How Teaching has Changed in America

The profession of teaching has been altered much more over the past 20 years than that of most other public sector professions. Stakeholders in public education—teachers and administrators, students, parents, and school boards—have been forced to adjust to change at a faster and faster pace. Let’s look at a few examples since I graduated high school in a California suburb in the late 1970s.

NCLB

Unlike a unitary government, such as France, our country was set up as a federalist system, giving state and local governments power to pick what to teach and how to teach it. The passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has, for the first time, given our central government in Washington, D.C. real power over the teaching stakeholders. NCLB demands that schools perform, as measured over time by a non-stop increase in state test scores. Non-performing schools lose their autonomy and are then managed by someone else. None of the traditional (local) stakeholders have a say when this loss of autonomy happens.

High stakes testing, the only assessment that evaluates whether a school passes muster, has assumed much more importance for administrators and board members. (As an aside, I found the state accreditation process to be much fairer then NCLB in judging the effectiveness and accountability of schools, since accreditation does not assume that we all live in the same neighborhoods.) Therefore, high stakes testing drives the curriculum mapping of my department. We ensure that students have learned about the Cold War, for example, before the April testing. Some teachers would prefer to teach about the Cold War in May, allowing them to spend more time earlier on WWI or the Great Depression. I won’t allow it. I demand, not always successfully, that my department follows an agreed-upon curriculum map, so all students will learn the state-mandated curriculum by the April deadline. Teachers, rugged individualists on the high school level, did not consistently follow a curriculum map when I was in high school. One history teacher might get caught up in the election of 1948 and never quite emerge from the 1950s while another teacher would save her fire for the 1968 political conventions.

Now that the Federal Government is up to its waist in the teaching business, school boards and administrators may be replaced if kids don’t learn the state standards. They will be held accountable to higher levels of student proficiency than was previously demanded. Boards and administrators find themselves lost in a logical dilemma: if they support the tough standards of NCLB, they must continuously improve instruction and risk failing. They take the side of the public, against the side of the entrenched interests--usually veteran teachers and their supporters--risking strife in the internal district organization such as an administration versus teachers internecine struggle. On the other hand, if boards and administrators take the side of the entrenched interests against NCLB, they risk alienating the voters that elected them and incurring the vicious wrath of Uncle Sam.

Traditional Teaching Methods Don’t Work Like Before

At the same time that the Feds demand increased accountability, the students no longer respond the same way to traditional methods of teaching. My generation of suburban high school kids differed little from my parents’ bobby socks generation before it. We used the same educational tools and much of the same technology. Today’s high school students grew up with personal computers and computer games, email, instant messenger, cell phones, and video. I had a pen pal from France and mailed her letters, which took a couple of weeks each way. I played chess and monopoly with people I could see, smell (unfortunately) and touch, and I tried to avoid fist fights after the game. I couldn’t play tournament chess after the Berkeley chess club closed its doors at midnight. I can play tournament chess all day and all night on Yahoo games now. I don’t even need to be near a computer and can play on a cell phone. High school technology academies base instruction on technological platforms.

Television has also changed. Kids play violent video games with interactive controls on the TV. After they get tired of that they may then choose programming from hundreds of cable stations. As a high school senior, I could choose from nine television stations. (Outside of the San Francisco Bay Area consumers had even less choice.) Every ten-year-old in my community watched Mr. Ed or Hogan’s Heroes—no other programming but network and local television was available.

The media of my youth, network television, movies, books, newspapers, and magazines, has taken a back seat to mostly free video and internet. Outside of school, kids read less and engage in little formal writing. Email and texting have taken over these communicating tasks. Both the skills of academic writing and the levels of cultural literacy have declined. Indeed, the overly casual and rushed manic messages in the typical teen’s email, the phoneticism of texting, and the glorification of ignorant thugs as pop culture heroes have shaped many students into semi-literates.

Change in parent-teacher relationships--from teacher’s helper to partisan advocate

Parent-teacher relationships have changed too, though not as radically as the new technology has transformed students. I believe the role of middle class parents has changed in response to increased competitiveness in college entry. When all must contend for increasingly difficult college entrance, the competition changes normal reticent middle class parents into sharks at a feeding frenzy.

Despite the global decline in student academic performance, the elite still perform very well, and there are more of them as our population has expanded. I was accepted into the University of California, Berkeley, but my A minus high school GPA and skills in music and chess were unexceptional by today’s standards. Today that high school record would, at best, gain entry into a second tier school in the University of California system. My alma mater, Berkeley, currently accepts high school seniors with an average GPA of 4.3!

Parents have responded to the challenge by advocating for their children. No longer is school the domain of the experts, the teachers and administrators, and if the parents would just get their kids to shut up and behave, all would be well. No, today many parents serve as their children’s assistants and paralegals, doing their homework for them, serving as counsel when they get in trouble or receive a poor grade, and taking their side in disputes with teachers and administrators. As a high school student, when I decided on a beautiful spring day to go to the beach instead of the classroom my parents refused to give me an excuse note even though it was “senior cut day.” My high school assistant principal told me to sign in with one of the secretaries the next day, and I ended up picking up litter on school grounds for a couple of hours. Let’s fast forward to today. This year, more than 90 percent of my students out for senior cut day were “out sick.” Almost every absent student received an excuse note from their parents. The parents’ new attitude has changed: “If we parents take an occasional day off, why not let the kids do the same?”

Changes in Student Health

Similarly, teachers fight on the front lines against disease and poor hygiene. When schools asked that children get their kids vaccinated, my parents lined me up with every other kid outside the grammar school to get a jab from a vaccine gun. Today a small number of parents are persuaded by non-scientific internet claims that vaccinations cause autism and other problems to children with healthy immune systems. These parents think they know more about the causes of autism and immunology than epidemiologists and the medical establishment and put everyone at risk.

Recently the New York Times caught the story about a Whooping Cough epidemic in my Marin County California (New York Times, July 11, 2010, Vaccination Rate Lags as anEpidemic Spreads, pp. 25-26.). See also an article on an outbreak of tuberculosis at Logan High School in the San Francisco Bay Area .The problem isn’t limited to a few anti-immunization fanatics that give an unwanted boost to pertussis bacterium. School boards and state and federal officials allow children of illegal immigrants in the classroom, children that have grown up in the third world and have not had the benefit of American preventive medicine. Not surprisingly, the American classroom has become a breeding ground for nasty varieties of influenza. In 2009 between a quarter and half of my students missed school because of the Swine Flu. I anxiously await the next needless epidemic. This is not a productive change. Teachers must do everything they can to keep themselves healthy—wash hands, get vaccinated, maintain a social support system, and eat right, sleep, and exercise.

