Education's Ecology

Why Teaching, Textbooks, Testing & Technology are Not Enough.

Chapter VI

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a Shepard. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

Winston Churchill

Systems for Innovation

Innovation is not likely to happen in society unless there is a combination of powerful desire or need and systems are in place to support and advance new approaches. This chapter will look at alternatives for education that represent or purport to represent such systems for innovation. The best of these provide new roles for teachers and change the conceptual elements and equations for education.

The entire chapter carries a subordinate theme that a new role for our teachers is needed. This will be the primary theme of the next chapter entitled What is Missing?

Cybernetics is a part of science that involves communication as well as control. What has emerged is a related science of systems, systems thinking and engagement of machines in the form of computers as well as in living systems at all levels of organization. Inherent with systems is both capacity and actuality for change.

What are Systems?

The notion or concept of systems has fairly recent origins and mainly come from biology where understanding how living organisms manage to survive has led to recognition of organs and systems of organs that constantly adjust the internal conditions of the body and enable the body to respond to opportunities and threats in its environment. Most organisms, those that survive, are really good at recognizing threats and making adjustments. These adjustments involve systems of muscle and bone, sense organs and nerves, circulation of blood with hormones and, of course, the nerves—muscular system, skeletal system, nervous system, circulatory system, and so forth. Biologists recognize that systems are open, that is to say they extend beyond individual organisms to include environmental elements. Systems of one organism interacts with the systems of other organisms; animals, plants and microbes that provide for food systems through a constant flow of energy, mostly from sunlight. At this level we speak about ecological systems or ecosystems. Recent advances have recognized that every animal’s body involves not only its own cells but the cells of other species, particularly bacteria, fungi (yeast) as well as single celled and small multicellular animals. This microscopic world within a body is called a microbiome. Connections among and between systems are both huge and important.

Society has a multitude of systems to sustain itself. These systems include economic, financial, political, spiritual, agricultural, transportation, government, and, yes, education. Each system is composed of unique elements and those who study these social systems recognize a multitude of interactions and overlap that are often given compound labels such as political-economics, agricultural-transportation or governmental-finance. With all systems there is overlap; some overlap is immediate and obvious, some is subtle or even hidden from observation. Importantly systems regulate other systems. The result is that systems rarely, if ever, operate in isolation. This means dependency.

Body systems are the most obvious case of dependency. When one systems fails, such as when the circulatory system fails,the heart fails in pumping blood to the lungs for oxygenation needed by cells and release of carbon dioxide generated by these cells. Without oxygen, other systems, importantly including the brain, immediately begin to fail. The result is downward spiral of functions that end in death of the organism. Although this is complex enough within a single organism, the social systems that emerge within populations and biological communities, also fail and lead to catastrophic losses of function.

Feedback is an important feature of systems at all levels. The study of feedback, and feed-forward, is called cybernetics. These elements are also referred to as positive (feed forward) and negative (feed back) control systems. Systems adapt and evolve as conditions change because an element of any system is feed back and feed forward.

The classic example of a negative control system is the thermostat that controls the heating and cooling of a home. When a set-point is 700 and the temperature drops below that the furnace turns on to supply more heat. When room temperature reaches the set-point the furnace turns off. An air conditioner (cooling system) acts oppositely.

Positive feedback systems occur when the system accelerates. A disturbance, often small, causes exaggeration of a system or part of a system, Panic in a crowd is a good example. One person in a theater sees something resembling a fire and screams FIRE! Others respond attempting to escape and people are injured or die because they are trampled. A worthy social reason to limit speech and prohibit yelling FIRE in a dark theater full of people.

For another instance, school districts have a system for transporting children to school and taking them back home at the end of a school day. This transportation we may call the ubiquitous Yellow Bus System, requires specialized vehicles that are ostensibly safe, fueled; routed and scheduled; all with capable drivers. When a Yellow Bus vehicle is is observed swerving across a roadway center-line, feedback from the community makes demands on officials responsible for controlling the system. Corrections engage systems of administration that retrains or fires a driver and hires and trains another driver. The system is restored to safe standards.

But, what if, through innovations, being pioneered by Elon Musk, driverless vehicles were to become reality. The Yellow Bus System may acquire a whole new look to service education and the community very differently.

Going forward we will continue emphasis on cybernetics, control and the potentials for change. When we deal with the pace of change or moving too fast, implications for science and education will be developed in Part III. Sophistication in cybernetics is huge and growing as a result of innovation.

What is Innovation?

Fifteen years ago I gave the colloquial expression TGIF a different connotation and meaning—Taking Great Ideas Forward. I wrote weekly essays with emphasis on innovation as about the future. Innovation is about what we don't now know but would like to re-present or be present in some future condition. This requires ideas. Ideas are always about the future. It is ideas upon which innovation is based. Someone has a thought or reflection on making something different; easier, safer, widely needed, more profitable, and so forth. Most typically a condition that is both different and better than the current or some past condition. The state of things is not static. Rocks and concrete walls don't change very much. Living organisms change constantly but may appear to stay the same. Change is a condition of life. Development is change—designed and guided or random and unguided.

