The Dichotomy Defense

False dichotomy: aka. the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and-white thinking or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options (sometimes shades of grey between the extremes). 

How many times in education do we invoke "The Dichotomy Defense"?  You know, the one where we refute a suggestion or new initiative by bringing up the most extreme, unlikely, one-in-a-million, contrary, doomsday example possible.  For example...

- "Texting in class?  We can't allow students to text in class because, once we start that, ALL THEY WILL DO IS TEXT."
- "Give students choice in what they what they want to learn and how they will be evaluated? We can't do that, KIDS WILL JUST CHOOSE THE EASY WAY OUT."
- "Flexible deadlines and re-writes? We can't do that, KIDS ARE LAZY AND WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US."
- "Unblocking websites and social media tools?  We can't do that, because once we do, ALL STUDENTS WILL DO IS SURF INAPPROPRIATE SITES AND BULLY EACHOTHER."
- "Let students come up with expectations for themselves and their conduct? We can't do that, KIDS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE AND THEY ARE NOT CAPABLE OF GOVERNING THEMSELVES--IT WILL BE ANARCHY."

In each one of these aforementioned examples, the extreme COULD happen.  A few students (and adults) might text all of the time.  A couple of kids (and adults) could choose the easy way out.  Some children (and adults) are lazy and will take advantage of the system.  Some kids (and adults) will surf inappropriate sites and bully eachother using social media.  Some students (and adults) are not responsible.

Some.

However, if the initiative is important enough, if it is the right thing to do, we can sort it out with those few people.  And we will.

Recently, our school district entered a partnership with Apple to get iPads for one of our local schools as a pilot project to increase student engagement, achievement, and 21st Century Skills through an infusion of technology.  Personally, I am proud that our district is starting to look at partnerships to help our teachers augment the good things they are doing in their classrooms.  Many other schools in our district are excited at the future prospects of this partnership.

The following is an excerpt of a response to this initiative from a writer in the local paper. 

"Yes, it’s an essential part of our work and lives, but I worry about the future of generations who can’t even spell, completely reliant on their iPhone’s auto-correct, and who think Twittering is meaningful dialogue.

So hearing the news that Grade 5 and 6 students at Bert Edwards Science and Technology school will be utilizing iPads, courtesy of a partnership with the school district and Apple Canada, leaves me a little uneasy. Working on computers is one thing but bringing the highly interactive iPad into classrooms is a whole different kettle of fish.

The Kamloops school has the laudable goals of improving reading comprehension and numeracy, which the iPad is somehow supposed to help with (what ever happened with those old standbys called pencil and paper?), and the kids will create “e-portfolios” among other things and blog about the process.

The biggest concern raised by school trustees is that the Mac products might not jive with existing IBM technology used in the district. But just how far will this go?

In the United States, teachers are incorporating social media into their lesson plans in dramatic fashion. Instead of discouraging kids from chatting online, a “backchannel” lets students ask questions and express their views via Twitter-like technology during class.

Educators say it encourages shy kids, who might otherwise never engage, to interact via texting.

In other words, don’t bother raising your hand and using your “inside” voice to speak, just text your thoughts to your classmates — something kids are already inclined to do outside the class anyway.

Where does the madness stop? We are the makers of our own destiny on this one and it’s not looking pretty. Diabetes and obesity are rising at alarming rates among youth as they sit at home playing on their Xbox and Playstations, now we’re encouraging them not to talk during class, just type? If they were shy before, this isn’t going to help bolster their confidence."

Whether one agrees with the author or not (I clearly would be in the “not” camp), I know that in education, false dichotomies such as the several listed above are easy defenses.  They are easy defenses to philosophies that challenge our own, initiatives that might not be our idea, technologies that we don’t know or understand, or to ideologies of the generation of students that we serve that we might not relate to as well as we want to believe.

Challenging new ideas is important and valuable.  And there are times when new ideas must be taken back to the drawing board, or just scrapped altogether.  However, using extreme examples to scare people into believing the sky is falling just slows progress.  When we confront new ways of thinking, it is important that use the best facts, information, and data that we have availed to us.    

By doing this, we avoid the easy defense, the Dichotomy Defense.

Looking back

As the sun slowly sets on another school year for all of us, I find myself reflecting on my five years as Principal here at SKSS and twelve years in administration.  It seems as though the years have come and gone in a flash, and particularly in the last five years, I have learned so much about our school, our students, my staff, and myself as an administrator and a person.

When I started in administration, I certainly thought that I knew 'how things were supposed to be done'.  I thought that experience was something that could be overcome by hard work, attitude, research, and willingness.  I thought that somehow, being an administrator made me 'know more' than others (Ha!). I thought a lot of things....But now that I have a chance to sit and ponder the last twelve years, the students that I have met, the educators that I have worked with, the parents that I have gotten to know, and now my Personal Learning Network have all changed my perspectives on a number of fronts.  All except one.

Things I think about in terms of my job as a Principal	What I thought when I started…	What I think now…
Leadership	Be out front, lead the charge, break down the doors, and hope everyone is following	Lead along side, and sometimes from behind--you can help everyone along the path. Don’t ask anyone to do what I would not do myself
Problems	I can solve it because I need to solve it	We can solve it because we want to solve it
Knowledge	I have the knowledge because I am supposed to be ‘the’ educational leader in the school	We have the knowledge because we are all educational leaders in our school
Differing Points of View	Unhealthy—clearly I had not done my job convincing them what is right—can’t be wishy washy	Essential—so much to be learned from others, and pretty neat to walk out going, “I never thought of that!”
Good ideas	Keep them close to my chest and make things better at our school	Share with others--they will make good ideas great, and we will make things better at all schools
Mistakes	Keep them quiet and mop them up, you don’t want people to thing you don’t know everything.	Admit to them quickly and learn from them, people already know you don’t know everything
Balance	Is achieved when ‘work time’ and ‘play time’ balance themselves out.	Is achieved when you don’t think really about ‘work time’ or ‘play time’, just good times.
Twitter/Social Media	Something that Lindsay Lohan used to tell us where she was shopping	The most important professional development tool in my toolkit.
Role of the school	To provide the best programs and opportunities for students to be successful	To be insatiably curious about our students and how they learn, and help them find their passion
Curriculum	What we need to get through so that kids can achieve	Individualized, flexible and engaging to inspire and motivate students to want to learn more.
Assessments	Well-written assignments, quizzes and tests that we can use to tell us what kids remembered about what we told them to learn.	Something that students can use to teach us what they know.
Measure of my success	What I can achieve for my students and my school	The success of each student, our staff, our school and our community
Happiness	Having what you like	Loving what you have
My dream job	Principal at South Kamloops Secondary	Principal at South Kamloops Secondary

I DO have my dream job.  I am very fortunate to work with a great team, tremendous staff, supportive parent community, and students so great I can't go on enough about them.  And what is most exciting is that each one of these groups has changed my perspectives, and will continue to change my perspectives in the coming years.

How have your perspectives changed?  Jot it down--it is a great way to reflect on this thing that we call 'education'.

Engaged

Recently, I read an interesting post by @4moms1dream which involved a virtual Q and A session with three outstanding BC Educators in Chris Kennedy (@chrkennedy), Chris Wejr (@MrWejr) and David Wees (@davidwees) on the topic of Personalized Learning.  The post gave me pause for thought.  There seems to be much hesitation about the whole personalization concept.  I began to think about this more.  How can we move from a model which is more 'traditional' in its curricula and methods of instructing and assessing to one that gives our students increasing choice about what it is that they wish to learn about and responsibility for the means by which they will demonstrate what they know?  In many ways, this question can be thought of in more simplistic terms: how do we become comfortable with the idea of relinquishing the control over learning from the educator to the student?