Changes in Respect for Teachers’ Authority and Competence

My parents never challenged a teacher’s grading policy, curriculum, or discipline. Other parents would occasionally challenge disproportionate discipline, nebulous grading procedures, or unjustifiable teacher behavior in the classroom. Today my fellow teachers, sometimes rightly but usually not, suffer constant challenges to grading, curriculum, competency, and classroom management. Parents have berated me for disciplining too hard and for not disciplining enough, for not talking about certain historians, or for talking about other ones. After all, they have read a few books too and are not going to let their little Johnny get kept out of Harvard by this uninformed teacher who doesn’t know what to teach. This teacher couldn’t handle a career in the real world and is supported by the taxpayers, so why listen to him? I may have exaggerated the point, but many in the profession have suffered this type of humiliation. Don’t take it personally!

Only one thing may be worse than the over involvement of parents in middle class schools—the under involvement of parents in the inner city schools. I did my student teaching in a high school that served poor and working class families. If I was able to talk to a busy, stressed parent instead of a message machine, I was told that it was my job to fix the kid. That’s what I was paid for.

Changes in Students’ Respect for Teachers

Parental respect for teachers still exists but has declined, correlating with the decline or respect that students have for teachers. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously coined the term, “defining deviancy down.” The school that I teach is comparable to the high school that housed me for four years. Keeping socio-economic status constant, I have found adolescents over the years less supervised at home and exposed to a more violent and sexually explicit media that glorifies criminal behavior and immediate gratification. Some parents choose not to allow the toxic messages of television in their house and belong to religious and communal organizations that instill proper values, even respect for teachers. Good for them. When that doesn’t happen, teachers must socialize as well as instruct. No one ever said our job was easy. We work against strong cultural forces, but the rewards are worth the effort. Most veteran teachers can recall a surly 15-year-old that, through a teacher’s or coach’s mentoring and inspiration was turned into a respectable citizen three years later.

What to do right now: Mentoring is part of teaching. Create a relationship with a few of your at-risk kids, especially students that are young, freshmen or sophomores. Simply talking to these kids one-on-one for a few minutes each week may be the most positive and effective communication they receive at this time in their lives. I find these conversations most effective right before winter and summer vacations—I have developed trust, and they will have some time to reflect about our conversation. Bring up their academic goals and your academic goals for them; their extra curricular goals such as joining athletic teams and school clubs and your ideas; their summer plans and your plans for them; their goals for getting a job and your opinion on whether they should be working and where to look. I tend to self-disclose only if it will humanize me or give me more credibility in the discussion. For example, I talk about college life, what it’s like to work and go to school at the same time; and how hard graduates will have to work at their first serious job. I tend to leave the more entertaining self-disclosures, the name of my cat and how many children I have, to the general classroom, and I use these self-disclosures when I want to warm up the classroom atmosphere. Assume that all self-disclosures become public knowledge, so don’t tell the kids information that would scandalize their parents.

Obama's New Government Stimulus Bill--Will it Work?

My AP economics students ask me why the government has been unsuccessful in getting America back to work. I have written on the inefficiency of the Obama stimulus package here and on the efficacy of Keynesian programs (aka The New Deal) during the Great Depression here. Since government make-work programs did not cure long-term unemployment in the 1930s, and, in fact, prolonged the Great Depression, I was confidant Obama's $825 billion stimulus would not lower long-term unemployment this time either. The tax money has to come from somewhere. Peter (rich tax payers) must be robbed to pay Paul (recipients of government programs), and then Peter has less money to support our consumer-driven economy. The Wall Street Journal,  in it's September 8, 2011 issue, showed how much of the $825 billion stimulus money was poorly spent and often outright wasted. The article, titled Why the Stimulus Failed, reviewed "a pair of new Mercatus Center working papers by the George Mason economists Garett Jones and Daniel Rothschild, who did field research on what they call the supply side of the stimulus." The economists found that the stimulus money was earmarked for items the recipients did not need and had little bearing on job creation. Secondly, "Jones and Rothschild estimate that merely 42.1% of the firms that received grants hired people who were unemployed. Instead, they poached workers from their competitors." No wonder unemployment remained high.

Instead of $250 billion of new spending that the Obama administration currently proposes (out of a $500 billion jobs bill), the Wall Street journal recommends "incentives for people and businesses to invest, produce and grow." The greatest incentive we can offer is letting men and women keep more of the money they earn. If we have less wasteful government programs we can enjoy the blessings and incentives of less taxation.

Educational Ideologies and Applications

One of my favorite textbooks in graduate school was Theories of Human Development by Michael Green. Years later I rediscovered a section in the back,  Educational Applications (pp. 219-235). Green looks at three ideologies, the Romantic, Traditionalist, and Progressive, and how educators teach from each of these three particular perspectives.

The Romantic Ideology closely parallels the endogenous view of developmental theories. Children are viewed as possessing an innate “inner worth” that demands respect and consideration. This view is exemplified by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau—naturalness is good and schools should provide freedom where children can develop naturally.

Educational practices should be flexible enough to permit their inner “good” to develop unshackled by the constraints, values, and rigid expectations of teachers. Children know best what interests them. “We don’t need no education…” (Pink Floyd) The child's mind works like a plant—just let it grow.

The Traditionalist Ideology corresponds to the exogenous view of development. Traditionalist educators make extensive use of concepts derived from operant conditioning and social learning theories. This is the philosophy of John Locke and the British Empiricists—the mind as a tabula rasa.


W.A.Mozart was trained by his father using the best pedagogy known. The Hungarian Polgar sisters, later known as chess geniuses, were trained early on by their father as well. Research shows that one needs 10,000 hours of training to become an expert in anything.

The purpose of education is to transmit to each generation a specific body of information that reflects society’s value, and the teacher must transmit specific facts, skills, and moral values.  Children are believed to be inherently malleable and are shaped by the consequences of their behaviors. Effective education uses the science of learning, derived from behavior analysis.

The Progressive Ideology reflects an interactional-constructivist orientation. Unlike the Romantics progressives do not assume that development occurs as the unfolding of some natural plan or that education should foster children’s own self-interests. Unlike the traditionalists, progressives view learning in terms of problem-solving ability rather than the learning of specific facts and skills, reflecting the philosophy of John Dewey.

      Educators should provide problems and cognitive conflict that stimulates the development of logical and critical thought—thinking and reasoning.  Open classrooms, schools without walls, cooperative learning, whole language, the social curriculum, experiential education, and numerous forms of alternative schools all have important philosophical roots in progressive education. Which approach one prefers, Romanticism, Traditionalism, or Progressivism may be determined by the task one is teaching. Is it shooting free-throws in basketball, choosing which board game is the most fun, increasing moral development, learning a new language, loving a friend, becoming a better chess player, learning to play the drums, or deciding whether to major in psychology or mathematics?

Liking and Respect—Working with Difficult Boys in the Classroom

After many years of working with high achieving students I decided to teach a more diverse population this year. A good number of these kids will misbehave, either refusing to work, acting on impulses and attempting to steer the class in a direction of their own choosing, or clowning around for peer attention.

