Who I am,
Robert L. Arnold, Professor of Education, Emeritus.
When I was about to enter my educational career at the age of five, they closed the one room schoolhouse that still stands vacant about a mile and a half down the road from our farm. My father was the trustee of District #10 and he must have been sold a “bill of goods” that my educational opportunities would be better served in a union school ten miles up the road in the opposite direction. He couldn’t have thought expenses would be reduced when a school taught by one teacher was exchanged for a school where eight teachers were needed to teach the same curriculum.
I’m told by my five brothers and six sisters who attended the one room school, it wasn’t just one teacher, there were a whole group of older students, parents and the teacher helping to instruct the students in reading, writing and arithmetic. They all pitched in bringing in the wood to keep the fire going and having concern for the health and welfare of their fellow/neighborhood students.
Nevertheless, I crawled up the stairs into the bus at 7:15 A.M. and rode the bumpy roads for an hour or so, while it picked up students from neighboring districts along the way who had also joined the move to a bigger school.
When I was about to graduate from the eighth grade and enter the union high school, that high school was closed and the ninth graders were sent six miles further up the road to a central school – adding another half hour to the trip. The sales pitch was the same, it will cost less to educate if everyone is herded into a central location where their lives can be more completely controlled. Here there were umpteen teachers all teaching their specialty and I was supposed to be grateful for all the attention I was getting.
Then I was off to college where I had to choose a career path if I expected to get a job after graduation. Never mind that I had limited vision of what I wanted to be. All that prior instruction left me with self-doubt and confusion. After 22 years of schooling, and pushing past 85 I’m hopeful that I have another few years to assist in the examination and reform of this system of education that is filled with problems.
There is a growing concern that much of our educational system in this country has failed in the area of general education and basic skills development. There are exceptional learners emerging from our schools, but the percentage of students who have not survived the public school system is far greater than those who have succeeded. The “American Public” is full of such examples.
Unfortunately, there is a very limited vision about what should be changed in our public educational systems. If you are aware of current efforts you know that most if not all are simply tinkering with the system with an expectation that a single change will solve the problem. For example, mandating uniforms, segregation by sex, physical fitness exercises before class, setting up profit making, corporation-sponsored charter schools to take the place of the existing system, standardizing the curriculum, testing with a one-size-fits-all exam etc. None of these efforts will sustain the needed changes.
There is widespread recognition among many thinkers that the fundamental change required is systemic. That is, virtually all aspects of the current educational system must be changed, including the use of human resources (e.g. the roles of administrators, teachers, assistants, students.), material resources (e.g. space/classrooms, instructional materials and advanced technology.), and time (e.g. grade levels, periods in the day, hours of operation, and days of operations.) Reigeluth, C. (1993) Comprehensive Systems Design: A New Educational Technology. Springer-Verlag.
Bela Banathy, writing in the same book, had it right. “Traditional econometric/statistical methods of performance measurement (including standardized tests – emphasis added) are unable to account for the complexity in educational systems. Oversimplified performance measures can lead to organizational pathologies.” That’s what we are witnessing today.
My efforts at educational reform over the past decades have been a roller-coaster experience, without much of an impact on the larger picture of systemic change. The listing below shows some highlights of my experience.
I entered the first grade at five in 1936 in a deeply rural setting in the Adirondack Mountains.
I began teaching for pay in the spring of 1952, with middle school students teaching English and Social Studies. I later taught the third grade and ninth grade science in another school system followed by a stint in the US Army, serving as a Troop Information and Education NCO. After serving in the Army I was hired as a remedial reading summer school teacher before becoming a demonstration teacher in the teachers college I graduated from.
As a demonstration teacher in the laboratory school at the State Teacher’s College, in Potsdam, NY during the late 1950’s, I collaborated with a colleague from the History Department to develop “The Discovery Approach to the Teaching of Social Studies.” This was an effort to place primary historical and geographical documents in the hands of junior high school students. These students were engaged in the creation of knowledge using the methods and materials of historians and geographers. In spite of widespread support for this approach this effort was constrained by lack of legible primary source documents for use in the classroom, especially primary documents relating to local communities.
In the early 1960’s I was privileged to demonstrate how a single teacher/facilitator, who is armed with skills to affect group/team development, combined with a knowledge of the methods and materials of a full range of disciplines drawn from all “Realms of Meaning” (Philip Phenix), could assist learners in successfully mastering the basic general education curriculum for elementary education majors at the freshman college level. This project was “…unique in the six State Colleges (Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Glassboro, Paterson, Montclair), and it is probably unique among American colleges.” As the evaluation report further stated, “Although his approach toward the integration of all subject matter, taught within a self-contained classroom, is nothing new in the American educational system, it is the first time it has been accomplished within a college program.”
In the late 1960’s I authored an innovative teacher education program installed in a unit of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. The program was modeled after the project of the early 1960’s. This was a competency-based program that began with the freshman experience for all teacher education majors at that institution. Success in this program was dependent upon college instructors from all departments with supposed insights and skills to conduct group processes that would lead to the formation of teams of learners with extraordinary capacity to assist each other in the mastery of content. This program encouraged individual decision making thus it was called “The Open Curriculum.” In spite of support from outstanding scholars in the field of education and research, the local forces of convention, after two years, succeeded in canceling the program.
Under a “Jobs 70” program, designed to help the unemployed and underemployed get jobs in the textile mills of North Carolina, I was contracted to provide leadership training for first line supervisors who were charged with maintaining acceptable work on the production line. These supervisors were products of past generations of workers in Cone Mills of Greensboro, North Carolina. They were self-developed workers with exceptional understanding of the processes of making quality denim. The work with the Open Curriculum and its supporting projects provided the basis for this successful leadership program that led to the employment of many of those who heretofore were waiting patiently on the street corners to find a job.
Also during the seventies, I conducted teacher workshops to introduce “The Discovery Approach to the Teaching of Social Studies” in the Reidsville, NC public schools, served as a consultant to the Center for Individualized Instruction in Raleigh-Durham, NC and conducted teacher workshops in Mentor, Ohio in anticipation of opening a new elementary school.
