Principles, Impracticality, and Passion

Perhaps teachers should not be putting so much effort into finding ideas for teaching and learning, Mr. Olson suggests. By doing so, they may unwittingly be playing into the hands of the politicians and corporate leaders who want to control education. OVER THE PAST 27 years have participated in workshops, classes, seminars, and conferences along with other educators who had varying degrees of interest in the wide array of topics covered -- brain-based learning, outcome-based education, standards, reading workshop, writing workshop, whole language, discipline with dignity, to name just a few. I've listened to speakers, participated in discussions, questioned authorities, and written papers too numerous to mention. All of this gave me many rewarding experiences that left me feeling energized about my teaching and learning. However, started to notice that at almost every gathering attended, someone would almost invariably say, I just want that to take back to my classroom or I just want practical. don't want to hear about theory. But what do we mean when we look for that works? Do we want an approach that will lead to students who are engaged, actively learning, not disrupting, sitting still, not sitting still, talking, not talking, or responding in any number of other ways that teachers think are important? What about practical? Does this mean clearly defined that students and teachers can use right now, that needs little preparation to implement, and that fits into our management style? My colleagues' repeated plea got me thinking about why something practical was so important to teachers. Were they expressing a need for workable ideas for teaching in difficult times? While nobody would deny that these are difficult times for teachers and schools or that looking for techniques that work seems logical, would argue that finding them may not always be the best idea. Part of the problem with looking for something that works is that it contributes to the cyclical nature of hot topics within the field of education. The tendency of the profession to jump around from one great-sounding idea to another, regardless of how well conceived the new idea may be, has caused the public to view truly innovative ideas in education with skepticism. Quite often the latest solutions offered and the claims made about their efficacy do not correspond to the best research available. A case in point is the current misuse of standardized tests as measures of school performance. These tests were never designed for that purpose and do not account for the impacts on performance of external factors such as poverty. It is largely because of the search for practical, workable fixes that the most important decisions affecting learning communities all across the country are being made by people outside the field of education. Politicians and corporate CEOs are telling teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, and students -- who care deeply about their schools -- what to do and how to do it. This is a severe crisis and must be reversed if our public school system is to survive. Now is not the time for ideas that work; instead it is the time for principles, impracticality, and passion. Any time people organize themselves into a group, large or small, they do so with some understanding of the group's purpose. Most groups have belief systems of some kind, although not always clearly articulated or accessible to those outside the group. We join clubs both to fulfill the need to belong and because membership helps us to realize the vision we have of ourselves.1 People join some groups and quit others based on changes in their needs and beliefs. Our beliefs, which give rise to our accepted rules of conduct or our principles, are formed primarily in social contexts, but also by individual inquiry into personally relevant questions. …