Mesco Tectonics K-12 School

Mesco Tectonics K-12 School

Re-imagining one future of education

Will Barratt, Ph.D.

Coffman Distinguished Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Indiana State University

I was wondering about how and why charter schools, religious schools, and private schools are different than public K-12 schools.  These thoughts collided with the idea of the company town and company store which produced the question “Why not the company school?”  Why doesn’t Mesco Tectonics have its own K-12 school, MTHS, to train people to work in their corporation?  Mesco is a fictional high-tech corporation with interests in bio-engineering, pharmacology, technology control systems, and medical prostheses.  Mesco is a generic modern manufacturing company.  HR professionals at Mesco can try in frustration to find qualified employees from high schools, from community colleges, from colleges, or they can plan ahead and develop a K-12 school to prepare tomorrow’s employees.  Some MTHS students will join Mesco after high school; some will join after college, and some will work elsewhere.  Mesco has a nearly guaranteed supply of qualified workers.  Many current high school and college graduates do not have the knowledge base or skill set to work at Mesco, and the situation will get worse as the knowledge bases and skill sets get more complex and more dynamic.

What would a company school look like?

What problem does MTHS solve for Mesco Tectonics?  Knowledge and skill workers are in high demand.  Knowledge and skill workers who can adapt quickly to changing work processes and learn new things are rarer still.  Mesco needs skilled workers who are able to learn and adapt, to work in teams, to think critically, and to require little supervision.  So why not create a school to educate a pool of potential employees to meet those needs?  Who better than Mesco staff to manage the macro-curriculum?  They have a good idea of what knowledge bases and skill sets will be needed in 10 years.  Who better to respect knowledge and skill workers like teachers?  Who better to base pedagogical practice in published and replicated research than a high-tech corporation whose very existence is based on research and data-based practice? 

Mesco wants the best teachers, so starting salaries are double the going rate.  The job interview is a week-long stint in the classroom, and the measure of a teacher’s success is student learning.  Declarative and non-declarative learning are the only outcomes of interest, and student learning is measured weekly at MTHS.  High school would take at least four years of math, of science, of English, of Social Studies, of a second language, and at least two years of art, music, and culture.  That was my high school curriculum 50 years ago!  Working backward, the middle school and elementary curriculum would prepare students for high school.  Learning social skills and teamwork is as critical as learning algebra.  Learning critical thinking is as valuable as learning Spanish.  Learning history is as critical as learning to use a spread sheet.

What gets taught in the micro-curriculum depends on the changing nature of knowledge and skills and of the needs that Mesco has.  Some students will train on last year’s technology recycled to the school from Mesco and will become skill workers at Mesco after graduation and some MTHS graduates will work elsewhere.  Some MTHS high school graduates will go on to a university and become knowledge and skill workers at Mesco or go on to work elsewhere.  Those interested in art, or language, or psychology, or management will fill appropriate work roles at Mesco in marketing, communication, human resources, and management. 

With money from the state for each student, with an additional $2,000 per student per year from Mesco (a tax incentive), and an additional $2,000 per student annually from parents (but this can be 200 hours of work at the school and is a tax incentive for parents and for Mesco) the school will be well funded.

Imagine what a rational group of Mesco professionals, from all fields, will do with the school day and the school year.  Having idle equipment and staff is a bad thing in the business world.  Imagine the before and after school programs for the students whose parents who work at Mesco?  Imagine the money saved on buses and on high-cost sports that have low return on investment for learning transformed into direct support for student learning.  Imagine the enrichment programs available from Mesco’s business partners, suppliers, and customers, all with a tax incentive to those companies. 

What are the choices now?

Most charter schools are clones of public schools.  Based on the data I have seen, most students at charter schools don’t perform better on standardized tests than students in any other similar group.  Most charter schools are old ideas in a private enterprise package.

