Maine ASCD Weblog

Ethics in Education

Rush Kidder, president and founder of the Camden-based Institute for Global Ethics has been running a rather interesting series of columns in his on-line newsletter about an ethical challenge in St. Louis, Minnesota.

Briefly, the story is about the St. Louis Park, MN school district where following a threat made to the local high school, a decision was made to close the school but report to the media that the closure was due to a water main break. The true story was eventually revealed and a media circus resulted with calls for resignations and general indignation. The situation raises multiple ethical issues and resulted in a number of responses from readers of Rush’s column – so much so that he wrote a second column as a follow up.

This fall we have once again seen some horrific examples of school violence and the aforementioned situation in Minnesota happened during the middle of this. So this aspect of the situation, not apparently discussed in the columns might add another interesting twist to the discussion. Had this event occurred at another time, perhaps in those innocent, pre-Columbine years, would the ethical dilemma be clearer or easier?

This all sounds like a teachable moment and you might want to read the columns and discuss these issues with your colleagues and perhaps your high schools students.

~John Brandt

The Changing Role of Technology in Education

The Editoral Board of the Journal of Maine Education (JME), the official journal of Maine ASCD, has released the Call for Papers for the 2008 JME. Using the theme of technology in the schools, the 2008 JME will publish about a dozen articles on the topic. Submissions must be made by August 1, 2007.

The Call for Papers states:

In the last twenty years schools and communities’ technology has come to play an important role in education. Educators and community members generally understand and agree that students must utilize technology as they prepare to become responsible members of society.

Despite this common understanding that technology is important, the actual definition of technology and the best practices associated with it have changed substantially in the past two decades. The perception of effective technology use in 1988 is very different from that same perception today.

Read the whole Call for Papers

~John Brandt

Maine, The "Smart" State

Technically, Maine is the Pine Tree State. But according to a new national report, we are among the "smartest."

Granted, it's election season and everybody and their uncle has a poll. This one, published by a company in Kanasas ranks the states using a measure of 21 variables. On closer examination, the report should more accurately be called the "Most Supportive of Education" measure. Maybe the implication is that only smart people support education.

In any case, Maine ranked fifth in the nation (behind Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey) and it looks as though most of the Northeast is among the best in the nation. Lowly Arizona is dead last and an article in their state newspaper takes a deeper look. The author of that article apparently agrees with the ranking and notes that poor schools or a poor educational environment are not good for business. Something to think about.

~John Brandt

Cheaters Never Prosper

It was a common playground taunt we used to evoke ethical behavior on the part of our playmates when I was a mere lad growing up in Brooklyn in the early 60’s. I’m not sure I exactly knew then, or even now, what that expression meant, but I knew it made the perpetrator of the misbehavior stop dead in their tracks, at least momentarily.

I went to Catholic school so the idea of cheating had a whole additional set of dimensions. There was Hell and eternal damnation to consider. But most times the threat that your parents would be called by the school was usually enough to put a pronounced fear into any kid in that time period.

There were also others in the neighborhood, other kids' parents, the janitor in the apartment building, even the local shopkeepers, who were looking out for us, and if they saw a misdeed, would comment or intercede.

Yes, it was a different time, and I will not wax nostalgic about the bygone days. But the news this week that a “2006 survey of 36,122 students released by the Josephson Institute” had reported that “…around 60% of American high school students cheated on a test, 28% admitted stealing from a store and 23% said they stole from a parent or other relative…” gives one pause.

I think what’s most startling is the fact that these students thought they were as good if not better than the average person.

In this Bloomberg News article carried in the online Financial Express, the author sites numerous other reports giving similar if not more severe damage estimates. The article goes on to note:

More than 70% of students admitted to cheating at least once on a test and more than 60% admitted to plagiarism in a survey published in 2005 by Donald McCabe, professor of management and global business at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

A study of graduate students published last month found 56 percent of business students acknowledged cheating, as did 54 percent in engineering, 48% in education and 45% in law school.

These are numbers that cause concern and need to be addressed by our entire society. This is not simply a parent issue or a school issue. This is a societal issue and this requires a full court press response.

Hillary Clinton was lambasted by the political right when she wrote a book called “It Takes A Village” which suggested that a collaboration of parents, schools and society in general is needed to help turn the kids of today around. Those who disagreed and argues that it takes a “mother and father” to raise a child were simply grandstanding. Hillary was right and all those right wingers who grew up in my time know it. They were just as scared as I was when the adults in their neighborhood interceded or threatened to “tell their parents.”

Sadly, every time a kid cheats and gets away with it, it reinforces their behavior and likely results in more cheating. It’s going to take a lot of work to reverse this.

