Peace: Difficult Conversations Summary
Frumi: Difficult Conversations Summary
This is another incredible book if you want to work productively with people that see the world differently than you do. The area of interest for me today is the concept of "Contribution Systems". I have found this to be one of the simplest and most profound concepts. Before learning this I may have "blamed" someone or some group for some unfortunate turn of events, and from my viewpoint it was usually pretty clear who was at fault and it typically was not me.
Now when something goes wrong, I take a little time to think about all the factors and people that may have contributed to the event, and often I do carry some of the burden of responsibility. Finally, if it is important I can then attempt to apportion the blame/responsibility amongst the factors/parties. Now I usually do not do this so that I can club someone, though sometimes it may be useful when negotiating a settlement.
I typically apportion the responsibility to the factors and people so that I can learn from the incident. With this information I can change a policy, train someone, give directions differently, add some checks to my list, fix a flaw, etc, etc, etc. The truly bad mistake is one that people do not learn from, and are therefore doomed to repeat over and over.
Now if we were to create a list of contributing factors with regard to why "so many children are left behind?" What would you add to this starting list I have created?
Parents
- Irresponsible, yet they have children
- Do drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc. (ie harm child)
- Have more children than they can afford
- Poor parenting due to laziness or ignorance
- Propogating victim / entitlement mind set
- Can't speak English (Laurie)
- Parents are illiterate (Laurie)
- Working 2 or more jobs (Laurie)
- Single parent household (Laurie)
- Belief systems, behaviors and actions not aligned with "typical American culture"
- ???
- Choose to behave poorly or resist learning
- Child is academically or behaviorally challenged for physical, mental or emotional reasons
- ???
- Protect the time served and education based comp system
- Resist firing of poor performers
- Resist standardized curriculum
- Resist competition / limiting options and availability
- ???
- Protect the time served and education based comp system
- Resist firing of poor performers
- Resist accountability measures
- Resist competition / limiting options and availability
- ???
- Fiscal and Result Reporting scandals that damage reputation
- Cherry picking good determined students and leaving the others for the public schools to deal with
- Soft bigotry of low expectations, expected to fail (JE)
- That universal public education is a public good AND entitlement. (JE)
- That education can not be run as a business. (JE)
- Belief that the Public School model is the only viable model. (JE)
- Education is entitlement and social service (JE / NG)
- ???
- Inadequate funding
- Too many regulations
- Inadequate early childhood education
- ~9 mth school year (ie Summers off)
- Inadequate parent training
- Inadequate health care
- Inadequate social and nutritional systems
- Limit competition
- Too much or little accountability focus
- ???
- Inadequate funding
- Too many regulations
- Too much or little testing and measuring
- ???
- Too socialist - coddling lazy people
- Too capitalistic - coddling rich people
- Values Football more than Education
- Self centered with little thought of others
- Too few volunteers to help the unlucky kids
- Rich and Middle Class parents run from Poor neighborhoods and kids. Leaving high density neighborhoods of poor and unlucky students. (ie less funds, fewer volunteers, fewer good role models, more problems, etc)
- ???
- Foreign infiltration plot (JE)
- ???
29 comments:
Inadequate funding? Really? New York City spends $18,000 per pupil per year and many of their schools are dropout factories. There are schools which spend less than a third of that and have results vastly superior. We have to get over this notion that pouring good money, or even good people, into a bad system somehow produces good results. It isn't possible. The system always wins.
Our education system is not going to be fixed by tinkering around the edges nor by adding more funding nor because some education bureaucrat somewhere promises to do better. The entire system needs to be put on notice, real competition introduced, and the devil take the hindmost. The criminals that run our current education system – not the teachers, but the SYSTEM – have irreparably damaged far too many children for far too many years. It has to stop now!
One of the things I like to do in problem-solving is to forget about fixing the blame and simply fix the problem. And what you will find is that so long as you allow "the system" to blame the victims – parents, children, taxpayers, even teachers – the problem will never get fixed.
J. Ewing
Remember the first rulle of brainstorming. There are no bad ideas... We will see where this goes.
OK, how about this one? Years ago, while Americans were distracted by the Vietnam war and long-haired, hop-headed hippies, a super-secret and evil foreign cabal infiltrated the United States. Then they began to work their nefarious plan to cripple the US economy, to limit our ability to govern ourselves and to make us easy prey for future subjugation. all they had to do was to gain control of the education of our children. It seems the plan has succeeded brilliantly.
J. Ewing
Added...
Now how many shooters were there when Kennedy was assasinated? And who was behind the plot?
I'm not sure the point of this but I'll throw in a few more parent related factors.
parents:
-can't speak English
-illiterate
-working 2 or more jobs
-single parenting
I may add more later, right now my kid wants to go Xmas shopping at Goodwill. Have I taught him to be too thrifty?
Just curious... are you going to conduct a full multivariate regression analyis after you have gathered all these factors? Even if it's done at Harvard by Guess and Gosh, what will we learn that we don't already know, and that will solve the problem?
J. Ewing
OK, here's a real one, but I don't know where to put it:
"The soft bigotry of low expectations." It encompasses, IMHO, many of the others.
J. Ewing
I added the latest input and no there will be no higher math involved.
I am already re-learning AP Statistics with my daughter...
As for soft bigotry, I simply called it a belief system due to its intangible nature. Do you have some additional actions that are being taken due to the belief system, or do we have them pretty well covered?
That's very good. I will add two more "belief systems."
1. That universal public education is a public good AND entitlement.
2. That education can not be run as a business.
J. Ewing
I've been thinking about "actions taken as a result of the belief system" and the most glaring is that some children are left behind because we EXPECT them to fail. Another is that nobody challenges the public school model because they believe it is the only possible model. A third is that we don't care what education costs because every kid is ENTITLED to as much as we can lump under the term "education." Perhaps a fourth belief is that the public schools are a social service, and therefore the delivery vehicle for social engineering and a government takeover of childrearing, at the expense of academic excellence.
J. Ewing
I'll have to give some thought as to how to append these to the list.
I am pondering something a Teacher once told me and where it fits. She said that sometimes there are severly disruptive students that nod off in class. At which time she faces the choice of focusing on the kids that are attentive and wanting to learn, or waking the disruptive child who then disturbs the learning experience of all the kids.
I am thinking this is the Child issue, though it seems the Teacher owns some responsibility. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to teach someone who does not want to learn...
Or after some thought, is it a failure within the laws. Since there is very little the Teachers and District can do about students that insist on misbehaving.
The teachers are pressured to keep the kids in the classroom. (ie disrupt the class) Any suspension or expulsion is temporary unless the kid goes to jail/juvie. And all of the parties are under a constant threat of law suits if they make the wrong choice.
Maybe the old time teachers had it right. (ie spare the rod, spoil the child) I even remember a few of the corporal and embarassing punishments that could be metered out when necessary. Now a trip to the office and detention is about the only rod the Teacher can use, and most of these kids are used to them.
A related change is that many Parents in the past would have punished the student if they got a note from the Teacher. Now many try to punish the Teacher instead.
None of this is helping to close the gap, or helping these unlucky kids to learn. It probably aligns somewhat with J's entitlement thoughts. Students and Parents should probably need to earn the right to be in the Public school system instead of seeing it as free childcare and a way to delegate parental responsibility.
To All,
Maybe "We" have turned "Public" schools into "Government" schools?
Therefore, allowing "Education" to be turned into "Social Services" for the age 5-18?
Just some thoughts??!!
Ross Greene, a child psychologist and author, has a saying something like - kids that can do well, do do well. I think this is very true among younger students. If they are disrupting class they are definitely lacking some needed skills. Punishment is likely to be of very little benefit.
For anyone interested in his recommendations in how to respond to disruptive children in the classroom here is a link to a related website;
lives in the balance
I didn't read much of this website. I assume it covers some of the very good ideas he explains in his book "Lost at School" which I have found very helpful in my work as a special ed teacher.
After browsing the technique, it looks good but extremely time consuming. I am wondering how a Teacher with 30 kids can pull this off.
I am thinking it supports my belief that schools with <10% free and reduced lunch have it easy. And yes I remember that poor does not necessarily mean bad or unlucky student, however it seems to be the closest easily accessible factor.
Now back to my point... The 10% schools may have only ~3 of these challenged kids in the class of 30, where as there may be ~12 in a school with a 40% rate... And God forbid the ratio in a 70% rate school. And they all only have one Teacher...
With this in mind, I think I am going to add something about the segregation of rich and poor to the list. Because the rich and middle class sure move their kids quick once the free and reduced lunch kids show up in higher numbers. Maybe they think poverty is contagious...
In a similar tone to the Collaborative Problem Solving link, here is a link to some work done by the folks that put out my 2 favorite books. The key to both is we want to be spending most of our time enabling things to go right, not correcting things when they go wrong. Now isn't that a creative yet simple idea. It is just the implementation that is challenging.
Arbinger Parenting Pyramid
NG,
Good point. But at some point shouldn't we accept this as a necessary reality in the poorer neighborhoods. Here are my thoughts...
Even Conservatives that want adults to pay the natural consequnces of their sins, want to protect the children from these consequences.
Aren't the Early education and K-12 education systems best suited to do this? They have access to the kids 6+ hrs per day. They have even gone to feeding them breakfast. And I have some stories of where the school staff has gone way above the call of duty to help these kids.
This is truly the reality of why inner city schools are so expensive, yet folks want to deny this reality. I think you have nailed it on the head...
John,
That is a reality, but should we re-define those costs (if easy to determine) as social services and NOT EDUCATION DOLLARS???
Then the education dollars can be more equal to each school district and we change to discussion to the issue which is social economic dollars need to be allocated for this issue and not call it education spending??
Any thoughts??
In the spirit of the season, I will hold my comments until Boxing Day.
Merry Christmas to all!
J. Ewing
“I am pondering something a Teacher once told me and where it fits. She said that sometimes there are severely disruptive students that nod off in class. I am thinking this is the Child issue, though it seems the Teacher owns some responsibility.” – John
In my experience students nod off because they either lack sleep (sleeping in a car/homeless) or because they are bored by a less-than-challenging curriculum or teacher (and usually NOT the teacher). NEITHER is an excuse for schools failing kids, because all kids can learn. I will concede that maybe we have to connect some of these kids (and their parents) with social services, but there is NO excuse for not challenging every student to learn to their full potential, and most schools do NOT. It is built into their instructional model, curriculum and incentive system. Truly disruptive students lack either a challenge (the brighter ones) or discipline (often those needing a more stable home life). Again, the schools should quickly sort out those who need outside help, and concentrate on keeping the educational challenge in place for everybody.
“I am thinking it supports my belief that schools with <10% free and reduced lunch have it easy. And yes I remember that poor does not necessarily mean bad or unlucky student, however it seems to be the closest easily accessible factor. … Because the rich and middle class sure move their kids quick once the free and reduced lunch kids show up in higher numbers.…” --John
Chickens and eggs. Has it occurred to you that when schools fail, people who can afford to move to better schools do so, rather than people moving causing the failure? Once more you are blaming the innocent victims of education malpractice, or the innocent bystanders, rather than the criminals responsible. If in the end you do not conclude that schools fail to educate because schools fail to educate, you have missed the obvious.
“And I have some stories of where the school staff has gone way above the call of duty to help these kids. This is truly the reality of why inner city schools are so expensive, yet folks want to deny this reality.” --John
But there are far too few of these “angels” in the inner city schools, and those generally use their own money and often have to “fight the system” to actually help these kids. Many of these problems would correct themselves if the schools would actually teach every child as if they were capable of learning, and quickly get the social needs moved off to some other (perhaps government) agency, OUTSIDE school hours. That’s the secret; we don’t have a proper definition of what a “school” is supposed to DO any more.
Look, I will accept that education is a public good—something good for the public—and worth expending tax dollars to do. It may be one of the most fundamentally important, and it shouldn’t be denied to any child because his/her parents cannot afford it. So why is it most often denied to those kids whose parents cannot afford it?!? Why are they “left behind”? Are we really going to blame that on the kids, or parents? We don’t need to find more excuses why some schools don’t educate; we know they don’t. We just need to tell them to do it, and now, or we will find someone who can.
J. Ewing
Note: Social services is often not available. That budget seems to be the one the Conservatives go after first. Therefore the schools calls and no none answers...
As for who is to blame and what should change, that is for another post.
social services are needed by some students but many students need things like extended school day and extended school year if they are to meet high standards. NCLB never had sufficient funding. I also think smaller class sizes, especially in the primary grades are needed too. the PP recently did a story about how half of MN kindergarteners are not ready for school.
Oh I forgot to mention that most of the people I know that have fled listed the following reasons:
- Class disruptions by at risk or special ed students stole from their child's education. It was simply unacceptable to have that much of the Teacher's time and class time taken up by these students. Besides it distracted those that wanted to learn.
- Parents scared by the fights and bullying in the halls/bathrooms. Felt their child's safety was at risk and/or they did not want them associating/exposed to that student population/behavior.
- After school activities and technology were less than at a more affluent school. Why rob their kids of those opportunities.
I don't think I have ever heard of someone open enrolling or moving because of a bad curriculum, bad building or poor Teacher. Maybe because their local school building closed...
That is why I said "PERHAPS government" agencies should do the social services. Conservatives often seek to cut those services because we know they are highly inefficient and overly costly, much like government-run education. It is another reason why our public schools should not be social service agencies, because we already have too much duplication and waste in that area. Schools should educate, period.
J. Ewing
If not MN Social Services, then who should the school contact to help this unlucky child?
Especially if the majority of them happen to live in the more urban areas...
"I don't think I have ever heard of someone open enrolling or moving because of a bad curriculum, bad building or poor Teacher."
Of course not, because most of the other problems, the "social problems" and their side-effects, are secondary problems caused by the failure of schools to focus on education. If you spend 70 minutes of every hour trying to get the kids to stop pummeling each other, there isn't time for teaching and learning. Focus on learning and many of the other problems subside. Couple that with an effective discipline system that diverts, channels or treats disruptive behavior (rather than punishing) and you're good to go. **WARNING -voucher advocacy ahead!** The easy way to do this, IMHO, is the universal voucher. This forces public schools to compete with non-public alternatives in ONLY those districts where such competitors have a substantial advantage because the publics are failing. It allows public schools, though, to tell parents that "your child is too disruptive, we will no longer accept your voucher, and it will cost you more to go to the school that specializes in disruptive kids." **End advocacy**
"If not MN Social Services, then who should the school contact to help this unlucky child?"
So long as we persist in our current public-school, welfare-state model there is no hope, because we have tried it for many years and here we still are. We need to go to a system **warning, etc.** where parents are responsible for their kids, including finding an education for them. Schools are responsible to the PARENTS to provide quality "educational services."
J. Ewing
my point, which I was not clear about, is many poor students especially those learning English, are not disruptive in class but require more instructional time to reach high standards.
Siphoning off all the best students to other schools has a negative impact on overall achievement as well. Many years ago my kids district started a full time gifterd program in elementary school and offering all honors classes foe the top 20% in middle school. The teachers said it made the non-honors classes harder to teach. My kids prefer the honors classes as well. One semester of 9th grade civics in about the only non honors or AP class for them in all of high school. As a parent I mostly like these programs, but do see a downside, including the that the gifted/honors/AP track is not very diverse.
"my point, which I was not clear about, is many poor students especially those learning English, are not disruptive in class but require more instructional time to reach high standards."
And my point is that we should be giving these students the amount of instructional time they need, rather than dealing with the disruptive students or, worse yet, doing neither one.
"Siphoning off all the best students to other schools has a negative impact on overall achievement as well."
The problem seems to be that not just the average academic attainment goes down, but that the effort expended for the remaining kids doesn't go UP. That is, if we have less diversity in the classes, whether it is all gifted students or all strugglers, it should make it easier to adapt the curriculum and teaching style to help them all succeed better, but that is not what seems to happen. Rather, the school plods along with the same process, and more kids get left behind.
"As a parent I mostly like these programs, but do see a downside, including the that the gifted/honors/AP track is not very diverse."
These classes would be more diverse if there were more effort put into teaching every student, regardless of demographics, to succeed in a challenging curriculum. Those kids who can get it by themselves are going to succeed, and their parents aren't going to let them be hampered by attending a school where their physical safety is threatened or their academic needs stifled. It is all those other kids, the ones who COULD succeed if given a proper education from the early grades, for whom I rail against the system that denies it to them.
J. Ewing
"giving these students the amount of instructional time they need" "effort expended for the remaining kids doesn't go UP" "more effort put into teaching every student"
The problem is that as the lucky kids depart, they take their funding with them. So I am not exactly sure who you think should be expending the extra effort? I mean the Teachers are laid off as the student numbers decrease. And the most likely volunteers and donors just left with their kids.
And though the school funding formula does pay more in these higher poverty areas, I am guessing it is not enough to compensate. My linked guesstimate shows there is likely a cross subsidy from Lucky to Unlucky/Special Ed even in the current formula.
G2A Why Pay More?
The school funding formula is SUPPOSED TO "fully compensate" for demographics. If it does not, it is simply one more failure of government to solve the problem that some kids are being systematically deprived of the education "guaranteed" them. I would like to think that, if you started every kid out with the expectation he could learn, and properly nurtured that desire to learn we all have, it wouldn't cost more to educate a poor kid than a rich one. Other than the free lunch.
Of course, I'm willing to see the high differential of the current formula stay in place, so long as results are brought up to somewhere near equal. I mean, I can understand poor results if I'm getting by cheap, or paying more to get better results, but spending more and getting less just does not compute, not to mention the tragic loss of human potential.
J. Ewing
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