Plagiarism

A happy week was completely ruined by plagiarism cases I discovered in my graduate class. I don't really know why, but it always makes me very upset. Somehow, it always feels like I failed, too. No matter how many times I warn students, and how explicitly the policy is stated on my syllabus, it still feels yucky, like when you see someone stealing. I might be just grumpy today, but it really is unpleasant to be deceived. I am sure those of you who ever was deceived or robbed remember the feeling of being violated. It is not the stuff or money that you miss, but your own sense of… I don't know, cleanliness?

Why students do it, I am not entirely sure. I don't remember having any inclination or temptation of cheating when I was a student, so it is hard for me to relate. Partly, it just became very easy to do. The instant access to information means instant, effortless stealing opportunity. I don't believe for a minute that students now are less honest than before. In the past, it simply took too much effort to plagiarize. One had to go to a library, find a book, re-type some text. Plagiarism is usually a cope-out for people who are insecure, stressed, and overcommitted. Dishonest, too. But because they are also short on time, effort makes a lot of difference. Old plagiarism was less harmful, because simply retyping text made the offender learn something. Copying and pasting teaches one nothing except for the skill of copying and pasting.

Of course, professors can fight back, and that is what we should do. If we don't, we may as well just sell the diplomas; we are no better than snake oil sellers. As objective standardized tests are used less and less frequently, we must make sure the performance-based assessment is not compromised, or we will run into deep trouble. Unopposed, plagiarism will ruin higher education in no time, because no link between credentials and competence will remain. So, this is a call to arms.

As a first step, ask your students to submit a file even if you prefer to grade hard copies. We should try to check very paper for every class.

• Open a blank file, go to Insert, Object, Text from file. Then select all files student submitted, and insert them all at once. You will get a huge, hundreds of pages file. Of course, you can do it with individual files, if they look suspicious.
  
• Then go to ANY shell of Blackboard, Control Panel, and click on SafeAssign.
  
• After that, click on Direct Submit, and then on Submit papers button.
  
• Once you submit, give it several minutes to work its magic. It will produce a report that will begin with something like this:
  
• Click on all instances of plagiarism (they are numbered in little green circles), and on Highlight All, and then manually recheck. Sometimes a student uses legitimate quotes, and the system does not know it. However, it also finds real instances, even if a few words are changed to conceal plagiarism. It is important to re-check manually though, to avoid false accusations.

On stupidity

Two nights ago, I was building a headboard for our bed; something I promised Svetlana to do for a very long time. Like most men, I have to look at the materials (nice pine boards) for some time, and make a mental plan, step by step, of how things should work. Then I started to work, and one thing was annoying. Because I have only one drill, I had to constantly pull out the drill bit, and put in the Phillips bit for screws, and then back. It's not essential to know the details; basically, in this particular project, you could not pre-drill all holes and then screw in all screws, not without spending another hour calculating fractions, and measuring everything very precisely.

Anyway, about half-way through, I realized just how stupid my plan was, and that there was a much easier solution: nail all the boards lightly just to keep them in place; then drill all the holes, every time putting the nail back into the hole to hold the construction, and then screw all in. I think everyone had that experience, the sudden acknowledgement of one's own stupidity. It does not have to be carpentry, of course. Sometimes you ask a question, and before you finish, you just realize well, this is a really stupid question, because the answer is quite obvious. The headboard project made me think about the nature of stupidity.

It is not mental retardation or low intellect; that is not what I have in mind at all. Rather, it is when regular, reasonably intelligent people do something stupid, as if the brain just checks out for a moment (sometimes for longer periods of time). It is obvious that everyone has those moments; some of us are better at hiding those, while others are great at denials, and will always find someone else to blame for their brain malfunctions. Teachers, for example, tend to attribute kids' stupid actions to immaturity; they routinely deny or ignore their own blunders. Stupidity is embarrassing, and it takes a great amount of trust to acknowledge and own up to it, especially when other people are involved. Notice, my example was extremely safe: it only cost me an extra hour or so of work, and did not hurt anyone. I could probably come up with a more relevant and recognizable one from work, but then it's too embarrassing, and involves others.

What bothers me is not the stupid things we all do on occasion, but the denial that we do them. For example, one can do the same dumb thing for years, simply because one denies that it is excessively stupid. Instead of acknowledging (even to oneself), and fixing the problem, one just continues doing it. This is not inertia, or lack of imagination, not that. A more subtle mechanism is in place: if you try to change certain process, you implicitly acknowledge that what you did before was, well, not that smart. The question that inevitably arises is, why did you put up with that all that time? Paradoxically, greater tolerance to stupidity is the main way of reducing its sway.

Embrace your inner idiot.

Virtual course

We had a great slowtalk with Elementary PTEP program this week. It is good to talk about the nitty-gritty of curriculum, and not about data, accountability, and other such boring stuff. One interesting issue we encountered is with curriculum strands. For example, we do not have a special class on classroom assessment. It would make sense to teach this content in several different classes, as a curricular strand or a theme. However, once you try to figure out how it works, the task is not simple. Do we hit the same skills and content in different classes? But then it might be redundant. Do we build a specific sequence of skills and content? But how do we make sure there is continuity, and that all instructors teach it? This is an interesting challenge, because we are used to think in terms of courses: there is specific content, outline, calendar, readings; one person is in charge of it; it has assignments, tests or other evaluations, and a grade. The strands or themes are hard to conceptualize and implement, because they encroach on faculty independence, and just require too much time for constant collaboration. There is no mechanism of enforcement.

Here is one possible solution. What if we use the same mental tools that we are used to, to manage the strands? In general, it is easier to think about a new problem, if you can cast in terms of an old problem. We can develop a virtual course called "Classroom Assessment." It will have a syllabus, content, readings, assignments, and tests, just like any other course. However, within it, there will be several sections: "You will learn this in EDEL 350, as a course within the course. It will be 20% of your course grade." And then the next section: "You will learn this in EDEL 445, and it will make 10% of your grade." The course will take three or four real courses to complete, and students themselves would carry records from previous evaluations from course to course. Instructors of each real course will then be more or less bound to the virtual course's syllabus, because students will expect it. Students will be able to see some coherence in the strand, so that assignments build on each other to reinforce and develop skills, and that their knowledge is gradually expanding. It will also avoid redundancy, where instructors use the same reading, or the same assignment, or just cover the same content.

Everyone likes to tweak what we teach and how we teach, hence the curricular drift. But if we have a virtual course syllabus, whoever is changing his or her portion of it, will be compelled to see if the change does not affect other parts of the syllabus (again, in terms of redundancy and connection).

Taking this idea a little further, course sequences (for example, the literacy sequence), should really be thought of in terms of one long course, with one super-syllabus. The same objective: to make sure readings, content, assignments, and tests build on each other, rather than overlap. And if they overlap, it is by choice, to reinforce certain concepts. What do you all think?

Summer reading

Summertime, and the living is easy. I don't know how other people spend their down time. I was reading (and also listening to podcasts) abound mind-enhancement drugs, child sexuality, the Iberian Celts, robots, beekeeping, and other such unrelated stuff. In between, I am reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Harding, editing my manuscript, watching good and bad TV.
My mind delights in random ideas; I love to know about human creativity, and about people's profound weirdness. Not sure where this comes from; probably genetic, from my nomadic ancestors. This always happens to me between writing projects; my brain needs food. It does not have to be educational research or philosophy. Rather, it has to be something different, something from the fields I don't actually know much about. That is the only way I know how to think.

Among other things, the eclectic summer reading puts me in an optimistic mood. As a species, we are at the top of our creativity. We have enormous creative powers, and have not been using even a portion of it. And nothing makes us more creative than a decently sized crisis. The $4 a gallon gas created the buzz of new ideas; people drive less, carpool more, and share efficient driving tips. Americans have cut back 30 billion miles over the last six months. Another two dollars increase, and we will start building public transportation. Isn't that the best thing that happened to America in the long time? I am waiting for that plug-in hybrid, and till then, my 84 Honda Civic will do nicely. Uninterrupted prosperity is a recipe for complacency. Our little corner of the woods, higher education, has been remarkably stable and successful. Just watch what happens when this model unravels. We all will become very creative and innovative overnight. Life is good, and it is going to get better.

Silentium!

By Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, 1830

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.

How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.

Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.

/trans. by Vladimir Nabokov/

Молчи, скрывайся и таи
И чувства и мечты свои -
Пускай в душевной глубине
Встают и заходят оне
Безмолвно, как звезды в ночи,-
Любуйся ими - и молчи.

Как сердцу высказать себя?
Другому как понять тебя?
Поймёт ли он, чем ты живёшь?
Мысль изречённая есть ложь.
Взрывая, возмутишь ключи,-
Питайся ими - и молчи.

Лишь жить в себе самом умей -
Есть целый мир в душе твоей
Таинственно-волшебных дум;
Их оглушит наружный шум,
Дневные разгонят лучи,-
Внимай их пенью - и молчи!..

What is happening to public higher education?

