A Little About a Lot

It’s summer, so school and learning news slows down a bit. So I’m going to try a new posting on Thursday called “A Little About a Lot.” The topics won’t necessarily be generated by what’s in the news, like Friday’s “News Roundup.” Instead, the stories will be about conversations or events that caught my attention and prompted me to reflect on and comment on. Let’s see if you like it.

The Adult Agenda

There’s a little watering hole down on University Avenue here in Des Moines I like to frequent. They serve a solid cheeseburger and offer too many delicious craft IPA’s. So I hang out there a bit.

During my last visit, I overheard a booth filled with high school staff members talking about end of school stuff. What staff was staying, what staff was going – that type of conversation.

But as I eavesdropped even more, I noticed a interesting dynamic to these school people’s discussion. All of it was about the adults inside their school.

There was no mention, not even once, of the kids who came to that school to learn. No conversation about how we could get kids to read better. No mention of kids and their problem-solving abilities. Not even a discussion of the extracurricular activities their school’s kids participated in.

I walked away disappointed, but not surprised. The adult agenda inside our public schools is alive and well. It’s like the adults think that if they solve their problems and arrive at happiness, then the kids will be all right.

Wrong.

The most successful learning organizations I’ve been around the last 40 years are places where conversations always begin with the young learners and their well-being – academically, socially, and emotionally.

Learning organizations that struggle are usually the ones that focus on adult needs first. They are confused about what their “north star” should be.

To paraphrase an old African tribal question and answer: “Are the children well? Yes, the children are well.”

Smartphones

I like to listen to On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti. Last week the show focused on smartphones and their educational benefit. I continue to be amazed at how many public school educators see smartphones as a distraction and don’t realize the beneficial possibilities they offer when it comes to personalized learning.

It’s sort of like “I don’t know how to teach with smartphones, so I’m going to ban them from the classrooms.” To make matters worse, we now have district leadership and school boards deciding the same thing.

This type of Luddite behavior is pathetically unacceptable. It’s time for adult learning leaders to understand how the 21^st century young learner accesses and processes information, and it isn’t from a teacher standing at the front of a classroom droning on incessantly about facts and figures that are immediately available to those who are seated in the classroom.

We are all familiar with Henry Ford’s quote when asked about customer input in the development of the Model T – “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

The Problem with Representative Democracy

I usually try to sway away from politics in this column, but news from Spirit Lake, Iowa has caused me to take notice of an issue that has attained national attention.

In a 4-1 vote, the Spirit Lake school board voted to keep their longstanding Native American mascot. This decision was made after the Spirit Lake Tribal Council in North Dakota sent the district a letter saying the mascot is offensive and calling for its removal.

Jeremy Mauw, the newest member of the Spirit Lake school board, said his vote to keep the Indian mascot is based on community feedback. “There were a couple of people that were a little bit like: ‘Um, you know I don’t know that we should keep the logo.’ But I said, ‘Ok. Do you want it changed?’ and the answer was ‘no.’” Mauw said “I didn’t get a single person who said: ‘Change the logo.’”

I think Jeremy Maux missed the lesson around the question “If someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

Blind obedience to a racist belief is not leadership.

I’m reminded of Edmund G. Ross, the senator from Kansas who voted not to impeach Andrew Johnson while Johnson served this country of President of the United States post-Civil War. Ross received unbelievable pressure to vote yes on the impeachment vote, but he found courage to do, in his eyes, the right thing. Ross lost his next election and never returned to public office.

Sometimes representative democracy be damned. Leaders are leaders when they do the right thing. In 2023, replacing a Native American chief’s headdress as a school’s mascot is a no brainer when it comes to doing the right thing.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB