Learning is Change

56. When is lecture good? #LifeWideLearning16 @bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 25, 2016

Lectures are about control:

• Control of the narrative.
• Control of the cannon.
• Control of the information to be disseminated.
• Control of the time it takes to listen and (maybe) understand.
• Control of the pace and format for learning.

But, sometimes those controls can lead to really great learning. Sometimes a lecture is exactly what is needed to better understand a topic or to learn from someone with a specific expertise that is difficult to share in other ways. I would like to enumerate all of the times that lectures are good, but before I do so, I must lay out a few caveats.

The true benefits of lecture can only be felt if the following are in place:

1. An authentic choice has been made by the participant to listen to and learn from the lecture. This means that there was a conscious decision to NOT do some other type of learning. It cannot be a passive decision or a “path of least resistance” decision. Rather, it should be an enthusiastic decision to learn by letting someone else share their experience.
2. A backchannel is available. If the participants are not able to discuss their learning with one another as a part of the session (turn-and-talk, etc.), they must at least be able to process with one another through a Twitter (or some other technology) backchannel.
3. The lecturer knows the audience. The person at the front of the room should know their audience and be responsive to them. She should be able to take cues and receive feedback from the audience in the form of laughter or energy in the room, incorporating it into the scope of the lecture itself.
4. The lecture must tell a story. While I do not believe all lectures have to be riveting, I do believe that all effective lectures have a core conflict. There is some broader purpose for the relay of this information, and there is some deeper truth that is trying to be uncovered.

With all of those deep caveats in mind, the benefits of lecture are:

1. Participants get to react and think through to a single argument. Most other learning formats do not allow for participants to dig into a single argument because each participant is hearing and working on something slightly different. When you have more voices in the room speaking, there is no single compelling idea for which to react to and build upon.
2. Important ideas can be easily transferred. If TED talks or An Inconvenient Truth are any indication, videos of lectures are one of the easiest ways to transfer important ideas from a small group of people to millions. This is why speeches still dominate political discourse. It is why we remember key metaphors and talking points and don’t need to constantly re-watch the same ideas over and over again. Lectures create a shorthand for ideas, and it can hugely benefit the transfer of those ideas.
3. The barrier to entry is really low. For many types of learning, especially more active formats, there is a specific set of prerequisites for taking part. This includes technical understanding or even the ability to actively work together as a group. The lecture does not require anything other than your ability to listen. This simplicity is powerful. Although it can be abused by lecturers who try and obfuscate meaning, when done well, it allows everyone to learn.
4. It gives a voice to anyone who is willing to speak. While it doesn’t happen as much as it should, when underrepresented opinions are given a platform from which to share, it lends an authority that wouldn’t otherwise be present. This is particularly acute in “keynote lectures”. When women, people of color, LGBT, or other people with substantially less privilege can stand up and speak their minds, it can be a powerful way to push back against injustice.

Clearly, lecture has its place. While I do think that for most learning lecture gets in the way of creation or collaboration, it can be done well and used strategically by an individual or an institution. In many ways, I hope that lecture doesn’t go away, but rather is used for what it is best suited: when the right voice is the one voice that should be heard.

Note: I did a Youtube video recently on when Lecture works best in PD environments. Go have a look.

55. If you had to choose one book for your kids’ teachers to teach, what would it be and in what grade? #LifeWideLearning16 @bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 24, 2016

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.

-George Orwell, 1984

I read 1984 in the eighth grade. The above quotation is the single image in all of literature that has stayed with me more than any other. More than Gatsby’s light. More than the white whale. More than The Raven. It is the dystopian future where there is no inner private life and the world exists to perpetuate pain and control.

It stays with me because the book is about the fear of being forgotten. It is about never learning from the past. It is about authoritarianism and what happens when we trade too much of ourselves in service of stability. It is about a kind of constant war, both inside and out.

It is the one novel that most made me want to teach, and I believe it is the one novel that my children need more than any other. It does not speak to the kinds of diverse opinions that I want them to have, nor does it really enrich their lives with inspiration or happiness. It isn’t meant to.

For me, 1984 is to be read because it reveals what you are willing to compromise on. It reveals how important privacy and imagination are to you and whether or not you are willing to push against authority even if it is a futile pursuit. I want each of my children to know that about themselves, to know just how far their humanity will take them.

I’m not sure 8th grade is the perfect time for everyone, but it certainly was for me. If I had to guess, my daughter will be ready in 6th grade and my middle son will likely not be ready until 9th or 10th. I don’t yet know about my youngest, but I’d like to imagine that he could read it with a teacher whenever he so chose. By the time he is ready, I want it to be possible for a mentor to walk him through why the Proles are so important to the future of society. I want him to debate the symbolism of the telescreen in relationship to the ubiquitous screens of our world.

I recognize that it is firmly in “The Cannon” of literature, but I can’t think of another book that so heavily relevant to where my children are headed, or indeed where we are all headed. 1984 is the kind of book that needs to be contextualized and thought through. It is the kind of book that needs a teacher, and I want each of my children to have a good one. For this book, and for many many others.

54. What is an opinion you’ve changed since becoming an educator? #LifeWideLearning16 @bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 23, 2016

Life experience is very easy to write off when you don’t have any. It seems inconsequential and more of a burden than a blessing as you find yourself in your first real job out of college. Everything seems possible, and though you want to learn from others, you are pretty sure that anything they might teach you, could easily be learned from a book.

