20¢ and Other Paradigms

Debates, town halls, primaries, and caucuses are all the talk since we know we will have a different President in January of 2017.  The political stance and personality traits of the candidates remain in stark contrast from where I sit.  As I read Facebook, Twitter, etc. I hear from a host of folks whom I know to be bright, well-meaning people.  And yet, they are all over the place politically:  Trump is wonderful/Trump is a buffoon, Cruz is our savior/Cruz is scary power-hungry, Hillary is a doer/Hillary is a lying politician, Bernie is a philosopher/Bernie is a crackpot.  How can so many arrive at such different conclusions given the same reality?

This is not, it appears to me, to be a case of “I like vanilla more than chocolate.”  It is much more complicated than that.  It is based on how I view the world and how I interpret the data I receive while viewing the world.

Rosenthal and Jacobson, (1968), conducted a study of teacher expectations and student achievement.  They identified for teachers some of the students in their classrooms and were told these students were “late bloomers” but would do well by the end of the year.  The kids, unbeknownst to the teachers, were chosen randomly.  Low and behold, the kids teachers believed would bloom soon showed the most growth that year.  Teachers helped make low performers, but late bloomers, successful.  Teachers expected those results and got them.

We all have experienced the opposite effect as well.  Someone thinks we are a failure, inept, etc., and no matter what we do they see failure.  I have written about this before under “Black Dots.” 

We have paradigms.  Ways we view the world.  If I see the world as one huge multinational conspiracy then every piece of data I take in will confirm such a conspiracy.  I will ignore data contrary to my paradigm.  If I believe UFO’s are visiting us nightly, then every photo and radar blip I see will confirm such visits.  If I believe in Christianity, then every good thing is the result of prayer.  On and on.  The bottom line is, when we view the world a certain way we only see data that confirms our view and ignore data that is contrary to our view.

So people who hate Obama have a really hard time seeing the data that shows our economy has turned around, unemployment has dropped, national debt has dropped, we have substantially withdrawn from two major conflicts in the Mideast, and we have provided medical insurance for the first time to millions of Americans.  They will only see the negative hyperbole.

Educated folks must challenge their paradigm to know whether they are simply practicing self-fulfilling prophecy or are they collecting reasonable data that confirm their current view.  Am I willing to study the data that conflicts with my world view?  If so, I am willing to challenge my paradigm.  If I only listen to people who share my paradigm not only will I become more entrenched in my paradigm and more defensive about it, I will miss opportunities for real learning and discovery.

When you make a paradigm shift, a change in your world view from what you saw before to what you see now, there will be a feeling of great excitement and adventure and possibly fear as you let go of earlier lenses for a new pair.  Once your paradigm has shifted you will immediately be able to detect the folks still stuck in their old paradigm.  We have all laughed at the 17 year old who screams, “I am an adult!” while acting childlike, knowing that they do not yet have a clue what being an adult means.  But, it is impossible to explain that to the 17 year old.

Futurist Joel Barker tells a fascinating story about watches.  In 1980 95% of all watches made and sold world-wide came from Switzerland.  Swiss watch makers had research labs to help them improve future watches, and out of one of their labs came a proposed digital watch.  From the Swiss point of view it was not a watch.  It did not have hands, it did not have gears, it did not have jewels, and therefore, it was not a watch.  The Swiss sold the patent to Seiko in Japan for a mere pittance.   Five years later 95% of the watches in the world were made in Japan.  Japan made no watches at all in 1980.  The Swiss were stuck in their view of a watch and could not get beyond it.

I think such entrenched paradigms blind us, hold us back.  Here I sit as a 66 year-old man, upgrading and improving my router, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, smart phoning, smart TVing, etc.  I have transitioned from the industrial age to the information age to the digital age all in my lifetime.  I recognize I am not a native in tech land, but I surely am an immigrant, undocumented at that.

Have you heard someone recently say they long for the good old days?  I hear it a lot.  The problem is, of course, that the good old days were another paradigm.  We have moved beyond that.  Everyone grows comfortable in their current paradigm, and if the world shifts it may seem that the only source of safety and security lies in yesteryear under old paradigms.  No thank you.  I am not going back there because we do so many more wonderful things now and we do them well.  Do not think there is safety in the old paradigms.  Just ask the Swiss watchmakers.