Private schools fall into several categories; high achieving students, rich students, one ethnic group students, one religion students, and so on.  I grew up in New England and we had the choice between public schools, residential prep schools for the rich and / or high achieving, or if you lived in a city, Catholic schools.  Private schools had a specific agenda; preparing students for high prestige private colleges.  Catholic schools had a specific agenda; reproducing members of the church through education.

The idea of the company school is not new; it is a recycled and timely vision based on our own history.  I can see the future now, the metropolitan championship soccer match between Mesco Tectonics High School and Initech High School. 

Reflections

I confess that I don’t speak K-12, and this helps me think differently as I re-imagine education in the future based on education in the past.  I am not suggesting that a company school is a good idea or a bad idea.  I am suggesting that thinking about schools is usually very restricted, and I propose company schools as a contrast to contemporary thought about charter schools.  A reality check on this plan will reveal that should company schools take hold, then marginal, low ability, and different students will be left to public education.  From a manufacturing point of view, if a supplier is not providing a quality product, get a new supplier.  If you can get the government to pay for 80% of the costs for the new employee supplier in the form of company charter schools, this becomes a viable business option.

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Dr. Will Barrett encourages your thoughts and comments on his perspectives regarding school reimagination and can be reached at will.barratt@indstate.edu. Please also visit his blog, www.socialclassoncampus.blogspot.com

Recontexting as Creativity

Recontexting as Creativity

By Dr. Steve Gruenert

Associate Professor and Department Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

At what point does the ability to do something well transfer to other activities, unrelated activities to that which we have expertise?

Do accomplished musicians have competencies related to playing music that could inform their abilities to play golf? Could a professional photographer bring those skills to excel at cooking? Does teaching math well or having many successful years as a coach provide support for a person interested in becoming a principal?

A conceptual leap is needed to inform unrelated activities. A level of creativity is needed to make the connection between what we may be very good at and what we aspire to become good at while envisioning our capabilities. Perhaps some people are able to make connections between disparate skills quite easily while others struggle to find the significance of the crossover.

If we were to assume that all people have something they have devoted quality time to; something they believe that puts them above average in performance, then this capacity would have the potential to provide a thread, if not a scaffold, of required mental/physical competence to move forward more quickly toward reaching above average performance in a new area.

The trick is to identify the areas of which we believe we have a high level of mastery and tease out the fundamentals of that activity, while looking for application to other activities.

How does one know if they have above average abilities?

What criteria exist to inform this awareness?

Let’s look at some examples and try to identify any obvious connections:

·      A math teacher who is seeking to become a professional poker player.

·      A construction worker who wants to become a sculptor.

·      A science teacher who wants to become a professional fisherman.

·      A policeman who wants to become a corporate lawyer.

·      An Air Force pilot who wants to race boats.

·      A person who has recently quit smoking, now going on a diet.

·      An actor who wants to become a politician.

Now for the more challenging connections:

·      A CPA who wants to learn to play the piano.

·      A crop farmer who wants to become a classroom teacher.

·      A lawyer who wants to write poetry.

·      A bank executive who wants to become an astronomer.

·      The ability to balance a quadratic formula and the ability to navigate a politically charged argument.

·      An ability to remain calm when faced with deadlines at work, and parachuting.

·      An air traffic controller who builds sailboats.

·      A New York cab driver who wants to grow vegetables in his own garden.

·      A boxer who likes to collect stamps.

·      A businessman who wants to become a principal.

If the obvious connections from the first group were actually obvious and the connections between the pairs in the second group were more difficult, is that an indication of a limitation imposed by one’s intellect or one’s cultural upbringing?

Would those who are experts in the field desired (let’s call them veterans) be better able to find the connections as opposed to those people who know little of the field?

Could the opposite be true also?

Is it possible that the expertise one builds throughout a lifetime actually debilitate one’s capacity to do well in other non-related activities: The better one becomes at leadership, the worse he or she become at driving? Some professions require quick reflexes while others demand a measured approach. Some require logic while others may require creativity. In some aspects, we may be training ourselves not to do well, or to identify with those who do well, in certain fields.

