Day: July 16, 2018

My wife alerted me to a series of tweets authored by Josh Stumpenhorst. I don’t know this individual and have no idea if he would support my own views on educators and educational practice. I know he is an author, has been recognized as an outstanding teacher, and used to blog. I have not read his book or his blog, but I have looked back through his recent Twitter posts.

My comments here concern a recent sequence of tweets, two of which are displayed below.

These tweets resonate with me because I read many of the popular books intended for consumption by practicing teachers and I also find them mostly fluff. What struck me about Mr. Stumpenhorst’s position was his rationale for why this kind of content is popular. He suggests that teachers long for a way to feel good about themselves and somehow these books provide a way to counter the lack of respect they perceive.

I have no quarrel at all with the sense that the profession of teaching in public schools seems to be slipping in public respect. Teachers are underpaid as professionals (for example, compare to nursing which I used to see as similar in providing society with important and necessary services). Politicians have attacked the right of educators to be members of unions to give them some leverage in salary and work condition negotiations. Teachers must endure public assumptions about their summers off and stories of the occasional deadbeat teacher. The list of affronts is far longer, but since I write mainly for teachers, I will allow them to add their own personal pet peeves.

Anyway, what Stumpenhorst claims is that working in this type of environment results in an unfulfilled need and certain types of content they can purchase or review online provides relief. I will suggest two themes that I believe are commonly part of this narrative. I am guessing Stumpenhorst might disagree with the first and would probably agree with the second. I don’t really know.

Fluff themes:

• If you aren’t a teacher you don’t know and you have little to contribute to the effort to improve K12 education.
• We should form our own in-group club and we will change things. We will explain to the profession how things should work.

I guess in considering these two themes I can see that they may be interrelated. However, the mechanisms by which they offer positivity are different.

We are the only ones that really know and should determine practice. My reaction – 

It is important to remember that there are multiple, legitimate perspectives on k12 education. Teachers have a perspective. So do students, parents, taxpayers/politicians, and researchers. It is problematic when those supporting any one of these perspectives assumes their perspective is superior. Balance and openness are important. The community (nation, state, district) that pay for education have a legitimate perspective. Those that depend on student preparation (higher education, employers, fellow citizens) have a legitimate perspective. Certainly, the learners themselves have a legitimate perspective. Since I am most involved in preparing and supporting the continued education of educators, I would also argue that educational researchers have a legitimate perspective. Much like the relationship between physicists and architects, the creative process generates better outcomes when the approach or approaches emphasized take into account the best available understanding of underlying principles (cognition, motivation, etc.). 

In group focus. My reaction –

In regard to my second point, it is true that identity is important in any profession. When a large organization such as Apple or Google wants to take on a challenge and officials within the company are not certain there is widespread support for confronting this challenge in a particular way, they may organize a skunkworks group. Smaller groups do have some advantages in comparison to  larger groups. A smaller group can be more efficient and does not have to deal with the overhead of trying to convince and involve the entire group. The group isolates itself from the larger organization which allows the group to operate more independently, but often results in animosity among those who are not included and must carry on as usual. Tech skunkworks teams are famous for literally flying a pirate flag certainly more for their sense of identity than for the benefit of the entire organization. Portraying yourselves as pirates or hackers and interpreting this as signifying your independence, specialness, and unique commitment may be a rallying or motivating tactic. There is always potential danger in an isolated group assuming the basis they see as making them unique is legitimate rather than just a way to differentiate their group. There is also the related long-term goal. If an individual or group is dealing with public or larger group opinion, for actual change/innovation or whatever motivates the skunkworks group, it is the others that really matters. I think it most beneficial if the skunkworks group suggests that its purpose is to explore an option without taking the position that this option is obviously better than what most practitioners are doing.