Yikes.  At first blush, this concept seems scary.  Currently in education, while we may not choose to, it can sometimes be more 'comfortable' (and I use that term loosely here) knowing that there are prescribed learning outcomes to follow, numerous suggested learning resources to use, scads of lesson plans and assessments that have been created by colleagues who are truly great educators, standardized test that we can point fingers at, and recognized reporting procedures and timelines to inform students and parents of progress and achievement.   Of course we frequently shout out that we need more flexible curriculum, more time and fewer standardized tests--and we mean it.  However, we can always take solace in the fact that, should we stumble or get lost, we can always rely (and sometimes blame) the educational road map that has been laid out for us by our local ministry or state jurisdiction.  In many ways, letting go of this bit of 'security' is a daunting proposition.

So how do we lead this movement from a school system that we grew up in, that 'worked for us', and that is predictable and maybe even 'comfortable' to one that is promising, somewhat unknown, sounds like a pile of work, and one that educators may not totally be convinced that it is going to be successful?

Without doubt, moving to a Personalized Learning environment represents a significant shift in how we do business in schools.  Before we even begin to discuss a framework for Personalized Learning in our schools, I believe that we must recognize this as a significant shift for educators that will require a compelling answer to the question "Why are we doing this?".  I think the answer, in large part, will come through a tremendous spike in student engagement.


In the next couple of weeks, a number of educators from British Columbia and from around North America will be starting a Twitter-based book study of "Beyond Discipline" by Alfie Kohn (be sure to follow the chat at #kohnbc on Thursday nights at 8PM PST beginning on June 16th).  In his book, Mr. Kohn makes an interesting point:

"One of my own major (albeit belated) revelations as a teacher was that student behavior problems in my classroom were not due to students' unnatural need for attention or power.  The students were acting up mostly to make the time pass faster.  And given the skills-based, decontextualized tasks I was assigning, who could blame them?...What I really needed was a new curriculum."

When I first became a teacher, I remember students in my class that were not 'engaged'.  They were off task.  They were doodling.  They submitted labs with incomplete sentences, diagrams that were sparsely labeled, and vocabulary lists that were incomplete. I needed to create worksheets to go along with videos, otherwise the kids would not be paying attention.  I would bemoan the fact that I 'could not get through' to these students 'no matter what I tried'.  

When I think back to those early days of teaching, I shake my head at some of my lessons:  I should be thankful that the kids came at all.  I was not really interested in what the kids wanted to learn, I was more interested in the material that 'I had to cover'.  I used to say things to the kids like "This lesson might not be too exciting today guys.  We have to get through a few pages of notes, but tomorrow should be better.".  I would commiserate with my fellow staff members, when we would sit in the staff room and talk about how "kids can't expect every lesson to be exciting" because we all had "content to cover".  In retrospect, I think I might have been hiding behind the curriculum and provincial exams as an excuse not to plan my lessons in such a way that engaged students.  Like Mr. Kohn, what I needed was a new curriculum.  One that is personalized for students.

The concept of a Personalized Learning environment for each student is tremendously exciting.  And while the mechanisms and logistics that will underpin the concept of students working with teachers to determine what they are going to learn, the means by which they will learn, and how they will demonstrate their learning is still in its early stages of acceptance and implementation, like the students it will impact, I am completely engaged in learning about Personalized Learning.

Flavor of the Month?

In many educational jurisdictions, it is the time of the year when administrators move schools.  Some move by choice because an opportunity presents itself and they are looking for a change.  Others are promoted. Some retire or move districts. And others are asked to move because they have been in a school for a period of time that has been deemed to be too long. Whatever the reason might be, the net result is that the movement of an administrator has an impact on schools.

Let me start by saying that I am not moving schools, so this is not a post to address my own personal situation.  Furthermore, I will temporarily refrain from injecting my own opinions on whether the impact that an administrative shuffle has is positive or negative.  But I would like to generate some discussion on this topic that I feel merits some examination.  So, I would be curious to see responses from our PLN on the following:

• Should Principals move?  What are the reasons they should stay in their current situation? What are the reasons they should go?
• If so, is there an optimum number of years that a Principal should be at a school?
• Does the movement of Principals promote a "Flavor of the Month" culture, or is it important to have some cross pollination of administration?

I look forward to a few comments--I have my own thoughts about this, but I would like to learn what other educators (teachers, admin, parents, students) feel about this and why they feel the way that they do.

Look forward to your comments.