The philosophy of education that best matches my beliefs is Reconstructionism. Although the goals of traditional education seem logical, they lack a quality that is essential for students which is purpose. Students are not seeing the connection between Ancient Rome and modern times. They do not understand the purposes for being drilled on odd bits of English grammar. The three Rs, and all other aspects of the traditional education, can be mastered through more engaging methods. A new emphasis should be placed on researching and solving problems of society and community service projects.
The most fundamental purpose of education is to improve society. Improving society can only happen through educating young minds that they possess the ability and power to change problems in our world. The time for memorizing small bits of information is over. Students now need the skills to understand how to locate, comprehend, synthesize, evaluate, and effectively use information. The students must see meaningful connections between content and skills and the real world. It must be understood by students that they can change the world with action and knowledge.
Much of our current society is built on systems that pacify the individual. People are encouraged to be watchers and observers, but not encouraged to take part in influencing or changing a situation. Traditional education feeds into this problem by making students empty vessels that knowledge must be poured into. The learner is passive and assumed a fool. It is my belief that education serves to change the individual’s personality from passive to active. Through becoming an active member of society, the individual can invoke meaningful change to the society. History can be used as a guide for avoiding the same mistakes. History can also be a guide that provides models of correct behavior, excellent achievements for inspiration, and a way to review both good and bad aspects of society. However, the most important goal for students to comprehend must be the concept that the future will be better and different from the past if they strive to shape it.
These ideals come across in my teaching in several ways. My students are asked to explore the ideas of literature and writing at the very beginning of the year. We ask questions and search for answers together. Although I do not tell the students what we will study, they often end up choosing similar concepts: why do we study literature, what is literature, how has literature been used to change society, how is writing powerful and why, how can writing be used to change and shape society. These ideas build a base that makes the study of literature more than just reading another novel, poem, article, or short story. There is a purpose for reading and writing. Reading and writing can help solve problems in society.
My school supports this style of project learning by requiring students to perform community service for graduation. My students are encouraged to build a community service projects to help make Saipan (and the world) a better place. Examples in literature become both negative and positive models. The great authors are looked to provide us with assistance in understanding how to affect the future. Writing becomes a vehicle for finding community members or institutions that can assist in the project. We write emails, business letters, resumes, journals, poems, and stories about our projects.
We can spend our time pouring information into an empty mind, but we will never keep up with the amount of information there is to know. We must give students ways to deal with information on their own. Methods to locate, comprehend, synthesize, evaluate, and effectively use information. While doing this, we need to explore how society can be improved for the future. Educating children in this way achieves all the goals of traditional education plus we receive a member of society who has the ability to make change. Reconstructionism is a better way.

What is needed? Change? Movement? I’m hoping that the up coming publishing of the Middle Matters, our quarterly MS publication, will help this situation, but I sincerely doubt it will. The fact is — I miss the classroom. Administration is a very lonely job; especially, when you are the discipline guy of the middle school.

Let me tell you a little story about a high school job I had once had in my home town of Bigfork, Montana. I worked in a very popular restaurant and, of course, I started at the bottom like everyone always does in those jobs — washing dishes. We had a chef, who was in charge of the kitchen, and a hostess who was in charge of all the waitresses, but was also the owner’s wife. The chef would tell me to make salads a certain way, and she would come and demand them a different way. There was a procedure for cleaning the silverware established by the chef, the hostess would come and tell me to not follow the procedure. In this situation, I blame both of them, because if they disagree with each other, they should sort out the problem, not put me in the middle of it. Of course, being adults, they weren’t able to solve or confront their problem, so it continued to be my problem as well until I finally left that job to work at a pizza place as a delivery driver. How much money, time, and energy had been lost on having to train another worker? Who knows! But those are the type of expenses companies should avoid. The moral of the story is the commandment itself — help people more, hassle people less.

Especially in education I see a lot of hassling people needlessly. One example of this I discussed in a previous post about not making rules or policies for the sake of making rules and policies. Schools are horrible about this activity. One student, or even a small group of students, makes a mistake and then we punish all with a new policy instead of educating the few about proper usage. In 1:1 schools this tendency must be avoided at all costs; otherwise you will find yourself working at a 1:1 school with no websites available for access to students or faculty and no computer programs that can be used other than Word or Pages. Recently another ADE asked about blocking Facebook, I informed her that Korea International School doesn’t block it, because we feel it is more important for students to learn correct usage of the Internet and computer than to make a rule about it. Our computer use policy states that the teacher has the right to decide if the website is appropriate for class or not; after all they are professionals and can decide best how to use the tool, why take it from them for no reason? Facebook, and any other social network site for that matter, is a part of life; students need to know how to manage their time and use of these tools; they won’t learn it from their friends or parents, trust me on that one. It is our job to provide guidance, not to simply outlaw it. Help people more, hassle people less!

How many times have you been in a faculty meeting and heard, “We can’t do that,” or “We tried that before,” or “That never works.”? I bet you can’t even count the number of times on all of your fingers and toes combined. I hear it all the time with administrators, teachers, and students. In fact, some administrators think it is their job to say this all the time, but the best results come from having the Can Do Attitude. When educational leaders step forward with the Can Do Attitude, things get done; plus, the attitude is infectious. The can’t do attitude is infectious as well, but the Can Do Attitude really moves quickly, especially if you have a few other positive staff members to work with. My personal mentor, Dr. Larry Creedon, once told me if you want to make progress in a school, take the ones who are willing and move ahead, the others will eventually come along or leave. It may sound a little rough, but that really is the way it works in international schools. During one of Larry’s staff meetings, he was explaining some changes he wanted the school district to make in order to improve student learning and teacher instruction. One teacher stood up and said, “Why should I listen to you? I have thirty years of experience?” Larry responded, “Do you have thirty years of experience or did you have one experience thirty times? There is a difference!” The point being that experience isn’t an excuse to not improve and change with what research says works.