Do school leaders who have been removed from classroom duties tend not to recognize good teaching over time? Perhaps the context of leadership recalibrates our perspective of what good teachers do – and maybe it is inaccurate.

The use of analogies to inform our daily lives occurs quite often without much interruption of thought, as does the use of metaphors when we help others understand something we hope to convey using the simplest of terms. When we explain something complex to others, something we seem to understand (algebra, perspective drawing, the golf swing), we will try to use language they understand. We seek to identify what they already know (prior knowledge) and try to help them make the conceptual leap to the more complex concept.

This is teaching.

Yet, how often do we do this within ourselves?

Is there a point to which we think there are no connections between activities, thus losing out on a potential head start to mastery of something new?

____________________________________________________________________

Dr. Steve Gruenert encourages you to offer your perspectives on his conceptual piece above by commenting on this blog or contacting him at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu.

Recontexting as Creativity

Recontexting as Creativity

By Dr. Steve Gruenert

Associate Professor and Department Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

At what point does the ability to do something well transfer to other activities, unrelated activities to that which we have expertise?

Do accomplished musicians have competencies related to playing music that could inform their abilities to play golf? Could a professional photographer bring those skills to excel at cooking? Does teaching math well or having many successful years as a coach provide support for a person interested in becoming a principal?

A conceptual leap is needed to inform unrelated activities. A level of creativity is needed to make the connection between what we may be very good at and what we aspire to become good at while envisioning our capabilities. Perhaps some people are able to make connections between disparate skills quite easily while others struggle to find the significance of the crossover.

If we were to assume that all people have something they have devoted quality time to; something they believe that puts them above average in performance, then this capacity would have the potential to provide a thread, if not a scaffold, of required mental/physical competence to move forward more quickly toward reaching above average performance in a new area.

The trick is to identify the areas of which we believe we have a high level of mastery and tease out the fundamentals of that activity, while looking for application to other activities.

How does one know if they have above average abilities?

What criteria exist to inform this awareness?

Let’s look at some examples and try to identify any obvious connections:

·      A math teacher who is seeking to become a professional poker player.

·      A construction worker who wants to become a sculptor.

·      A science teacher who wants to become a professional fisherman.

·      A policeman who wants to become a corporate lawyer.

·      An Air Force pilot who wants to race boats.

·      A person who has recently quit smoking, now going on a diet.

·      An actor who wants to become a politician.

Now for the more challenging connections:

·      A CPA who wants to learn to play the piano.

·      A crop farmer who wants to become a classroom teacher.

·      A lawyer who wants to write poetry.

·      A bank executive who wants to become an astronomer.

·      The ability to balance a quadratic formula and the ability to navigate a politically charged argument.

·      An ability to remain calm when faced with deadlines at work, and parachuting.

·      An air traffic controller who builds sailboats.

·      A New York cab driver who wants to grow vegetables in his own garden.

·      A boxer who likes to collect stamps.

·      A businessman who wants to become a principal.

If the obvious connections from the first group were actually obvious and the connections between the pairs in the second group were more difficult, is that an indication of a limitation imposed by one’s intellect or one’s cultural upbringing?

Would those who are experts in the field desired (let’s call them veterans) be better able to find the connections as opposed to those people who know little of the field?

Could the opposite be true also?

Is it possible that the expertise one builds throughout a lifetime actually debilitate one’s capacity to do well in other non-related activities: The better one becomes at leadership, the worse he or she become at driving? Some professions require quick reflexes while others demand a measured approach. Some require logic while others may require creativity. In some aspects, we may be training ourselves not to do well, or to identify with those who do well, in certain fields.

Do school leaders who have been removed from classroom duties tend not to recognize good teaching over time? Perhaps the context of leadership recalibrates our perspective of what good teachers do – and maybe it is inaccurate.