In the early 70's, as President of the local Kiwanis Club, I was the team leader who designed one of nine model primary health care centers in the USA. This fully funded rural health center featured innovative computerized patient records and a strong emphasis on patient education.
In 1973, I chaired a team of exceptional cell scientists from across this country and elsewhere, convened at the Tissue Culture Association headquarters at Lake Placid, NY, to develop audio-visual materials for upgrading instruction in the fundamentals of cell biology for medical students. Together we developed a conceptual framework for understanding the then current knowledge about the parts of human cells and their interrelationships. This framework was used to develop instructional materials for colleges of medicine to be used across North America. It has also been used to assist teachers in the development of "advance organizers" that provides focus for learning the essentials of any subject matter. (Ausubel)
In the mid 1970’s I authored a modified ‘Open Curriculum” called the “Block Program” that focused on developing a comprehensive understanding of the foundations of education from which all the activities of education could be judged. This program survived over thirty years and was summarily dismantled when a new administrator apparently decided to place his brand on the record books. His efforts met with rejections for his plan by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
In the 1990’s I headed a team of educators that developed a comprehensive proposal to change the system of education submitted to the “New American Schools Development Corporation.” This corporation was expected to raise sufficient funds to underwrite thirty proposals to change the systems of education across this country. Due to a lack of donations there were only five projects funded, and these are today nowhere to be found. Our proposal was ranked by the Rand Corporation seventeenth among over seven hundred proposals submitted.
In the early 1990's I was CEO of an R&D company, established to research the production and distribution capabilities of ultra-high resolution color microfiche and computer controlled micro fiche reader/projectors for use in classroom instruction. Thousands of maps, charts and documents pertaining to all parts of the world were produced for the market on ultra high definition analog film, only to face a breakthrough in digital imaging that spelled the demise of its analog competition. These images are in storage waiting for the resources to transfer them to a digital format. This company developed comparative images on film for the American Academy of Dermatology and Eastman Kodak.
In the late 1990’s I wrote and received a grant from SUNY Foundation for the Plattsburgh Research Institute for Defining Education as its director. This project sponsored a conference to demonstrate the uses of modern technology in accessing historical and geographical data.
At the turn of the century, a colleague from the Philosophy Department and I spearheaded a comprehensive design for the establishment of a charter school to serve our rural region, replacing SUNY Plattsburgh's Educational Research and Demonstration Center which they closed. Since this proposal outlined a revolutionary plan to remake the schools and serve our college community with a learning and training center that would engage regional school districts and the SUNY units of the area, it required an impressive assembly of supporting documentation drawn from the experiences outlined above. The sheer size of the proposal was massive, but it was our intention to fully explain its systemic qualities. Apparently, both the size and content of the design seemed overwhelming to the project reviewers.
Our first charter school plan was dismissed by the local college administration without discussion, but nevertheless we submitted our proposal for review at a SUNY office located at the Purchase, NY location. The reviewers were obliged to attack the leadership of this project with outlandish, sarcastic statements like, “Why don’t you start your own private school.” Their treatment prompted a NY Times reporter to investigate, but the only satisfaction that resulted was the removal of the then director of the review office.
The second attempt to gain approval of our charter school proposal was submitted to the NYS Education Department for its review. Our response to the SED’s review panel contained this statement, “Expecting an open and responsible review of our proposal, consistent with the ‘Charter School Application Process’ as outlined in SED’s own memorandum of 25 June 99… we were simply naive in looking forward to a cordial and constructive face-to-face dialogue with the otherwise anonymous members of SED’s Review Panel. Imagine our feelings when instead of such an invitation to discussion we were sent a two page written statement of dismissal so curt, arbitrary and absurd that even the least of academics would blush to acknowledge it.”
Under the banner of “Goals 2000” I wrote and received funding for a project designed to reorient the staffs of a consortium of schools in rural upstate New York to a more comprehensive and theory-based educational process. After two years of a five year project, the funding for this project was canceled due primarily to reactions to change expressed by district administrators and school board members and perhaps hastened by the moves to standardize education with the "common core."
In 2003, in conjunction with a rural school district, I submitted a proposal to alter the way history and geography was being handled at the elementary, junior high school and senior high level, under a federal program entitled “Teaching American History.” Reviewers reported that “The project has a focus on technology in classrooms…., the report is very clear, thoughtful, and interesting. The application presents a strong case for using local history to stimulate student interest in larger national issues in American History. The responsibilities of the management and staff positions are well defined.”
Other reviewers concluded: “The project does not specifically describe a plan for teaching traditional American History. The grant does not describe how the project will improve teacher knowledge of American History. The project is local based and useful for local history making it likely to exclude topics found in a more traditional American history class.” Needless to say this project was not funded. (Emphasis added)
As I stated in the introductory paragraph, the record shows a roller-coaster experience in my efforts to reform education. In spite of frequent frustrations, I am determined to push on. The stakes are too high to abandon this effort. I have spent the last several years writing about a comprehensive plan for remaking our schools for the 21st century, published frequently in The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, the Plattsburgh Press Republican and various other publication outlets. The response to these publications has been nearly non-existent.
How can my analysis of the problems of education be so different from 80% of the population of this country? After all, our experiences in school were much the same; we are all self-proclaimed experts.
The difference is in the set of assumptions and beliefs we hold and apply to the interpretation of what we see happening or not happening in the schools. There can be a world of difference in how we judge what we see, based on these differing assumptions and beliefs.
My assumptions about what education is and what it can become, are based on a lifetime of study, motivated out of many unrewarding experiences I endured during the twenty plus years I spent in formal education. Of course, like everyone else, there were some exciting experiences sprinkled in with the less than exciting ones.
When I began teaching the third grade, having previously developed a sense of self-reliance from my farm experience, I was frustrated with the expectation that I follow a prescribed, mandated procedure in my classroom, consistent with what was happening throughout the rest of the school. In this atmosphere there was little time to have a normal conversation with the students, only time for teaching the canned lessons contained in the teacher’s guide. At one of my first teaching assignments this guide was prepared under the direction of some rich lady who was determined to straighten-out the schools and instill the values and attitudes she thought had not been taught in the past. This was happening in 1953. Does it sound familiar today?
As I continued in my teaching career I developed several important insights that suggested to me that experiences in formal education could and should stimulate every learner to enjoy and embrace their education. I discovered processes that resulted in greatly increased self-understanding and self confidence, in far greater insight into the world in which we live, and far greater appreciation for the individual differences among our humankind.
I studied in-depth the field of human development and behavior, including especially what learning is and how it comes about. Searching for a better understanding of how individuals learn and mature, both alone and in groups. My efforts were/are concentrated on the ways many scholars have gone about studying in their fields, and what they found that I could use in designing truly educational experiences. Summaries of many of these formulations are included elsewhere in my writings.
Almost by accident, through the efforts of a colleague from the history department I was introduced to a process of creating knowledge in the fields of geography and history, using primary source documents. This process was conducted in an open-ended inquiry-oriented setting, which was much different from the usual classroom procedures I had been taught to use when I went to teachers college.
The results of this approach to learning with junior high school/middle school level students, were phenomenal. For them and for me, this experience left a lasting impression that translated into a lifelong motivation to learn and a sense of greater self-worth and self-confidence. Without even the slightest concern for the standardized testing program that was used by the school, these students achieved high scores on the tests, exceeding all expectations. In fact, they did so well officials of the local schools accused us of cheating.
This experience led me to an extensive study of all the other academic disciplines to find out how members of these fields went about their studies. I attended a doctoral class that investigated the full spectrum of disciplines and assisted the instructor (Philip Phenix) in developing a published book called, Realms of Meaning - A Philosophy of Curriculum for General Education. This investigation led me to recognize that learning can be greatly enhanced for every student when the creative processes of coming to know and communicate are employed throughout the general education program.
The next major breakthrough in my experience happened when I was teaching a college level class in beginning psychology. Drawing upon my experience with history and geography, I decided to find a way for my students to discretely analyze their own experiences, their primary source data to be used in discovering the major concepts of psychology. The results of this exercise were also phenomenal.
This process, detailed in my writings elsewhere, resulted in an epiphany. Given a diverse group of typical students who sat obediently waiting to be instructed. As a result of this process they began to communicate with a genuine appreciation for each other and a tolerance for the ambiguities that inevitably emerge during the course of group interaction. They developed extraordinary insight into the nature and value of psychology that gave them the intellectual power to translate the technical terminology contained in their textbooks.
This experience led me to investigate the extensive literature in the fields of communication and group dynamics which not only explained what had happened in my psychology class that dramatically altered the communication patterns, it placed this change within the broader concepts of group development. Since education happens mostly in groups, these insights led me to conclude that educators know very little about group development, even though grouping students is the organizational design of the conventional school.
Taken together, these three areas of study: (1) human development and learning, (2) communication, group processes and group development, and (3) the nature and development of ways of coming to know and understand the universe in which we live provides me with a framework for evaluating what is happening or not happening in the conventional public schools. This evaluative framework is quite different from that used by 80% of the public reported in surveys. You have to decide which framework is based on valid assumptions and beliefs.
Having taught and studied at every level of education from parenting and primary school, to post-graduate and adult education,I have come to believe that the conventional public school system is failing most students in its delivery of general education. This failure presents an increasingly serious and immediate threat to our democratic way of life.
For fifty years I worked closely with beginning and veteran teachers in their undergraduate and graduate programs. I conducted teacher workshops in many schools across this land, and initiated many innovative projects designed to bring about changes and improvements in the way we educate our youth. Never have I found teachers to be resistant to change when they see and understand good ideas, ideas that match their intuitive discoveries while working with students. They want to change those practices that do not match with their experiences, but they know that the system they are part of is most often resistant to change.
Working within the confines of an antiquated school system, pursuing the central purpose of public education,(that of preparing all students for life) has resulted in failures particularly in the area of general education.
General education (now referred to as the core curriculum) is what occurs in the science, mathematics, history and geography classrooms, along with arts and literature. General education includes the development of the skills needed for reading and writing and problem solving. This aspect of education is not doing its job, but it can be argued that it has been successful in establishing a negative attitude toward learning, illiteracy in mathematics and science, and attitudes and values that have resulted in troublesome every day behavior.
These failures in the general education programs of our conventional public schools have resulted in pervasive ignorance among the masses, with an inability to recall most of the information taught, even though in many cases this information was presented several times during the course of instruction from nursery school to graduate school. There is also an obvious and widespread inability to make connections between one set of ideas and another.
An unhealthy dependency on so-called experts/authorities is fostered that can lead to a dangerous acceptance of an authoritarian form of governance.
There is a dog-eat-dog, overly competitive orientation that says "to hell" with everyone but me. We see an acting out of pent-up aggressive behavior like bullying, and a celebration of sport and national dominance based on brute strength.
We see a population accepting a mainstream media that mirrors the departmentalized, segregated presentations of the conventional school, full of rapid, repetitive sound bites, encouraging outrageous political and commercial advertising of products to be sold to a gullible public.
Nearly everywhere we look, from the adolescent-like behavior of members of a dysfunctional congress, to the lack of common sense at the grocery store checkout counter, or at the offices of our government agencies, there are problems that need our immediate attention. All of these problems have a direct link to the conduct of general education in our conventional public schools and colleges.
Too many citizens cannot distinguish between truth based on evidence, and propaganda or fake news. Too few citizens have a working knowledge of civics and how our country was designed to function.
Far from the minds of most Americans and even perhaps farther from the minds of most educators, including those in charge of education decision making, is the proposition that the failures of general education present a real threat to democracy. Until recently, over 80% of the public approved of the way its public schools are running, but it has too many standardized tests. This is a major problem in any efforts to change and improve the quality of education in this country.