The following are just a few of the new paradigms I see from my lofty perch on the Texas Gulf Coast 64 feet above sea level:

Everyone has a smart phone and the world changed.  We now have instant video of every event good or bad.  Everybody is now observed all the time everywhere.  We have instant communication one-on-one, or with millions of people.  We have any fact you seek and the current Doppler radar just a touch away.  We ask kids in school to put away the most modern technological device they have when they enter the classroom and I think that is just old paradigm stuff.  So kids power down while we try to tell them what they could look up in mere seconds.  Facts are boring because no one knows them all and no one needs to.  (I predict a painful demise of spelling bees as rituals of a much older paradigm – he says while my word processor auto corrects my boo-boos.)

It appears that everything that matters comes to me digitally.  I shop on line.  I get my news on line.  I share baby pictures on line.  I can meet a spouse on line and check the news.  And heaven forbid that I ever have to write a letter by hand.  It would take hours and no one could read it.

Teachers and principals and legislators who are over the age of about 50 tend not to be in touch with these new ways of interacting with the world, and yet they are the policy makers and the cultural transmitters.  The absolutely most challenging group to teach are members of AARP.  When you hear a sentence that begins, “It was good enough for….” You are listening to a promoter of past paradigms.  PPPers.

With all our technology we are losing the ability to converse, and the ability to reflect, identify trends and themes and concepts.  Digital music and photos can never replace a concert or gallery, nor email a hug or a kiss. 

In all our new paradigms there is also a risk of organizing a view of the world, seeking followers, then becoming so rooted in the paradigm that any one in any other paradigm is bad or wrong or infidel.  “My view is the correct view!” they all yell.  And they all have facts to back up their paradigm.  But they do not have the ability to reflect, identify trends and themes and concepts, and that is scary.  Polarization cannot be mistaken for a strategy to end global warming.

So, if you feel every kid should learn cursive handwriting and the “old” math, that fossil fuels make us great not weak, that time in front of any screen is too much time, and that men should be men and women should be women (whatever that is) then, my friend, you are a poster child of the old paradigms, a PPPer.  We used to say get on the band wagon.  Perhaps now we should say all aboard the high speed rail.  And keep your cell phones out.  You never know when a once in a lifetime event is going to happen right in front of you!  (The first contact or the second coming, or just a fight on the playground!)

We also used to say, that’s my 2¢.  Now it is more likely my 20¢.  Another new pair-a-dimes.

Religious Freedom = The Right to Discriminate?

(The topic of this post straddles the line between one-eyed bob and one-eyed bob on god, so I am posting on both sites.)

I am a bigot.  I am sure I am.  I must suffer from prejudice when it comes to religious affiliation or lack thereof, or race, or gender, or sexual preference, or handicapping condition, or ethnicity, or height, or weight, etc.  I cannot image any human who is totally free of prejudice.  That is not what we do.  As humans we look for differences, and we look to find folks who look like us, think like us, believe like us, and act like us.  Multiple birds with multiple feathers all seeking to nest with other birds who possess feathers like our own.  If I prefer a certain feather over some other feather then I must have prejudicial feelings about all those who do not share my favorite feather’s attributes.  Simply said, but very difficult to amend.

I am aware of a few of my prejudicial feelings based on my reaction to folks.  When I see someone with purple hair I do a double-take.  When I see someone covered in tattoos I do a double take.  When I see someone with jewelry displayed from a variety of holes punched in their skin I do a double take.  When I see someone driving slowly in the left lane I do a double take.  When I see an obese person I do a double take.  All those double takes result from my brain identifying differences between my sense of standards for humans and the human I see before me.  I discriminate.  I recognize the differences.  And I tend to judge people based on superficial characteristics.  I hate that I do, but I do.

So, if I am a bigot with tendencies to discriminate should my discriminatory behavior be protected by law under the guise that I should have the right to prejudge people?  For me, the answer is not just “no,” it is hell no.  It is very clear that we do not want the government to tell us what to think and not think, what to believe and not believe.  Our inner belief system must absolutely be protected by law.  But acting on those beliefs is an entirely different question.  If I believe young children should handle poisonous snakes I have the right to believe that.  I do not have the right to ask young children to handle poisonous snakes.  If I believe the US government should be overthrown and a new government be established be it fascist or communist, I have the absolute right to believe such a thing, but the day I take up arms against our government I have crossed over from belief to action on the belief.  Such action will be stopped.