As we are testing waters in various off-campus ventures, I get a sense that some rules of the game are changing. Mainly, it is the kinds of questions potential applicants are asking and the kinds of responses or non-responses we get from people. It is not a secret generally; see for example, Lloyd Armstrong's blog. Basically, higher education is entering the world of competition, something most of other industries have been operating in for a long time. We are not there yet. For example, our recent drop in enrollments did not get anyone worried about our job security, or the imminent bankruptcy. I remember from my days of working for a small company, it was a very different feeling. We knew that if this state contract is not awarded, or that client leaves us, we all lose our jobs, at any time. Or, compare this to American car manufacturers: SUV's and trucks are not selling, so they just closed down a lot of factories, and fired a lot of people. We are not there yet, and hopefully, not even close. But we are definitely on the road to operating in the same situation of competition.

Just a couple of examples: a school district we were trying to talk into opening an off-campus cohort in, invited us and another university to present on the same day. Or another example: a recently admitted student shares that he shopped around, and we won his business because we had someone on the phone to talk to. Our partner schools tell us: you are good, but another university pays more to cooperating teachers. And finally, we seem to be losing the enrollment race to CSU and CU, see the recent Tribune article by Chris Casey.

Of course, the situation is not dire yet; we will always have traditional students, even if in smaller droves; our education programs are first-rate, and we seem to be working on overdrive all the time. So, there is no real sense of losing business; not on personal level. However, I just think we and other similar universities are not ready for the world of competition, and it may come sooner and much more suddenly than we imagine.

We are not prepared because of the outdated organizational structures and culture. We are not flexible, we are slow to react, and we cannot count money. UNC, like any other university, has the commercial arm, the Extended Studies. ES is much more efficient simply because they have more organizational and financial flexibility. Ideally, the rest of the university should operate just like the Extended Studies, constantly monitoring revenues and expenses in each college, school, and individual program. While not every program has to break even, everyone's financial situation must be transparent. I really don't mind subsidizing another program, but I would like to be told about it, and to know that this is done for the good of the whole, not because no one is paying attention. Revenue streams must be traced to their originators, and the patter should have a right to use some of it to experiment, take risks, and invent new educational services.

A part of the problem is that there is a further division within the University, and an invisible wall separates the Academic Affairs and the Extended Studies. While legal rationale for this separation is clear (state funded versus cash funded), ideally, academic units, faculty and students don't have to know or care about the difference between the two. There is no justification for the absurd situation when our new growing Early Childhood program only costs us money, while our off-campus Postbac programs are the main source of our discretionary income. Those are both very good, and both require a lot of work, dedication, and creativity. Much of risk-taking is dampened by the perceived shortage of faculty, and incongruence of ES vs. on-campus policies and procedures. We are caught in the perpetual catch-22: we cannot grow, because we do not have faculty to grow; we do not have faculty, because we do not have funds to hire them. Almost all new initiatives are coming out of someone's hide, and those hides are not inexhaustible.

What would a business person do? Come up with a plan, and then borrow money or find an investor to make it happen. Then hire great people to work on it, and just get the project going. Use of credit is the life-line of all modern economy, and it was invented exactly to get out of the catch-22 situation. But of course, we are not allowed to do what everyone else is doing, because we are a university. We are not about money. Sometimes I think we are about the absence thereof.

Another example: at the end of the calendar year 2008, our School will have taught 51 credits of off-campus credit hours. That is an equivalent of two full-time instructors. However, we cannot hire two new instructors using Extended Studies funds, because such people would need to teach for ES only. But this simply won't work, because no one can teach all of these various courses; one need to be a specialist. We could hire someone on ES funds, but who would teach in both off-, and on-campus. What's the difference, after all? It would not have been cheaper; full-time faculty cost slightly more than either adjunct instruction or overloads to existing FT faculty. However, we can expect a full time faculty to work with us on curriculum, on new programs, take lead in developing new projects, serve of committees, write reports, etc.

There are other institutional barriers; I won't mention them all. It is probably too boring already. I am just worried about what is coming next. We might not see that bus closing in on us. As we can see, the economy experiences wide swings, and dramatic changes. Who knew five years ago people will be dumping their SUV's and your house would lose value? How do we know what the landscape of higher education will look like 5 years from now? Will there be enough for everyone? Which other players will enter the field and open their brick and mortar or virtual campuses next door? I think public universities like ours should start to transform themselves into more flexible organizations now while we still have time. There is other one legal mandate or a fiscal rule or another to stop us from changing. But then again, Colorado is a smaller state, with a smaller, friendlier government, and we can change all these rules if we really wanted. In 2006, Colorado ranked fifth in the nation on the "Best States for Business" rankings by Forbes. And I am confident we can do it, because we have the most educated and creative workforce among all industries. Another option is to wait and see.

Fall Offense Planning

I have written here before, that I divide all work into defense and offence. Defense is reacting to things that are coming my way: reports, requests for information, trouble students and trouble faculty, personnel issues, routine office management issues, things to sign, and things to check on, schedules, workloads, staffing, contracts, finances, responses to student inquiries, teaching. This actually adds to quite a bit, especially in Fall and Summer.

Offense is new projects, such as grant applications (we just submitted one), program revisions, attempts to expand out off-campus empire, thinking about where we want to be in the future, developing some efficiency tools (for example, the SIMS database, and I started on a new scheduling database), considering changes in policy (such as a new system of payments for consultants), looking for ways to save money, developing a plan of action or the year. Just lie a military offense, each academic year needs to have some preliminary planning work done: what should be accomplished, and then, narrow it down to what can be accomplished.

In the next academic year, we have a number of biggies. NCATE comes in November for a site visit. In October (tentatively, 10-17), the Russians are coming for the First International Teacher Education conference (See the Nomadic Conference blog for the original idea). If that happened, then we are to travel to Russia in May for a visit. If we like the whole thing, we can start planning another one, with a different country. If the Jordan Early Childhood grant is funded, Jordanians will come for a visit sometime in the Fall as well. Now, we absolutely must start another off-campus cohort in MAT/LDE next year, expand Secondary Postbac, reignite the Bridge Postbac program, and plant seeds for perhaps three more programs, hoping at least one of them will work (I am thinking, we can take MAT/Elementary off-campus to Denver, start an Early Childhood PTEP cohort in one of community colleges, and begin developing a quality Ed.D. on-line). The Elementary PTEP and Postbac assessment system overhaul needs to be completed next year; Secondary and K-12 also moved forward considerably. We need to keep ironing out the kinks of our PTEP tracking system (the checkpoint courses), and keep debugging curriculum (that seems to never end). Elementary transition should complete by the end of the year, so we need to see what bugs are there. Early Childhood program will mature to adulthood (it's a pun), so we need to review the lessons and adjust. We need to take a hard look at our annual budget, estimate PT costs, and see how much money we can really invest in professional development and curriculum development. I am also going to teach a new doctoral class in the Fall, and am still quite unsure about it.

Now, these are too many projects to just keep working on them at the same time, so we need a plan, with some timeline, and specific tasks in each project. In other words, we need a script for the year. There is not a slightest chance for me to do most of it, so the play needs a cast, with specific roles assigned. Wait, I am mixing my metaphors here: started with military and ended with theater. But I guess it is the same idea; both involve what they call project management in business. In the last two years, I have tried to be more or less systematic about each individual project, but not about all of them. So, that's my Summer project, to spell out the big plan, and try to see how different parts interact with each other. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

The tasks of improvement

Some of the units at our university, which shall remain unnamed, cannot improve. They run into the same problems semester after semester, and heroically overcome those, every time. The people there work just as hard as anyone else, if not harder. They are always friendly, helpful, and get things done. And we end up talking to them quite a bit, because, well, there are problems; the same ones again and again.

How does t happen that people are so busy working, they don't have the time to figure out a way of doing their work better, more efficiently, with fewer errors? Not that I don't know how, for our little operation at STE has its own backlog of unsolved issues. We simply don't have time to get to them. But it bothers me when serious, chronic problems, all of which are solvable, get put off again and again. What bothers me is a day-to-day mentality, where things are done for the day, as if they are done for the last time. Next day brings the same exact problems, but we are just waiting for the day to end.

I don't want our School be among those units that will remain unnamed. We need to keep improving things, small and big, even just to keep ourselves moving. So, let's take a look at what we do, and make sure we spend our time and energy on doing more complex, more interesting work, and don't waste our lives stepping on the same rake every day. Here is my set of adages to help:

• If you work too hard, it probably means you don't work too smart.
  
• The best use of time is in thinking where all your time goes.
  
• Thinking is noticing patterns, and everyone notices if you work without thinking.
  
• The most interesting work is getting rid of uninteresting work.
  
• When we try to ignore how stupid something is, we say "it's always been done that way."

The wheel reinvention factory

How long does it take to develop a course syllabus? For a course you taught for many times, it still takes a couple of days: to change the calendar, to tweak assignments and grading rubrics, to update reading lists, to order books, etc. If it is a new course, or a significantly revised one, it can take weeks. That is exactly what I did this week: revised a graduate course I taught once before. It is a labor-intensive process, and results of it are often imperfect. It took me at least five years to get my undergraduate Social Foundations class where I wanted it to be, and I had more time to play with curriculum back then. For this course, I do not have all the time in the world, and simply cannot invest two weeks in it. Considering I may or may not teach it in the future, this might not be a vise investment of time.