While not all the misbehaving students are boys, most are, so I will concentrate on males for the purposes of this discussion. Boys want to like and respect their teacher. Liking and respect are two sides of the same coin. Teacher reasonableness and listening generate liking. Teacher qualities of firmness and fairness create respect. If I am able to build a relationship with a troubled boy, he is less likely to act out in my classroom. If I punish him immediately, effectively, and proportionately for infractions, he is less likely to act impulsively in the future.

When I show interest in boys’ lives and listen to them tell their stories, I build a relationship. Fortunately, this is not hard to do. Boys wear their interest on their sleeves, literally, and wear shirts and hats that affiliate with athletic groups, hobby interests, and favorite music groups. All I have to do is ask about those things. I reciprocate by mentioning to the entire class a few of my favorite foods (burritos and pizza) and playing ten seconds of drums in class. Most boys like fast food and an athletic drumming display. My pizza and burrito stories become an in-joke, used whenever I need an example of an enjoyable time.

I also build relationships with boys by being “real” as we used to say in the 1970s—an authentic person with weaknesses. Of course I get to choose what foibles I will make public. I make fun of my own handwriting, artistic abilities, mispronunciation of certain words, and receding hairline. “Bob, you’re supposed to be reading. My big bald forehead will not reflect the words from the book!” I believe that when teachers refuse any self-disclosure they are hiding their humanity from the students. On the other hand, I don’t tell them anything I don’t want the whole world to know.

Despite my best intentions, early adolescent boys will occasionally let their impulses get the better of them and come late to class, make a mess, throw things or engage in rough play. I recommend acting on the minor infractions as well (talking out of turn, inattentiveness, chewing gum, wearing a hat), but I am referring to major infractions here. It is easy to simply tell the offender to knock it off or give a warning, but I have found that warnings rarely work in the long run, and you will see a similar rule violation quite soon. A fair consequence is more effective. I try not to let the minor infractions interrupt my teaching and the lesson, but you have no choice but to go to the mat when a kid has challenged your authority with a major infraction.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to do, after you convince yourself that he really did throw that banana against the wall, is to keep calm. His behavior has nothing to do with you, and you will calmly set him straight.

After a deep breath and making sure I’m not angry, I deal with the offense immediately: “Pick it up right now. Here’s some paper towel to clean up, and you owe me 10 minutes of detention after class ends.” The detention will be the time you can examine more thoroughly what the kid was thinking, and what will happen if there is a next time. If boys are engaging in rough play I take them out of the classroom immediately and assign them a chore such as taking out my recycling, and tell them what will happen if the rowdiness happens again. My kids know they will get an interrogation reminiscent of the FBI interviewing commie spies if they are late: “Why are you late? Do you know you lose credit every time you are late? That excuse is lame—don’t be late again.” Most of the time I do not berate students publicly—they quickly turn into your enemy if you embarrass them—but I make an exception for lateness. “If you aren’t here, you can’t learn, and look; I’m acting in your best interest.” My school district lowers kids’ grades for lateness, but the boys don’t conceptualize that nearly as well as the unpleasantness of a public chastising.

No one said walking a tightrope of affability and strict enforcement of rules was easy, but it is what teachers must do if they want to successfully manage a classroom of teenage boys.

The Race--Father versus Son

This race took place, seven years ago, when I had a chance at beating my athletic son.

My son W and I ran a race together called the Dipsea, a tortuous, seven-mile climb and descent over a mountain, ending at the ocean. 

Running a practice Dipsea a month earlier, I found that the mountain laughs at you. “You thought that incline was hard? Try this one! And you better pay attention to these treacherous tree roots and the poison oak in the valley.” Unlike most cross-country contests, though, this race uses handicaps developed from a long history of running performances. W, age thirteen, started a few minutes ahead of his 43-year-old father. Since W had just completed a season of soccer, and I was always the last one picked for anything when I was a kid, I didn’t consider the handicapping fair in our individual case. Still, I had trained on rocky hills more than W and could outrun him going straight up on the trail. He was much stronger than me on flatter sections, however.

Watching W explode off the start line at the shriek of the starting whistle, I told myself that I would not see him again until the end of the race. But it would be sweet to beat W, a natural athlete. When my group’s whistle sounded a short time later I forgot about my fantasy. I needed to pay attention to slippery stairs. 

I wanted to get in a running groove. I was too absorbed in maintaining my balance on a precipitous descent nicknamed “Suicide.” My legs were hurting too much climbing out of steep ravines, listening to other runners gasping for breath.

As I ascended, a quarter mile from the peak, close to the halfway point, I suddenly saw him. He was walking. I caught up to him in a very steep section where we both had to walk. “W, are you OK?” “No, I feel sick. I think I’m dehydrated.” “What? Why didn’t you bring water? Here, drink mine.” W quickly gulped down the warm water. His pained expression relaxed. We walked together for another minute, and the trail flattened out somewhat. “I feel better now. Thanks Pops!” He slapped me on the butt and took off. I ran after him. We hit the last uphill section, and I accelerated. “See you later,” I jeered as I passed him, and we started a long downhill section. I’ve got to get way ahead of him now, I thought, or he’ll outrun me near the end where it’s flat. I pushed harder. After two miles I was 50 yards ahead of him when, oh no, a traffic jam of fat walkers clogged the narrow trail. I couldn’t get by and had to walk with them until the trail allowed room to pass. Before long, W was right in back of me again. The trail broadened and we both picked up the pace on a curvy and flat last mile. 

I maintained a lead of five yards. As we rounded the last curve, 200 yards before the ocean-side finish, we passed a line of spectators. I heard a voice yell, “Go Mike!” and a second later, “Go W! Beat your dad!” I wasn’t going to be a good father and let him win. I was sprinting, giving the race everything I had left. Beating W would make up for all the times the kids laughed as I struck out, all the times I missed the critical free throw, all the times the grammar school teachers put me in the “special” PE class. “Go Mike! Go Mike!” I heard from somewhere. Twenty yards from the finish line, my insides couldn’t take the pounding anymore. I slowed down and motioned for W to pass. The crowd roared. What a nice, giving father!

General Douglas MacArthur—Brilliant General or Impossible Narcissist (or Both)

Historians’ views of MacArthur tend to be projections of their politics. Liberal writers view MacArthur as a man who “needed to be worshiped” (Halberstam), a narcissist who, despite his inability for honest self-reflection possessed uncanny military instincts and strategic vision. Conservative writers admire the soldier less grudgingly, and instead, paint MacArthur as a genius and hero, a life that should be emulated by any American. I have compiled a short list of biographies and books on MacArthur’s time period. I picked these books and not others because I was familiar with them. Links follow the summaries.

David Halberstam in The Fifties, (pp. 77-86) entertains the reader by revealing Truman’s understanding of MacArthur as a narcissist and Prima Donna, a supremely confident genius of Inchon who arrogantly underestimated the threat of the Chinese Communists in North Korea. Halberstam painstakingly lays out how the Chinese telegraphed their intent to enter the war if provoked and how MacArthur ignored all the warnings.