Self-appointed "experts" have now seized the initiative to change education building from a seriously limited, even simple-minded, conceptual framework, not unlike what I saw in 1953. Their proposals are all dependent upon an ill-conceived and dangerous move to standardize all the elements of a pre-established core curriculum, its contents and how its instruction is to be delivered. They advocate mandating the use of a "one-size-fits-all" standardized testing program designed to force pre-determined changes that reflect their particular biases.
These efforts are being promoted with extraordinary financial support from corporate interests acting from an embedded, self-serving profit motive. Standardization is their solution to all the problems of education, in spite of the universal truth that no two people are identical in this world, not their genetics, not their experiences nor what they have done with their experiences. They are simply not standardized.
In my opinion, standardized testing and a standardized core curriculum will exponentially compound the problems with general education, as will the wholesale sellout to corporate-run charter schools. This type of standardization applied to individual human beings is contrary to almost everything known about how individuals learn and develop, alone and in groups. This movement must be stopped in it tracks immediately, if it is not already too late.
What is required is a thoughtful and penetrating examination of our current educational practices in the conventional public schools that will lead to a more critical understanding of the problems and more successful systemic innovations. These innovations, unlike current change efforts, must be based on validated assumptions and beliefs about human development and learning that matches our individual experiences and the experiences of others, especially those of scholars who have studied these matters in depth.
What can be done to change the direction of the move to standardization?
Having taught and studied at every level of education from the primary school to post graduate and adult education, I have witnessed firsthand the difficulties of breaking through the mythology currently being perpetuated about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of our educational system and its potential impact on the survival of a citizenry with democratic values and attitudes.
I have concluded that nothing short of an all-out-effort to re-educate the public will have any chance of success in removing these myths and launching the systemic changes required of this crisis. Leaving this task in the hands of ill-prepared but possibly well-meaning advocates of today’s proposed drastic changes is a formula for disaster.
The public schools are facing a serious challenge from school vouchers, home schools and charter schools. Unless it gets its head out of the sand and admits the system is ineffective and out of date, their tenure is limited. They must develop an alternative system that can attract those who now consider going elsewhere for their education. If they do not re-design their system to reflect up- to-date insights, they will continue to lose enrollment until the conventional public school fails to exist.
On the bright side of the present controversies between Democrats and Republicans is the important role our Constitution and the By-laws play in keeping a reasonable balance of power. The public is beginning to understand its value now that it is being attacked by the new administration as a roadblock to “progress.”
Apparently our founding fathers did not look closely at the organization of the schools and other institutions that have clung to an authoritarian model. Where would students go to develop a full understanding of what our democratic/participatory form of governance is and how it works? Certainly not in the public schools.
The parents are at the bottom of the “totem pole;” even their offspring are on a higher rung. The teachers are next in the line above the students, then the department chairs and finally the bosses, the principal and the superintendent. The boards of education are predominately unprepared to assume a professional role in promoting sound education so they govern mostly as a rubber stamp for their appointed head of the hierarchy. The parents and the rest of the voting public get to elect this rubber stamp board but that does little to promote democracy. So what can be done?
To start with, suppose we were to organize the school based on the model of our founders, a three department organization (a legislative branch, an executive branch and a judicial branch) each with a special role that guarantees a balance of power and equitable distribution of resources. The school organization would also have three branches, an instructional branch in charge of curriculum and teaching engaging all those who work directly with learners including teachers, teacher aides, specialties, students and parents; a management branch that handles public relations, accounting, buildings and grounds and fund raising; a quality assurance branch that would make sure the articles of the constitution are upheld. The school’s constitution and by-laws would be supported by a set of valid assumptions that are specific to the purposes of the institution.
We have been taught that we have a government of the people, by the people and for the people and such a government is dependent upon a set of validated and shared assumptions maintained and periodically updated by reasonable people working together. In the case of the school, it exists to serve the learners. What is understood about the learners individually and in groups, about how learning takes place, the focus of their studies and about the best practices for promoting growth and development of wisdom provides the foundation for the conduct of the school.
The preamble to the school’s constitution might look like this:
We the people of Our School District #1, in order to form and maintain a responsive, dynamic, self-correcting educational system, that strives to meet the needs of each unique individual; that fosters collective ownership of the system, and concern and protection for fellow human beings in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness; that supports professionals who can provide constructive, participative leadership throughout the enterprise; that enables each learner to develop his or her potentialities to the highest levels of achievement for functioning in everyday living, including skills involved in personal, interpersonal, group and institutional living, decision-making and participation as worker, dedicated members of family/community and world citizens, do ordain and establish this constitution for our school.
Validated and shared underlying assumptions are essential for maintaining a school that reflects the preamble stated above. Here is a sample listing of topics to be included:
1)What is known and can be verified in personal experience about individuals, how they learn and develop and become a productive human being.
2) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the workings of the mind that recognizes the conscious, preconscious and unconscious dimensions and the nature and role of the neurological connections.
3) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the nature and practices of communication within oneself and between oneself and others.
4) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about group dynamics, especially group development, team building and conflict resolution.
5) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the nature and acquisition of knowledge and coming to know as related to the disciplines within six realms of meaning.
6) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about systems thinking, especially systems design and systems analysis as a core organizing principle for the structure and conduct of the school.
7) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about assessment and evaluation practices that are individualized, authentic and open-ended, that utilize systems thinking.
8) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the role of self-understanding in developing wisdom and skill in the conduct of human enterprises.
The school is a social system with a social responsibility that reaches deeply into the fabric of the community. While it has a mission to enhance the development of every individual’s capabilities, it also has a responsibility to reflect its values throughout the community and seek its understanding and commitment. All decisions that change the system must be examined for their implications for the whole system and each of the participants within it, seeking a supportive human enterprise that encourages personal growth and responsibility for fellow human beings.
This Constitution shall be the supreme law of the school. All members of the three branches shall be bound by affirmation to support this constitution; but no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust within the school.
A more detailed constitution can be obtained by request at: [email protected]
Robert L. Arnold, Professor of Education, Emeritus.
When I was about to enter my educational career at the age of five, they closed the one room schoolhouse that still stands vacant about a mile and a half down the road from our farm. My father was the trustee of District #10 and he must have been sold a “bill of goods” that my educational opportunities would be better served in a union school ten miles up the road in the opposite direction. He couldn’t have thought expenses would be reduced when a school taught by one teacher was exchanged for a school where eight teachers were needed to teach the same curriculum.
I’m told by my five brothers and six sisters who attended the one room school, it wasn’t just one teacher, there were a whole group of older students, parents and the teacher helping to instruct the students in reading, writing and arithmetic. They all pitched in bringing in the wood to keep the fire going and having concern for the health and welfare of their fellow/neighborhood students.
Nevertheless, I crawled up the stairs into the bus at 7:15 A.M. and rode the bumpy roads for an hour or so, while it picked up students from neighboring districts along the way who had also joined the move to a bigger school.
When I was about to graduate from the eighth grade and enter the union high school, that high school was closed and the ninth graders were sent six miles further up the road to a central school – adding another half hour to the trip. The sales pitch was the same, it will cost less to educate if everyone is herded into a central location where their lives can be more completely controlled. Here there were umpteen teachers all teaching their specialty and I was supposed to be grateful for all the attention I was getting.
Then I was off to college where I had to choose a career path if I expected to get a job after graduation. Never mind that I had limited vision of what I wanted to be. All that prior instruction left me with self-doubt and confusion. After 22 years of schooling, and pushing past 85 I’m hopeful that I have another few years to assist in the examination and reform of this system of education that is filled with problems.
There is a growing concern that much of our educational system in this country has failed in the area of general education and basic skills development. There are exceptional learners emerging from our schools, but the percentage of students who have not survived the public school system is far greater than those who have succeeded. The “American Public” is full of such examples.
Unfortunately, there is a very limited vision about what should be changed in our public educational systems. If you are aware of current efforts you know that most if not all are simply tinkering with the system with an expectation that a single change will solve the problem. For example, mandating uniforms, segregation by sex, physical fitness exercises before class, setting up profit making, corporation-sponsored charter schools to take the place of the existing system, standardizing the curriculum, testing with a one-size-fits-all exam etc. None of these efforts will sustain the needed changes.
There is widespread recognition among many thinkers that the fundamental change required is systemic. That is, virtually all aspects of the current educational system must be changed, including the use of human resources (e.g. the roles of administrators, teachers, assistants, students.), material resources (e.g. space/classrooms, instructional materials and advanced technology.), and time (e.g. grade levels, periods in the day, hours of operation, and days of operations.) Reigeluth, C. (1993) Comprehensive Systems Design: A New Educational Technology. Springer-Verlag.
Bela Banathy, writing in the same book, had it right. “Traditional econometric/statistical methods of performance measurement (including standardized tests – emphasis added) are unable to account for the complexity in educational systems. Oversimplified performance measures can lead to organizational pathologies.” That’s what we are witnessing today.
My efforts at educational reform over the past decades have been a roller-coaster experience, without much of an impact on the larger picture of systemic change. The listing below shows some highlights of my experience.
I entered the first grade at five in 1936 in a deeply rural setting in the Adirondack Mountains.
I began teaching for pay in the spring of 1952, with middle school students teaching English and Social Studies. I later taught the third grade and ninth grade science in another school system followed by a stint in the US Army, serving as a Troop Information and Education NCO. After serving in the Army I was hired as a remedial reading summer school teacher before becoming a demonstration teacher in the teachers college I graduated from.
As a demonstration teacher in the laboratory school at the State Teacher’s College, in Potsdam, NY during the late 1950’s, I collaborated with a colleague from the History Department to develop “The Discovery Approach to the Teaching of Social Studies.” This was an effort to place primary historical and geographical documents in the hands of junior high school students. These students were engaged in the creation of knowledge using the methods and materials of historians and geographers. In spite of widespread support for this approach this effort was constrained by lack of legible primary source documents for use in the classroom, especially primary documents relating to local communities.
In the early 1960’s I was privileged to demonstrate how a single teacher/facilitator, who is armed with skills to affect group/team development, combined with a knowledge of the methods and materials of a full range of disciplines drawn from all “Realms of Meaning” (Philip Phenix), could assist learners in successfully mastering the basic general education curriculum for elementary education majors at the freshman college level. This project was “…unique in the six State Colleges (Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Glassboro, Paterson, Montclair), and it is probably unique among American colleges.” As the evaluation report further stated, “Although his approach toward the integration of all subject matter, taught within a self-contained classroom, is nothing new in the American educational system, it is the first time it has been accomplished within a college program.”
In the late 1960’s I authored an innovative teacher education program installed in a unit of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. The program was modeled after the project of the early 1960’s. This was a competency-based program that began with the freshman experience for all teacher education majors at that institution. Success in this program was dependent upon college instructors from all departments with supposed insights and skills to conduct group processes that would lead to the formation of teams of learners with extraordinary capacity to assist each other in the mastery of content. This program encouraged individual decision making thus it was called “The Open Curriculum.” In spite of support from outstanding scholars in the field of education and research, the local forces of convention, after two years, succeeded in canceling the program.
Under a “Jobs 70” program, designed to help the unemployed and underemployed get jobs in the textile mills of North Carolina, I was contracted to provide leadership training for first line supervisors who were charged with maintaining acceptable work on the production line. These supervisors were products of past generations of workers in Cone Mills of Greensboro, North Carolina. They were self-developed workers with exceptional understanding of the processes of making quality denim. The work with the Open Curriculum and its supporting projects provided the basis for this successful leadership program that led to the employment of many of those who heretofore were waiting patiently on the street corners to find a job.
Also during the seventies, I conducted teacher workshops to introduce “The Discovery Approach to the Teaching of Social Studies” in the Reidsville, NC public schools, served as a consultant to the Center for Individualized Instruction in Raleigh-Durham, NC and conducted teacher workshops in Mentor, Ohio in anticipation of opening a new elementary school.
In the early 70's, as President of the local Kiwanis Club, I was the team leader who designed one of nine model primary health care centers in the USA. This fully funded rural health center featured innovative computerized patient records and a strong emphasis on patient education.
In 1973, I chaired a team of exceptional cell scientists from across this country and elsewhere, convened at the Tissue Culture Association headquarters at Lake Placid, NY, to develop audio-visual materials for upgrading instruction in the fundamentals of cell biology for medical students. Together we developed a conceptual framework for understanding the then current knowledge about the parts of human cells and their interrelationships. This framework was used to develop instructional materials for colleges of medicine to be used across North America. It has also been used to assist teachers in the development of "advance organizers" that provides focus for learning the essentials of any subject matter. (Ausubel)
In the mid 1970’s I authored a modified ‘Open Curriculum” called the “Block Program” that focused on developing a comprehensive understanding of the foundations of education from which all the activities of education could be judged. This program survived over thirty years and was summarily dismantled when a new administrator apparently decided to place his brand on the record books. His efforts met with rejections for his plan by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
In the 1990’s I headed a team of educators that developed a comprehensive proposal to change the system of education submitted to the “New American Schools Development Corporation.” This corporation was expected to raise sufficient funds to underwrite thirty proposals to change the systems of education across this country. Due to a lack of donations there were only five projects funded, and these are today nowhere to be found. Our proposal was ranked by the Rand Corporation seventeenth among over seven hundred proposals submitted.
In the early 1990's I was CEO of an R&D company, established to research the production and distribution capabilities of ultra-high resolution color microfiche and computer controlled micro fiche reader/projectors for use in classroom instruction. Thousands of maps, charts and documents pertaining to all parts of the world were produced for the market on ultra high definition analog film, only to face a breakthrough in digital imaging that spelled the demise of its analog competition. These images are in storage waiting for the resources to transfer them to a digital format. This company developed comparative images on film for the American Academy of Dermatology and Eastman Kodak.
In the late 1990’s I wrote and received a grant from SUNY Foundation for the Plattsburgh Research Institute for Defining Education as its director. This project sponsored a conference to demonstrate the uses of modern technology in accessing historical and geographical data.
At the turn of the century, a colleague from the Philosophy Department and I spearheaded a comprehensive design for the establishment of a charter school to serve our rural region, replacing SUNY Plattsburgh's Educational Research and Demonstration Center which they closed. Since this proposal outlined a revolutionary plan to remake the schools and serve our college community with a learning and training center that would engage regional school districts and the SUNY units of the area, it required an impressive assembly of supporting documentation drawn from the experiences outlined above. The sheer size of the proposal was massive, but it was our intention to fully explain its systemic qualities. Apparently, both the size and content of the design seemed overwhelming to the project reviewers.
Our first charter school plan was dismissed by the local college administration without discussion, but nevertheless we submitted our proposal for review at a SUNY office located at the Purchase, NY location. The reviewers were obliged to attack the leadership of this project with outlandish, sarcastic statements like, “Why don’t you start your own private school.” Their treatment prompted a NY Times reporter to investigate, but the only satisfaction that resulted was the removal of the then director of the review office.
The second attempt to gain approval of our charter school proposal was submitted to the NYS Education Department for its review. Our response to the SED’s review panel contained this statement, “Expecting an open and responsible review of our proposal, consistent with the ‘Charter School Application Process’ as outlined in SED’s own memorandum of 25 June 99… we were simply naive in looking forward to a cordial and constructive face-to-face dialogue with the otherwise anonymous members of SED’s Review Panel. Imagine our feelings when instead of such an invitation to discussion we were sent a two page written statement of dismissal so curt, arbitrary and absurd that even the least of academics would blush to acknowledge it.”
Under the banner of “Goals 2000” I wrote and received funding for a project designed to reorient the staffs of a consortium of schools in rural upstate New York to a more comprehensive and theory-based educational process. After two years of a five year project, the funding for this project was canceled due primarily to reactions to change expressed by district administrators and school board members and perhaps hastened by the moves to standardize education with the "common core."
In 2003, in conjunction with a rural school district, I submitted a proposal to alter the way history and geography was being handled at the elementary, junior high school and senior high level, under a federal program entitled “Teaching American History.” Reviewers reported that “The project has a focus on technology in classrooms…., the report is very clear, thoughtful, and interesting. The application presents a strong case for using local history to stimulate student interest in larger national issues in American History. The responsibilities of the management and staff positions are well defined.”
Other reviewers concluded: “The project does not specifically describe a plan for teaching traditional American History. The grant does not describe how the project will improve teacher knowledge of American History. The project is local based and useful for local history making it likely to exclude topics found in a more traditional American history class.” Needless to say this project was not funded. (Emphasis added)
As I stated in the introductory paragraph, the record shows a roller-coaster experience in my efforts to reform education. In spite of frequent frustrations, I am determined to push on. The stakes are too high to abandon this effort. I have spent the last several years writing about a comprehensive plan for remaking our schools for the 21st century, published frequently in The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, the Plattsburgh Press Republican and various other publication outlets. The response to these publications has been nearly non-existent.
How can my analysis of the problems of education be so different from 80% of the population of this country? After all, our experiences in school were much the same; we are all self-proclaimed experts.
The difference is in the set of assumptions and beliefs we hold and apply to the interpretation of what we see happening or not happening in the schools. There can be a world of difference in how we judge what we see, based on these differing assumptions and beliefs.
My assumptions about what education is and what it can become, are based on a lifetime of study, motivated out of many unrewarding experiences I endured during the twenty plus years I spent in formal education. Of course, like everyone else, there were some exciting experiences sprinkled in with the less than exciting ones.