Does that answer change if I claim that the deity I worship discriminates and I am only following what my deity says?  You have got to be kidding me.  As if we need one more example of how religious beliefs are tearing the world apart.  If you believe that Black people are inferior to white people, women are inferior to men, homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals, Muslims are inferior to Christians, and people who watch either reality TV or the food network are inferior to everyone else then you have the right to believe all of that nonsense.  What you do not have, should not have, is the right to practice such narrow mindedness that results in other humans belittled or denied because of your limited mental capacity.

And so I sit in wonder as North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Michigan and Texas have passed or are attempting to pass “religious freedom” bills that protect groups who discriminate based on their religious beliefs.  Yes, this is the United States.  Land of the free, home of the brave, as long as you are a person like me.

Discrimination is discrimination.  If your god tells you to discriminate then I believe you should seriously consider finding another god.  If you do not want to provide services to people who are different from you then you are a bigot practicing bigotry.  Practicing bigots should never be protected by the law.  Not in this nation.  Clearly in other parts of the world lives are actually lost if one does not believe as the majority believes, but that should never happen here.  An effort to make it OK to discriminate based on your religious beliefs does not increase the freedom of humans in our nation, it dramatically reduces such freedom. 

If we decide to allow private enterprise to discriminate in the name of religious belief does not make such a decision morally right.  It is a source of damnation for such beliefs and their practices.  Religious freedom bills that pervert the notion of freedom of religion are the saddest oxymorons I know.

Judge not.  Discriminate not.

High Stakes Tests and Memory Span

I love the movie, “Independence Day.”  The following are spoilers, but considering it has been out for almost 10 years now I figure if you have not seen it you do not want to.  Yes, Pullman’s speech as President Whitmore to the pilots before they launch their attack against the alien ships still gives me goosebumps and remains great fodder for leadership studies.  Yes, Will Smith provides perfect comic relief:  “Welcome to earth,” and, “Tell them I beat you up.”  OK.  I’m going to go watch it again when I finish this post.  But the absolute most far-fetched scene, the most amazing thing in the entire movie despite all the special effects and the notion of alien invasion, comes when the good guys decide to launch a world-wide attack on the enemy, and the entire operation is orchestrated by Morse Code.  We see a room filled with military guys click-click-clicking on old key pads hammering out the code to the remaining military forces around the world who also understand the code.  Amazing.  Our military no longer teaches Morse Code and internationally it has been abandoned since the French Navy stopped using it in 1990.  So, where in the world did they find a room full of guys who still know Morse Code?  In fact, I’ll wager that some of you reading this post have no idea what Morse Code is.

I had to learn Morse Code as a Boy Scout in the early 1960’s.  I still remember S.O.S., and that’s it.  I could no more send or receive the code now if my life hung in the balance.  And yet, I once knew it, I could send and translate, I was good only up to about 10 wpm, but that was pretty good.  So, the question occurs to me, did I learn Morse Code and if so what is the evidence of that?  Shortly after instruction I proved I knew it.  Now, some 50 odd years later, can I claim to know it?  Nope.  I knew it then, I do not know it now.

The same is true for my high school final exams.  I am not sure I could pass any of them today, though I was stellar in 1968.  The same for the finals in every college course I took.  I could then, I can’t now.  So, is there a time limit for the claim, “I know it”?  For how long after instruction must I be able to demonstrate my knowledge?  An hour? A week?  A month?  Six months?  Five years?  If you teach me something and immediately test me I am very likely to do very well.  But if you teach me something today and test me next week I am not so likely to do well.  I forget, I have slept since then, etc., etc.  Again, I will wager all readers of this post have experienced the very same phenomenon.

Yes, yes we have learned a lot about the brain and how to teach in ways that provide meaning and extended practice, etc., to prolong the time given information is likely to stick.  And yes, I can remember jokes from the 1960’s and not the periodic table because jokes have meaning for me and there is nothing funny about the periodic table.  (Well, I can think of a few puns, but they would be inappropriate.) 

If I am a teacher of 5^th grade science I know that in the spring of this school year my students will be asked to answer a series of questions about science.  Their answers are critical to them, to me, to my school and my district.  I very much want my kids to know the right answers.  So, I cheat.  If cheating is giving someone an answer they do not know, then beginning in September I cheat and I tell them the answers to the questions they are likely to get in May.  I continue to do so right up until the test, but it becomes impossible to re-teach all that I have taught on the day before the test.  I must hope that the answers I told them in September remain in their brains.  In other words, for this test, a student must prove he or she knows something 8 months after they were taught and 8 months after they initially demonstrated mastery to me in the classroom.  I have spent the year giving them answers, but if I give them answers on the day of the test, I am “cheating” and will likely get fired and have my certificate jerked.  I find that both frightening and hilarious.  It is good teaching on May 10^th, it is career ending on May 11^th. 

So, does this test actually measure what 5^th graders know about science?  Nope.  It measures what 5^th graders remember about the science they learned months ago.  If my students can demonstrate mastery of the content I taught within the past week, is that not good enough?  I have proof they learned it.  That proof is not good enough for Texas, though.  They want cumulative proof and they want to pay millions to test development companies to concoct these memory exams under the guise of science tests.  Then we all hold our collective breaths to see how well 5^th grade memories work in the area of science and claim it is a measure of how much science 5^th graders know.  Poppycock and balderdash.  Despite every mnemonic device at our disposal, some kids will remember, some won’t. 

High stakes standardized tests are immoral.  They do not measure what they purport to measure.  The tests merely measure the long-term memory skills of students in a given subject area, and not the knowledge or skill a student has in a given subject area.  To retain a single child using this measure is absurd.  To hold teachers accountable based on this measure is absurd.  To label schools and districts based on this measure is absurd.  And yet, we continue to do so with the tests becoming increasingly difficult and challenging with each new iteration. 

How do we convince legislators that high stakes standardized tests are hooey?  Do we ask them to take their high school final exams again and publish the results?  They would never do it as most would no longer qualify as high school graduates and it would pop the high stakes reliability bubble.  Everyone would see that the high stakes emperor is naked. 

Should we know how well students are learning?  Absolutely.  Should we knew how much they have learned?  Absolutely.  Should we use one day in the spring of any given school year to attempt to measure those attributes for the entire year?  No way.  Teachers know day in a day out which kids are getting it and which kids are not.  Teachers develop an array of strategies to help those students who do not get it the first go-around to get it by the second, or third or fourth go-around.  But each go-around occurs in a short time loop.  We cannot wait until the spring to discover who has learned and who has not.  We must know before we move on.  Challenging what we know to be true in October has no meaning in May. 

It is the first week in April, 2016.  Please make a list of all the Christmas presents you received on December 25^th, 2015 and who gave those presents to you.  What, you have not learned to value Christmas and the tradition of giving?  You are a failure and may not experience Christmas in 2016.  Welcome to the notion of high stakes testing.  Ludicrous.

I believe that semester cumulative final exams are pushing the memory span for knowledge retainment.  How long must I know the periodic table?  For the test next week?  That’s OK.  For the 6weeks test?  Maybe, but why test if I have proved I knew it the week after I learned it?  For a final exam at the semester break?  Too long, besides I have already proven I know it.  How about a test in May based on what I learned in September?  And, if I cannot repeat my performance from September I hurt myself, my teacher, my school and my district.  One cannot support such high stakes tests and in any way claim to have legitimate school improvement at heart, much less have legitimate caring for student learning.

And this concern does not in any way address all the other concerns about what is tested and how, and the reliability of the tests.  The state cannot even decide if the tests are norm-referenced or criterion referenced because rather than being an educational issue it is a political issue beyond the kin of legislators.

So many voices have raised the same concerns, and yet we continue to elect representatives who have swallowed the testing Kool Aid.  If every educator in Texas stood up and said these tests are nonsense.  We are hurting kids, not helping them.  We are hurting teachers, not helping them.  We are hurting schools and school districts, not helping them.  If every one of us took this notion to the polls we could dramatically change the election outcome and thereby stop measuring student outcomes in this way.  I am so glad no one is asking me to prove today that I learned Morse Code in yesteryear.  Dit, dash, duh.

Perhaps a total non sequitur but because it is so fun, a clip of Bill Pulman playing President Tom Whitmore speaking to the pilots in “Independence Day” can be seen here:

https://youtu.be/9t1IK_9apWs