Something Old, Something New

As soon as one school is completed, preparations for another begin. One of the primary responsibilities in forging plans for the upcoming school term involves hiring staff members.

I have been performing this task for many years now. It's a challenge I enjoy. Nurturing growth in staff members is rewarding. I especially like observing the energy and enthusiasm that accompanies the resume each candidate brings to the interview.

However, the longer I remain in education, the more echoes of the past emerge. With a career than spans four decades, I have experienced a robust array of programs and practices pushed by consultants (all too often former educators imbued with the sales pitch of a snake oil salesman seeking to bilk public funds from anxious consumers in search of a quick remedy...) at conferences. During the course of a lengthy career, one hears programs explained in terms that sound vaguely familiar. Peering beneath the shade, light is cast on elements or concepts that are true, but couched in updated buzz-words and enhance with the technology of the time - all, to appear different enough to distinguish the program from earlier versions. Think about paraphrasing a quote, or citing a reference with a footnote in tiny font at the end of the book/article. As kids say, "the same, but different."

Somehow, amid all of the hype and noise, arise research based proposals that have survived critical analysis and been identified as viable solutions to stated needs. Even these programs are subject to subtle, nuanced tweaks that accumulatively have the effect to cloak the original and birth a new product.

Such was the case when I, many years ago as a new teacher, excitedly explained to my mother-in-law (a former teacher at a one room school house in Kansas, and later a principal of a small rural school there) about the new concept entitled "cooperative learning." I recounted the wisdom and recommendations presented by the authors (themselves products of a one room school house) and went on and on about the virtues of the philosophy and practice. My audience of one was patient, gracious, and accommodating.

Finally, after exhausting my knowledge and effort, my mother-in-law politely offered that it, "sounds a lot like what I learned years ago when studying the work of John Dewey." That took a little wind out of my sails, though she clearly did not intended to dismiss or discount my interest in cooperative learning. Nor did she imply that the Johnson brothers who formed the basis for cooperative learning were copying the work of Dewey, but rather building on his efforts and refining/updating the practice.

Nonetheless, it was an example of what continues to occur in the field of education, old practices and programs wearing new, more stylish clothes to impress shoppers.

Here's the Bill

After a rumbling sound emerging from the bowels of my car that could no longer be ignored by turning up the volume of the radio, I accepted reality, combined with my ignorance of things mechanical, and trudged into the local auto dealership. I drive the car 50 miles each day, to and from work, with little idea of how it works. I know there are pistons and spark plugs, valves and hoses... but that's about the extent of my knowledge.

The phone call from the service department could well have been conveyed in another language other than English. It was replete with acronyms, slang, and unknown terms that left me bewildered. When they arrived at the final cost of services there was nothing I could say. After all, how would I know what each part cost, or how long it took to replace? So, whether they said it would be $200.00 or $600.00, who was I to claim otherwise. I paid the bill.

On the way home from the garage, I realized that too many parents leave school after attending conferences with the same forlorn, perplexed, sense of resignation I felt when handed the bill because, like my puzzled mind sorting through terms and concepts that were foreign to me, they are often left in a fog of educational acronyms and esoteric data. Questioning educators by seeking clarity may expose the parent as less intelligent than they really are and serves to reinforce an asymmetrical knowledge relationship where the teacher holds power due to their possession and use of unknown phrases or uncertain meanings. Rather than expose their lack of understanding in an issue considered significant (the education of their child), the parent likely accepts the outcome and walks away as I did after paying the bill for car repairs.