play, but it conveniently ignores the glaring fact that middle schools and high schools are not meeting the basic psychological and developmental needs of their students. Alarming numbers of teens claim to feel invisible, lost, and powerless. Kohn points out that a sense of connectedness, effectiveness, personal identity, and meaning are basic needs for all human being emotional and psychological well-being, but these needs are especially pronounced in adolescents. He claims that the typical American high school model "not only fails to meet those needs, but makes a mockery of them". He sites Darling-Hammond for some simple suggestions for improvement: "Teenagers who stay in more nurturing settings where they encounter less departmentalization, fewer teachers, and smaller groups experience higher achievement, attendance, and self-confidence than those who enter large, impersonal, departmentalized secondary schools".
I have long wondered why most high schools are organized around subject/department rather than teams of faculty with representatives from each subject are being organized around a smaller group of students. It seems like a simple change that could have a really meaningful impact.
Again, in this chapter, Kohn poses the question (and suggests we pose it to parents) "what (and i think better yet 'who') do we want students to be? How do we want them to turn out?" If most respond with a list such as "responsible, caring, happy, creative, lifelong learners, and so on", is that what we are really fostering, and more importantly modeling, in our schools ( the curriculum, standards, expectations, and assessments, and in our disciplinary models).
In my journal, I chose to explore "the gray area", nuance, and ambiguity. Many people simply cannot seem to cope with these notions. They want simple answers, measurable data, uniformity of standards and students. This, as we know, is not what the real world is made up of. The real world is driven more by questions than answers.
The text is intentionally obscured, but a snippet of it reads..."This is where I live, on the shoreline, in the doorway, with the thickest of mists. In these places that are neither and both...I feel more alive... you wade out into the water, deeper and deeper until it touches your chin, and suddenly the sediment begins to slip. For a moment you lose contact with control. Your heart skips, and then...you realize you can float, you can swim."
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| Karen Shortt - Kohn Chapter Twelve |
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| Alison Bennett - Kohn Chapter Twelve |
Ch. 14:
Ch. 15:
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