Perspective Shift

Did I set up this blog just in order to get a job? Yes, yes I did. And it's a job for which I do a lot of blogging about education & disability issues (and work with teachers from all around Central TX), so I haven't been compelled to post on here in a while. But over the holiday I've been reflecting on just how far my attitudes and mission regarding disabilities have had to change.

My position at Region 13, nay my department, is essentially funded by the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, 2004 re-authorization. That Act lays out a number of vital points, but the ones that most concern me are ensuring that students with disabilities get: 1. access to the general curriculum 2. in the least restrictive environment possible. These themes, AGC and LRE, are what essentially define what I do with the Region.

Those who know me know that I've spent the past 10 or so years at private schools for students with learning disabilities, designing and delivering non-conventional academic content as a teacher and an administrator. In other words, ensuring that students 1. access an alternate curriculum 2. in a very restrictive environment. (Restrictive here meaning isolated from the general population of students).

And in that role I often found myself defending the isolated environment by the results: our students' self-esteems were enhanced and we helped them access the really vital life skills: goal-setting, self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance and the like. I believed we were serving them well, and I still do.

Now my role is completely different. Now I have to help these square pegs fit into round holes of Texas' public schools. And to do that means working with the teachers and administrators who, by law, have got to find a way to serve these kids in the most mainstreamed environment as is possible and beneficial.

It is different. Disability rights may be the final frontier of the civil rights movement. I think it's also the most complex. And my journey is just beginning.

Schools and the Tragedy of the Commons

 

Are you familiar with a theory called "The Tragedy of the Commons"? It's a scenario that's been played out in societies all around the world. A resource (a piece of grazing land, for example), is owned by the city or the town and shared by the citizens of that town, (ie. shepherds). All of the users have an obligation to steward and sustain the common resource for future use. The "Tragedy" arises when individual self-interest trumps restraint and the resource is depleted, (ie. when individual shepherds overgraze).

The concept has been generally applied to the depletion of shared natural resources: over-fishing, pollution, and so forth. And, of course, the scenario actually was played out on Boston Commons. What I would like to propose is that it may also apply to public education, and if so, in a more subtle way than is typically thought.

A simplified version of the argument for privatizing public education (whether by giving cash vouchers for families to spend at private schools or by giving public funds to private entities in the form of charter schools) is this:

The investment we are making is in this individual child, at a rate of between $6,000 and $9,000 a year. We, the people, must get the most out of our investment by giving the child the best education possible. Whether that education comes from a non-public entity or a public one is irrelevant, since the return we expect on our investment comes in the form of that child's education (ie. career prospects, contributions as a citizen, and general well-being). 

It is a convincing, child-centered argument. Considering our cumulative tax dollars as a "gift" to each person of school age. the argument holds. But considering it as a collective investment of public funds, the argument is short-sighted. What it misses is this:

Public schools, their buildings, grounds, and, most importantly, the people who run them, are public assets. We have an interest in their quality and sustainability, not just for the current generation of students in them, but for generations to come. At a public school, the cost of educating an individual student is also an investment in the system that we ourselves own. 

The equivalent per-student cost, paid to a private entity, does not enhance the value of a common, shared resource (the school and its people). It destabilizes the system by failing to invest in the future. 

"School choice" propoenents argue for the savings to the public through privatizing education. Becaue the state doesn't pay for buildings and grounds costs, the per-pupil cost is much less. As are, on average, the teachers' salaries. But we the People don't get a sustainable physical asset (b&g) out of our investment and nor do we get a sustainable human asset (a community of public teachers). 

Of course vouchers and charters are cheaper -- we the People make the investment one kid, one citizen at a time. We lose the other shared asset, the commons of the school itself. The difference in educational quality had better be profound to justify such a trade-off. I'm willing to entertain that it might be, but haven't been convinced yet.

Region XIII

Education and educational choice are so much in the news right now that I feel like I should have a coherent stance on them all: charter schools, vouchers (especially for special education students), merit pay, high stakes testing, and more. The truth is, I don't really have a clue. As much as the progressive in me shrinks at the private interests that seem to be encroaching on our public education systems, I also know that change is a constant and that those systems need help.

That is sort of a roundabout way of introducing my real news, which is that I have accepted a job with Region XIII, our local Education Service Center.

I will be working with an amazing team of educators whose focus is on improving access to the general curriculum for students receiving special education services. We provide services like professional development sessions, teacher training, classroom materials, and more. So what student population do I wind up supporting? Exceptional learners -- on a very large scale.

I am both very excited and very nervous about this position. The people and the team at Region XIII are extraordinary and it will take my very best work to live up to their standards. My years in private schools have been very rewarding, both in terms of the students I have supported and the parents I have met, but I am very, very excited to be working for the public system.

Read more about Region XIII here. I will continue to offer support to individual students and families through the Exceptional Paths site. And since this position requires me to be more involved in education at the public sector, I will be now using my twitter account: @mwholloway.