The encyclopedic 700-page American Caesar by William Manchester presents a complex individual who personalized conflict, exemplified in his famous, “I shall return.” During WWII he felt that his office required luxuries, and the Japanese were coming after him personally. Like royalty MacArthur often spoke of himself in the third person. This attitude toward himself and his role made him a superb warrior.

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn mentions only MacArthur’s violent put down of the Bonus Army during the Great Depression (P. 284). Zinn’s social history ignores the rest of the general’s career. This is a shame. How would MacArthur’s great popularity contrast with Zinn’s assessment of the American mood of the early 1950s?

Steve Neal’s Harry and Ike (pp. 204-215) concentrates on MacArthur’s public dissent from White House policies after the Chinese invasion of Korea. The book notes Eisenhower’s opinion of MacArthur from their work together and the political fallout after Truman dismissed him. Both Eisenhower and Truman despised MacArthur.

My favorite book of the bunch reviewed here is John Gunther’s The Riddle of MacArthur, published in 1951. This book concentrates on MacArthur’s masterfully conducted rehabilitation of Japan. The “supreme commander” introduced Japan to democracy and civil liberties and got them to like it. The book goes in great detail about MacArthur’s personal style and how that fit with the needs and wishes of the Japanese people. The Japanese had just suffered a great psychological blow--their culture was not infallible. The book lacks the historical (or revisionist) perspective of the author's 1970s edition or more modern works.

Finally, MacArthur’s autobiography,  Reminiscences, is overblown, melodramatic, and exhaustive. His collection of pictures alone makes it worth perusing—the high drama of him with General Wainwright just before leaving Corregidor, wading ashore at Luzon, majestically leaving the plane to assume command of the Japanese occupation, visiting Inchon, addressing a West Point honor corps, and more.  A Hollywood movie producer couldn’t have produced more intensity. The book is without balance of course, but it also contains MacArthur’s famous speeches.

Here are the books. Buy them or check them out of your library.

Punishments for Convicted Rioters

Last week's New York Times followed up the British rioting with an article, Britain Will Force Convicted Rioters to Clean Up. Link to the article here. The Times, using media and Labor, Liberal Democrats, and Conservative Party officials as sources, portrayed British society, especially the government, as unbalanced and agitated by the property damage, looting, and violence that occurred earlier this month. The Times stated that London police, reading rioters' social media posts, carefully guarded the 2012 Olympic Village and "higher-end shopping malls,"  The Times gives no proof but insinuated that Scotland Yard was less zealous in protecting life and property in sites that lacked landmark status or high economic value.

Did the police assess the political and economic value of sites before protecting them? If true (and only if true), the people should vote for candidates that would change that policy. I believe the police must anticipate where the rioters will be and protect that area, regardless of the exclusivity of the neighborhood.

The Times  also gave examples of miscarriage of justice--young people thrown in jail for looting items worth only a few dollars or inciting others to riot. The Times article does not state whether the opposite took place--other rioters getting a slap on the wrist for more serious crimes. The Times also did not give statistics stating the percentage of criminals that were justly punished. I will assume that the British justice system, as a whole, did execute justice swiftly and properly.

Lastly, The Times quoted critics that complained about a double standard. White collar criminals in the financial crisis were not punished as harshly as the rioters. This issue too needs to be explored further. Did the courts go easy on the bankers because they were upper-middle class or because the penal code mandates harsher punishment for mayhem and violence?

Postscript: I recommend Jonathan Sach's post here. He says that a breakdown of the social order was the cause, and a rejuvenation of religious institutions, as occurred early in the 19th century in both Britain and America,  can solve the problem. Berel Wein writes in his newsletter (September, 2011) that the Israelis are frustrated by the failures of liberalism and socialism and never-ceasing hostility of much of the world.

Franz Joseph Haydn Travels to New York City

I wrote this skit to illustrate how the evolution of art--its form, audience and production have changed. Form, audience, and production have changed along with society in the last 221 years.

Feel free to use the skit in a World History or Music History classroom or elsewhere. Please let me know if you use it. If my fellow teachers like it I will write more.

_______________________________________________________________________

Haydn

 

 

Rap

 

Franz Joseph Haydn Travels to New York City

Setting:  a recording studio in New York City, 2011

Haydn:  Where am I? Just a second ago I was in Prussia working on a new composition. It is a nice summer day in 1780, is it not? No, I must be in purgatory. I am hearing loud, hideous, repetitive noises, and chanting about acts of violence. These sounds must be manufactured to punish people.

Rapper: Our time machine works! Welcome to America and year 2011, Mr. Haydn. I’m Hoho, a world famous composer of hip-hop music. We wanted to get a classicist’s opinion about our craft. These pop music sounds you consider abuse will probably sell a million units.

Haydn: I am amazed that you can somehow preserve recordings and even more astounded that you sell music. I have worked my entire professional life as a patron to Prince Esterhazy and his family. The noble court supports, finances, and enjoys the art I have created. Art is not a commodity like so many loaves of bread that is sold to the ignorant and unwashed masses.

Rapper: Why should you be satisfied with a life of dependency, creating according to the whims of your master? You have an audience of one. I have an audience of millions, and no one is my master. Not only am I richer than you. I am freer to create whatever I want. I have the lifestyle of the true artist.

Haydn: You are not free. You are a slave to the whims of the public. In my day the English created textile factories. Like you, the owners of those factories created products that were bought by millions. The factories created rhythmic noise too. Like the factory owners, you do not create based on artistic freedom, but on the changing styles of the masses.

Rapper: I sell recordings, not shirts. My music is performed and played all over the world. I’m a pop star!

Haydn: People today react strongly to your primitive sounds but are unsophisticated and have never been exposed to inspiring music. Your cacophonous electronic instruments and inflammatory lyrics have not produced great art. I agree that what you have created is popular, but it is neither morally nor spiritually uplifting. The events in the Roman Coliseum were also popular with the masses. “Popular” should not be equated with “good.” Your so-called music may allow you to accumulate great wealth and satisfy your selfish desires, but it inspires the masses to act like beasts.

Define the following words and explain how Haydn used them:

1. purgatory

2. commodity

3. cacophonous

4. inflammatory

__________________________________________________________

Answer the following questions:

1. Who had access to music in Haydn’s time and who has access to music now?

2. Do you believe that music must be composed for an elite group? If not, how else will music be maintained at a high quality?

3. What is the most important purpose of music? Give evidence.

4. The Internet is taking over many of the traditional marketing tasks of another old elite that once controlled the propagation of the arts, the record company. Name these marketing tasks and note two positive and two negative facts resulting from this democratization of music production.

The Strange Death of American Liberalism

I recommend reading the political history, The Strange Death of American Liberalism, authored by professor H. W. Brands, especially now, ten years after the book was published. The author's prose sparkles. Brands' clarity of expression and wonderful use of metaphor makes for a most entertaining and rewarding read. Events in education over the past ten years give strong evidence that Brands' analysis was correct.




