How would you teach the standards in your class if your job was not on the line and there was no standardized test? How would you facilitate the learning of those skills in those circumstances? Why don't you already teach that way? If you do, then great! If you don't then what are you worried about?

In the previously mentioned Back to Work podcast Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin speak about how businesses would bring him in to speak about methods he'd used to make himself more productive and efficient. He then goes on a tangent about the lip service paid to the employees of a company about innovation.

Innovation is not something that is directly talked about in education. I've never heard my principal come to a faculty meeting and say "We need to innovate the way we teach." But in the news we hear about things like "Race to the Top," which was a incentive based reform tool (much like in the 80's the federal government told the states they would pull Interstate road funding from states that didn't raise the legal drinking limit to 21 except in this case it is not pulling funding but adding money).

"Show us that you are instituting these reforms and we'll give you up to 500 million dollars."

When this gauntlet was dropped, 46 states scrambled to institute reforms or at least make it appear as though reforms were being put into place. Every governor in the land looked at the scorecard and began checking things off.

"Method for evaluating teacher effectivness" Check
"Common standards" Check
and so on...

Its the carrot method for innovation. "Do this. Get this."



In the above video Dan Pink talks about how this model doesn't work for creative jobs, jobs where you must overcome obstacles in creative ways, manage multiple streams of information, and deliver. Teaching is possibly one of the most creative endeavors I've ever encountered. When presented with incentives as teachers, it is quite possible that we would do worse work. Why? Because we are afraid to fail. The stakes get high. The stress level gets high. The flow goes down.

Look I'm not going to turn away from a little more money for doing a good job. But let us be honest, teachers don't teach for money. And the ones who do are washed out in three to five years (thank god for that). The teachers I know teach because they genuinely like engaging the mind of youthful human beings and watching the seeds they plant grow. I teach because I like seeing the aha moment.

Guy: Why do you do this to yourself? Don't even get paid, risk getting arrested, for what?
Ernie: You don't know?
Guy: No.
Ernie: The Nod.
Guy: The Nod?
Ernie: Happens to me at least once every party. Some guy comes up to me and says "Thank you for making this happen... I needed this. This really meant something to me." And they nod... and I nod back.
Guy: [scoffs] ... That's it?
Ernie: That's it.

This little slice of dialogue is from a movie that I used to love (then when I watched again in my mid twenties was less enamored). But its a great lateral comparison to why I teach. I teach (middle school) so that in three years when that student is almost a real adult, they come back to see me and tell me about one little peice of something that I said and how it has influenced them. Its a little pay it forward because I've had teachers who did the same for me.

But back to fear of failure, what happens in todays education marketplace when teachers fail on the standards currently in place. They lose their job. How do you work in that environment? You keep your head down and you give worksheets and assign reading for homework and you do nothing that inspires "the nod." No one, I repeat, no one went back to visit that teacher that kept their heads down, just assigning homework sheets, reading assignments, and multiple choice tests. We all went back to visit the teachers that engaged us, teachers that went outside the box, either in their lessons or their interactions with us as students.

I propose two solutions. The first is pretty standard educational reform faire: Get rid of standardized testing. The damage that standardized testing is long lasting and deep. We teach our students to choose the right answer, not to delve into the problem and explore it. In that vein we teach our students to be afraid of wrong. You get one shot. You passed, great! You failed, remedial classes and a label. I don't live in a multiple choice, knowledge based world. I live in a world where I am presented with a problem and a goal, and using critical thinking, the information tools at my disposal, and hopefully a team of collaborators we come to an effective solution. Information can always can always be found. Knowing what to do with that information can not. You can't grade a teacher based on their students' test scores. We don't grade doctors based on their patients' outcomes.

My second solution is to give us the autonomy to teach in a method of their choosing. Give us the ability to try something innovative and fail. Trust us again. Give us some level of job security. Don't get it twisted, I am not saying give teachers a blank check to do what they want. Unlimited tenure is not effective. Evaluate us based on our teaching. Engage me. Ask me questions. Come into my/our classroom (and not only once a year). When a teacher is ineffective and refuses to fix it, get rid of 'em. The administration can help themselves upfront with hiring. If you hire teachers that believe in what you, the administration, believe in, then you shouldn't have any problems that can't be overcome. Lastly, make meaningful and useful professional development available so I can keep up to date on the best practices.

There is a culture that can be created that fertilizes innovation.


Bottom line: If you want education to innovate, give it back to the teachers.