Susan Gibb passes this little tidbit along to me concerning some policy changes at St. John’s in Marlborough. Interesting news. Source The Telegraph.

St John’s sees itself as at the forefront of radical educational change and Dr Hazlewood is testing a futuristic project devised by the Royal Society for the Arts which rejects the notion that a teacher’s job is to transmit a body of knowledge to pupils.

The project aims instead to encourage pupils to “love learning for its own sake” and the project is intended to replace the “information-led, subject-driven” national curriculum with one based on “competences for learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information”.

The point of schooling, the RSA says, is to acquire competence not subject knowledge. It believes that exams only impede pupils’ progress.

At St John’s, which has 1,450 pupils aged 11 to 18 – 250 of them 12-year-olds – replacing first-year subjects with “cross-curricular projects” of the kind that used to be popular in primary schools was the first step. Allowing the pupils to mark each other’s work was the second. Scrapping homework is the third.

The policy statement on the St. John site still claims homework as a regular part of study, though. In my opinion, if the above report is accurate, I’d claim that this is actually a good idea.

There is a place, however, where homework isn’t given. That’s college. There’s really no homework “given” in the classes that I teach. People, in order to get by, simply have work to do. They can do it at home or in the Library or at Starbucks.

Gonzalo Frasca reports on this position

Information and Communications Mgt Programme at the National University of Singapore (www.fas.nus.edu.sg/icm) is looking for a Visiting Senior Fellow / Visiting Associate Professor in New Media Theory / Interactive Media on a 3-year contract. The position is also open to those who are looking for a sabbatical location (up to 1 year). A PhD in a relevant field is required. Responsibilities would include curriculum development and teaching in the area of interactive media studies, gaming and cyberculture, as well as supervision of graduate students and development of existing research links with other relevant faculties (engineering, architecture and computing).

So we have out CCSUers (I don’t mean to leave out the others, the Nehas, the Maureens, but this is one of those what’s going on posts) moving onto the next semester. But I’m wondering what they’re getting out of it all. What are the insights that Cindy’s been drawing from her experiences? What is catching the fancy of Christopher in his intensive study of history? What are the links between story, history, and interactive fiction?

In 1939, Germany attempted to negiate various economic and political deals with the Soviet Union specifically having to do the trade mission in Praque and with the political question of what to do with Poland leading up to the Three Power Pact. Reading the various memoranda between foreign office secretaries and ambassadors is vivid stuff.

MOST URGENT

BERLIN, May 30, 1939.

No. 101. For the Ambassador.

For information.

Contrary to the policy previously planned, we have now decided to undertake definite negotiations with the Soviet Union. Accordingly, in the absence of the Ambassador I asked the Chargi, Astakhov, to see me today. The Soviet request for further continuance of their trade mission at Prague as a branch of the trade mission at Berlin provided the starting point of our conversation. Since the Russian request presents a question of policy the Reich Foreign Minister had also been considering it and he had taken the matter up with the F|hrer. To my inquiry as to whether the maintenance of the trade mission at Prague involved a permanent situation or a continuance over a limited period, the Chargi remarked that in his personal view it seemed most likely that the Soviet Government was thinking of a permanent arrangement. I replied that it would not be an easy matter for us

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to grant permission for continuance of the trade mission in Prague, since Ambassador Count Schulenburg had just received from Molotov a not very encouraging pronouncement on the subject of the general state of our relations. The Chargi, in the absence of more definite instructions, interpreted the conversation between Count Schulenburg and Molotov, of which he had knowledge, as meaning that at Moscow they wished to avoid a repetition of the course of events of last January. In Molotov’s view political and economic matters could not be completely separated in our relationship. Between the two as a matter of fact, there was a definite connection.

. . . WEIZSDCKER

The story conitnues with this

The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office

Telegram

No. 113 of June 27

Moscow, June 27, 1939-5:42 p. m.

Received June 27, 1939-8:30 p. m.

Reference your telegram of the 26th No. 132 [12]

As I see it, Mikoyan’s tactics can be interpreted as follows: Mikoyan does not want to see the talks with us broken off, but wishes to keep

[12] Not printed.

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the negotiations firmly in hand, in order to control their progress at any time. Obviously it would not fit very well into the framework of the Soviet Union’s general policy, if a stir should be created by a resumption of the trade negotiations, and above all by repeated journeys of a special plenipotentiary to Moscow. The Soviet Government apparently believes that by resuming the trade negotiations at this particular moment we intend to influence the attitude of England and Poland, and thereby expect to gain certain political advantages. They fear that after gaining these advantages we would again let the negotiations lapse.

. . .

SCHULENBURG

There is, of course, a huge story behind all this. But the point is that the “primary” sources and access to them are critical to the story. Why? In seeking out books on certain inflammatory issues that I wanted to pick up and read, I kept on coming on reviews discounting the books because of their “political leanings.” Whatever the politics. These are books written by experts in their fields as were the reviews, but no matter. The review functions on its own terms, good and bad, the study on another, good or bad. But in my searching I kept on coming back to the notion of the “good stuff.” “The horse’s mouth.” “The source.”