-- MH

TV Testing

Got on TV again last night. For a private school teacher, I seem to get an inordinate amount of play on local cable: five appearances in the past two years. Chalk it up to being a squeaky wheel. Of course, the first four were just thinly disguised shill for my former employer. Last night was different.

I took my wife to an event called "The Real Trouble with Testing", sponsored by the Texas Observer and hosted by the activism non-profit 5604 Manor. The panel, led by Observer reporter Pat Michels, talked at length about the nefarious effects of high-stakes testing on the public schools and their budgets. It's a Goliath of a problem, since test-makers and educational publishers have such a loud voice in the legislature. Who is there to fight back against this huge corporate interest?

Granted, I've never worked in the public schools. But I went to public schools, and I know that if 45 out of my 180-day school year had been spent on test review, test prep, testing, and re-testing, I probably would have been unhappy.

Why all the testing? To generate data. Why generate data? To justify spending. And why this kind of spending? Because it takes faith in students to make good teachers, faith in teachers to make good principals, faith in principals to make good superintendants, faith in superintendants to make good school boards, faith in school boards to make good state agencies, and faith in state agencies to make a good federal education system. It's the kind of faith that takes a risk, and risks are bad for job security. Better to make decisions based on data, no matter how easily manipulated or misleading that data is.

So my pull-away quote will probably be something about all that. I also mentioned the only piece of data that really changes society: the drop-out rate. Can't wait to see what Pearson has in mind for that one.

The story should be on YNN next week as a part of a back-to-school series. The talented Jennifer Borget was putting it together but unsure what day it would air. 

-- MH

True Philosophers

The best thing about working with exceptional learners is their natural curiosity. Particularly students with learning disabilities, who seem to be disproportionately eager for knowledge in conversation. Those same kids whose teachers often say he doesn’t want to be here during conventional classroom exercises are the ones who are bubbling fonts of information and ideas during casual conversation.

Why might this be?

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that the experience of missing out on core learning modalities, whether due to reading disability, receptive language disorders, attention disorders, or some other deficit -- I've come to believe that the frustration over that gap in their learning abilities makes them more eager to absorb knowledge in the manner most appropriate to them.

Remember when your parents told you not to go in that room? It’s kind of like that: access denied is access desired. So, instead of the stereotype of the learning disabled student as in need of trade school or vocational learning, in need of a job, let’s think of these students as being sorely in need of knowledge.

Just like everybody else.

The word philosophy is usually applied to a way of thinking (my philosophy of weight loss or the philosophy of our company). This misses out on the basic origins of the word: philos (love) + sophos (wisdom). The philosopher is not the one who has the wisdom, the philosopher is the one who loves the wisdom. And I believe there is all the difference in the world between the two. 



"much learning does not teach understanding" -- Heraclitus

westward, look, the land is bright!

It's hard not to be overly-concerned with outcomes when you're teaching. There is a special, awful, crumbling feeling that descends when you realize that the kids are not getting what you want them to get. My natural instinct has always been to try harder. 

The best teachers recognize what they do and don't have control over. Can we control learning? I'm not really sure. We can present our lessons, our activities. We can motivate and inspire our students. But can we actually control and refine every piece of information that goes into their brains? No. Should we try to? 

No!

 

Great teachers realize that they are in control of the teaching, but only the student can be in control of the learning. And that vast, awe-inspiring process of learning is subtle, complex, and unpredictable. Like the third stanza of the poem below, the waves of our teaching might not always seem to be breaking through into our students' understanding. That's okay, the poet tells us, because we don't know what inlets of growth and development are surging up around us, outside of our power. 

The final stanza is absolutely stunning. The sun may rise in the East-- and instruction might begin with the teacher -- but daylight falls across the earth, and learning occurs in wonderfully unpredictable ways. 

Say not the struggle naught availeth

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
   The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
   And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
   It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
   And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
   Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
   When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
   But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough

1849

Towards a Definition

I would like to take a moment to work on a definition of “Exceptional”, since I know that phrase might make some people cringe. There is a loud set of voices out there who object to the “over-exceptionalizing” of America’s kids. On the one hand, you have educational researchers condemning Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences as impractical and unscientific (people like this, for example). On the other, you’ve got English teacher (and son of the legendary biographer) David McCullough Jr.’s commencement address: You’re Not Special. And with a faltering economy, the standard line towards education and child-rearing has become: but will he get a job?

In a climate like this, someone like me had better have a good answer to the question: what do you mean by exceptional?

Fortunately, I think that I do.

My own school experiences involved a series of reversals as I tried to keep up with the standards of each academic institution. I attended the private elementary school where my grandmother taught. It was a great school and she was (and is) a great teacher, and I was a motivated learner. I won prizes for reading and writing and made academics a priority.