Of course when I see something takes too much time or effort, my brain starts churning. After all, every time we do it, we reinvent the wheel. The mental process of an instructor follows more or less the same patterns: What do I want them to learn? (Learning objectives). What kinds of activities and assignments can work to help them learn? What sources have the main concepts and fact? How can I make sure they learned what they need to learn? How to make grading system clear and fair? How to space all of this throughout the course in a logical manner? And finally, how to explain it all in a syllabus? Those are fairly common, repeatable questions, which from a semblance of an algorithm. Moreover, there are only a limited number of answers to each question, and each choice narrows the choices in the next step. For example, most courses' learning objectives include mastering certain concepts, and certain facts, as well as development of certain skills. While the number of concepts is unlimited, the skills are limited: those are skills of reasoning/thinking, and performance kinds of skills (how to present information, to speak, to show, etc.). The facts can also be broken down into, say, dates, names, statistics, cases. But then, if your course is heavy on concepts and their applications, there are only limited choices on how to help people learn concepts. For example, you can give a case, and show the concept at work. Or, you can define it. Then you always want people to use concepts in context different from the original example, so you can be sure students learned to use the concept. Then you can test how sophisticated is their use of a concept by asking to use it in a more difficult case, etc., etc. Class schedule narrows down the choice of activities. A 3-hour class cannot contain only lecture or only discussion; it must have some combination of various activities. Also, there are really a limited number of activities, and they are all good for a specific task. Let's see, there are lectures, demonstrations, large class discussions, small group discussions, debates, simulations and simulation games, skits, teaching segments… OK, probably about a dozen more. Still, not unlimited. Those can be classified by engagement level, and focus on content, by instructor-led vs. student-led. I am just giving some examples, so do not expect complete lists.

This really does look like an algorithm. Can a computer program take guesswork out of this, so I don't forget any important steps? For example, imagine smart software like this: You want to design a course?

• Step One: Please enter the key concepts you want to teach (it looks for definitions, so you only need to pick one out; it also looks through Goggle Scholar to suggest key readings). OK, which skills from this list are the most important? Great. Which facts do you want students to know and understand: Enter names (it churns out an internet search on them), historical events (does the same). Will they need to know any demographic, economic or other facts? Or copy and paste appropriate profession standards, so we can analyze them for concepts, skills, and attitudes.
  
• Step two: it tells you your course is overloaded with concepts and facts; please reduce to make it appropriate for sophomore level.
  
• Step three: Identify your time budget: contact classroom hours, homework hours, grading hours. Here is a list of appropriate activities. Each takes so much time from classroom contact time, so much home work, and so much grading time. If you select one, it reduces the budget until you exhaust it all.
  
• Step three: here is the recommended mix of activities and assignments, based on your schedule. And here is a list of suggested assessments; select from the list.
  
• Step four: check your course, click here to print the syllabus. Click here to generate and edit classroom activities handouts.
  
• After each class, rate activities and assignments, so the system learns which ones actually work, and which do not. Share the learning curve with other professors teaching the same course.
  

The point of automating tasks is that more time can be spent on actually creative, deep thinking about teaching. It is also to minimize omissions, miscalculations of time and effort, poor grading practices, repetitive activities, vagueness of objectives, mismatch between objectives and assignments, between what we teach and what we assess. This is no more complicated than the TurboTax; it uses the same level of algorithmic complexity.

Anyone wants to go in business with me? We can pitch this to a venture capital firm, raise 2-3 mln, and pay ourselves nice salaries for 5 years, waiting for this to succeed. Or fail.

The language regime

Over the last weekend, I attended my son's graduation. On Monday through Wednesday, I spent a lot of time on a grant application. On Thursday I drove by Windsor that was hit by a tornado, and saw the destruction on TV. I also got rid of weeds in our yard, cooked myself a meal, read a book, and answered a few e-mails. How do you put all these events next to each other? We are always forced to distinguish important from unimportant, to rank the events in our lives according to some obscure principle. But what is it? The tornado is of course, the biggest news story. Some 200 homes and businesses are damaged; one person died. Nothing can be more important than that at the moment. However, human brain is a peculiar thing, and the smallish, unimportant thoughts and concerns will pop in and crowd out the most important ones. The mind wonders in different direction, and does not seem to care what we acknowledge to be more or less important. We hide it of course. When a tornado hits the town next to you, you do not share with other people the concern about yard weeds, and how to get them out without killing your good plants. Sharing such a thought would appear to be callous and inconsiderate of others. I remember in the days following 9-11, all conversations not related to the tragedy dropped for a while, and comedy shows were cancelled for about a month. In fact, we always carefully censor topics of our conversations, bringing up what looks appropriate, and hiding silly, insignificant, or strange thoughts we have. The appearance of normalcy is heavily dependent on our ability to project an appropriate image through words.

This is how we operate, and not just in time of the disaster. Most people underestimate the degree to which we all self-censor our speech. This is one reason it is so difficult to figure out what people really think. In fact, we don't really want to know what others are thinking. A device that actually reads minds would have been a social disaster, because we all are so used to the barrier between thought and speech. We would be shocked and disappointed at the mixture of inappropriate, bizarre, random, and trivial thoughts in other people's minds – because we are not fully aware of the mess inside our own heads. I am writing this as a blogger; as someone who needs to constantly organize his thoughts for public consumption. But all of us edit our thoughts all the time, and this editing, in a larger sense, constitutes social norms. The inner censor is so strong, it can push the entire levels of thought completely under the level of awareness, which creates the subconscious. The most serious taboo thoughts are so unspeakable, they also become unthinkable (yeah, Freud again, but also Bourdieu and Voloshinov, if you're curious).

We also have mechanisms of thwarting the inner censor from time to time. It is very important to do so, because much of creativity stems from our ability to hold off the censorship. Humor is one such mechanism. When you say something everyone else thinks but does not dare to say, that's funny... up to a certain degree. And laughter is probably just a social signal to let people know they violated certain social norm, but not too much. So, laughter is the first warning, anger is the second warning. A mental illness diagnosis or a prison sentence is the third and final warning. These are the society's lines of defense against its members' chaotic brains.

I am thinking about language: which discourse is permissible, and which is not. I was recently told that at least some of my colleagues are offended by my use of "Jesus" as an emotional/humorous expression. I had no idea and am thankful to friends who let me know. And I am sorry if it offended anyone. However, I just watched the news, and don't believe the level of policing the language applied to our political candidates is healthy. They are now not only expected to heavily police their own speech, but also be responsible for things their supporters say. Where is the line that separates the good censor from the bad one?

It is my hope that we, in our School, will have a language regime that is teetering between common decency and certain tolerance. This is not just because I am particularly attach to certain expressions, or want to make my life easier, or impose my language regime onto others. No, it is simply a concern for the spaces of humor, creativity, and tolerance to remain open. We are a rowdy bunch, with many interesting, diverse personalities and beliefs, which is what makes me so happy to be here. To make our little community work, we must both be sensitive to each other's rules of discourse, and be very tolerant to those who violate them. Some of us find the casual usage of the word Jesus offensive; others are sensitive to verbal indications of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. There are many other nuances, such as who is from where, who has been here longer, who went to which school, and who is a more productive scholar or better teacher. It is very easy to offend someone inadvertently. However, one can always refuse to be offended, and laugh instead. So, let's use the first warning signal often and generously, and hold off the second warning as much as we can.

Flexible but sticky

At the end of the academic year, I reflect on what worked and what did not, and if there is any pattern that separates the two kinds of projects. Unfortunately, my little self-analysis does not bring that many generalizations. No discernable pattern emerges. For example, projects that I thought were well thought out, and on which we worked really hard, did not materialize (for example the off-campus cohort in Alamosa), for reasons beyond our control. Others I considered to be risky, worked out just fine (both the checkpoint system and the new student teaching placement database). Where I did not expect any complications (our scanning project), such complications occurred. Things I thought really simple and doable (the study abroad in Siberia project) did not work. Most of our projects are still working themselves into something definite, the jury is still out. For example, we are yet to see if the massive revision of the Elementary program will bring real results. We don't know if our Secondary Postbac program will work or not. Some projects appeared from nowhere, they were simply opportunities: The Jordan Early Childhood grant project, or the Content Reading project, or the partnership with Association of Retired Educators. Many other things though worked out about as expected and did not create major surprises one way or another. We worked hard on NCTATE reports and State reauthorizations, and both went well so far. I wanted to sign a book contract, and it took longer than expected, but it happened. I worked on my last PES conference, and it went on as planned, more or less. Many of my colleagues did a lot of great things, and I am sure they all have had a successful year. But not everything worked as planned.

