Senator Chris Dodd, at the Democratic Candidates’ Debate in Los Vegas last night, made the strongest affirmation of the importance of education of any of the candidates. Dodd identified education as “the most important issue,” and said, “Every other issue we grapple with depends upon our ability to have the best-educated generation we’ve ever produced.”
Dodd’s passion about the importance of education, it seems to me, is so compelling that, if it receives the attention it deserves, a lot of voters will be attracted to Dodd’s candidacy.
What needs to be explored is this question: What is the education Dodd is talking about that he feels will determine our future?
First, it seems obvious that the education that will define our future is much more than the education that today defines itself simply in terms of tests of academic skills. The education that our future relies on is an education that goes well beyond the state’s capacity to measure and regulate. It is an education that develops human potential to new and unmeasured levels of quality. The first thing to understand about the education crucial for our future, it seems to me, is that it is an education that well exceeds what even our best schools are now producing.
And second, the nature of this education, I feel, must transcend simple academic or vocational purpose. After all, schools for a democracy must have different education goals than the education goals that schools for a totalitarian state might have. Ultimately our future safety and prosperity depends upon the degree that our nation acts as a vigorous democracy. The descending spiral our country is even now suffering from is a direct result of the fact that our democracy is failing. And all signs point to the reality that this descent will result in an ultimate crash — unless somehow our democracy becomes more effective. In order for our democracy to successfully meet the challenges of the future, an awakened and informed citizenry must be meaningfully engaged. Education must develop in students their capacity for participating in an authentic democracy. Education must develop in students independent thought and leadership, the capacity to challenge authority, a passion and commitment for justice and American values.
Dodd’s comment about the central importance of education deserves widespread discussion and debate. At the center of the debate should be the question: What is the education that matters? So, my thought is that the education Dodd is talking about, the education crucial for our future, is 1) an education that emphasizes the development of human potential and 2) an education that effectively equips and inspires citizens to positively participate in and contribute to the success of their democracy.
Mike, I find your comments here compelling.
I am constantly faced with those who confuse “training” and “education.” Both are important, and neither is superior to the other, but we often lose sight of the need for both.
I often joke about training–“Oh, we have a training session–will there be clickers and treats?” But the analogy is fair–you can train dogs, pigeons, rats. Training provides the capacity to perform a defined task–of course, the kind of training that a human being gets is more complex than what a pigeon could handle. The phlebotomists at CompuNet are well trained in locating and puncturing a vein to draw a blood sample; this is the sort of training that our schools can deliver.
But education, vis a vis training, operates at a higher level. An educated individual will understand the workings of her/his own mind, and will be more than capable of self-education. The uneducated person will require training; the educated individual might make do with a manual and a help line.
I can hold myself as an example. I was capable, back in the days when professional standards did not exist, of working as an x-ray technician even though I had no specific formal training–I was able to combine a little on-the-job training with a basic knowledge of human anatomy and a good handle on electronics and perform the duties. When I needed to use computers for a specific purpose and there was no available software, I taught myself how to use new programming languages (after only two classes, one in fortran and one in pascal). More recently, in order to be a more effective teacher in this cyber-age, I taught myself HTML and javascript programming so that I could create useful web pages.
I could have been trained to do each of these tasks, and I probably would have performed them just as well. But having an education made it possible for me to learn about them without the expense of time and money that training would have entailed.
I think it’s important that we don’t lose track of the differences between training and education. The first is well-suited to immediate needs of industry; the second serves the longer-range concerns for an adaptive workforce and an informed citizenry.
Public Education works. Public education works really well.
Look at the graduation rate at Dayton Public Schools, for example.
An entire generation of young men are being shortchanged out of their future and what are you doing about it? Posting cute clipart on a website? Wow, way to achieve social justice.
Public Education works perfectly – it works as a means of social control, enforcing conformity, compliance, and submission. Public Education doesn’t care about the customer, it cares about itself. Public Education works too well.
It is an education that develops human potential to new and unmeasured levels of quality.
Then it ought to provide the prerequisites for Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge:
Using Data
Epistemology
Psychology
Systems Thinking
Ultimately our future safety and prosperity depends upon the degree that our nation acts as a vigorous democracy.
Then adults ought to conduct themselves with eleventh grade (or better) social studies skills. That includes “Identifying the major duties, responsibilities and qualifications required for a particular position” before endorsing a candidate for school board. They would refrain from calling “Susan Zellman [sic], a rudesby” or would at least spell her name correctly.