When Rich Boerner arrived at KIS, there wasn’t a process in place for teacher evaluation. When he proposed the idea, several teachers asked him why, but there were other teachers who celebrated the giant step ahead in teacher professionalism. A few years later, the teacher evaluation process is still here and being improved and the teachers appreciate it; the ones who didn’t want it have either changed their opinions or left the school. In the end, it was Rich’s Can Do Attitude that moved the school forward as a learning community.

Greg Israel and I could have decided that doing the Phoenix Film Festival was too much work, too hard to arrange, and simply too difficult to deal with, but instead we approached it with the Can Do Attitude and now KIS has a student film festival of its very own, a website for the festival, and a Youtube channel. The festival also had several international entries. Not bad for a first effort! Never underestimate the power of positive thinking, positive energy, and positive attitudes.

A student comes into the office for discipline, he/she has already had a conflict with another person — a student, a teacher, an administrator. The last thing that student needs is another difficult conflict; now is the time for care. The student needs to understand that even though a rule was broke, even though a conflict occurred, that the instution still cares about them. This is a time to listen and remain calm. Clearly the student needs to explain their side of the story and normally some form of discipline needs to be given, but it doesn’t need to be given with anger, malice, or spite. It needs to be given with care. The student wants to hear that they have been listen to by an adult. Sometimes they expect that adult to negotiate with them; sometimes they expect that adult to forgive them; sometimes they expect that adult to deliver bad news; but one thing they never expect is that adult to be aggressive toward them, because it simply shouldn’t happen.

Now I have violated this myself, and freely admit to making mistakes, which is exactly what students need to hear from the adult. They need this “You made a mistake, it happens. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake; it is human to make a mistake, but when we make mistakes there are consequences. And the consequence for this mistake is…” Now the student is ready to hear the bad news, the punishment, the discipline, but I think every time they are able to leave the situation knowing that they aren’t a bad person. I’m sure there are people out there who will call me a weak liberal person who is added to the downfall of American society (someone like Rush Limbaugh, for example), but the fact is (and unlike Rush, I have research to support this) this method works and produces results. Educational psychology has years of data displaying that students need positive interactions with adults, not negative ones. But all too often this is mistranslated into weak and watered-down self-esteem education that allows students to do whatever they wish, which is the mistake of soft-minded liberals. Then comes the attack from the crazy, right wing, nut jobs who believe all students who ever speak out in class should be placed in a reform school. Trust me friends, a middle path exists and it works. Students need firm, yet fair treatment, just like any other human being. Students need to know that you care.

1. Thou shall love people.

2. Smile!

3. Fill the “buckets” of others. Talk to them in such a way as to increase their self-esteem.

4. Exhibit a spirit of caring.

5. Display a “can do” attitude.

6. Beware! The Chicken Little Syndrome is contagious.

7. Strive for quality in all that you do.

8. Help people more; hassle people less.

9. Never be afraid to try to make things better.

10. Train your ear and tame your tongue.

11. Tell the truth. It’s a lot easier to remember.

12. Practice the Golden Rule: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

Commandment 12: Practice the Golden Rule

Back in elementary school, I remember several of my teachers having the Golden Rule posted on the wall of their classrooms. Then, around my fifth grade year, I recall most of those posters being removed. At that time in Montana there was starting to be a lot of flack over religion in education, but what is funny is that the Golden Rule doesn’t come from the Bible at all. It is one of those Biblical sounding phrases that often gets confused with real Bible verses. Another one that is often confused is the famous, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” This line is actually from Benjamin Franklin and has nothing to do with the Bible at all. I’d like to see a return of the Golden Rule to school walls; it has such a fitting meaning and place in middle school especially. Think of how simple the world be if everybody practiced this simple statement — do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Don’t be a jerk, unless you want people to treat you like one. Do be a thoughtful and kind person, especially if you want others to treat you like that. Very easy to say, not so easy to practice, but possibly it isn’t easy to do, because it isn’t on walls all over the place to remind us to follow it. Just a thought…

1. An Educational Leader inspires teachers to improve, try new techniques, and push the envelope with student learning; an Administrator causes teachers to stagnate, stick to old methods, and focus on standardized test scores.
2. An Educational Leader is concerned with planning that promotes student learning; an administrator is concerned with planning that promotes numbers.
3. An Educational Leader supports his/her faculty with encouragement and celebration of success; an administrator degrades his/her faculty with highly critical comments and public displays of failure.
4. An Educational Leader displays a love of learning; an Administrator displays a love of control.
5. An Educational Leader hears his community of students, teachers, and parents; an Administrator hears his/her own voice.
6. An Educational Leader focuses on continual school improvement through various avenues; an administrator focuses on his/her narrowing budget and road blocks.
7. An Educational Leader has a vision and philosophy; an Administrator had an agenda and dogma.
8. An Educational Leader sees what can be done; an Administrator sees what can’t be done.
9. An Educational Leader is a life-long learner; an Administrator is a life-long talker.
10. An Educational Leader leads by example; an Administrator gives orders.

Don’t misunderstand me, I know that sometimes an Educational Leader needs to think about budgets and the routines of the school, but if you are solely concerned with the budget and never think about student outcomes and learning, then you are horribly off track as an educator.

My school chose Edublogs in the past because it was relible and free, but now we will have to look for other options, because I can’t expect the teachers and students to pay for blogging. And without basic features like Cluster Map and Vodpod, are the teachers and students truly receiving a real blogging experience? These events are unfortunate. I can understand that Edublogs needs to make money to cover operations costs, but this feels a little bit like extortion to me. Putting the squeeze on teachers and students is ugly.