OK, this is getting tedious. But all I want to say is that there is not a lot of predictability in what we do, and good planning and good effort do not guarantee success, although make it much more likely. The world of a university like ours is not all that stable; it has much fuzziness, and changes fast. What shall we do in a world like this? My strategy is to diversify efforts. We should always pursue slightly more projects than we are able to maintain. This is simply because not all of them will succeed. However, it is also important to identify priorities, in which if one attempt fails, we should get back on our feet and just start over again; try something new. For example, there might be temporary defeats, but no failure in three areas (there are probably more; this is just an example):

• We must work on improving curriculum and pedagogy. It does not work as fast as I would like, and perhaps it should go slowly, but we will be doing it until we all are dead. This is what business people call our core business, and everything depends on our ability to train teachers as good or better than anyone else in the world. Whatever else is going on, whatever budget crises or economic collapses, we need to do our thing well.
  
• We must have a little extra money to have some sense of self-respect. Although we are relatively low-paid, we should always be able to travel to conferences, to have comfortable chairs, and working computers. If the civilization ends, and everyone goes back to the Stone Age, we should have decent stones to sit on. I just think it is important; small but important.
  
• I think we should constantly work on fairness and morale. This includes evaluation processes, many big and small decisions, and the climate in which we work. Again, it does not just happen without constant, multi-year effort.
  

The challenge is to be opportunistic and adventurous, but still stick to the most fundamental concerns, and never lose sight of them.

Of course, this is a bit of wishful thinking. The reality is such that problems and successes come and go. Every day brings something different, and we all forget about something, we drop the ball, ignore that memo, etc. In truth, some of the projects (not listed above) did not work because we screwed up; OK, I screwed up. Flexible but sticky is just a phrase, perhaps it is my understanding of the ideal. This is how organizations should work, not necessarily how we work. My hope is that we will develop that style eventually. We will be highly mobile, creative, and opportunistic, but will cling doggedly to what is really important to us, and never let it go.

Colorado Tease

That is what they call the spring season here in Colorado: the Colorado tease. It may snow at night, only to go up to 60 the next day. The weather is not just changing quickly; the astonishing fact is that it keeps doing it for over a month: back and forth, back and forth. The atmospheric pressure is like a mad see-saw, sending people with blood pressure into emergency rooms, and taking the rest off balance. And of course, all is complicated by the expected cabin fever. It is a nervous time of year, doubly so in Colorado. I hear reports of otherwise mildly mannered professors blowing up in class and yelling at students. I learn of one or another intrigue brewing where should normally be none (no real reason). Moreover, I find myself off-balance and irritated about all the wrong, small things. Is it the weather? Are we all tired at the end of the school year? Is it the pressure swings?

What is the difference? One of the signs of maturity is the ability to observe yourself and people around you, and notice the changes, so you can adjust. I guess I am average at that; sometimes I notice things a bit late, and I don't always know how to deal with them. Some people are a lot better, but most are terrible at this. Most people I know pay no attention to the subtle shifts in the emotional pulse of a group to which they belong, nor are they able to monitor their own emotional tonus. Most people will attribute their own mood changes to good or evil actions of others. I am just wondering why it is, and how we all be educated people without such a basic survival skill.

(As I was typing the previous paragraph, I caught myself thinking that its tone is a bit too harsh, a bit arbitrary and perhaps tiny bit dogmatic. How can I claim that most people are quite ignorant of their own emotions? How do I actually know that? Is this the consequence of the same weird atmospheric phenomena, or actually a good point? Where does my authentic "deep" self end, and the untrustworthy and shifty emotional layer begins? Oh, well, I will stick to my claim here anyway; after all, this is not a peer-reviewed journal. So please ignore all of this as complete and utter nonsense.)

Hellenistic philosophers and Buddhists both call for control over one's emotions, but what they mean has nothing to do with suppression of one's emotions. Rather, they meant a way of knowing one's own emotional self, and then being able to detach oneself from destructive emotions, or at least reduce one's dependency on them. But I am not even talking about some spiritual discipline; I want basic, rudimentary awareness of the one's own and the collective emotional tone. And it is possible, because I know at least a few people who are extremely good at it; so good they put me to shame. This does not seem to be an in-born quality; I bet it is a skill, and a bit of an effort and attitude. It's the ability to say the right thing at the right time, to see when someone in trouble and reach out to that person. And especially important is the ability to see a whole group of people (colleagues or students) as if it was a single organism, a person who can be also in trouble, or in need to unwind, or something like that.

By the authority entrusted to me, I thereby declare the week of emotional literacy. Everyone at the School of Teacher Education must learn to pay attention to him or herself, to notice when you are angry or irritated, or happy and calm, and make a mental note of it. No, better yet, you must keep a journal. The, I order people to think about others in the same way: think who might need a friendly conversation, and offer it. I command people to stop worrying excessively, and to invent some sort of breathing technique, no matter how bizarre or ineffective. Then teach at least one other people the technique. All must report on their findings and experience to me next Friday. In writing. In triplicate. 10-20 pages. Single-spaced. 10 point font. Thanks in advance.

Homecomings

Mister blog, I am back. I took a trip to Russia where I attended a conference at my alma mater, the Novosibirsk Teachers' University. I then went to Roslavl in Western Russia to see my Mom, my brother, and his family.

Going home has to do with resurrection of old memories, bringing back old anxieties, but also reliving the good memories. It is fascinating to observe oneself; not just what cognitive memories still there, but also, how much your body remembers. I could not recall some names, but have an indelible map of our old building. Some episodes came back vividly, in full force, while others are completely gone. The narratives we construct about our own lives are so incomplete and fragmentary; the only way to remember your life is to go to the places where you have been in the past, and look for triggers of old memories.

But people in Russia are not really interested in my nostalgia. They have lived through some difficult and eventful years. Let's see, I missed two military coups, a depression twice as deep as the American Great Depression, and then unlikely economic recovery; they experienced chaotic democracy and returning authoritarianism, went from deepest national humiliation and dramatic population plunge to a new sense of national pride, and the relative stability of Putin's era. I had a very different experience of immigration. This chasm in experiences creates interesting disconnects. People who I have been friends for years suddenly do not find some of my jokes funny. Their language is now interspersed with words I find annoying and distasteful; they are probably equally irritated with my language that now has traces of the English syntax. For some reason, the English words that are flowing freely into Russian usage I find especially irritating. Less troublesome are the criminal slang expressions that have invaded mainstream. The Russians did not freeze in time when I left; they kept thinking and working, and acquired a whole new set of ideas and skills, new institutions and habits.

Coming home creates this very ambivalent and delicious feeling of familiarity mixed with estrangement. People and things are the same and yet not the same. The interplay of recognition and misrecognition, of being completely comfortable and accepted yet being alienated, separated by an invisible membrane. A classmate of mine, who was the social center of our little group, gave me a run-down on the entire cohort (we had about 25 people in it). One of our classmates is serving a prison term for contract killing, while others are successful businessmen. Most are still in education. None of the stories really surprised me, but none was also entirely predictable.

Coming home disturbs the familiar-unfamiliar continuum, and creates another class of feeling, which has to do not with re-experiencing the past, but with imagining yourself in an alternative life. What if we all stayed home?

Yet another reform

Governor Ritter is proposing a new bill. Basically, the standards will be revised, and then re-revised every two years, and aligned from pre-school to college. There will be two-tiered high school diplomas: one indicating certain attainment, and another indicating completion of high school. This seems to be similar to New York's "Regents' diploma" scheme; only 42% of students actually receive it. Several other states have similar two-tiered high school diplomas. The intent of the bill is not new, and it is a reaction to the testing dilemma. Make the tests too easy, and everyone passes, so we have no standards. Make tests hard but inconsequential, and kids will not try hard, and your data will be meaningless. Make them hard and tie to graduation, and a lot of kids fail, and what do you do with them? Tell them they need to work harder? So, the compromise that many states use and Colorado seems to be going to is the two-tier diplomas. But that really means that the failing students will get a meaningless pieces of paper, and the diploma that counts will be in the possession of those with privileged backgrounds. The two-tier high school diplomas have been tried in other states, and I do not see any evidence it was successful.

What bothers me about the bill is not its intent and not even its proposed solution, but the utter lack of original thinking in it. I don't know how about others, but I am becoming increasingly bored with educational reform. All fifty states do the same things, call them something different, and fail to learn from each other's errors. The bill will produce a lot of revising and revisions of standards, tests, report matrixes and other stuff without perceptible benefits for K-12 or higher education. Instead of looking for true innovations, Colorado seems to be doing more of the same. The bill reads like a lecture on everything that is right and good, and it is hard imagine the State's power is best applied to lecturing through the law. The substance is lacking.

There is a rival bill in the State legislature, which has much narrower focus. It simply replaces the CSAP for juniors with ACT. It is not that exciting, but at least makes a practical kind of sense. The kids would be trying harder, because colleges really look at ACT scores. But again, it is not clear what level of consequences passing or failure would entail. Those who really hoping to get into college will try their best; those who do not will still pretend to take it, ar won't take at all.

The fundamental problem is this: you cannot require people to do something for free, and require to do it well. It's as simple as that: to test people on how well they do something you need first to make sure they want to do it. If certain activity is involuntary, you can increase the effort in one of two ways: one is fear, and another is to make it voluntary and pay for doing it. While tightening standards and improving teaching seems to be the logical thing to do about elementary education, it is not clear that we are doing something remotely effective on the secondary education. The problem seems to be one of motivation to learn, not of the standards or testing requirement.