How will we be assured that students are prepared “to carry out the duties of citizenship” if we can’t concur on the application of the state’s official civics skills? How will our K-12 teachers be prepared if our higher ed faculty are falling short of the standard?
Perhaps the author of “Speech communication in the American two-year college,” 1995, can be induced to comment:
Over the last dozen years, what trend have we seen regarding “an education that effectively equips and inspires citizens to positively participate in and contribute to the success of their democracy … [through] the capacity to challenge authority, a passion and commitment for justice and American values.”
How might this trend be influenced by school board elections? Is there more to citizenship than having a residence, registering to vote, and selecting the candidate named on a slate card?
Eric, people who spend their spare time googling me are certainly dealing with small matters. Please, cite my work on Shakespeare or in fantasy gaming or about music–if you want to show off my publications–I’m far happier with the way those others turned out than the tortured product of my dysfunctional dissertation committee.
As for your question, what do you want me to say? Some things improve, many have gotten worse. It’s hard to draw global conclusions about preparation for citizenship when we have so many diverse subsystems of education.
I generally focus on more specific issues. For example–today I’ve heard that over $2.5 million of federal and state grants were awarded as development funds to Ohio charter schools that NEVER OPENED. The study did not include charters that did open and since have closed, which by implication would account for some additional millions.
The charter school proponents evidently do think that you solve the problem by throwing money at it. But only so long as they’re the ones wearing the catchers’ mitts.
And yes, our Susan Tave Zelman was complicit. BTW, has anyone ever explained to you the differences between, say, dissertation writing and blogging? Over the internet, the culture has valued a high degree of tolerance for the occasional typo and grammatical error, so long as meaning is not compromised.
So on the one hand you want to deal with the picture so broadly that I don’t know how to respond–and in the other you want to dwell on an extra L from a blog post in another forum sometime last year. Just for fairness, would you post something you’ve published and comment on one time when you spelled something wrong? If either have ever happened…
Combative style and reckless recommendations certainly have their to Democratic bloggers but it dampens my hope for Dayton Public Schools. The DPS board will be better served by implementing the state’s K-12 quality policy, which is their legal obligation–regardless of whether or not they can find it. That would be far more productive than seeking advice from a group eager to blame others or encourage public servants to flout their oath of office.
T Ruddick: Since I hold a PhD and therefore have been thoroughly trained in experimental research, I’d like to offer an expert opinion for debate.
Greg Hunter: I say we appoint Dr. Ruddick the Education Czar of Ohio”
Gary Staiger: T Ruddick, I sincerely hope that you will be taking your ideas as posted to the new board … I believe you would find Nancy Nerny very open to discussing them with you.
K-12 English Language Arts Grade-Level Indicators
Grade Eight, Listening and Viewing … 3. Determine the credibility of the speaker (e.g., hidden agendas, slanted or biased material) and recognize fallacies of reasoning used in presentations and media messages.
Grade Nine, Research … 3. Determine the accuracy of sources and the credibility of the author by analyzing the sources’ validity (e.g., authority, accuracy, objectivity, publication date and coverage, etc.).
T Ruddick: Over the internet, the culture has valued a high degree of tolerance for the occasional typo and grammatical error, so long as meaning is not compromised.
Nonetheless, credibility is diminished by misspellings that indicate the author has never googled the subjects he disparages, let alone that his “expert opinion” is witnessed by a “tortured product of [his] dysfunctional dissertation committee.”
The charter school proponents evidently do think that you solve the problem by throwing money at it. But only so long as they’re the ones wearing the catchers’ mitts.
Nice rhetoric, but the real issues are first, the perceived implicit need to undermine teachers’ unions by creating non-union shops and second, the potential for a free market to work in education. Of course those forces will give rise to charters. I’m all for public education winning on these issues, but opponents cite a Nobel prize winner and proponents appear to be stuck rewording the prompt.
T Ruddick: We know that, for most students, direct instruction technique with a system of quick rewards, especially in the early grades, works well. For advanced students, a more free-form curriculum and hands-off instruction works best.
And just how has DPS professional development aligned with these best practices? Or have the administrators failed to recognize your expertise?
While we agree with the importance of education, I’m curious about the percentage of time, during the last 156 years, when school board candidate endorsements were made with those purposes in mind:
Now there’s a good expectation of a board members: “so educated that they can understand its principles, its provisions, and its rules.” Of course, that would include the state’s K-12 quality policy.
Just for fairness, would you post something you’ve published and comment on one time when you spelled something wrong? If either have ever happened…
Dear Dr. Ruddick,
Permit me to bring to your attention the following typos in my post, above. The first sentence ought to read, “Combative style and reckless recommendations certainly have their appeal to Democratic bloggers… .” Their is a stray indefinite article in the second to last sentence. Finally, “public burdens cause by them” appears as cited by The Constitutional Common School, Molly O’Brien and Amanda Woodrum. I have also misused a homophone in the current post.
As for my published writing, feel free to search scholar.google.com or the Ohio Revised Code.
I hope this helps. If it would enhance my appeal to the social justice sensibilities of Democrats, I could be induced to denounce Busch’s illegible wore. Just let me know how you’d advise your students.
Regards,
Eric
Eric, I try to judge others by their own standards. You continue to clamor about how typos and other errors diminish credibility; I think that they don’t necessarily do so. You make many more errors then I, even in your post where you claim to be identifying your errors.
On a wider level, you seem to think that I have some sort of noteworthy influence in public school policy, at least more so than any other citizen. Please disabuse yourself of that misconception.
Finally, I am thoroughly aware of OBE outcomes by grade level, such as the ones you quoted in your earlier post. I carefully studied those in my disciplines when I was working on Transfer Assurance Guide committees with the Ohio Board of Regents a couple of years ago. My impression is that those OBE documents were written by idealists rather than realists; they are so ambitious that any student who masters the grade 12 outcomes ought to just receive a college diploma–as former higher ed. chancellor Rod Chu used to say, we need an “age-appropriate” curriculum, and what’s at OBE is not even close.
I refer you to developmental psychology and the education research of Piaget and his successors if you’d like a handle on age-appropriateness.
Mike: Ultimately our future safety and prosperity depends upon the degree that our nation acts as a vigorous democracy. The descending spiral our country is even now suffering from is a direct result of the fact that our democracy is failing.
T. Ruddick: My impression is that those OBE documents were written by idealists rather than realists; … we need an “age-appropriate” curriculum, and what’s at OBE is not even close. … I refer you to developmental psychology and the education research of Piaget …
Translation: Education (as opposed to training) is good unless the knowledge and skills necessary for citizenship in a vigorous democracy are specified. Then Piaget is invoked, making a sham of the rationale for a “thorough and efficient system” of public schools as stated during Ohio’s constitutional debates. It follows (somehow) that the system can be fixed by eliminating regulations, increasing funding, consolidating districts, and replacing state board members.
Piaget is highly regarded in education. Will we find in the minutes of the State Board of Education educators’ objections to adopting the standards and model lessons based upon Piaget’s work? When the 26th amendment was adopted, did educators object that 18 year olds were not developmentally suited to cast informed ballots? Where in the work of Piaget will we find evidence that recognizing “hidden agendas, slanted or biased material” and “fallacies of reasoning” are beyond the developmental limits of a eighth-grader? Were the putative citations not accessible to the standards committee?
Hi Eric and Dr. Ruddick,
I’ve been out of touch with my computer for a few days, so I’ve not been able to make comments until now. There’s a lot here to respond to.
Eric, I am looking for the K-12 quality policy that you frequently refer to. If you can give me a direct link to documents that give some detail on that policy I would be glad to study that policy so that I can be better informed.
Dr. Ruddick thanks for your observations about training as compared to education. My limited understanding of TQM includes the concept that a system must be centered on accomplishing a well defined purpose. My little article, “What is the education that matters?”, is making an attempt to clarify how I feel or think about school purpose — how education should be defined. I like the idea you bring out that an educated person has acquired the capacity to teach himself or herself. And to add to that, an educated person is one who has acquired not only the capacity to learn, but also the habit of wanting to learn, the desire to learn, the desire to know. As Mark Twain said, a person who will not read has no advantage over a person who cannot read. Attitudes toward learning and attitudes toward personal development are key to actual learning and actual personal development. It seems to me that much of what makes an educated person has to do with character and character development, in turn, is very much impacted by the influence of an effective teacher. I am sort of stuck on this education theme right now and one topic I want to focus on is teaching, what makes a good teacher, etc.
Eventually, I think it would be fun to design a school from the ground up that would include all of the principles of organizational structure and all the theories of learning and motivation that I’ve come to value — and that would be budgeted with the amount of income that a charter school could expect to receive. It seems to me that there is a crying need for viable school designs that could be used by communities who might want to initiate schools of choice.
The whole idea of writing a log of one’s thoughts is an interesting idea. Putting thoughts on paper is one way to discipline one’s thinking and the possibility that someone may actually read and respond to those thoughts makes that process even more valuable. So thanks. Participating via comments is very useful. I like the idea that the internet can create community. Anyone who wants to post an article on DaytonOS — under their own name — is welcome to do so.
In addition to education, I want to start developing ideas for State Representative campaigns. The deadline for filing to run for the office of State Representative is Jan 4 — and only 50 signatures of voters in the District are required to get one’s name on the primary ballot. I would like to see DaytonOS become a center for local political discussions and I think to focus on these State Representative races is the place that would be good to emphasize. I am wanting to put some time into making the effort. I am particularly interested in finding good candidates to run as Democrats in the four open districts in Montgomery County, and then, hopefully to work with these candidates as a group to produce short videos to post on DaytonOS. If anyone knows someone who needs a little encouragement to run, let me know. I think DaytonOS could be very helpful and could become an effective alternative media that could be effective in helping candidates communicate their message.
BTW, this evening, Tuesday, Nov 20, anyone wanting to meet with DaytonOS bloggers and DaytonOS readers is welcome to come to Tanks at 5:30 PM; 2033 Wayne Ave. Dayton, OH 45410. We will meet for about an hour. DaytonOS is scheduling monthly meetings, so if you miss this evening’s meeting, there will be another meeting in December.
Sorry Ruddick, but you just set the bullcrap detector off.
I am particularly interested in finding good candidates to run as Democrats in the four open districts in Montgomery County
I will be mourning the loss of Arlene Setzer from the Ohio House Ed Committee…
We can talk at 5:30 about how Democrats might make use of Ohio’s K-12 Quality Policy.
Mr. Greene, could you please elaborate?
Eric, I have no problem with the education goals you’ve cited. However, I’m aware of considerable research that says that prior to age 16, students are in a “concrete operations” stage of mental development in which everything is either right or wrong, fair or biased, black or white–no in-between, no shades of gray. At age 16, some students start to demonstrate the mental development to deal with outcomes like:
“K-12 English Language Arts Grade-Level Indicators
Grade Eight, Listening and Viewing … 3. Determine the credibility of the speaker (e.g., hidden agendas, slanted or biased material) and recognize fallacies of reasoning used in presentations and media messages.
Grade Nine, Research … 3. Determine the accuracy of sources and the credibility of the author by analyzing the sources’ validity (e.g., authority, accuracy, objectivity, publication date and coverage, etc.).”
And many students don’t start to make the leap to the next stage of development for years thereafter–most 19-year-olds aren’t quite there. A particularly brilliant 12-year-old might be able to identify false analogies, hasty generalizations, ad hominem arguments, etc., but in the end will come up short in attempts to judge the credibility of an author due to bias, authority, etc. because their minds think in simple ways–those who agree with their beliefs are credible, those who don’t are not.
Dr. George Geckle, once chair of the English faculty at U. of South Carolina, once told our class his analysis of the challenges facing higher education. Once upon a time, he noted, grade school and high school teachers concentrated almost entirely on mechanics–spelling, grammar, punctuation, paragraph form, sentence structure. Students who went on to college were all able to write technically correctly, and the college programs dealt with critical thinking and self-expression. But now (he was speaking in 1979 but it’s still true) the K-12 teachers concentrate mostly on critical thinking and self-expression, in some cases insisting that grammar isn’t important–and now students come to college unable to write gramatically and ALSO not able to express themselves or to think critically.
Note that about 25% of new students in Ohio’s colleges score low enough on tests to need at least one pre-college level course in writing, reading, or math (which, along with study skills, are the only areas that Ohio’s colleges are permitted to teach at pre-college levels). Want to save that cost? Concentrate on getting students to read, write and calculate prior to age 18.
I submit that there’s a reason it was called “grammar” school, and if we don’t reclaim that wisdom, we’ll make little improvement in the long-term articulated curriculum.
Mr. Ruddick – you need to shorten your comments – some of us don’t have the time to read a friggin essay on what you think about the particular sociopolitical problem of class struggle as it relates to X.
Please, save the essays for the story submission queue. Comments are supposed to be simply that.
Oh, and take a deep breath and read over what you’ve written before you click Submit Comment.
Hi Greene. Are you noting that you personally have a problem with anything more than a sound-bite? If so–not my problem!
That short enough for you?