The author is a famous historian as well as a brilliant writer. Here is how Dr. Brands describes himself. See his website here.

Henry William Brands was born in Oregon, went to college in California, sold cutlery across the American West, and earned graduate degrees in mathematics and history in Oregon and Texas. He taught at Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History. He writes on American history and politics, with books including Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The Age of Gold, The First American, and TR. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He lectures frequently on historical and current events, and can be seen and heard on national and international television and radio programs. His writings have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Ukrainian.

Based on his treatment of controversial presidents Nixon and Reagan (which I find to be a projective test of a scholar's political beliefs), Dr. Brands comes across as a political moderate.

What does the book say? In a nutshell, The Strange Death of American Liberalism describes how liberal action, defined here as expansionist federal government, rarely happens in American history. However, Americans will allow the federal government to work where it can solve a problem better than any other institution. Only government can protect us from foreign enemies,and we have seen most government expansion during wartime. Brands believes that the long-lasting Cold War encouraged liberalism in domestic policy as well. When the United States left Vietnam and President Nixon resigned, American support for the Cold War and trust in government eroded. The country reverted back to its natural distrust of government, and therefore, a distrust of liberal policies.

Brands summarizes his thesis:

For a quarter century Americans had grown used to looking to Washington for leadership, first in matters of national security and then, as the Cold War suffused nearly all areas of American life, in such previously domestic matters as education, transportation, civil rights, and health care. As long as the Cold War preceded successfully for the United States, popular confidence in government appeared justified. A people accustomed to depending on government to protect them from nuclear annihilation didn't find it much of a stretch to look to government to address such comparatively minor challenges as an anachronistic system of race relations and lingering economic inequality. Yet when the war in Vietnam turned sour...the skein of popular trust in government unraveled....It was the liberalism of the Cold War era that was the anomaly (pp. 172-173).

Ironically, the most effective liberal in American history, President Lyndon Johnson, planted the seeds of liberalism's destruction with his prosecution of the Cold War in far away Vietnam.

Liberals, like everyone else, do not want to hear about the unpopularity of their political views, and therefore it was no surprise when esteemed (and quite liberal) historian Eric Foner panned parts of the book. Foner's criticisms, that liberalism reached its modern form in the 1930s New Deal and that the New Deal, not the Cold War, was the defining moment of liberalism, were anticipated by Brands (P. 175). Foner also criticizes Brands' lack of analysis of liberal ideas, especially liberals' pursuit of civil liberties and the decidedly non-liberal response to the events of September 11th, 2001. Foner does enjoy the book's "laser-like" focus on this piece of political history, its usefulness as a survey of American political history, and agrees with the author's portrayal of the Revolutionary War times. (See Foner's review here.)

I am quite interested in how the Cold War resulted in a Federal power grab from the what used to be a state issue--the funding and management of public education. Brands describes (pp.78-79) how the Sputnik scare and the Cold War made education a national priority and the business of Washington and not just the state capitols. The National Defense Education Act authorized $1 billion in spending (in 1958 dollars) and initiated the Advanced Placement (AP) program ubiquitous in high schools today. Johnson's Great Society programs increased federal aid to K-12 education (P. 92).

Few people consider "compassionate conservative" president George W. Bush a liberal in any respect. Yet, in 2001 he crafted No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which further expanded federal power into each state's management of K-12 education, a fairly liberal idea. The law was supported by both conservatives and liberals but not for long. NCLB critics complain that NCLB mandates can never be satisfied, eventually making all schools "failing schools," and the law has become increasingly unpopular among education professionals. We may have seen the apex of federal support (or interference, you pick) in education. Cracks are forming under the enforcement of NCLB, and states are finding ways to get around pieces of the law and perhaps its enforcement entirely. See Montana's reaction here. If Brands is correct, we can expect, as part of liberalism's eclipse, less federal funding for education and less support for NCLB or a rewrite of the law. I will let the reader surmise what the death of liberalism means for the future direction of Congress and the executive branch.

Is it OK to Work Out Every Day?

I am not giving medical advice, and, of course, you should talk to your doctor before embarking on an exercise program. I will simply tell you what I do. I work out every day. I make no excuses for myself, and it gets done. Well, not quite. I have a few excuses that allow me to cancel my exercise.
If I’m sick,

stuck in the cabin in a plane for 12 hours,

or have a non-stop 18-hour schedule

I’ll skip my training. These excuses come up rarely, however—maybe 20 times each year. The other 345 days of the year I exercise. It is very important that there is rarely a decision to make about exercise. The question is automatically when (not whether) I’m going to get it done and what I’m going to do.

My schedule is probably similar to yours, and I am busy. I’m a full-time high school teacher (including A.P. courses), department head, musician, and father of five. I get a normal amount of sleep and time with my significant other. I don’t watch any television. My work outs are usually between 20 and 40 minutes long, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. This won’t prepare me for a triathlon, but will keep my weight about where I want it, develop muscularity, keep me healthy, moderate my mood, and make it easier to adapt to life’s problems. I can’t prove it, but I believe that the 20-40 minutes exercising gives me back 60 minutes of increased productivity. See my previous post on teachers and fitness here.

I’m 50 years-old. I can’t run as fast as I once could, but I can still put on my shoes and go. Running is my favorite exercise. It gives me a chance to be with myself and sort through problems and brainstorm for solutions. Running gives me the time to process and work through negative emotions. I do the other exercises to keep me running. As long as I don’t complete two hard workouts, either in mileage or intensity, in a row, my knees and feet don’t give me problems. So what do I alternate with running? A strength workout is increasingly important as we age, protecting our bone density and helping us balance (protecting against falls). For more information about the medical benefits of exercise, especially as we age,

see the classic Younger Next Year.
I enjoy the weights and machines at the gym because I can casually measure improvement, but those that don’t have access to a gym can do pushups, pull-ups (if the local school has a pull-up bar), and sit-ups. (See Sam’s previous post for a fun way of getting the exercise done.) My body can’t tolerate strength exercises more than three days per week. So I also enjoy an occasional longer work out on the exercise or mountain bike or rowing machine. Sometimes I go for a long walk—seven miles or more—if I have the time and the weather is nice. You may hate running and enjoy yoga instead. The important part is doing something, and I find doing it every day, making the exercise automatic and habitual, works the best.

I am not trying to win any competitions. I am not racer-thin or have the physique of a body builder. What have I accomplished with my daily work outs? I have improved the quality of my life, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

How to Write a School Research Paper (or a Master's Thesis)

Many students, grammar school to graduate school, dread writing large papers. However, if you know how to break down the task it becomes almost automatic.

I asked history teacher and former colleague and department chair, Mike Vice, about his remarkable system of writing papers. Mr. Vice explains his fail-safe strategy below. I have lightly edited his remarks. See also my short blog on bringing back research papers (here).