Refuse to be second-rate

Like everyone else, our School has a vision. It is better, less bland than most of its kind, but I doubt it really guides our every-day activities. Yet every strong community needs an idea, a one-liner that captures its spirit and sets certain norm. Some people call it the ideology, some prefer vision or belief; in some organizations it is an image or a memory, or a founding myth, but every group needs an idea, an authentic expression of its ideal self. When I first came here almost two years ago, I was asked about developing a vision. My reply was that finding a vision is a process, and it has to come from within; it may never be brought from without. I agreed to be on a look-out, and now I may have found it. This is not something we would put on our promotional materials, but I believe this idea (a motto? a dictum?) captures the essence of what we are all about. This can really be our private vision.

It came about in a casual conversation with one of my friends and colleagues, whose name shall rename unknown. We were talking about something, and considered certain pluses and minuses of a possible decision. And he said in support of his argument "I just refuse to be second-rate." The more I think about it, the more this simple sentence captures our ethos; it acknowledges the challenges we face, and gives us a measuring stick to apply to everything we do.

The challenges are numerous: we are in a state college, besieged by funding shortages. Our salaries are low, workload is large. Our students tend to be first-generation in college, and many have to work through to support themselves. Many are very intelligent, but many also experienced gaps in their K-12 education. College professors, our peers in R1 schools do not necessarily consider us to be their peers; they have incomparably stronger institutional support for their research activities, and considerably lighter teaching load. So, their resumes tend to be thicker than ours, partly because grants and publication game is biased in their favor, partly because we simply do not have as much time to research and write, or lack elite connections in our respective field. On top of all of these pressures, there is a creeping internal pressure to succumb. Some of us allow too many compromises; let themselves to lower standards in both teaching and research. Once they enter into that mode of defeat, they start to water down policies and standards to justify the defeat. Sometimes the university policies tacitly accept the second-rate mentality. For example, our policy allows people to get tenure with half plus one votes, while most universities require 2/3 of the votes. Our vita template uses the designation for publications "Juried: (reviewed by editorial board, or refereed)." This is significantly below a true peer-refereed publication standard everyone else uses.

And yet what we can and should do in the face of all these pressures is just this: refuse to be second-rate. Being second-rate is really a state of mind, a set of operating assumptions. We should try to act as if we were among the best. Should we hire someone who is only OK, and no one is especially excited about? Well, would you even ask this kind of question if were a Stanford or Yale faculty? - Probably not. So refuse to be second-rate and operate as if you were the best of the best. Similarly, if you're working on an article, should you aim for the top journal or for the regional one where the editor is your friend? Again, the hesitation before answering it may betray the second-rate mentality. Aim high, and then if it does not fly and you've lost interest to the project, OK, maybe send it to a less rigorous publication.

And finally, one more point. We beat the harvards of the world by the value-added measure. They accept the best of the best, who are either exceptionally talented or exceptionally privileged. We accept students from various backgrounds, from some good and some bad public schools, and almost never from the very elite schools. Our teaching may very well be much more effective than that of harvards'. Just as an aside, would it not be awesome to know this for sure? To measure teaching effectiveness on a fair, consistent, and value-added basis? The elite institutions' teacher education programs tend to be small and selective or non-existent; ours are large and successful. At the end of the day, a head-to-head comparison between our graduates and their graduates will probably reveal similar results even though our freshmen come at lower academic levels. And finally, we have a mission no one else can fulfill. What am saying is that the pride and self-respect I advocate is not self-delusional, or purely inspirational. We do have much to be proud about, we can do a lot more; we just need to always refuse to think and act as a second-rate institution. I am asking everyone, before making any decision, just remind yourself to refuse to be second-rate.

Slowtalk

Much of my interactions with people are fasttalk through e-mail, in person, or phone. However, certain kinds of problems can only be effectively resolved through slowtalk. Slowtalk is a unique, powerful communications tool, although it is quite expensive in terms of time. On the practical level, Eugene Sheehan's three emails rule works well: when you exchanged more than three emails with someone on the same subject, it is time to set a meeting. It means the fasttalk ceases to be efficient, and becomes wasteful or worse. What kinds of issues can be dealt with though fasttalk, and what requires slowtalk? What does it do that fasttalk does not?

• Slowtalk minimizes the mismatch in assumptions. When you fasttalking, your counterpart may have a completely different background information, and therefore different set of assumptions. Fasttalk is just to get a point across as quickly as possible. Slowtalk allows one to react to the smallest mismatches of meaning between oneself and a conversation partner. That is why in slowtalk, you can often hear admissions of cleared misunderstanding: "Oh, I thought you mean this, not that," or "I assumed you knew that." But how do you know that your partner has different assumptions? By reacting to the mismatch of meaning; that is, when you have difficulties interpreting your partner's words, because they mismatch to your understanding of the background.
  
• Slowtalk clarifies the affective component of the problem. We are emotional animals, and always keep track of what we think is friendly or not friendly actions by other people. That is just how our brains operate. So we tend to attribute much of people's actions to their intent. So, the slowtalk helps to find out if indeed there is another, emotional agenda, or it is just an issue to be resolved. Fasttalk, on the other hand, tends to ignore the affective component, and thus reinforce errors in understanding.
  
• One of the best uses of slowtalk is to consider complex solutions. In However, if a problem is indeed serious, and no close precedents exist, the only way to weigh in all the possible consequences is through slowtalk. Slowtalk allows people model the future much more effectively than any of them can do individually. Multiple participants model multiple interests, so we tend to disagree with each other a lot more than we disagree with ourselves.
  

Fasttalk and slowtalk are two very different modes of communication, and should be used appropriately. For example, I refuse to engage in slowtalk about the colors of our walls; I don't think that be a good way of discussing it, because fasttalk is just enough. However, the recently discovered glitch in our digital archiving system deserves some slowtalk. It is a truly new problem; it can be potentially very serious. So, folks, if you think you see an issue deserving slowtalking, don't hesitate to set aside time and meet; it may be in the end much more efficient than series of fasttalks. However, estimate the scope of the problem, too; if it is not that important, fasttalk is just fine: brief, to the point, yes or no.

Due Diligence

Wikipedia defines due diligence (also known as due care) as the effort made by an ordinarily prudent or reasonable party to avoid harm to another party. This applies to areas other than civil law. For example, this is something I am learning to do in my job. It is not easy, and I probably fail a lot, but I am trying.

Someone like me finds oneself at the center of many different interests and agendas. People come to me to talk about their problems and issues, and I made it very clear that this is very welcome. We cannot operate without informal information exchange. However, most people’s problems have to do with other people, and I am always drawn into discussions of someone’s actions when that person is not there. Some people take the high moral ground and refuse to discuss others in absentia. This is highly impractical, because it would shut down most of vital conversations. Such a strategy would certainly be impossible to carry on in my position anyway. However, discussing someone when that person cannot be a part of the discussion has its ethical and practical problems, which need to be taken good care of. Impracticality if a radical ethical position does not imply lapse of all moral obligations. The problem is with asymmetry of power. Imagine A comes to me to complain about B, but B does not know about it. A just got an unfair advantage over B. This is not necessarily a conscious attempt to manipulate me against B; rater, A has a particular view of B’s behavior. In a conversation, people tend to agree when possible, so my tendency is to see the point A is making about B. It is important to understand that any conversation implies some readiness to accept your partner’s premises, at least to some extent. Otherwise, there is no conversation. So, by the virtue of having my ear, A has created a story that becomes a part of what I know. B does not necessarily have a chance to challenge that story, because she might not know about A’s complaint. Due diligence requires me to find B’s side of the story to avoid imbalance. However, how do you do that? What A is telling me might be said in confidence. If I came back to B and ask, say, I have hear you did this and that?, this will give away the fact of our conversation with A away and breach confidentiality. However, if I never ask, I will never know the other side of the story, and become a hostage of A’s allegations.

This is the dilemma. Whoever comes first, gets a certain narrative established, and it is not easy to exercise due diligence. What do I do? There are several tricks. One of them is to try to challenge A’s story by suggesting different, more generous interpretations of B’s actions. The risk is that A thinks I am taking B’s side in the conflict, because I am looking for excuses for B. In general, when you are trying to challenge or investigate someone’s story, you inadvertently challenge that person’s honesty. Not many people routinely recognize that their perceptions might be limited, and dependent on their interests and positions. Another trick is to delay any kind of actions and decisions, and then try to verify the story indirectly. It does not always work, because a question about a specific incident will almost always allow the person in question to trace the source of information. And yet another trick is to ask someone other than A and B about the same story, to get an independent opinion. The risk here is that any C who knows about the story might already been in my position, and have been influenced by A or B for exactly the same reason as I get influenced by whoever bring the story to me.