In the seventh grade, I transferred to the (well-regarded) public junior/senior high school in the small town where my family had recently bought a house. It was a good school with good teachers and a strong tradition, but within a few days there I sniffed out a change in values. The highly-regarded students here were athletes, not scholars. I shifted my priorities 100% to athletics and, over the course of about a year, became a “jock”.

I played football and track and was able to, more or less, fit in. Academics were a permanent afterthought. I took mid-level courses and managed to avoid any serious attention to my learning until the 11th grade, when I made exceptionally high scores on the SAT.

It caused a minor sensation among my friends and teachers, who had grown used to an image of me as a pleasant, academically unserious jock. Suddenly, I stood out. Admittedly, I liked the attention, but I had also been trying to avoid it and it was an uncomfortable time for me.

Many of the football players “did” Spring Track under the coercion of the coaches, who wanted us to be in the weight room and staying fit for the fall season. I was with the big boys, the “Tankers”, pretending to throw the shot put competitively but mainly just hanging out on the green grass in the middle of the track, enjoying the New England summers and watching the more serious athletes compete.

 It was much more of this: 

than this: 

 

One afternoon, shortly after my SAT scores were publicized in the local newspaper, I was at “practice”, sitting on a chair in the middle of the track. The school principal, a kind and slightly awkward man with an unfashionable beard for the time, showed up at practice. It was hot, in early June, and I remember watching him walk across the lawn in his suit and jacket, looking distinctly uncomfortable. As he made the long walk across the green oval, I had a sinking feeling that he was coming to see me. I remember how long that walk seemed, and how much I dreaded his attention.

He finally made it over and, when I realized that he was making it over for me, I got out of my chair and made a token effort to meet him. I don’t remember if we’d ever talked before, but he shook my hand and said he’d heard about my test scores. We had a few minutes of halting conversation before he said, with an ironic candor that I’ll never forget: well, considering how well you did on the test, maybe you should consider pursuing...that...rather than continuing on with [and here he took a hilarious, meaningful glance towards the shot put ring] this.

I didn’t know what exactly “that” was, but I had already come to the same general idea myself. I’d stopped pursuing opportunities to play college football and instead focused on finding a college where I could thrive academically. I was lucky enough to find one, and luckier still to be able to attend while accruing a student loan debt that has been only marginally crippling over the past eleven years.

In college I went to the other extreme, returning my focus to academics after a few months of adjustment during my Freshman year. Like in elementary school, I won academic prizes and took pride in my academic accomplishments. We were all Liberal Arts majors, there, though, and after four years, if you didn’t want to go on to law school or on to further academia, the world of work and commerce was still something of a cipher.

I got lucky, though. I responded to an ad in the Santa Fe newspaper for a part-time job at a boarding school for students who learned differently (I truly had no idea what this was) and got a call from the Academic Director, asking if I wanted to apply for a teaching job instead.

Still unsure that I wanted to be a teacher, I was convinced that I wanted to work at this school by the drive up. Nestled deep in the Pecos Wilderness outside of Santa Fe, with the Pecos River running along the road to school and across the front lawn of the school itself, this was truly one of the most beautiful spots I’d ever seen. No matter what the job is like, I told myself, I want to work here.

Of course, the job was terrific. The students had a grab bag of learning disabilities: attention disorders, dyslexia, dysgraphia, non-verbal learning disability, autism spectrum disorders, and more. Some of them didn’t have any diagnoses at all. What they all had, though, were incredible minds, personalities, and spirits. And I started to realize, even in that confused and confusing first year of teaching, that success for me meant finding ways to enable them to experience success. Which didn’t mean “dumbing-down” content to their level. It mean bringing the content to them in an appropriate package.

It meant letting the attention kids do something first, and then read about it. It meant giving the spectrum kids everything in lists and bullet points, and letting them utilize the same. It meant letting the dyslexic kids listen to everything the rest of us read and speak everything the rest of us wrote. It meant getting to know you, as a person and a learner, and finding out what information looked like to you.

Developing a method with these kinds of kids took years of experience and lots of exposure to great teachers and colleagues. One of the best things I did was take classes at the University of New Mexico with a woman named Elizabeth Nielsen, who taught her graduate classes by doing with them every single activity she advised them to do with their own students. Only after we tried something did we ever discuss the theory behind it.

I’ve worked with students who are learning disabled, gifted, and both. I’ve taught them English, Reading, Math, Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology. I’ve guided them through career searches and on river trips. I’ve had them in my home and visited them in theirs. There are not a lot of general descriptors you can apply to them, although there are some general strategies you can employ in helping them grow.

Etymologically, to be an exception means to stand out. These individuals may sometimes do things that are incredibly illogical. They may be, at times, frustrating, exhilarating, boring, petty, noble, stupid, and brilliant. But they are absolutely exceptional, they are absolutely special, and they absolutely stand out. Sometimes they are outstanding, and sometimes they are just “out, standing” (ha!), but this is the group of students who need extra attention. And they deserve it, too, because they’re also the group of individuals who will change the world.