In economics, politics, social institutions, it is people who do the guiding. An engine of social innovation is dissatisfaction. The way things are is not serving actual or perceived needs. A different way of doing is needed. Action is required to relieve the dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction may be minor or major. Major discontent may be sufficient to be disruptive. One key to relief of discontent is to look for the cause of discontent and remove the cause. This is, of course, a common solution in a business situation when an employee is failing to do a job as it is expected to be done. The employee is fired and a replacement is hired and trained to do the job more efficiently or effectively. The manager is faced with a problem and finds a new solution. Innovation? Maybe, maybe not.

Innovation is another ambiguity of language that can cause trouble. That is, like many, many other words and phrases, tossed around as though everyone may believe they know the meaning, and at some level they do have and maintain a sense of what the word means. But because of ambiguity, there may be trouble ahead.

In living organisms it is a combination of genes and environment that do the guiding. Adaptation to a change in the environment has both short and long term implications—survival. On the short term life or death of an individual organism; on the long term continuing reproductive success or extinction. Survival is an unambiguous criterion for success of living organisms. Adapt or die.

Innovation is adaptation. Innovators see the environment in a new way. With education it is too often difficult to see the totality of an educational environment—an educational ecosystem. The complexity of education ecology is obscured by too many of the structures that society assumes are essential. Looking at education in a new way may suggest alternatives to continuing with what seems to have been a successful adaptation or system. For education, dissatisfaction is a very important driver, but unfortunately it seems to be a driver of more dissatisfaction, an example of positive feedback. For education, perhaps more than other social systems, a search for the causes of dissatisfaction is almost imperative. Yet because causes are complex and laden with obligation to other important social standards, not the least of which is democratic principles for operation, even defining the cause is fraught.

One result is that innovation in education is piecemeal, limited, and relatively small in scope. We may be well advised to keep it that way. It may help for schools to get out of the way.

School Choice

School choice should be juxtaposed against a situation where there is no choice about attending school or which school to attend or a choice of not attending any school. Because we so firmly attach schooling to education, we may lose sight of education entirely. Perhaps we should actually emphasize “educational choice” and recognize that the environment or ecology of education is and should be unbounded by a concept—school—that is too ambiguous for real value. Of course, as it should, this will beg for an answer to the question “What is Education?” I’ll beg off answering that for now because the “answer” is, in my mind, a long and complicated one.

Mandatory schooling has been in force for a long time in America. The expectation that children will attend a school of some type or another is certainly longstanding as a basic condition for youth. Schooling is assumed and the assumption has been codified in mandatory attendance statutes almost universally in the United States. Exceptions are rare. For instance, a highly gifted child may be exempted from the mandatory schooling laws if there is a persuasive argument that the child will benefit from a musical or acting immersion that carries important developmental (career) potential. For some athletic pursuits this may also apply, Olympic level gymnastics comes to mind. There are, of course, detracting arguments that state law advocates do not accept and judges may not ignore. A highly talented athlete or musician may be forced to attend a school until they reach a specific age, usually between 15 and 18.

When school choice enters a conversation or debate it is usually not about whether to attend but whether there is a choice about where to attend. Public or private is one such choice with parochial religion-based schools definitely a part of the choice mix. More rarely are circumstances in which parents want to send a child to a boarding school. These schools may have capacity to support development of a child's capacity for a broad range of subject areas with or without specialty such as science, math, computing, and so forth. Obviously the cost of private schooling is a severe limitation on choice, particularly for boarding schools. Costs include transportation as special arrangements for busing or other transport must be made.

Bending the rules locked into mandatory attendance statutes would certainly be of itself an innovation. Yet there are important questions to be answered by anyone advocating for dropping mandatory school requirements or lowering the ages to a younger 12-14 rather than the current 15-18. Unfortunately the alternative proposals are, by the school principals association, headed in the opposite direction; to raise the age for mandatory attendance to 18. Appeals to the Congress are underway to make mandatory, attendance until age 18, or even 19. Some would, perhaps even mount an argument that requiring attendance at a Community College would be a form of innovation.

What follows are some thoughts about systems or schooling alternatives that already exist in our systems of education. Much of what follows is drawn from common and readily available sources, including websites and encyclopedias. I would encourage anyone or everyone to examine details of these alternative approaches to schooling. Your favorite search engine will keep you and your mind very busy.

Montessori, Waldorf and Reggio Emilia

These schools tend to be student centered and recognize that knowledge is constructed through cooperative learning activities. Development of the child is managed through distinctive curriculum executed by staff that are certified and trained to guide young people using the particular method for the school. Many facets of this schooling are intentionally self-guided. The Montessori system involves building on the natural interests of young people through activities that are often informal. Waldorf schools, while academically rigorous, integrate art into educational planning on an individual basis. Reggio Emilia approaches education through the arts including drama, dance, music, puppetry as well as painting and sculpture.