The use of analogies to inform our daily lives occurs quite often without much interruption of thought, as does the use of metaphors when we help others understand something we hope to convey using the simplest of terms. When we explain something complex to others, something we seem to understand (algebra, perspective drawing, the golf swing), we will try to use language they understand. We seek to identify what they already know (prior knowledge) and try to help them make the conceptual leap to the more complex concept.

This is teaching.

Yet, how often do we do this within ourselves?

Is there a point to which we think there are no connections between activities, thus losing out on a potential head start to mastery of something new?

____________________________________________________________________

Dr. Steve Gruenert encourages you to offer your perspectives on his conceptual piece above by commenting on this blog or contacting him at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu.

Bennett on Bennett

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Bennett on Bennett

By Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

            I talked with an Indiana Superintendent last Friday after spending two days working with him on content analysis for a new, statewide licensing examination.  As much conversation did this past week, our talk drifted toward the results of this past week’s State Superintendent election in Indiana where a 30+ year elementary teacher unseated arguably the most prominent State Superintendent in the country by more than 130,000 votes.  We agreed to watch the resultant fallout in the press that weekend and beyond.

Tribune-Star writer Mark Bennett offered his perspectives in an article this past Sunday on the unseating of Indiana State Superintendent Tony Bennett (last names a coincidence, I think, but don’t know for sure). In doing so, he mentioned that as Indiana has 62,258 public school teachers, this wasn’t just a teacher-created margin of victory (November 11, 2012, B5). 

Many of my graduate students and faculty colleagues this past week have contended that Superintendent Bennett’s upset is a mandate from “the folks” who are concerned about WHERE the state is heading and WHAT is happening to education.  I agree with most of their analyses, yet see this as more a HOW thing, not only in Indiana, but also across the nation.

Mark Bennett wrote, “Maybe Hoosiers don’t like the concept of for-profit corporations running their public schools, or high-stakes standardized tests, or public-funded private school vouchers.  Or all of the above, all at once”  (Tribune-Star, November 11, 2012, B5).  He might have a point on that part of the WHAT.

However, I’ll bet Hoosiers like the idea that educators should be accountable for their next day’s best work, as well as transparency in performance.  I’ll bet they like that it is now much easier for school leaders to remove incompetent teachers who formerly were entrenched in thicker collective bargaining and tenure protections.  I’ll bet they like that they now have more of a choice in attending a variety of public schools that meet their needs, rather than being limited by their own geographic location and mailing addresses. 

Granted that although many of these newfound realities are a result of legislative and gubernatorial leadership, Dr. Bennett championed them as well, to his credit. 

These WHAT’S, I believe, are not all that bad.

Writer Mark Bennett offered an even better point, prior to his WHAT, on the HOW that has taken place in Indiana. 

He wrote, “ … maybe Hoosiers were glad – even relieved – to hear the woman voters chose to be the next state superintendent suggest that Indiana’s educational change bulldozer find a lower gear.  If the dust never settles, it’s hard to see where you’re going.” 

This was an excellent point for you to highlight, Mark – that the dust, every so often, needs to clear.

For a number of years now as a student and teacher of school reform, I have made a point to distinguish the journey from the destination – the need to focus on the HOW (journey), while we’re focusing on the WHAT (destination).

In closing my Ed. Leadershop election reflections for this week, I’ll share a few leadership lessons that I have learned (some from good teachers; others by just messing things up, myself) that may help put things in perspective on this past week’s unseating of a national figure.

As leaders moving forward with complex initiatives in times of challenge and uncertainty, we must:

1.     Make an attempt to understand those who have differing perspectives than we; then work through openness and mutual respect to find common ground.

2.     Establish relationships and communication with even our most vehement critics with an I’m OK; You’re Ok perspective.

3.     Surround ourselves with followers who are not “Yes men” or “sheep.”

4.     Ensure that those reporting to us are not afraid for their jobs if they find fault with our analyses or initiatives.

5.     Measure twice and cut once before moving forward with something that will be difficult to undo.

6.     Understand that people who are resistant to the changes we present may naturally be worried about being less-than-capable at what we are asking them to do.  Help them.