When I began teaching the third grade, having previously developed a sense of self-reliance from my farm experience, I was frustrated with the expectation that I follow a prescribed, mandated procedure in my classroom, consistent with what was happening throughout the rest of the school. In this atmosphere there was little time to have a normal conversation with the students, only time for teaching the canned lessons contained in the teacher’s guide. At one of my first teaching assignments this guide was prepared under the direction of some rich lady who was determined to straighten-out the schools and instill the values and attitudes she thought had not been taught in the past. This was happening in 1953. Does it sound familiar today?
As I continued in my teaching career I developed several important insights that suggested to me that experiences in formal education could and should stimulate every learner to enjoy and embrace their education. I discovered processes that resulted in greatly increased self-understanding and self confidence, in far greater insight into the world in which we live, and far greater appreciation for the individual differences among our humankind.
I studied in-depth the field of human development and behavior, including especially what learning is and how it comes about. Searching for a better understanding of how individuals learn and mature, both alone and in groups. My efforts were/are concentrated on the ways many scholars have gone about studying in their fields, and what they found that I could use in designing truly educational experiences. Summaries of many of these formulations are included elsewhere in my writings.
Almost by accident, through the efforts of a colleague from the history department I was introduced to a process of creating knowledge in the fields of geography and history, using primary source documents. This process was conducted in an open-ended inquiry-oriented setting, which was much different from the usual classroom procedures I had been taught to use when I went to teachers college.
The results of this approach to learning with junior high school/middle school level students, were phenomenal. For them and for me, this experience left a lasting impression that translated into a lifelong motivation to learn and a sense of greater self-worth and self-confidence. Without even the slightest concern for the standardized testing program that was used by the school, these students achieved high scores on the tests, exceeding all expectations. In fact, they did so well officials of the local schools accused us of cheating.
This experience led me to an extensive study of all the other academic disciplines to find out how members of these fields went about their studies. I attended a doctoral class that investigated the full spectrum of disciplines and assisted the instructor (Philip Phenix) in developing a published book called, Realms of Meaning - A Philosophy of Curriculum for General Education. This investigation led me to recognize that learning can be greatly enhanced for every student when the creative processes of coming to know and communicate are employed throughout the general education program.
The next major breakthrough in my experience happened when I was teaching a college level class in beginning psychology. Drawing upon my experience with history and geography, I decided to find a way for my students to discretely analyze their own experiences, their primary source data to be used in discovering the major concepts of psychology. The results of this exercise were also phenomenal.
This process, detailed in my writings elsewhere, resulted in an epiphany. Given a diverse group of typical students who sat obediently waiting to be instructed. As a result of this process they began to communicate with a genuine appreciation for each other and a tolerance for the ambiguities that inevitably emerge during the course of group interaction. They developed extraordinary insight into the nature and value of psychology that gave them the intellectual power to translate the technical terminology contained in their textbooks.
This experience led me to investigate the extensive literature in the fields of communication and group dynamics which not only explained what had happened in my psychology class that dramatically altered the communication patterns, it placed this change within the broader concepts of group development. Since education happens mostly in groups, these insights led me to conclude that educators know very little about group development, even though grouping students is the organizational design of the conventional school.
Taken together, these three areas of study: (1) human development and learning, (2) communication, group processes and group development, and (3) the nature and development of ways of coming to know and understand the universe in which we live provides me with a framework for evaluating what is happening or not happening in the conventional public schools. This evaluative framework is quite different from that used by 80% of the public reported in surveys. You have to decide which framework is based on valid assumptions and beliefs.
Having taught and studied at every level of education from parenting and primary school, to post-graduate and adult education,I have come to believe that the conventional public school system is failing most students in its delivery of general education. This failure presents an increasingly serious and immediate threat to our democratic way of life.
For fifty years I worked closely with beginning and veteran teachers in their undergraduate and graduate programs. I conducted teacher workshops in many schools across this land, and initiated many innovative projects designed to bring about changes and improvements in the way we educate our youth. Never have I found teachers to be resistant to change when they see and understand good ideas, ideas that match their intuitive discoveries while working with students. They want to change those practices that do not match with their experiences, but they know that the system they are part of is most often resistant to change.
Working within the confines of an antiquated school system, pursuing the central purpose of public education,(that of preparing all students for life) has resulted in failures particularly in the area of general education.
General education (now referred to as the core curriculum) is what occurs in the science, mathematics, history and geography classrooms, along with arts and literature. General education includes the development of the skills needed for reading and writing and problem solving. This aspect of education is not doing its job, but it can be argued that it has been successful in establishing a negative attitude toward learning, illiteracy in mathematics and science, and attitudes and values that have resulted in troublesome every day behavior.
These failures in the general education programs of our conventional public schools have resulted in pervasive ignorance among the masses, with an inability to recall most of the information taught, even though in many cases this information was presented several times during the course of instruction from nursery school to graduate school. There is also an obvious and widespread inability to make connections between one set of ideas and another.
An unhealthy dependency on so-called experts/authorities is fostered that can lead to a dangerous acceptance of an authoritarian form of governance.
There is a dog-eat-dog, overly competitive orientation that says "to hell" with everyone but me. We see an acting out of pent-up aggressive behavior like bullying, and a celebration of sport and national dominance based on brute strength.
We see a population accepting a mainstream media that mirrors the departmentalized, segregated presentations of the conventional school, full of rapid, repetitive sound bites, encouraging outrageous political and commercial advertising of products to be sold to a gullible public.
Nearly everywhere we look, from the adolescent-like behavior of members of a dysfunctional congress, to the lack of common sense at the grocery store checkout counter, or at the offices of our government agencies, there are problems that need our immediate attention. All of these problems have a direct link to the conduct of general education in our conventional public schools and colleges.
Too many citizens cannot distinguish between truth based on evidence, and propaganda or fake news. Too few citizens have a working knowledge of civics and how our country was designed to function.
Far from the minds of most Americans and even perhaps farther from the minds of most educators, including those in charge of education decision making, is the proposition that the failures of general education present a real threat to democracy. Until recently, over 80% of the public approved of the way its public schools are running, but it has too many standardized tests. This is a major problem in any efforts to change and improve the quality of education in this country.