Sources
Sources may include the internet, books, magazines, encyclopedias, newspapers, personal interviews or other appropriate items. Your paper may not rely principally on Wikipedia. Better Wikipedia articles are sourced but may rely on unreliable opinion or research. Personal interviews must be identified in your bibliography, listing the person interviewed and the date.

Format of the paper
The paper must be typewritten or written on a computer word processor. New Times-Roman font and 12-point size are considered standard.

The paper should consist of several distinct parts: an introduction, a thesis or "burning question," a body, and a conclusion. The introduction, thesis, and conclusion are usually about a paragraph long, but may be longer as required.

The following explanations and examples may be helpful. For consistency, the examples will all deal with the same topic: "Was dropping the atomic bomb on Japan a good decision?"

The opening usually consists of one or two sentences that set the scene. Example: "In August, 1945, the Allies were in position to win the war in the Pacific. They were preparing to end it by one or more of three methods: invasion, bombing the Japanese into submission, or dropping the atomic bomb."

The purpose of the next part, the thesis, is to tell the reader why you're writing the paper. What question did you ask yourself? This part is very important for, if you lose the reader here--if the reader isn't interested by your question--you've lost him or her forever. The thesis is also usually one or two sentences, but may be longer if the question being researched is complex.

In our case, a sentence or two should be enough: "The choice made was to drop the atomic bomb on two cities. This was not the proper choice, for the bomb was such a horrible weapon that it should never have been used on people. Other alternatives for ending the war were available and would eventually have proved successful, even though they would have taken longer." Or, taking the opposite view, "Dropping the bomb was the proper choice for, by doing so, the loss of life at the end of the war was kept to a minimum." The thesis may also be put into the form of a question, such as "The question to be studied is, 'Was the solution chosen--to drop the bomb--the correct one?'" (And then you answer your own question.)

The next part of the paper is the most important. At this point you develop your arguments. Why do you answer your burning question as you do? This is also the longest part.

Using all of the research information that you have gathered to support your argument, you organize it in such a way as to convince the reader that you have decided the issue correctly. I suggest that you not only examine the reasons why you decided in favor of dropping the bomb (or not), but also why the opposite view is not the correct one. That is, if you favored dropping the bomb, why were the other alternatives not the correct ones? You might say that an invasion would have cost a larger number of casualties (and why), that conventional bombing alone could not have won the war (because the Japanese people's morale probably could not have been broken, and cite examples where this type of bombing had failed to win wars in the past), that a "demonstration" explosion (as some suggested) would only have given away the secret (and it might not have worked), that the Russians were going to "help" us against Japan but we didn't trust them so weren't about to drag out a final surrender, for fear that they would take over too much territory or impose conditions on us as a price for sharing the victory, etc., etc.

A good paper will include at least three good reasons why you decided as you did, and perhaps two or three reasons why others' arguments against your thesis are wrong.

Having pulled together all of the evidence and (hopefully) convinced your reader that your thesis is correct and proved, you end with perhaps one paragraph that sums up your argument: "Based on the various arguments, dropping the bomb was the proper decision. While other alternatives were available, they all would have failed to force a surrender for the reasons noted above. Had they been tried first and failed, President Truman would have had no choice but to drop the bomb anyway in order to end the war. Thus he would have had the worst of all worlds--the terrible casualties of the invasion, the participation of the Russians, AND the horror of the bomb."

As you can see, the format may be summed up in a simple manner:
1. "Say what you're going to say (or prove)": Introduction and thesis,
2. "Say it": The body of the paper that describes how you decided as you did, and
3. "Say you said it": The conclusion that wraps it all up.

Using 3" x 5" note cards

This is a paper-writing technique I was taught way back in my own high school days. You know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth? It is the most helpful technique about paper-writing that I ever learned, and I continued to use it throughout my scholastic career, especially when I wrote my Master's Thesis.

Note cards consist of two types: bibliography cards and data cards. Both are necessary in order to organize your paper properly.

Bibliography cards
You prepare one of these for each and every source that you use in your paper. The technique is this: as you do your research you have blank cards at the ready and every time you find a source that even might be useful you fill out a 3" x 5" card with all of the bibliographical data that will be required when you prepare the paper's bibliography: author(s) name(s), title, publication data. Since publication data for books and magazines or computer sources are different you must be thorough here; more data taken down is better than less. Be careful. You don't want to be writing your paper and realize that you've left off an important piece of information and have to make another trip to the library!

When all of your cards are completed and you're about to write the paper, review them and make sure that there are no cards in the deck for sources that you've decided not to use. If you find any, discard them. Citing a source in the bibliography that has not actually been used in your paper ("padding the bibliography") is a cardinal sin.

At the end of writing the paper, when you're preparing to write your bibliography, take the card deck and alphabetize it. Then, as you word process the bibliography you need only make an entry using the information on the top card, then flip to the second and write up its entry, and so forth.

It's really easy!

Note cards
These are also used for your research and for writing the actual paper. Some people have scoffed at me for using this "low-tech" method, but nothing is more frustrating when you're organizing your paper as you sit near the computer, than shuffling through odd and ends of pieces of paper, trying to make sense of the facts and quotations you've gathered in your research. Another colleague noted that she merely recorded all of her data on the computer itself, then returned to the file(s) to put her paper together. But how, I asked her, do you then organize your thoughts as you look at the various parts and pieces? So, use this technique, old-fashioned as it may seem. As you breeze through the actual writing of your paper, you'll be glad that everything you need is at hand and that you can (literally) write a five-page paper in about two hours if you truly know your subject and you're on top of things.

So, the note cards... As you are doing your research, keep a stack of these cards at your side. As you come to any piece of information that might appear to be useful, take a card and write it down, being careful also to note the source and page number (if a book) or any other information that might be necessary for a footnote in your paper.

When you're ready to start writing you'll have a stack of cards in front of you. (For my master's thesis I had a few hundred, though you'll probably have less than fifty for most major papers.) Take each card and examine it, thinking about where it belongs in the paper; what is its theme or "chapter"? Then sort the cards into piles by topic or issue. Resort them into the most logical way of organizing your thought as you imagine making your arguments in the paper. When finished, you will actually have the outline of your paper in front of you!

When you finally sit at your keyboard, you first write your introduction and thesis then, just like with your bibliography cards, you take the first card and its data or quotation or whatever, incorporate it into your paper, write some more, take the second, and so on. Using this organization technique you can write a lengthy paper in a short period of time. Once I had organized the note cards and annotated and sorted them, I wrote my Master's Thesis, a paper of approximately 100 pages, in about three days!

Bibliography
When putting together your actual bibliography, do not number the entries and you must alphabetize the entries by author’s last name. For entries with no author, put them at the bottom of the listing, alphabetized by title of article or entry.

Examples of bibliographical entries

From a Book (Author, Title, Publication Data):

Prange, Gordon. At Dawn We Slept. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985.

For a book with multiple authors (first author is last name first, others as “normal”):

Craddock, Martin, and James Durridge. Dickens and the Coalminers. London:
Infinity Press, 1993.