Why am I dwelling on all these complications of human interactions? For a very simple reason: I don’t want people to be offended or put off by my exercise of due diligence. I simply need to know other sides of the story not because I mistrust their account, but because we all have specific points of view, and I cannot do anything that can potentially harm someone else without due diligence.

The Spring Fever

There is a faint smell of Spring in the air. Birds are not chirping yet, but they are thinking about it. His last stretch of winter is especially hard on human bodies and psyches, so everyone is a bit more irritable, and less tolerant of others. Fingers at keyboards get a bit jitterier; fuses become a bit shorter. Of course, in the Academia, this biological phenomenon is exacerbated by the evaluations season. For some it has high stakes such as tenure and promotion. However for most, the stakes are pitifully small and yet the passions run unreasonably high. My instinct is to tell people to chill out, and look at all of this from a larger perspective. Of course, this is easier said than done. If you're anxious, and someone tells you to relax, it can get you even more excited and mad. So, here is a portion of cognitive therapy. What you find below is an absolutely irrefutable rational proof that we all should step a little back and relax, and perhaps have a good laugh about it all.

1. It is not life and death, not even consequential for one's wallet. There might be consequences for self-esteem, but again, those are as large as we allow them to be. Higher education is notoriously gentle with its work force. What in the private sector will get you fired, will result in someone's finger shaking at you, if you're lucky to be employed by a university. So, celebrate your good fortune, and ignore minor worries.
   
2. There is no such a thing as absolutely fair evaluation. Any system will benefit someone and disadvantage someone else. So, what? We are in this profession because there is an inner drive; we do it for our own deep moral convictions and because we want to do it. If the evaluation system treats us a bit unfairly, or it FEELS that way, this is no reason to ruin your mood over it, even for a day.
   
3. In the long run, being nice to everyone, including those people you dislike or mistrust is the best strategy. Getting angry is just a way of making people do something you want. Aggression in general is behavior manipulative technique. It rests on a premise that other people will afraid of you and therefore will do your bidding out of fear. But the society has been changed since we developed all those instincts, and non-violent, legal and administrative procedures took over conflict management. So, getting angry, or rather, showing one's anger does not really work anymore. It is but an atavism. So, cheer up, be nice to everyone, and do whatever you have to do to protect your rights through various appeals, legal challenges, etc. There is just a lot more chances to prevail, if you're civil to other people. The civility credit goes a long way, because it indicates you accept the rules of the game.
   

On another note, there is Spring just around the corner, and the birds are seriously thinking about chirping. When we are very old, and our great-grand children will ask us what have we done in life, none of us will say: "I received great annual evaluations." We have to think about something else. Let's start now about a possible answer.

The sleep of reason produces monsters

There are two different conversations about quality in teacher education. One has to do with compliance. How do we gather data that will allow us to report to the State and to NCATE? The other is about what makes sense for teacher preparation as such. Both are probably needed, but what I find more and more troubling is that the first tend to crowd out the second one. Among other things, we tend to create incredibly generic assessment instruments the sole purpose of which is to "cover" certain standards. For example our Elementary teacher candidates get evaluated at the end of student teaching, with this rubric:

1. Uses knowledge of math and social studies and standards to plan instruction and support student achievement.
   
2. Creates a learning environment characterized by acceptable student behavior, efficient use of time or gaining knowledge, skills, and understanding.
   
3. Applies sound disciplinary practices in the classroom.
   
4. Develops/selects/utilizes resources to enhance the learning of students with diverse backgrounds, experiences, abilities, values and perspectives.
   
5. Applies appropriate assessment and intervention strategies consistent with a successful learning environment.
   
6. Uses strategies to keep students on task to support learning processes.
   
7. Demonstrates instruction which is consistent with district goals and state standards.
   
8. Teaches students within the scope of teachers' legal responsibilities and students' rights and follows procedures as specified in state, federal, and local policies.
   
9. Reflects on and evaluates his/her own performance to improve teaching.
   
10. Is dependable, reliable, and punctual.
    
11. Demonstrates effective interpersonal communication skills with students, staff, parents.
    

Our Secondary candidates are evaluated with a 6-page long instrument that is somewhat similar, although more detailed (the STEP Instrument). If you think of it, it is incredibly difficult to assess these with any degree of accuracy. We do not, agree on what are sound disciplinary practices. Moreover, we do not teach those practices. We do not make judgment on whether such an application is effective or not; it is just "applies." Number 6 is simply funny, because everyone uses strategies, some just use better ones. The room for error is huge, criteria are very subjective, and there is no way to assess the validity or reliability of these monster rubrics. Yet the people who designed those rubrics are very smart, competent educators who certainly know what makes a good teacher. What happened? Very simple: the demands of accountability. The State of Colorado in its infinite wisdom has developed standards (not really bad ones), and demands us to show how we meet all of them. The most efficient way is to copy the standards almost exactly into the rubric, and then have some poor supervisor to check – advanced, proficient, or just good enough. The value of a monster rubric is minimal, because its sweep is so broad. However, the compliance conversation tends to ignore the common sense, and instead leads us to accept the absurd as the normal. The whole last year we were thinking about curriculum and assessment, and yet we were not thinking about curriculum and assessment. Our horizon was artificially limited to those things that produce good compliance records rather than good teachers. It is ironic how the quality movement actually detracted us from working on improvement of quality.

Several colleagues and I have attended the AACTE Conference last week. One of the highlights was the lecture by Deborah L. Ball, Dean, School of Education, University of Michigan. Her point was that teaching is really a precise, highly skilled occupation, which should involve a lot of training, and not a lot of improvisation. She suggested that teaching should be analyzed to its basic elements, and teacher candidates are to be trained in very specific behaviors and ways of thinking. This is simple enough, and we can probably do it right here, within our school. The combined expertise among my colleagues is enormous, and we certainly have the desire to do the absolutely best we can. However, we're running round thinking how to comply. We have no time or strength to think about the substance of what we do.

I say we stop now. Let's ignore the compliance worries, and focus on what we teach and how do we know if we did a good job. Let's look at very fundamental elements of good teaching and then concentrate on how to do more with less. Let's get rid of all monster rubrics, monster portfolios, monster assignments, and make a few very good assessments. Let's find wholes in our programs and plug them all. There is no accrediting body on Earth who could touch us with a six feet poll if we do that. We can always come back and say that these standards are covered by this and that. However we need to stop being afraid and only do what is good for our students. We should put our foot down and only comply to demands which does not hurt what we do. Enough is enough; let's take charge of our own affairs.

Let me try to begin brainstorming. I think we should be able to see a teacher candidate to do the following:

1. To explain a concept or an operation to children, in several different ways
   
2. To assess whether kids get it or not, and then re-teach it in yet more ways.
   
3. Organize a learning activity
   
4. Respond to kids' questions and problems
   
5. Address behavioral problems in classroom and relate to children well
   

I think this is about it. Well, perhaps I am missing something, but let's keep it short and manageable. The standards movement has ran into problems precisely because no one had the guts to stop proliferating the standards.

X, Y, and Z: The University Habitat

There are three species of university faculty. Let’s call them X, Y, and Z. X’s are good scholars; they do research for fun, because they like it, and therefore are successful. It might be the other way around: people who do well start to like it after a while even more. There is a subspecies of X (b) who are no good as teachers, but in our habitat none of those survive for long. Every X here is also a good teacher, and contributes abundantly to service. X’s are good people.

Y’s often go beyond the traditional forms of scholarship, or focus on teaching or advising or administration. However, they all have found other important ways to contribute and to enjoy their work: it could be less traditional forms of scholarship; they may take on administrative duties, or devote a lot of extra time to teaching and curriculum development. Y’s often find their satisfaction in more demanding forms of service. What is important about the Y’s is their work ethic: they work hard, and maintain intellectual curiosity, willingness to take risks, and commitment to our common enterprise. Y’s often have a genuine disagreement with the X’s about the role and the mission of a given university. The difference between X and Y is not that of values, but of preference. Y’s are just turned on by different things than X’s. I am now a Y, although I used to be more of an X. Y’s are good people.

And then there are Z’s, who are just not performing that well for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one day I will become a Z, but just not yet. Z’s are good people.

Now as we introduced the cast of characters, let me show how these three species occupy the same habitat. The X’s, again, are wonderful people who contribute a lot to the common good. However, they also tend to confuse Y’s and Z’s, and confuse low performance with different performance. The Y’s, of course, are threatened by X’s, because they believe that the X’s standards are a bit too narrow. Y’s’ sometimes to seek allies among the Z’s. And of course, Z’s often consider themselves to be Y’s and are trying to sell the lack of effort as the difference in interests.

Then comes the annual war ritual called evaluations. X’s are honestly trying to raise expectations, because they are invested in the future of the institution, and it reputation. Z’s are trying to water down any expectations to the point of non-existence. Y’s are usually caught in between: they want recognition for their various ways of achievement, so they may end up disagreeing with the X’s and with the Z’s, which is a difficult position to defend.

