Criticize (Educational) Things You Don’t Know About — NOT!

By Bill Henk – Because my last handful of posts have been lighter in tone, it’s time for some “hard-charging, heavy hitting, pull-no-punches, take-no-prisoners, go for broke” educational commentary.

In other words, I won’t write about cats or snow days or my rusty teaching or Santa’s Naughty List or our Marquette winter commencement celebration.

Besides, there’s lots happening in the state politically around education that appears to be calling for some expert perspective.  Most significantly, Governor Walker announced an Education Reform package with three key foci:  Educator Effectiveness, School Accountability, and the Read to Lead program.  Respectively, the proposed legislative actions would:

• establish a framework for a teacher and principal evaluation based 50% on student outcomes and 50% on educator practice
• create a system whereby schools will be measured on multiple measures of  “growth and proficiency,” and will require them to display report cards on their website and distribute the information to parents whose children are entering the district.
• require all students to be pre-screened for kindergarten, and  all teachers graduating from elementary education programs to take a more rigorous licensure exam beginning in 2013-14.

If you want to learn more, here are some links to:  the release of the Wheeler report, the report itself, and the related statement by State Superintendent Tony Evers.

So, What Do I Think?

To be honest, I haven’t had time to read the report, so I’ll have to withhold my reaction for another day.  Otherwise, I’d be guilty myself of criticizing things I don’t know about.  Plus, I’m not sure I have the energy right now to deconstruct the initiatives anyway.

I will say that the 50% student outcomes metric for evaluating teacher effectiveness gives me pause, and I’m not personally thrilled with subjecting aspiring teachers to what I imagine will be yet another expensive paper-and-pencil exercise.  When it comes to qualifying to become a teacher, application in the classroom is the litmus test.  I’ll wait to see what the exam looks like, though, before making any final judgment.

And I’ll also say that, generally speaking, I can’t think of a single thing that occurs in classrooms at any level that I’d want to see legislated.

Even with these preliminary reservations, I’m willing to give all of these Wisconsin initiatives the benefit of the doubt.  Some could prove to be very good.  And of course, some may be dreadful.  Time will tell.

I want to be clear here that all of the aforementioned Wisconsin reforms appear to have benefited from input by individuals with expert knowledge.  But trust me when I tell you that I could share with you a list of questionable educational reforms, much too long to note  here, that have been driven by amateurs-at-best.  Equally important, there is NOTHING funny about any of these endeavors because they impact school children.

We Don’t Get No Respect

Either way, thinking about the reforms does give rise to a sentiment I’ve been feeling strongly for a long time, so that’s what I’ll write about here.  The concise and objective version is that too often educators at all levels are not treated like professionals.  The more resentful and pessimistic version pertains to how frequently individuals and groups who are not particularly expert about education can still impose their collective will on educational systems — whether it’s ultimately good for students or not.

Grandmother Knows Best

If I’m trying to write something serious, then why start the post with a goofy photo?  Well, some readers will recognize the title of this post as a line used in a stand-up bit called “Grandmother’s Song” by that “wild and crazy” comedian, Steve Martin.  The lyrics, sung against a banjo accompaniment, are supposed to offer life advice that he was given by his beloved grandma.  The sentiments start off plenty nice enough (Be courteous, kind and forgiving, be gentle and peaceful each day…), but eventually devolve into complete absurdity.  The actual verse with the key line is:

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus
Be dull and boring and omnipresent
Criticize things you don’t know about
Be oblong and have your knees removed”

OK, maybe you had to be there.  Even so, I’ve NEVER forgotten that particular line, and have marveled at how often that phenomenon occurs in real life.  I’ve also been impressed by how deeply telling its implications are as advice — in reverse.  In my personal and professional experience, I’ve often encountered people expressing strong and even harsh opinions on matters that outstrip their actual knowledge by light years.  It definitely puts one’s patience and tolerance to the test.

Oh, who am I kidding?  No doubt I’ve done the same thing myself.

However, criticizing educational things people don’t know about  strikes me as being particularly pervasive and acute.  When it comes to schools and teacher training, there is never a dearth of criticism or lay recommendations; it’s a shortage of knowledge that’s often in short supply.

Honestly, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to abide pure nonsense about education being uttered in my presence.  I’m pretty good at biting my tongue.  But every so often, against my better judgment and lacking in the discretion and decorum a good dean should exhibit, I call out the misinformed.  Worse yet, when I do, I tend to be, shall we say, impassioned, because it takes a great deal of insanity to flip my switch.  It’s like an out-of-body experience for me.  Typically I regret the emotional intensity, but almost always feel that they had it coming.

Let’s face it.  Nearly everybody has pronounced opinions and views on education.  Some of it is 100% right-minded, but too regularly, what some believe and espouse couldn’t be further from the truth.  It comes down to whether they genuinely “know whereof they speak.”  Sorry for the clichés, but they all work in this instance.

In truth, it’s not altogether clear to me why almost everyone feels comfortable rendering definitive judgments about K-12 and higher education.  Seldom if ever do these folks understand the full context they endeavor to change.  As far as I can tell, the extent of expertise in too many cases amounts to having gone to school.  In fairness, school experiences almost always includes graduation, and most of the time it includes some or even extensive college coursework.   But more often than not, it often amounts to exactly zero experience in schools and classrooms in any role other than as a student.

Think of it this way.  I’ve been in hospitals for a boatload of operations related to sports injuries, studied some anatomy, and my name carries a “Dr.” in front of it.  But it would be sheer lunacy for me to offer my take to a surgeon on how invasive, corrective procedures should be done.

Then why would we want amateurs teaching our precious children, administering complex school and district systems, or shaping public education policy?  Sorry, but I just don’t get it.

For that matter, although I was a teacher myself, have spent hundreds of hours in schools in various professional capacities, and earned a terminal degree in education, I wouldn’t dream of weighing in on a wide range of issues that are better left to teachers, principals, central office administrators, and superintendents.  They’re on the ground, the front line, in the trenches, doing the direct providing of services.  Why in the world would I (or could I) be so presumptuous as to think that I know better?  What would make my prescriptions credible let alone superior?

For me, there is a knowledge base, a set of skills, a science, a range of professional dispositions, and even an art to teaching and leading schools as well as directing the preparation of teachers and school administrators.  Direct experience matters.  And abundantly so.

To sum up, I want to believe that the vast majority of individuals pushing for educational reform have honorable intentions.  Many of them are really smart, too.  Even then, I’d feel better if more of them had truly expert knowledge informing their agendas.

A hallmark of a true professional in my book is knowing what you don’t know, conceding as much, and having the good sense not to put one’s ignorance and arrogance on display.

Admittedly, I’m as guilty as the next person in criticizing things I don’t really know about in other aspects of my life.  Hopefully I’m pretty good at catching myself, but sometimes I stumble.  For instance, maybe, just maybe, I’ll quit second guessing Buzz Williams, Bret Bielema, Mike McCarthy, and Ron Roenicke.

Seriously, could I be any more pretentious than thinking I know better than these professionals?  Where exactly does my copping a superiority complex come from anyway?   Just being an athlete isn’t enough.

Truth be told, each of these sports critiques is a case of a little knowledge going a long way toward deluding myself.

Let’s not make the same mistake with education.