(Note that the second line of an entry is indented three spaces.)

For a book with multiple authors, edited by one of them, or as the major contributor:

Johnson, Alfred, ed. Essays on American History. New York: Dunham, 1996.

Johnson, Alfred, et al. Essays on American History. New York: Dunham, 1996.

From a Magazine (Author (if known), Title of Article, Name of Magazine, Vol:No, Date):

“Hemingway’s Tragedy.” Newsweek. Vol. 22:46 (December 19, 1984).

From an Encyclopedia (Author (if known), Title of Entry, Name of Encyclopedia, Edition):

Smith, James. “The Maya Indians.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1994 edition.

From Encarta or another encyclopedia CD:

(Same as for a regular encyclopedia, but use Encarta for the name.)

From the Internet (Author (if known), Title of Entry, Internet Address):

Jones, Michael. “The Demise of Roundball.” Http//:www.basketball.com.

You may wish to buy a copy of Kate Turabian's term paper book. You won't need it for short high school term papers, but it will be a godsend when writing a scholarly paper in college, one with footnotes and a "professional" bibliography. It's available in long and short forms on Amazon.

Freud Encounters Nietzsche's Ghost

Freud Encounters Nietzsche’s Ghost

Scene: Vienna, 1922

Sigmund Freud: What is that spectral image in the likeness of the German philosopher Nietzsche doing in my study? Have you come to haunt me? I’m busy putting together my theories on the id and the ego. Be gone!

Friedrich Nietzsche: I just wanted to thank you for your determinism. Because of you, people believe that their unconscious desires control them, not their will. You will help remove from society all the idiots, imbeciles and dimwits that believe such nonsense.

Sigmund Freud: What do you believe, my long dead German friend?

Friedrich Nietzsche: We both write about the follies, the foolishness and sickness of humankind. I also write about its potential greatness, the coming of the Overman. One who is able, by the force of will, to overcome his limitations and reach his destiny. “If one has a why he can get through any how.”

Sigmund Freud: Very poetic. How do you explain the motivations of people?

Friedrich Nietzsche: Most people live simplistic, petty, useless lives and, lickspittles that they are, accomplish next to nothing. I care about the elite, the Overman. Women are not to be noticed. They are simply playthings for the warrior. “When you are with women, remember the whip.”

Sigmund Freud: Your misogynist beliefs are certainly not trendy. You do believe, as I do, in an unconscious?

Friedrich Nietzsche: Yes, instinct tells us to follow our ancient heroic values. We must show strength, not mercy. Mercy is for the weak and is a self-destructive cancer. We must move beyond good and evil. We can’t depend on gods or on conventional morality. The gods, listening to what men said about them laughed themselves to death.

Sigmund Freud: Your philosophy is dangerous. How would a people behave in a society that actually incorporated your teachings?

Friedrich Nietzsche: I predict that Germany will twist my writings into Social Darwinism’s ideas of racial superiority. Germany will then try to conquer the world.
___________________________________________________________



1. What is determinism? Who is the determinist, Freud or Nietzsche?






2. Define misogyny and spectral.





3. Who do you relate to better, Freud or Nietzsche? Why?

Social Unrest: Britain and Israel

Both Britain and Israel are in the news because of social unrest--British mobs continue to throw Molotov cocktails, set fire to cars and shops, loot smashed storefronts, attack police and innocent bystanders, steal, and commit murder.

The left blames the rioting on disenfranchised youth responding to government austerity programs. The right blames the social unrest on socialism--bad behavior should be expected when class warfare is encouraged and people expect to be supported without having to pay for it.

In Israel thousands continue to demonstrate in tent cities, calling for social justice:

Protesters are uniting over the high costs of housing, rearing children, fuel, electricity and food but the dominant slogan has been: "The people demand social justice."

A greater percentage of Israelis than British are involved in their respective protests, but there is much less violence in Israel. Like Britain, Israel has a large middle class as well as rich and poor, and Israel had a socialist past. People in both countries look to the government for a solution to their problems. Before the UN declaration of statehood, Britain controlled the area and many Israeli institutions are based on a British model.

Why then are the Israeli protests peaceful? I believe there are a few reasons. First, most Israelis are not religious but are still taught Bible and ethics in the primary grades of school. Second, almost all Israelis, men and women, have served their country, creating a population devoted to the state of Israel and bringing into society a general feeling of unity among the citizenry. Last, I believe Israeli society does not break down as neatly, as it once did, into the earlier fault lines of religious versus secular, Ashkenazic versus Sephardic, and Arab versus Jew. Britain, on the other hand, must still contend with a much more heterogeneous society--diverse peoples brought from 200 years of empire.

Postscript: The Israeli daily Haaretz saw the Israeli protests as predominantly a middle class affair. Predictably, the left-wing paper looked at little except class and race divisions. Link here.

Postscript late 2012: The European left and the Jewish problem here.

Teaching the French Revolution

Start off your World History or European History class by getting the kids out of their seats. After they read an overview about the causes of the French Revolution, try my dramatic enactment or compose a skit of your own. As you work through the French Revolution unit, assign all the students a position (1st, 2nd, or 3rd Estate) and treat them (within reason) accordingly. For example, at first I give the nobility free cokes and chips, which normally are never allowed. I instruct the nobility to keep the goodies for themselves. When the Jacobins take over, the more educated of the third estate get the goodies, etc. If you use the skit, please give me feedback.



Mike Spinrad/San Marin High School


Name_______________________________ Date __________________


“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Skit

Instructions: If you were picked for a role, please come up to the front of the class. If not, please listen carefully to the skit and fill in the correct names below.

Characters
Guy Flambeau: third estate, peasant of the countryside
Ricard Poisson: third estate, cloth spinner of Paris
Cardinal Rouge: First Estate, Upper Clergy
Father Sympathique: First Estate, Lower Clergy
Baron Caniche: Second Estate
King Louis XVI: King of France
Queen Marie Antoinette: Queen of France
_________________________________________________________________
Scene…a salon, Paris, 1789

Guy Flambeau: The price of wheat is so high, I can’t feed my family. We pay so much money in taxes that I might have to sell everything and beg in the streets. We third estate peasants are all ready to revolt.

Ricard Poisson: I am with you my friend. I used to believe that it was G-d’s will that we should be poor, but I have been hearing about the ideas of the philosophes. We must fight for justice!

Baron Caniche: We will crush you scum if you dare to revolt. I can have you both put in the Bastille just for speaking out against the government. You third estate people do the work and pay the taxes. We nobles have fun at the king’s court.

Cardinal Rouge: We upper clergy have it even better! We pay no taxes, own ten percent of the land of France, and I rarely even attend church services. I just like hanging out in my chateau and scheming against certain nobles like your friends, Caniche.

Father Sympathique: Your behavior is scandalous, Cardinal. I spend all the day attending to the needs of the poor.

King Louis XVI: I am the king to the whole nation, rich or poor. I am of the long running Bourbon dynasty. I have a right to rule France that was given to me by G-d. The nobles refuse to pay any taxes. If I can’t get more tax money from the peasants, I just don’t know what I will do. I think I will take a break and fix some clocks in my shop next to Versailles.

Queen Marie Antoinette: Your highness, I’ve almost finished making you a nice sweater.

Which characters support the following policies?
1. Bourbon dynasty:_______________________________________
2. Divine right to rule:_____________________________
3. Privileges of the Second Estate:____________________________________
4. Desperation of the peasants:_______________________________________
5. Third estate pays the taxes and does the work:_______________________________
6. Influence of the philosophes:__________________________
7. Attends to the needs of the poor:__________________________________
8. Is attuned only to the needs of the king:________________________________
9. Is not particularly religious:__________________________

Extra Credit: What is the difference in point of view of Guy Flambeau and Ricard Poisson? Why do they look at the situation differently?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is Project-Based Learning Overrated?

Project-based learning grew out of the architectural and engineering education movement that began in Italy during the late 16th century (Knoll, 1997). However, in America, William Heard Kilpatrick is credited with pioneering project-based learning. A protégé of educational theorist John Dewey and a leader in the progressive education movement, he is also credited with popularizing Dewey’s theory.

However, Kilpatrick is best known for popularizing “The Project Method” in a 1918 essay.

Dewey’s theory of experience was the springboard for the theory of “The Project Method”. In “The Project Method”, Kilpatrick explained that the interest of children should be at the center of the project approach. This interest serves as the “unit of study.” By utilizing topics of interest, learning becomes more relevant and meaningful. Solving problems within a meaningful social context is how knowledge is best constructed. “Purposeful” learning, therefore, becomes the motivational factor for children to engage in the project. According to Kilpatrick, there are four phases to a project: “purposing, planning, executing and judging. The student ideally, should initiate all phases, not the teacher (Provenzo).

Knoll (1997) notes that Kilpatrick was actually more influenced by Edward L. Thorndike’s psychology of learning than Dewey’s theory of experience.

According to Thorndike's "laws of learning," an action for which there existed an "inclination" procured "satisfaction" and was more likely to be repeated than an action that "annoyed" and took place under "compulsion." From this, Kilpatrick concluded that the "psychology of the child" was the crucial element in the learning process. Children had to be able to decide freely what they wanted to do; the belief was that their motivation and learning success would increase to the extent to which they pursued their own "purposes" (Knoll, 1997).

Would Kilpatrick be pleased with how project-based learning (PBL) has evolved? He probably would be delighted to see the popularity of PBL. Today PBL is ubiquitous. It is a model for classroom activity that emphasizes student-based education, longer thematic units, interdisciplinary instruction, collaboration, feedback, and is “integrated with real world issues and practices” (San Mateo County Office of Education, 1997). Students are also more engaged and focused when engaged in PBL, because they are provided more choice over what topics to pursue and how to find answers to problems. Since students are allowed to choose their topics, they become more motivated to work hard and strive for the highest quality (Wolk, 1994). PBL users typically use technology to communicate with professionals and experts outside of school and use multimedia for presentations, which, in itself, is an attraction for students. Instead of pouring knowledge into the student, teachers of PBL act as coach, facilitator and co-learner, a collaborator (San Mateo County Office of Education). PBL promotes many types of collaboration.

PBL accommodates and promotes collaboration among students, between students and teacher, and ideally between students and other community members as well. This component is intended to give students opportunities to learn collaborative skills, such as group decision-making, relying on the work of peers, integrating peer and mentor feedback, providing thoughtful feedback to peers, and working with others as student researchers (ibid.).

PBL may connect to real world issues through topics that “are relevant to students’ lives or communities” (ibid.) or connected to actual professions. Other researchers (Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001) propose PBL to enable long-term reasoning, knowledge creation, and sharing beyond the individual. So how might an instructor use PBL?

Basic level projects include a social studies project focusing on a particular state; a science project involving building a bird feeder; and a language arts project in which students interview senior citizens to write a biography. Intermediate level projects are a health/language arts project regarding human anatomy; a science project in which teams design an irrigation device; and a visual/language arts project in which students create a field guide for manufactured objects (Berman, 1997).

A video of young students exploring the world of insects is an example of PBL. After choosing their insect and researching its characteristics, students interacted with professional researchers using an electron microscope. Students showed high interest and worked hard on the project. The amount and level of learning appeared to be high. PBL has been used successfully in many different settings. Outside the mainstream classroom, an instructor can use PBL with adult English language learners of varying levels of English proficiency (Moss and Van Duzer, 1998).

However, not all researchers believe that PBL should be used in education. Many experts criticize PBL and Kilpatrick’s methods and practices. Most notably, E. D. Hirsch in The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them is highly critical of the progressive approach and Kilpatrick in particular (Provenzo). Hirsch’s criticism of Kilpatrick and his methods can be summarized in the following statements:

There is no substitute for the acquisition of commonly held knowledge, skills, and dispositions. "Natural" child-centered methodologies are patently false and harmful…. Educationally progressive methods actually create, not solve learning problems. Educationally conservative methods offer the best means and widest opportunities for learning for all children and research from fields other than education proves it” (Saxe, 1997).

PBL is a time consuming method of teaching and an inefficient method for teaching large amounts of knowledge in a short time. Simply reading text or listening to lecture is a more efficient use of scarce class time, and that is why teachers still assign so much reading and give lectures. Secondly, if PBL and other progressive methods worked as well as their proponents claimed, the educated of 150 years ago would compare unfavorably with today’s children. The opposite is true. The American high school entrance exams of 1850 would stump a college freshman today. Have PBL and other progressive methods been responsible for this change? The controversy over the efficacy of PBL is far from over.

References

Ayas, K. and Zeniuk, N. (2001). Project-based Learning: Building Communities of Reflective Practitioners. Management Learning, 32 n1, 61-76.

Berman, S. (1997). Project Learning for the Multiple Intelligences Classroom. K-College, SkyLight Training and Publishing, Inc., Arlington Heights, IL.

Knoll, M. (1997). The project method: Its vocational education origin and international development. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 34(3), 59-80.

Moss, D. and Van Duzer, C. (1998).Project-Based Learning for Adult English Language Learners. ERIC Digests (073).

Provenzo, Jr., E. F., Contemporary Educational Thought. Retrieved October 12, 2002 from http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/html/william_heard_kilpatrick.html.

San Mateo County Office of Education, 1997-2001, Why do project-based learning. Retrieved October 11, 2002 from http:pblmm.k12.ca.us/PBLGuide/WhyPBL.html.

Saxe, D W. (1996). The Books We Need. Network News & Views, Retrieved October 13, 2002 from http://www.edexcellence.net/library/saxe.html.

Wolk, Steven (1994). Project-Based Learning; Pursuits with a Purpose. Educational Leadership, v52 n3, 42-445.