Self-appointed "experts" have now seized the initiative to change education building from a seriously limited, even simple-minded, conceptual framework, not unlike what I saw in 1953. Their proposals are all dependent upon an ill-conceived and dangerous move to standardize all the elements of a pre-established core curriculum, its contents and how its instruction is to be delivered. They advocate mandating the use of a "one-size-fits-all" standardized testing program designed to force pre-determined changes that reflect their particular biases.
These efforts are being promoted with extraordinary financial support from corporate interests acting from an embedded, self-serving profit motive. Standardization is their solution to all the problems of education, in spite of the universal truth that no two people are identical in this world, not their genetics, not their experiences nor what they have done with their experiences. They are simply not standardized.
In my opinion, standardized testing and a standardized core curriculum will exponentially compound the problems with general education, as will the wholesale sellout to corporate-run charter schools. This type of standardization applied to individual human beings is contrary to almost everything known about how individuals learn and develop, alone and in groups. This movement must be stopped in it tracks immediately, if it is not already too late.
What is required is a thoughtful and penetrating examination of our current educational practices in the conventional public schools that will lead to a more critical understanding of the problems and more successful systemic innovations. These innovations, unlike current change efforts, must be based on validated assumptions and beliefs about human development and learning that matches our individual experiences and the experiences of others, especially those of scholars who have studied these matters in depth.
What can be done to change the direction of the move to standardization?
Having taught and studied at every level of education from the primary school to post graduate and adult education, I have witnessed firsthand the difficulties of breaking through the mythology currently being perpetuated about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of our educational system and its potential impact on the survival of a citizenry with democratic values and attitudes.
I have concluded that nothing short of an all-out-effort to re-educate the public will have any chance of success in removing these myths and launching the systemic changes required of this crisis. Leaving this task in the hands of ill-prepared but possibly well-meaning advocates of today’s proposed drastic changes is a formula for disaster.
The public schools are facing a serious challenge from school vouchers, home schools and charter schools. Unless it gets its head out of the sand and admits the system is ineffective and out of date, their tenure is limited. They must develop an alternative system that can attract those who now consider going elsewhere for their education. If they do not re-design their system to reflect up- to-date insights, they will continue to lose enrollment until the conventional public school fails to exist.
On the bright side of the present controversies between Democrats and Republicans is the important role our Constitution and the By-laws play in keeping a reasonable balance of power. The public is beginning to understand its value now that it is being attacked by the new administration as a roadblock to “progress.”
Apparently our founding fathers did not look closely at the organization of the schools and other institutions that have clung to an authoritarian model. Where would students go to develop a full understanding of what our democratic/participatory form of governance is and how it works? Certainly not in the public schools.
The parents are at the bottom of the “totem pole;” even their offspring are on a higher rung. The teachers are next in the line above the students, then the department chairs and finally the bosses, the principal and the superintendent. The boards of education are predominately unprepared to assume a professional role in promoting sound education so they govern mostly as a rubber stamp for their appointed head of the hierarchy. The parents and the rest of the voting public get to elect this rubber stamp board but that does little to promote democracy. So what can be done?
To start with, suppose we were to organize the school based on the model of our founders, a three department organization (a legislative branch, an executive branch and a judicial branch) each with a special role that guarantees a balance of power and equitable distribution of resources. The school organization would also have three branches, an instructional branch in charge of curriculum and teaching engaging all those who work directly with learners including teachers, teacher aides, specialties, students and parents; a management branch that handles public relations, accounting, buildings and grounds and fund raising; a quality assurance branch that would make sure the articles of the constitution are upheld. The school’s constitution and by-laws would be supported by a set of valid assumptions that are specific to the purposes of the institution.
We have been taught that we have a government of the people, by the people and for the people and such a government is dependent upon a set of validated and shared assumptions maintained and periodically updated by reasonable people working together. In the case of the school, it exists to serve the learners. What is understood about the learners individually and in groups, about how learning takes place, the focus of their studies and about the best practices for promoting growth and development of wisdom provides the foundation for the conduct of the school.
The preamble to the school’s constitution might look like this:
We the people of Our School District #1, in order to form and maintain a responsive, dynamic, self-correcting educational system, that strives to meet the needs of each unique individual; that fosters collective ownership of the system, and concern and protection for fellow human beings in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness; that supports professionals who can provide constructive, participative leadership throughout the enterprise; that enables each learner to develop his or her potentialities to the highest levels of achievement for functioning in everyday living, including skills involved in personal, interpersonal, group and institutional living, decision-making and participation as worker, dedicated members of family/community and world citizens, do ordain and establish this constitution for our school.
Validated and shared underlying assumptions are essential for maintaining a school that reflects the preamble stated above. Here is a sample listing of topics to be included:
1)What is known and can be verified in personal experience about individuals, how they learn and develop and become a productive human being.
2) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the workings of the mind that recognizes the conscious, preconscious and unconscious dimensions and the nature and role of the neurological connections.
3) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the nature and practices of communication within oneself and between oneself and others.
4) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about group dynamics, especially group development, team building and conflict resolution.
5) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the nature and acquisition of knowledge and coming to know as related to the disciplines within six realms of meaning.
6) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about systems thinking, especially systems design and systems analysis as a core organizing principle for the structure and conduct of the school.
7) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about assessment and evaluation practices that are individualized, authentic and open-ended, that utilize systems thinking.
8) What is known and can be verified in personal experience about the role of self-understanding in developing wisdom and skill in the conduct of human enterprises.
The school is a social system with a social responsibility that reaches deeply into the fabric of the community. While it has a mission to enhance the development of every individual’s capabilities, it also has a responsibility to reflect its values throughout the community and seek its understanding and commitment. All decisions that change the system must be examined for their implications for the whole system and each of the participants within it, seeking a supportive human enterprise that encourages personal growth and responsibility for fellow human beings.
This Constitution shall be the supreme law of the school. All members of the three branches shall be bound by affirmation to support this constitution; but no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust within the school.
A more detailed constitution can be obtained by request at: [email protected]