This ecosystem will function well when there is a compromise, an agreement between X’s and Y’s, but not with the Z’s. Both X and Y have a deep ethical kinship, and can be immensely useful to each other. Z’s can be encouraged to join either species. The way to reach the compromise is to allow a broader range of contributions to be counted as productive, but hold a clear line against low expectations. I am not sure if it is possible to achieve through a perfect evaluation document. Rather, mutual understanding should be reached first, and then the practices of evaluations will reflect it.

All people deserve respect, X, Y, and Z alike. Each group should clearly understand that the need for compromise. X’s should allow for a broader interpretation of scholarship (but we do need to have decent scholarship standards to maintain credibility as a university). Y’s should see clearly acknowledge the difference between broad standards and low standards. Z’s should demonstrate the level of effort consistent with the notion of group solidarity (and join X’s or Y’s). And we all need to take it easy, cool down, and not take our differences so seriously. There is an X, Y and Z in all of us, and of course, this is but a simplification.

Tell me, otherwise I won’t know

Kurt Lewin has invented the T-groups in mid-1940s, by accident. They became very popular in 1960-s and 70-s, and still used today in a different form. A Russian educator Igor P. Ivanov has independently invented something similar, in late 50-s (sorry, no English references; nothing has been translated). The basic premise of T-groups is very simple: in normal life, we do not know how we are perceived by other people. We have a general idea: someone smiles, or frowns, at what we say, etc. The problem is, most people are quite bad at reading these signs, and some people cannot read them at all. Even the best of us make mistakes all the time, because they attribute the feedback signs to something else. In most cultures, the norm is established through a system of reprimands and encouragements; however, in today’s highly complex and multicultural society, the old mechanisms simply do not work. We interact a lot, very often and very fast. We all have slightly different cultural assumptions about the normal vs. abnormal. Yet we always interpret each other’s behavior.

To counter this subtle cultural change, T-groups offered very simple technique: people tell directly how they perceive each other, and what sorts of words and actions lead to what kind of emotional response. What Lewin and Ivanov both discovered was that such groups learn to cooperate a lot faster than a regular group. People who have been trained in a T-group are a lot more sensitive to other people’s reactions, but what is more important, they are ready to communicate their perceptions of others to those others. Of course, all of this requires a level of trust that would guard one’s feelings from being hurt. It should be done in the spirit of mutual help, rather than criticism. If I see you doing something unwise, which might hurt you or others, I feel an obligation to find a way of pointing this out to you. So, you should do it for me, too.

I am not going to suggest anything like the T-group at our School. Many years ago, I used to facilitate such groups, both Lewin’s style and the Russian style (there are significant differences), and know that those are risky, delicate, time consuming, and did I mention risky? What I want is for other people (especially the more secure senior faculty) to tell me how they perceive me, especially when I make a mistake, or they think I make a mistake. For example, there is absolutely no way for me to know that my frequent forgetting to turn off the cell phone during meetings is annoying, and may be perceived as a sign of disrespect. Someone has to tell me that directly, and I promise I won’t get offended. To the contrary, I will appreciate the information and appreciate the trust, whether I agree with the assessment or not.

This is a small example, of course. However, the small things tend to accumulate, and pretty soon we become unhappy, annoyed with each other, and don’t even know why. As everyone knows, familiarity breeds contempt. And God knows, the Academia is full of departments where people have been working together longer than most marriages last, and hate each other for no particular reason. But why does familiarity breed contempt? -- Mainly because people who know each other well don’t really know each other well. They tend to accumulate small misunderstandings, annoyances, errors, and never get around clearing this stuff out. Pretty soon a mistake becomes recorded in history. We do not adjust our behavior because we do not realize we should. Communication errors clog the relational veins, unless they are countered by direct, open communication. I don’t want this happen to us as a group, and especially to me in this group. So, please, do tell me, otherwise I won’t know.

Politicization of Teacher Education

Yet another report on teaching and teacher education hit the waves. This time, it is National Council on Teacher Quality Policy Yearbook. We've got an overall grade "needs significant improvement," with GPA 2.33, if you average these grades:

• D for Meeting NCLB Teacher Quality Objectives.
• B for Teacher Licensure
• D for Teacher Evaluation and Compensation
• D for State Approval of Teacher Preparation
• C for Alternate Routes to Certification
• D for Preparation of Special Education Teachers

Hmm, but who is the grader? Who asked this group to grade Colorado's teacher quality, and how did they do it? First of all the organization claims to be non-partisan, and it states that it does not accept any direct funding from federal government. That is not quite true; it received $677,318 in 2003 – 2004 from the Federal Department of Education. But OK, it may no longer receive any federal money, not recently. But if you read the criteria under which they judge, it becomes clear that this is an attempt to influence the State's policy through pretense of giving it an objective assessment. Here is a recipe: Put together a non-profit, get some private funds, release a sleek report, and give states grades. Then release the report to the media, try to get headlines like " Colorado Gets a D on teacher quality." The more the merrier. Then an outraged politician will think, oh, well, we need to do something. Who do I ask to propose a new legislation? Why, of course, the group that gave us a D, or perhaps someone they know and recommend.
The reality is, two groups of researchers, with specific political leanings produce very different findings about quality of teachers or teacher education. They largely ignore each other, or engage into skirmishes, criticizing each other's methodology. There is a wide political campaign against teacher unions, public schools in general, teacher education faculty, certain methods of teaching reading, etc, etc. So, NCATE-bad, alternative certification-good. Content knowledge- good, methods courses – bad. Testing – good, standards – bad. Teacher merit pay – good, teacher tenure – bad.
I do not necessarily reject all of these people's proposals, but I question their way of pushing these proposals; it strikes me as manipulative. People used to run for public office to influence policy. Now they influence policy in order to get into public office. Because let's face it: for the Republican Party to ensure its long-term survival, the power of teacher unions needs to be diminished, number of public employees needs to be reduced. Hence the attempt to inflict the death by a thousand regulations onto public schools and traditional teacher education programs. However, regulation is contrary to Republicans' own long-standing deregulation philosophy. I am not saying the other side is any more principled. The Democrats are just interested in the unions' support, so they have become the educational conservatives who preserve the not-so-glorious status quo. The two parties' distinctive ideologies stopped beliefs and became means of getting elected.
Here is an interesting quote from the report, page 118:

A few more [STATES] have required that all in-state programs, public and private, attain national accreditation. These policies are inappropriate, since they require that public funds and institutional resources be spent meeting the standards of a private organization that has yet to be recognized as the undisputed guarantor of minimum quality in its field.

Yet the organization that writes the report is also a private organization, and it believes public funds should be expended to meet its recommendations. Is there any evidence that states that heeded to their advice do better in preparing quality teachers? The report than suggests that all Social Foundations of Education are all but useless, but then gives a list of sample topics that should be covered in a teacher education program, including "The social and cultural roots of the achievement gap; learning challenges from poverty." But that's what we teach in a foundations course.
Here is another logical pearl:

NCTQ's research shows that there are teacher preparation programs in the majority of states where teacher candidates are required to complete 60 or more credit hours of professional coursework. We found programs in still more states where candidates are required to complete 50 to 59 credit hours of professional coursework. [UNC requires 40-44 — A.S.]These are excessive requirements that leave little room for electives, and often leave insufficient room for adequate subject matter preparation. Though there is no research data to confirm this, it seems likely that such excessive requirements are likely to discourage talented individuals from pursuing teacher preparation—and public school teaching.

They are adamant about requiring evidence, except when they claim something weird. NCTQ is very much concerned about the availability of alternative licensure, but none of its goals include strong induction programs and in-service training. Wouldn't this be an interesting area to explore? What if support provided to novice teachers actually increase their chances of success?
I could go on and on — the bottom line is, if you put out such a self-assured, cocky assessment full of recommendations ("The State should" phrase is used 118 times), it does not hurt to check if the standards you want others to follow apply to your own report.

On the Science of Lawmaking

Yesterday in Denver, there was another meeting on the proposed dyslexia legislation. The State Representative that heads this initiative, made an interesting if inadvertent admission. "This is the first time, - he said, - that I develop a bill with various groups represented around the table. Usually, a special interest group just comes up with a draft of the new law." He was a bit frustrated, because there were a lot of ideas, and some disagreements, but there was no specific language he could put in a bill. Yet this remark made me think about how laws are developed.

Many major professional activities have recently move toward some rational way of decision-making. There is the Evidence-Based Medicine, God knows education has been struggling with accountability, and outcome-based education. The best practices movement in business, programming, construction, insurance, and accounting slowly but surely change the way people do things. However, lawmaking remains a game of competing rhetoric, trial and error, and special interest influence. Laws are passed constantly, but their effectiveness is often unknown or minimal. The same is true about public policies that interpret and implement the laws. The major example is the No Child Left Behind act, if you discount the Texas Miracle (and you should). It was premised on the idea that raising accountability plank will improve educational outcomes. It seems obvious and self-evident, but is actually an untested idea. Colorado Governor Ritter just came up with another "most revolutionary shift in education policy" in years. Not that I am opposed to it necessarily, but I am cautious about another set of laws that will inevitably follow, the revision of the Colorado Content Model standards, and the work of revamping K-20 curriculum to meet them. Perhaps if someone shown me some evidence it's going to make any difference, I'd be less skeptical. But no, people want me to take their word for it, and I just have hard time doing it.