Home Schools

The alignments of this structure to support religious dogma is, to my thinking, lamentable, regrettable and deplorable. However there is other virtues of the home-based model for education that can work and will tie into a neighborhood development basis to be described later. Restrictions on home-based education are uneven among the various states. This means that time and curriculum may or may not be mandated by state stature or by a regulatory body such as a state department of education.

Parents may, nevertheless, be able to control the education of children through adjustment of time on task, for example. Children in a home-based system for education may be afforded certain freedom to choose what they learn consistent with their interests and passion. They may be able to pursue new experiences unavailable logistically or financially through a partnership with a public school district or even private schooling for that matter. Parental resources are not an insignificant element in the choices made. More affluent parents may be able to retain services of experts to lead or advise both parents and their children regarding some aspect of science, art, music, travel, language acquisition and so forth. As an extreme case, imagine the circumstance of children of the multibillionaire 0.1% who want to learn art. The family may be able to use the family's private jet to spend a few days in Paris at the Louvre with a knowledgeable curator who has been asked to accommodate a potential patron.

Children in home-based education are relieved or potentially relieved of certain stresses that are a normal part of public or private schooling. While parents may impose very strict deadlines for getting assignments completed, they also have great flexibility in making exceptions when anything is not going according to plan for the child. One home school alum was asked about learning math at the high school level. She related that when she encountered difficulty with trigonometry, her mother, an accountant comfortable with math said “Oh, don't worry about it. We'll get back to it later.” A few weeks on the 16 year-old returned to the study of trig and everything was managed just fine. Can you imagine that ever happening in a traditional public high school math class? Neither can I.

Home-based education can and does provide important alternatives that foster innovation when it is right for the child. My reservations regarding the uses of homeschooling to foster religious instruction notwithstanding.

Chartered Schools

The original intent of the proposals in Minnesota to establish Chartered Schools as public school alternatives was seen as an important opportunity to innovate in education; try out new ideas and enable children to learn and teachers to learn to teach in ways that focus on the child rather than the mandates of statutory language. What has happened, of course, is that Chartered Schools have proliferated across almost all states. The federal government has made Chartered Schools a well supported part of the federal budget, with most funding aimed at innovative approaches recommended by start-ups. Unfortunately with the blatant and irresponsible commercialization of Charters that has emerged, educational innovation has taken a back seat in favor of strategies to raise test scores and limit dropping-out.

One important idea of the original Chartered Schoo l proposal was to empower teachers to do what they believed to be best for their students. This could extend to innovations in school management in which teacher could form cooperatives to run the school directly through shared management. A great idea to move education forward. With this potential for innovation came a plethora of Charter Management Organizations that took control of the Chartered School framework to install much too rigid management systems to foster successful test-taking. Chartered schooling has been nevertheless misplaced because it retains the paradigm of schooling. A Chartered School is, after all, still a school.

Unschool

We can't seem to escape schooling as a paradigm so this innovation is also flawed but definitely a path toward—a worthwhile goal of freeing students to develop on a time schedule that suits their primary needs. Sudbury Valley School started in New England but has now proliferated across America. An early supporter of the Sudbury school, Dr. Peter Gray has written rather extensively recognizing the value of this innovation. Sudbury schools do not follow a curriculum and eschew the whole notion of grades and grading. Students are allowed a huge range of freedom to pursue their personal interests and engage at will with other students to pursue projects of their choosing, or not. The school day is retained but it is highly flexible with regard to start and end times. Younger enrollees (as young as 3yo) are more managed or guided but staff may be more concerned for safety than a particular direction for activity. Gray and others have documented comparable successes of students by pointing out their admission to many elite colleges and universities.

Neighborhood based Community Development

Getting back to basics, a neighborhood is an important place to begin meeting even the most basic human needs. In addition to providing food, water, waste removal, shelter and safety, development can begin by recognizing economics up front and centered rather than at the margins as a nuance and nuisance. The realities of finance are ever present. It has been increasingly customary to rely on central governments to supply funding for education. Vouchers seem to constantly rise to replace mandatory taxation for school funding with rhetoric of parental choice. Vouchers are hardly an innovation, but rather a reactionary mess of conflicts. Community Wealth Building (CWB) is still small but international and is a foundation for self sufficiency at the neighborhood and community level. Through agriculture and animal husbandry; through practices such as transition towns, permaculture, aquaculture and hydorponics, CWB can become a centerpiece for education’s ecology involving all ages. This means that adults become guides for development through partnerships that practice self-sufficiency, personal mastery, visioning, teamwork and project management that recognizes the reality of local, regional and global imperatives.

Adult Development

It may be a very laudable extension of community development, to foster engagement of adults with children in making neighborhoods much better places to live. Existing buildings of many forms could be exhaustively used to situate much of the needed development. And lifelong integration with a focus on what is really important … reciprocity with children is a great foundation as every adult is also a foster parent in a community—making best use in a new economic model of the circular economy may take society in a worthwhile new—innovative—direction.

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Uploaded 14 December 2024