This is an epistemological quandry. If I say, I want to learn about Galileo and thus read a book about Galileo, I will learn about Galileo, sure. But then what? But I could also ask another question. What did Galileo write, and then I could read Dialogue Concerning the Two Cheif World Systems. Then what?

I’m wondering if Christopher Coonce-Ewing would consider a few scenarios based on some specific issue in history, such as the problem of telling the story of the constitutional convention (how was Broom involved?) or the story of Wilson’s Espionage Act and its implications in a textual environment. T.I.M.E. deals with the sense of place and anomoly–it gets close to the idea of consequential instances in a historical sense: a what if scenario, in other words. But what other constructions are possible?

I think that there are certain misconceptions about teaching that perpetuate negative and stagnant attitudes about education. I’m no expert at this but it seems to me that the classroom is an environment manipulated by the teacher to encourage learning: the readings are a part of the space. People learn, regardless, and what they learn depends on curiosity, fear, interest, and context. Let’s say that teachers “shouldn’t” teach at all (no Zen intended). On the contrary, the teacher creates a world where learning is made possible, whether it’s Milton or C++, and then drives into the business with all due enthusiasm, leaving the outcome in the hands of the student. Alternatively, the teacher opens a door, asks a youngster to enter, then locks the door after closing it, leaving the outcome, again, up to the learner (this is a metaphor). Example, I just read an article about flu virus in SciAM and it wasn’t the subject that got me, it was the enthusiastic voice of the writer that kept me interested. I left the article with this and this alone: Wow, the flu virus is a really interesting, scary nut.

“There’s another door in there,” the teacher calls through the barrier. “I’ll meet you on the other side.”

Neha could also consider this since she’s now a student of IF like the rest of us, or Susan Gibb, who, if her computer is still working, will be scared into learning with SHII. The question for Neha would be not to teach poetry with IF, but how would she design an IF environment that made learning to disentangle complex texts possible for a student. Can “a” reading of a poem be construed as a digital environment in and of itself?

Game designers are teachers, in my mind; so are interior designers.

It’s an interesting problem for a teacher (someone who likes to talk about cool things, typically to a captured audience) or team of teachers to consider game elements seriously and how those elements are actually already at work in learning environments now.

The cyborg teacher is now an ongoing project that pushes the idea that technology for the teacher has always been a critical aspect of communication and involvement in the learning process and asserts that fundamentally people have always been dependent on tools, connected to them as we are to our organs. To say “cyborg” is to stretch the definition for the purpose of implanting an image into the way a speaker, interlocutor, or politician uses tools without thinking of them as tools but as a “part of” what they do. In other words, when men get up in the morning they usually go for their pants, put them on, and then forget that they are wearing pants throughout the day. Are pants a technology. Generally speaking yes, because they are an extension of some aspect of the human body: integument. What is it is less important than what kind is it.

My friend Joe Rodriguez, who drives around in his wheel chair and can only get about the world in that contraption, and who also draws his delicate work with his mouth, is extended by tech. Technology extends him “into” the world. The world surrounds him through the technology.

The classroom is itself a technology that I would argue is a virtual space, designed, organized, enclosed, no different than a space comprised of bytes; the classroom is a part of a larger education system whose parts are cooected to every aspect of American culture: home to road. The teacher and the student walk “into” the classroom from some other place and erect the theater of the system as they go about their business. The teacher stands at the front of the room, the student sits, listens, and writes notes. If a student leaves the room, he or she will walk down the hall and look into other “rooms” in which others are pretty much doing the same.

This illustration of the cyborg is mearly a test, a hypothesis, a means of seeing, not meant to be factual. It’s meant to be pleasant, perhaps a distraction; it’s meant to invite a game into the picture: to create learning spaces just as virtual as the classroom. What is this learning space: Interactive Fiction, of course. In other words:

>enter classroom

>x teacher
He’s short, has a strange glassy left eye, a little larger than the right (link to effects of stress). He’s wearing a blue shirt and green pants, both extensions of skin. He’s standing at the front of the room, waiting to be directed, asked, kicked around, like Nixon (link to Nixon). He’s got a little frown going under his nose (link to gallery of famous noses). He doesn’t look as if he’s ever combed his hair in his life, which is a lie.

>z
time passes

>z
time passes

>x teacher
He’s short et cetera.

>z
time passes

>

J.I.Abbot writes in the comments to this post

But to discourage antiseptic approaches to such work, teachers might urge students to compile all sorts of texts and objects in their lives – as a good habit with a lot of applications. Then the officially mandated portfolio will not be such an unnatural and merely “educational” phenomenon.

I like this idea. The portfolio as a body of work of all sorts is essential, especially when texts connect and refer to one another. One item, say a description of a process, links to another, say, the coded rendering of that process.

Portfolio is one way of telling a story. Where was I? How far have I come? How did I get here? What things have I connected?