~John Brandt

Continuing Partnership

We are pleased to continue our partnership this year with Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) who has served as a primary sponsor for the past four years. NWEA now has over 80 client school districts in Maine and is consistently being recognized as a leader in providing student evaluation services to Maine schools.

With more than 2300 partner districts, NWEA fosters a community of educators that is dedicated to improving teaching and learning. NWEA provides products and services to measure and promote academic student growth and school improvement. These include accurate assessments, timely reporting, practical classroom resources, and ongoing professional development.

Thank you NWEA for your support of Maine ASCD

~John Brandt

Busy Fall at Maine ASCD

As of the middle of October, Maine ASCD has already hosted five events throughout the state. Starting in early September, we supported the first meeting of the Maine Curriculum Leaders' Association in Waterville (see complete story on our website) and later in that month, Maine ASCD served as the host sponsor of the Future of Maine's Economy Conference, a joint effort by the Maine Department of Labor, Department of Education and the Department of Economic and Community Development. Close to 300 people registered for this event and heard presentations from Governor Baldacci, Carl Van Horn, Peter Bellis, and Sam Leiken. On the second day of the event, the participants were stirred by a powerful presentation by Denise Bissonnette and an equally fascinating presentation by solo-sailor Bruce Schwab. Information about DVD and other results from that conference will be posted shortly.

In early October we welcomed Pam Robbins back to Maine to present "Building and Sustaining Professional Learning Communities: Practices That Lead to Student Success." With a near sell-out crowd, Pam's presentation received rave reviews from those in attendance who have also asked us to bring her back to talk more about this timely topic.

Later this month, Gayle Gregory will return to present, Differentiated Literacy Strategies for Student Growth and Achievement. The first session will be at the Holiday Inn Portland West on October 31st. Please note that the session scheduled for Bangor on Oct 30th has been cancelled.

The 10th Annual Northeast ASCD Affiliate Conference (NEAC) will be held at the beautiful and historic Boston Park Plaza on November 30th through December 2nd. This year’s line up of stellar presenters includes: Jay McTighe, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Bob Marzano, Richard Elmore, Kyleen Beers, Brian McNulty, Doug Reeves and many more. As you know, a number of sessions last year were filled to capacity. So there is still time to register.

Visit our website for all of the information about these important professional development events!

~John Brandt

Ethics in the Information Age

David Warlick was the keynoter and session speaker at the annual MainEducation Technology Conference run by ACTEM today here in Augusta. Warlick is an educational technology consultant and trainer whose blog I have been reading for about a year. This week he had blogged on the topic of what he referred to as “ethics” and specifically how to teach students, particularly young student, how to deal with making critical thinking decisions in this new the information age.

In his blog, Warlick cites a comment from a teacher on the “authority of source.” In other words, how do students critically judge the quality of the information they receive. As noted by the teacher in her comment:

…How do we ease eight year olds into understanding that no single source is truly “authoritative”? The question of authority should certainly come into the educational process, but at what point are children ready to handle it? Note that I say children, not youth.

My own thoughts on this matter turned to the work of Lawrence Kohlberg and the Stages of Moral Development as well as the observations and writings of Jean Piaget whom all educators should remember from their first educational psychology course.

To address the “authority of source” issue, I think we can easily begin to answer how we do this by understanding what developmental level the student is currently operating on and then shape the response accordingly.

Both Kohlberg and Piaget correctly noted that young children, and by this we mean children in the primary grades up until about age 11, operate with a rather concrete sense of moral development and do not posses the cognitive or critical thinking skills to be able to reason at abstract levels. Young children understand that adults are generally in charge and are to be obeyed. So, if the teacher, or any adult for that matter, says it’s so, it’s so. Attempting to teach young children about the “authority of source” would be like teaching them advanced calculus, they are just not developmentally ready for this.

As students approach adolescence and begin to develop these skills and cognitive abilities, teachers by all means should engage in activities which complement these newly developed skills and interests. Young adolescents are drawn to moral dilemmas and one only has to look at their tastes in literature and what they spend most of their time engaged in and talking about. Steering their energies to decipher and discuss issues regarding authority of source is perfect.

So, my long-winded answer to the question posed by the teacher above it to tell them that parents or young children have to parent and teachers of young students have to lead they gallantly by providing the most accurate of information.

By the way, I would also recommend that you visit the website of the Institute for Global Ethics, located in Camden, Maine for more information. They run a weekly newsletter and often have a piece discussing ethics in information technology. I've yet to see one on the topic mentioned here, but there is a good work there to take a look at.

~John Brandt

TAGS: actem06 warlick

Digital Natives in the Workplace

Another good article has been released by the Pew Research Center regarding the changes “digital natives” are cause in the American workplace. With quotes from Marc Prensky and others familiar with this topic, the best quote, I think, comes from a native being interviewed by a potential employer. Listen to this:

Several years ago when she was interviewing a 17-year old girl named LaShonda for a project about the future of work, Rebecca Ryan, founder of a hip consulting firm named Next Generation Consulting, noted the difference between digital natives and their digital immigrant elders. In an email, she explains:

"We were at a food court in a mall outside Seattle. While I was interviewing her, she was IM'ing, had her PDA on, her cell phone, the whole thing.... I was so put off. I thought, 'She's not paying attention!' And so I asked her, 'LaShonda, what do you think will be the impact of technology on the future of work?' She looked me in the eye and asked, 'What do you mean by technology?' I looked at all of her gadgets on the table and said, 'Like this stuff!' She said, 'This is only technology for people who weren't raised with it.' Whoa. The point that came home to rest for me is that for LaShonda, IM'ing and texting are like breathing. Fish don't know they're in water. LaShonda didn't consider her gadgets technology."

So what does this mean to those of us in the trenches teaching these natives and “preparing” them for “the world or work?” The article points to five new realities. Teachers take note:

• Reality 1 -- They are video gamers and that gives them different expectations about how to learn, work, and pursue careers.
• Reality 2 –They are technologically literate, but that does not necessarily make them media literate.
• Reality 3 -- They are content creators and that shapes their notions about privacy and property.
• Reality 4 -- They are product and people rankers and that informs their notions of propriety.
• Reality 5 -- They are multi-taskers often living in a state of "continuous partial attention" and that means the boundary between work and leisure is quite permeable.

Read the whole article…it will make you think!

~John Brandt

School Reform – Another Report

Another report has surfaced in Maine calling for major school reform. Reported in the Portland Press Herald last Friday, the list of recommendations sounds all too familiar: shrink the number of school districts, increase teacher pay, lengthen the school year, extend the laptop program into high school. Nothing really new here.

I’ve lost count on how many of these reports have been posted, there seems to be a lot of them saying pretty much the same thing. One has to question, why doesn’t anyone do anything about these issues?

Perhaps a quick read of the web postings responding to the article gives some indication of why there has been little action on the part of policy makers to respond to the recommendations made in these report. The tone of many of the web responses suggests a deep division of opinion regarding the topic of education, but a careful read suggest that we may not be as divided as we think.

In looking at the 25 or so comments that have appeared on the PPH website in the days following the article, it’s interesting to note that while the responses can be easily designated as falling into one of two general camps - those generally supportive of education (and its growing expense) and those concerned about taxes – it looks like relatively few have actual read the article completely and I suspect none have actually seen the report.

Judging from the news article about the actual report, it appears that that committee who wrote the report made recommendations that both sides could, or should, be able to support. Yet in comment after comment it looks as though people were just using the article and the website as a place to vent and express their own opinion. It seems more people only saw in the article things that they wanted to see.

Several of the recommendations made in this report call for significant cost cutting. Reducing the number of school districts from 286 to 60-65 would clearly reduce the number of administrators; something that many of those commenting appeared to distain. Recommendations to increase class size (something not often mentioned) and require minimum enrollments for new school construction (something that would make school buildings more efficient) are both cost cutting. Yet, I did not read anyone actively commenting in support of this notion. When this recommendation has been made in the past, the “local small school” advocates come out in force. In other words, yes reduce the cost of education, but not in my backyard, not my little local school.

Many of the folks commenting were drawn to the endless issue of teacher salaries. Indeed the report calls for merit pay and increased salaries, but it appears these are linked to a longer school year which might actually balance out. And, if it resulted in higher student achievement, well worth the investment. Yet there were several voices on both sides of the argument expressing the traditional opinions but not commenting specifically on the recommendations made.

Several of the writers vented at the teacher’s union and at least two pointed their fingers at the commissioner and the “Educrats in Augusta.” It seems no one is happy when there are rules and procedures to be followed, especially then these cause more expense. Yet, it appears everyone wants some form of accountability. It’s the cost of accountability that no one likes.

On the “pro” side, several writers defended teachers noting that they were either themselves a former educator or had relatives who were. I’m not sure that is always an objective argument.

Real reform is hard work and requires commitment and dedication. If you are really concerned about this issue, whether because you feel taxes are too high and the quality of education in Maine is poor – or if you support an opposing position – you should read this report and all reports on reform and get involved in doing something about it.

Simply writing an e-mail to the newspaper is not enough. I guess this is the modern example of adage, “talk is cheap.”

~John Brandt