I was that guy.

And while I have always had a great deal of respect for veteran teachers, I didn’t fully understand who they were and what they had to offer.

Veteran teachers:

• Know what has worked and what hasn’t in their own classrooms.
• Have discarded more lesson plans than you have ever written.
• Can build communities of learners and learn all names in a few short hours.
• Have committed their lives to something that you are willing to use as a stepping stone to something else.
• Have touched more lives than you can imagine.
• Are amazing human beings, each with their own story that has led them to their own educational philosophy and teaching style.

Learning from veteran teachers, I changed my opinion on life experience. It was no longer something to be feared as a way in which each of us succumbs to stagnation. Rather, it became something I longed for, as every single event in my classroom was a “first time.” First times are as amazing as they are exhausting. They help to build us into who we are, but they don’t last. Their impact can only be felt until the next first time comes along.

When I looked at those veteran teachers and their knowledge of “next time” or “this time” in contrast to my never-ending “first times,” I couldn’t help but be jealous. They knew how to react and how to build something that lasts, and better yet, they could teach me. And so, I learned to listen. I learned that their experience was not archaic or from a bygone era. It was for right now, for my needs in the classroom, and for my kids.

And I realized that Life Experience is the one thing that I could never hope to learn, but rather something that could only be lived with one another. It took me stumbling into relationships with some of my favorite teachers to fully understand this. It is something I consider the foundation of the way in which I trust teachers and the way in which I try to support what they know and want to know rather than what I think they should.

And while I have a lot more experience than I did when I first set foot in my first classroom on the second floor of Cresthill Middle School, I will never have enough. It is something I continue to thirst for.

Ever more, every day.

53. What education philosophers speak loudest to you? #LifeWideLearning16 @bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 22, 2016

I do not often reach for Dewey or Vygotsky when I am trying to sort out a particularly thorny educational issue. I don’t even seek out living theorists like Papert or Chomsky all that much, even though I tend to agree with much of what they say. Rather, I find that the most important educational philosophers of the moment are two people that are rewriting what educational philosophy can do and be: Watters and Belshaw.

I find their writing, in consort with one another, to be the most powerful form of critique and inquiry imaginable. From Watters’ analysis of how we continue to talk about the future without looking backward to see what the future has meant to us in the past. To Belshaw’s deep thinking on how we honor one another’s learning and build it into every informal act we make both inside and outside of schools.

They are philosophers in the best sense of the word: they offer a distinct viewpoint on learning that sets them apart from many of those around them. Although they are part of a broader blogging and academic community, they are not of it. They are both reaching further and creating more. And it is in this act of creation that I am most inspired.

Audrey’s foray into ensuring that everyone has a distributed writing platform amazes me continually. As I continue to seek out new ways of expressing myself, I know that she has done much of groundwork for keeping those ways open and connected.

Doug’s use of open tools and his insistence that everyone has access to create new things makes me want to work harder to do the same. He is unafraid to go below the surface when a company has “open-washed” their product. He inspires me to think critically about the tools that I choose to endorse by using them every day.

These are the two voices that are speaking loudest for me right now. They speak for many of us, actually. They are telling the history of what is happening right now. They are telling our story, with all of its rough edges and pitfalls. They are making the art of educational philosophy about the craft of building digital and modern learning. They are not just looking at the shiny tools or the academic research, they are painting the picture of what it means to be learner.

I feel a part of something when I read their work. I feel like we are moving forward, methodically and carefully, but ever forward.

Thank you, Audrey.

Thank you, Doug.

52. What law would you immediately take off the books? #LifeWideLearning16 @bhwilkoff

— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 21, 2016

E-rate funding has been the driving force of technology purchasing in schools for the last couple decades. It has encouraged more schools to think more strategically about their device purchases as well as their connectivity needs. I believe in the program and it its very real outcomes for kids around the country.

And yet, there are limitations on how you can use connectivity and devices if you decide to take E-rate money. The legislation known as CIPA is responsible for ensuring filters and fear rule many of the technology decisions within schools and school districts. It isn’t the legislation itself, but rather the chilling effect it has had on student access that I most quibble with.

To be clear, I am not in favor of pornography in schools.

Rather, I am in favor of humanity in schools.

To be more human in schools means that we should institute human filters rather than technological ones. It means that we should teach children digital citizenship and adults classroom management for learning with mobile devices.

It means we should allow inquiry-driven children to have time of guided exploration rather than closing off any discussion or understanding of sexuality because it is “obscene.”

It means we should stop believing that people outside of the classroom are better equiped to determine what “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors” than teachers and students.

Finally, it means that we stop holding access ransom for a draconian (and many times, puritanical) understanding for how the internet works.

CIPA denies that the Internet is fundamentally different from keeping nude magazines or videos behind the counter or in a protective sleeve. It tries to simplify all visual content into designations of acceptable or obscene. This is not how the internet functions. It is infinitely expanding and complex and should be treated as such. And, by holding the funding for upgrading essential learning tools until highly inefficient filters are put in place, we are holding back children from all of the possibilities for learning and discovering new tools and resources from around the world.

The internet is open. So should our schools be.