People who write laws are very smart, well-meaning, and experienced; no doubt about this. Yet all those doctors who for years prescribed drinking more fluid to flu sufferers (does not help, actually), are also all smart and experienced. It's just that the scientific methods allow us to go beyond the individual life experiences, which are statistically speaking, are often useless.

Let me begin a rough list of law-making standards here; perhaps people with better knowledge of law and policy can expand or dispute these. I will turn them into questions. I believe each bill introduced should have an accompanying package of materials questions like these should be answered. Right now, nothing like this is available; so the proposed laws maybe great or poor, we simply do not know. It is expensive, and perhaps it is time there were private independent law audit agencies, like in accounting, that would study these things. it might be expensive, but no more expensive than a poorely conceived law and policy. I know some of the questions below are asked one way or another; that's not the point. What I want is a set of standards, with some evidence of meeting them.

1. Is there an existing law on the books that already covers the same ground? If yes, why has it been ineffective? How is this one better?
   
2. Is the intended result of the law clearly defined? Is it measurable?
   
3. Is the effectiveness evaluation mechanism built into the law and adequately structured and funded?
   
4. Is there a sunset clause that allows ineffective law to expire if it has not shown effectiveness?
   
5. Has a similar law been passed by another state or another country? If yes, is there any evidence it worked?
   
6. Have unintended negative consequences been systematically considered and ruled out?
   
7. If negative consequences are unavoidable, does the law include measures for mitigating it?
   
8. Does expected benefit outweigh the expected loss?
   
9. Is it feasible to comply with the law?
   
10. Can compliance be actually measured, detected, and enforced?
    
11. What is the cost of compliance, including the reporting burden cost? Is there a funding mechanism to cover it?
    
12. Who specifically has written the draft of this bill (names, affiliations)?
    
13. Who is likely to benefit and who is likely to lose?
    
14. If the law is written by those who is likely to benefit, are the losers' representatives consulted in advance?
    
15. Are the opponents arguments included?
    
16. How does the law help or hurt its sponsor's political career?
    
17. Which agencies and institutions will carry the burden of compliance and enforcement? Were they consulted on the law's feasibility, and compliance cost?

On writing

I was able to write a little over the break, and reflect on joys and pains of writing. My current project is a book, with a working title Labor of Learning. This is a treatise on economics of learning; a project I have been engaged in for several years. I have some ten papers written and published with this book in mind. However, when they all are put together next to each other, and I begin a search for some logic, it becomes apparent that there are some glaring gaps. For example, there is no way to write this thing without confronting Dewey directly. I was avoiding doing it, mostly because Dewey scholars expect a lot of detailed knowledge about Dewey in all writings about him, so it is almost impossible for an outsider to publish something in a refereed journal. They always say "But you omitted this passage from the Public and its Problems…" Or whatever. They also love the guy too much. Dewey was a prolific and an incredibly dense writer, and I cannot imagine reading all of his stuff. That would kill me. Yet I must engage with his main ideas, because mine contradict his. Anyway, here is where a non-refereed publisher helps – I can say whatever outrageous things about Dewey, and it will get out.

But my goal is to understand the particular drive; what is it that moves me and many other people to do this? The work is tedious, incredibly time-consuming. It takes one away from real human interaction with family, colleagues, students. The returns of it are not that great: unless you write a best-selling textbook, money is puny. There is not much glory in it either: with the exception of a few academic superstars, most academic books never break a 1000 copies sold ceiling; out of those sold most are never read, because libraries buy them. The whole industry of academic publishing seems to be in great peril, with opportunities to publish a book dwindling. I have finally gotten a book contract with a start-up publisher out of the Netherlands, after some thirty rejections. Also, as an administrator, I am not expected to keep up with academic publishing to the same extent as faculty. In other words, it is a lot of hassle without much in return.

And yet, any time I have any time, my mind inevitably wanders into one or another writing project; it just does. It starts laying out logic, structures, points to be made, etc. SO, here is my hypothesis: people like me are easily bored, and are not good at relaxing. We create an alternative reality; so writing is a lot like computer games. The world has certain rules, certain obstacles, and one can overcome them all and reach an end. That's it, it is a pure mind game, a way of glorified entertainment. It has the same sense of agency without really any danger and much responsibility like computer games. Reading fiction does similar thing, but it is too passive; you don't get to act.

I don't think it is possible to write because of the tenure expectations, or because you want to improve the world, or because it is your job. None of these strike me as strong motivation. People who find other ways of occupying their brains are not addicted to writing, and do just fine without it. This particular way of living and acting does not appeal to everyone. It is easy to judge someone and claim my particular preference to be more honorable and more advanced. We always like to measure ourselves with a stick to which we measure well. So, being good at chess – good; being a computer game champion – bad. Scholarly writing – good; spending all the time teaching – not so good. The institutions we create are biased in favor of some people and against some others. I don't think it will ever be corrected, although some openness and some broad-mindedness should be welcome.

Educational Reform: The Denial of Ignorance

As the presidential campaign flares up, No Child Left Behind seems to be in big trouble; see the NY Times account. Virtually no one wants to keep the law as it is; everyone wants to either change it or scrap it. What is conspicuously absent? You guessed right: alternatives. There is a talk of changing the emphasis from testing to teaching, of changing the punitive aspects of the law, etc., etc. It seems most people, especially on the Left, imagine some vagueS softer version of accountability and perhaps more funding for schools. Folks on the Right still hope for deregulation in education, with vouchers or other form of competition unleashing market mechanisms to improve education. Of course, the Democrats are almost forced to make it an election issue, but all they can do is the negative stance against NCLB. The entire bent of Democratic strategies is anti-Bush rather than pro-anything (with the exception of the host of tame medical reforms); education is a part of this: anti-Bush, and pro-very-little. That and some personal innuendo about who’s got more experience and who’s more of a non-Bush.

However, the political discourse on education suffers not only from the normal campaign-induced shallowness, but from a genuine absence of any plausible alternatives. I wish a politician of any kind, let alone the pres candidates, would just stand up and say: “Folks, we’ve got no idea what to do with K-12 education. There were a couple of ideas, and none of them seems to be working. I am pledging significant support to generating new ideas, which then will all be discussed and tested.” Sounds highly unlikely doesn’t it? Yet that would be the only practical position to take. We do have a problem after all: the educational gap between rich and poor kids is still tremendous, which means education for the poor can and should be improved. We don’t have anything close to consensus on what should be done. Moreover, all existing approaches so far have proven ineffective, or very difficult to replicate.

So, what? We have a number of other problems without solutions; deadly diseases is the most obvious example, but also crime, teenage pregnancy, social inequality, etc. Why is it OK to admit that there is no cure for cancer or even common cold, but not OK to admit there is no cure for education? There is a peculiar phenomenon I would call “the denial of ignorance.” Our culture allows for certain things to be unknown, while others have to be known; we do not admit our ignorance about them. Education is clearly one of these areas of “must-know”; politicians have especially hard time admitting having no clue. Or as Dewey used to spell it, no clew.

See for yourself: OK to say, “I don’t know…”

• …How to influence price of gas
• …How to treat Alzheimer’s
• …What is going to happen with stock market
• …How to win all elections
  

Not OK to say, “I don’t know…”

• …Who I am and what my beliefs are
• …What’s right and what’s wrong
• …What to do with education
• …How to fight crime

The truth is, most people individually, and we as a society, collectively, have no more clarity about the first set of claims than we have about the second one. Our ignorance is abysmal; our knowledge is frustratingly limited. Among other things, we have created the wonder of contemporary schooling, which turned out to have some nasty side-effects, and we have very little idea about fixing it.

The existence of the “denial of ignorance” is an interesting phenomenon; it is a special case of a knowledge claim. Some institutions are based on implicit knowledge claims. For example, it is very hard to claim an autonomous self, if you cannot define who you are. One who is in doubt about right and wrong cannot claim to have ethics. Once you build an extensive public schooling system, and collect tremendous amount of taxes to support it, you’d be a fool to admit that you have no idea how to make it work properly. Such an admission undermines the legitimacy of the whole enterprise. Yet explaining does not mean justifying. I still think an honorable position for presidential candidates would be to admit the ignorance – not personal one, but our quite obvious collective ignorance, and seek real sizeable resources in finding solutions. Admitting the ignorance about educational reform may actually serve as evidence of being informed. A part of the position of ignorance is to leave the system to its own devices, until a solution is to be found. We simply cannot continue experimenting with the huge national system of K-12 education with unproven interventions. Just to remind everyone: no one has shown that accountability measures will positively impact learning achievements; it was simply assumed (wrongly) to be self-evident. What we need is a moratorium to new reforms, a freedom for states and districts to experiment, and most importantly, a call to develop new models of educational reform.

Of course, I am biased, because I have a proposal, which may be one of many. The point is, by pretending that we have a solution, we waste our time and energy on politics, on little fights about this kind of reading instruction versus that kind of reading, etc. If we focus our energies on developing a new, truly new approach to educational reform, well, we might actually get there.