Recently, the English Department at Tunxis met with Business and CIS Departments to discuss the objectives, assignments, and work that students do in programs where writing is a requirement. In my mind, these kinds of discussions where faculty from all walks of the campus come togethert to exchange ideas are important for the people taking courses as well as for the teachers teaching them. The English Department at Tunxis isn’t a service department out of which students take their fresh abilities and apply them in other courses. If this was the case, no teaching in any other area would be done until first year writing was completed, right? On the other hand, we don’t see ourselves as cut off from the college community as a whole. We do hope, of course, that students will be able to explain themselves in other courses, and in this way we do service the college, but I’d rather see composition teaching as an offering to students who may be asked to express themselves elsewhere, either in Microeconomics or in British Literature.

I’m a big fan of teachers who ask their students to write outside of a composition course but who also take charge of the idea of writing for their own purposes, independent of the writing workshop.

Imagine a college environment where students only practiced using the language in composition, technical writing, and Literature. It would be an odd place indeed.

It would be interesting to create a learning portfolio for students to develop throughout their program career, a sort cummulative project whose outcome is to show a range of ideas and abilities, which checks along the way, a major element of this portfolio being writing.

Congratulations to Susan “Spinning” Gibb for her excellence. And thanks for the nice thoughts.

Boy, education management sure is tough in New York. This from the NYT’s David Hernszenhorn:

The city’s Panel for Educational Policy yesterday approved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to impose strict promotion requirements for third graders, but only after the mayor and the Staten Island borough president fired and replaced three members just before the vote.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced the changes to the panel, the successor to the Board of Education, at the start of a meeting last night at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. But word of the dismissals had already spread, and he had to struggle to be heard over the jeers of a seething crowd.

This is a tough fight for the minds and hearts of third graders. The article continues. I’ve plunked in a lengthy portion:

Mr. Bloomberg said he had amended his policy based on comments from panel members, but would not tolerate them voting against him.

Although Mr. Klein said they had resigned, the three panel members said in interviews that they had been tersely dismissed and had intended to vote against the mayor’s plan.

The panel had been viewed as little more than a rubber stamp of the mayor’s policies. But his plan to hold back students based on standardized test scores met stiff opposition, and seemed headed for defeat.

Under the plan, students who score in Level 1, the lowest of four rankings, on next month’s citywide English and math tests, will be forced to repeat third grade unless they score at Level 2 after summer school or their teachers successfully file an appeal on their behalf.

City officials have estimated that the new policy could force as many as 15,000 of the current 74,000 third graders, or about one in five children, to repeat the grade  four times as many as have been left back in recent years based on teacher and principal discretion.

Mr. Bloomberg announced the plan, intended to end the practice called “social promotion,” as a centerpiece of his State of the City speech in January. “This year, for third graders, we’re putting an end to the discredited practice of social promotion,” the mayor declared. “We’re not just saying it this time. This time, we’re going to do it.”

We have lots of discussion at TCC about the “idea” of so called “social promotion.” We don’t like it when the majority of our students have to go through the English and Math foundations courses, sometimes having to do a year of “developmental” work. Often students will complete the work and move into college credit courses and do fine. Many, however, don’t and disappear. Often students enter credit bearing courses by testing into them and bomb. We know that entrance tests don’t predict all that well how students will perform, SAT or Acuplacer. Many students who come to college beamed directly in from high school aren’t prepared to work with the material, to study the material, to manipulate the concepts, to manage the time requirements, and to live with the decorum of college space (for example, a lot of students think it’s okay to get up in the middle of discussion, leave the room, then return. The thought that this may be rude doesn’t seem to alter what they do before class.) Others do just fine: they struggle with the reading, grasp the basics over time, come to class, prioritize, and participate. Fine by me.

There are many guesses about what the problem is with performance and behavior: secondary education, globilization, teacher training and unions, bad management, mass media, Britney Spears, social inequity, political expediencies, and changing socio-cultural situations and trends.

The students and colleagues with whom I speak know that my proposition is tentative and observational: the problem with learning in America is the concept of systematized and mechanized education that treats people as if they were cut of the same genes. As the article above illustrates, whether Bloomberg is right or wrong by padding his Board to get what he wants and thinks he’s entitled to, the status quo is simply more status quo. More of the same, and more of it: standardization rather than standards. The answer is always more rules, more chapels on the green, as Blake would say.

What are the consequences, intended or unintended, of the above proposal? (If 1 out of five of the 3rd graders have to do the grade again, where is the system actually going to put them, with class sizes already brimming over? Are the people who sell or rent out portable buildings drooling?) One will be more pressure on teachers and students to perform in a system that is already choking under its massive foot. Or maybe everyone will pass and all will be well and paradise will be restored. Who knows.

My answer, which will never happen, is less education and more opportunities to learn (a reconceptualizing of learning from the ground up), a more flexible approach to grade levels and grading, moving from grades to things to learn in as much time as time requires, less testing and more active demonstration of knowledge. This answer to the perceived problem is a “game,” really.