7.     Refrain from over-measuring people who are moving through natural implementation dips when navigating new challenges, as they will perceive it as “bludgeoning.”

8.     Realize that sometimes in order to go fast, we must go slow.

9.     Change course when prudent and admit that we do not know everything, as others, especially our opponents, teach us new ways of thinking.

10. Look over our shoulders every once in a while to see if anyone is following.

Mark Bennett wrote, “Mike Pence, Mitch Daniels and Indiana legislators should respect the votes of 1,315,026 Hoosiers. That’s how many people voted to change the leadership of K-through-12 education in Indiana” (Tribune Star, November 11, 2012, B1). 

      I wonder if that number would have been quite as high if 1 – 10 above would have been more the rule than the exception in the way state and national leaders have presented themselves in conducting the people’s educational business.

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Dr. Ryan Donlan is a lifelong learner of leadership and would like to learn from you as well, if you would find time to comment or contact him at (812) 237-8624 or ryan.donlan@indstate.edu.

Cultural Selection as Means for Survival

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Cultural Selection as Means for Survival

Dr. Steve Gruenert

Department Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

There are two good reasons to study organizational culture: 1) to understand the sociological processes that occur when a group of people get together for a period of time, in other words, because the researcher is curious, and 2) to understand the dynamics of group behavior so as to control the group, in other words, so a leader can get his followers to behave appropriately.

What I have found interesting as I study this stuff (now in my third decade of doing so) is how cultures change without the purposeful interventions of a leader. Cultures change over time, and it does not take a charismatic leader. Sometimes, it seems, the group will self-reorganize without leadership. Which brings us to my latest wild idea…

Natural selection is a concept that informs evolution.

A simple explanation of the process is as follows: It can be characterized as living organisms maintaining and passing on certain traits that help them adapt and thus survive in their environment. Relating that to the idea of schools:

Do organizations “select”?

Is there a cultural selection that occurs as a group of people adopt certain traits as a means to survive their environment?

Is cultural selection a concept that can inform anything?

Our schools are facing a new environment as the trust of their community comes into doubt and as the state and federal departments of education make new demands. Educators are being forced to defend themselves in the wake of threats to their professionalism. To simply survive these changes, school cultures may sense the need to adjust some things. Cultures are proof that organizations learn, and the ones that survive (perhaps I mean the ones who have survived) may be the ones able to adapt the quickest – which does not assume they are necessarily the best for kids – rather, the new way of doing things may built to accommodate the adults. Some of these cultural selections may not be in the best interest of learning.

Who or what determines the aspects or traits of a particular culture get passed on to the next generation? And when is it time to change? In natural selection, the environment, it would seem, influences what is kept and what is lost. This interaction between environment and organism provides a framework for the interaction between environment and culture. In natural selection the process is not hindered by human egos or biases, and it seems to be quite effective. In schools, cultural selection can be authored by a leader, even with this power; however, it seems as though an invisible process is happening, indiscernibly. The culture never really becomes exactly what the leader hopes for. Although my theory asserts that some cultures change without leadership, some leaders seem to be able to help provide the next generation of leaders/followers a platform from which to behave. They are the keepers of the stories who can influence the cultural selection process.

What to take away from all this? It would seem that cultures will change even if the leader does nothing. This change may be initiated and designed by the changes in the environment. If a threat is looming, then the culture will adapt to that and may go to crisis mode. The leader can help the culture interpret the environment as not a threat, and prevent the crisis mode from freezing improvement efforts.

The state of education in Indiana certainly has an uncertain feeling to it. I wonder how many schools are currently in a crisis mode because the leader did nothing? And if it stays that way for too long, it will feel normal, and people will cling to that type of mentality as a security blanket (or reason to do nothing).

Culture always wins.

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Dr. Steve Gruenert is a leading authority with notable scholarship on the subject of school culture.  Please consider sharing your thoughts on his developing theories and perspectives by writing him at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu.