If you’re at all like me, somewhere in your home you have at least one can of WD-40®, because the stuff works wonders. If you teach science, I believe that you ought to have a large WD-40 poster on your classroom wall. Not to advertise the product but to teach a basic lesson about learning: failure is an essential part of succeeding.

You may know the story of WD-40.{{1}} More than 60 years ago the three employees of the San Diego-based Rocket Chemical Company were trying to develop a product that would prevent rust, something they could market to the aerospace industry. They tried, and, being methodical, they kept careful records. They labeled their first effort Water Displacement #1, or WD-1.

I’ll bet you have figured out how many times they failed before they were finally successful.

Students need to know that adults try and fail and fail and fail–and keep on trying. More than that, they need to experience failure. While I am a big fan of both project-based learning and blended learning, I believe the most critical piece of the pedagogical puzzle is what we ought to call ‘Problem-based learning.’

Projects where the teachers already know the outcome won’t work, especially with older students. Blending technology and teaching so students can add fractions faster? That’s not the best approach either.

Give students problems to tackle–and make the problems real! Lord knows we have plenty of problems worth tackling that can be given to students. They cannot be intractable (how can we achieve peace in the Middle East?) or trivial and uninteresting (what color should classrooms be painted?)

A pedagogy based on discovery flies in the face of what seems to be happening in most classrooms and schools {{2}}, where the emphasis seems to be on ‘critical analysis’ to get the predetermined answers.

Some years back I interviewed a math teacher in Richmond, Virginia, who told me how he used to take his students down to the James River and challenge them to determine how far it was to the opposite shore. He didn’t give them a formula; just the challenge. Then they put their heads together and, he said, eventually worked it out. Lots of failure…and lots of genuine discovery. Sadly, he said, the new state-mandated curriculum doesn’t allow time for field trips and discovery. Now, he said, he has to give his students the formula and a bunch of problems to solve. Which group of students is more likely to have retained that information?

Here’s a genuine problem-based project that’s easy to incorporate into the curriculum. Equip every third grade class in the city, region or state with an air quality indicator {{3}}. Have students go outside and take the measurements four or five times a day. They plot the data. Share the data with other third graders. Look for differences. Take photos to see if the measurements correlate with cloud patterns. Figure out the possible causes. Study weather patterns. Bring in scientists and meteorologists and ask them questions. Write up the findings, including everything that they could not explain. That is, write about the failures, the as-yet-unanswered questions.

That’s real work, something those third graders won’t forget doing. And, while they may not be aware that they’re also developing a skill set that will serve them well as adults, that is what will be happening.

Oh, and those kids will probably do just fine on whatever standardized tests the system throws their way.

©John Merrow 2015

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[[1]]1. http://wd40.com/cool-stuff/history [[1]]
[[2]]2. The entrepreneur Elon Musk has started his own school because he wasn’t happy with what his kids were experiencing. It sounds as if the entire curriculum in this school-without-grades is based on problem solving. [[2]]
[[3]]3. A device can cost as little as $30.[[3]]

When my wife and I moved recently, the process forced me to dig through piles of stuff and discard what I didn’t care enough about to pack and then unpack. In the process I came across some really good stuff, and that triggered this list of books, organizations, films, and websites that I value. {{1}}

The Hechinger Report is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a reporting organization, after many years of focusing on training education reporters and editors. It’s first rate. Help them celebrate.

New Visions for Public Schools just celebrated its 25th Anniversary. What has it accomplished? Today roughly one in five NYC high school students has benefited or is benefitting from the educational opportunities provided by New Visions schools. Small schools, strong leadership, and a commitment to learning opportunities for all students drive this exceptional organization. New Visions embraced the idea of small high schools before they were cool, grew when the Gates Foundation started writing checks, flowered when Joel Klein was Chancellor, withstood the Gates Foundation’s sudden departure, and continues to create opportunities for thousands of New York City’s children.

CEI, the organization created when the Center for Educational Innovation and the Public Education Association merged in 2000, has been helping schools improve since–take your pick–1989 when CEI was created, or 1895 when the Public Education Association was founded. Either way, it’s a remarkable track record. I got to know its principal, Sy Fliegel, in the late 1980’s when he was running District Four, the NYC school district that put school choice on the national map.

Reach Out and Read, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library….and every other program that puts interesting books in the hands of children. Click on this link to learn what’s at stake and what can be done.
Here’s our NewsHour piece about Reach Out and Read.
We profiled Dolly Parton’s program as well.

Speaking of reading, Readworks is a wonderful resource for teachers who want their students to become better readers. (That’s just about every teacher I’ve ever met.)

“The Game Believes in You,” by Greg Toppo, is a mind-changing book by an outstanding reporter. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, it carries the subtitle “How Games Can Make Our Kids Smarter.”

I have Sir Ken Robinson’s new book, “Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution that’s Transforming Education,” in my books-to-read pile.

Also awaiting me is Freeman A. Hrabowski’s “Holding Fast to Dreams: Empowering Youth from the Civil Rights Crusade to STEM Achievement.”

Speaking of books, “Cage-Busting School Custodians” is Rick Hess’s newest effort in his franchise series. Write Rick directly at rhess@AEI.org to order the sequel to “Cage-Busting Leadership” and “The Cage-Busting Teacher.” Rumor has it that the prolific author has a contract for yet another in the series, (working title) “Cage-Busting School Crossing Guards.”

The Education Writers Association, which seemed bound for oblivion when the number of newspapers with education reporters declined precipitously, has reinvented itself under the leadership of Caroline Hendrie. In the mid 1970’s the tiny, disorganized organization {{2}} kept its financial records in a shoebox. EWA grew under Executive Director Lisa Walker’s leadership, floundered when newspapers began to go under, and then bounced back. Today EWA is an invaluable resource for anyone attempting to report on education. It’s there for us, every day, 24/7.

“Education Week” has been required reading since forever and remains so.

Blogs from Diane Ravitch and Whitney Tilson make my list of Good Stuff. http://edreform.blogspot.com is published by Mr. Tilson, who views education from the right. He notes, “I sometimes don’t have time to post here everything that I send to my school reform email list, so if you want to receive my regular (approximately once a week) emates, please email me at WTilson@tilsonfunds.com.” (I read his email, not his blog.)
At one time Diane Ravitch also viewed education from the right. Now easily the blogosphere’s most influential person on the left, Dr. Ravitch posts many times every day. Signing up for her email feed allows you to glance at everything and then read whatever you find compelling. She’s had more than 20,000,000 pageviews!

The Harmony Program puts musical instruments in the hands of school children who might not otherwise be exposed to serious music, and then provides excellent lessons taught by professional musicians.  You can watch our NewsHour report about this wonderful New York City-based program as well.

Investigative reporters Marian Wang and Heather Vogell, whose work for ProPublica is shocking readers and waking up lawmakers. Marian Wang exposed the machinations of Baker Mitchell, a North Carolina charter school operator whose ‘non-profit’ charter school has fattened his personal bank account.
Before moving to ProPublica, Heather Vogell blew the whistle on Atlanta’s school cheaters.

The Khan Academy: free learning opportunities in easily-digestible chunks. Did I mention that it’s free?

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The remarkable Ron Thorpe has revived this organization, blending into it the “Celebration of Teaching and Learning” that he created when he was at Channel 13 in New York City. Teaching is a profession that should be harder to enter but easier to practice, and the National Board is doing everything it can to make that a reality.

KIPP. The Knowledge is Power Program had to do something with the powerful knowledge that most of its graduates were not succeeding in college. Yes, KIPP has been growing, but it has also been reinventing itself.

Community Schools, Project-based Learning, and Blended Learning. They’re all significant, and, best of all, they’re not mutually exclusive.

“Most Likely to Succeed” is a new, as-yet-unreleased documentary that is ostensibly about project-based learning but that actually covers a much bigger topic: what we want for our kids. Look for it.

“If You Build It” is a terrific documentary about a refreshing way of learning.

And don’t miss “Brooklyn Castle.”

Our own “School Sleuth: The Case of the Wired Classroom” makes my list, of course. This 1-hour film brings back our film noir parody detective, The School Sleuth, who’d been on hiatus since he solved “The Case of an Excellent School” in 2000. This film hasn’t been released, but I predict you are going to love it. It’s a light-hearted way of exploring a serious issue, the use and misuse of technology in schools.

That’s my list. What have I forgotten? What’s on your list?

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[[1]]1. Because I have some sort of personal connection to nearly every item on this list, I am not going to go into detail. If you think I’d make recommendations based on friendships, then you probably still believe that I am on the Board of Pearson Education. Stop reading now….or keep reading until you discover the fake one.[[1]]
[[2]]2. My first reporting award came in 1974 from the National Council for the Advancement of Education Writing, which must have been the organization’s original name.[[2]]

I wrote the paragraphs below nearly five years ago. Besides changing a few names, how much revision is needed to make the observations accurate in mid-2015? Perhaps we haven’t been running in place, but I am convinced that we are fighting the wrong battle in the last war.

“Microfiche,” the 14-year-old asked, staring at the machines tucked away in the New York Public Library? “What’s microfiche?”

How many people under age 30 could explain it? Her question is a powerful reminder of how technology has turned learning on its head. Just a few years ago, libraries and schools were the places that stored knowledge—on microfiche, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in the heads of the adults in charge. We had to go there to gain access to that knowledge.

Not any more. Today knowledge and information are everywhere, 24/7, thanks to the Internet. Unless libraries have been closed because of budget cuts, they have adapted to this new world. Most have become multi-purpose centers with Internet access that distribute books, audio books and DVD’s. Librarians encourage patrons to ask questions, because they need to keep the public coming through their doors.

By contrast, schools remain a monopoly, places where children are expected to answer questions, by filling in the bubbles or blanks and by speaking up when called upon.

Providing access to knowledge, one of three historical justifications for schools, no longer applies in the usual sense. Of course, children need teachers to help them learn to read and master numbers, but, beyond that, a new approach is required. More about that later.

A second justification, socialization, has also been turned on its head by technology. Today’s kids don’t need school for socialization in the usual sense of learning to get along with their peers in the building. Why? Because there are Apps for that, dozens of them, including Facebook, FarmVille, MySpace and so on, and so ‘socialization’ takes on new meanings when kids routinely text with ‘friends they’ve never met’ across the continent or an ocean. Again, schools must adapt to this new reality.

Only custodial care, the third historical justification for school, remains unchanged. Parents still need places to send their children to keep them safe. So does the larger society, which has rejected child labor and does not want kids on the streets.

But when schools provide only custodial care and a marginal education that denies technology’s reach and power, young people walk away, as at least 6,000 do every school day, for an annual dropout total of over 1 million.

And, unfortunately, some of those who remain in marginal schools will find themselves in danger, because the youthful energy that ought to be devoted to meaningful learning will inevitably be released, somewhere. Often it comes out in bullying, cyberbullying and other forms of child abuse by children. That is, marginal education often produces dangerous schools.

Unfortunately, those in charge of public education have not been paying attention to these seismic changes. Instead they are warring over teacher competence, test scores, merit pay and union rules, issues that are fundamentally irrelevant to the world children live in.

Who are these warriors?

On one side in this battle is a cadre of prominent superintendents and wealthy hedge fund managers. Led by New York’s Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, 15 leading school superintendents issued a 1379-word manifesto in October 2010 asserting that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers “has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.”

This side believes in charter schools, Teach for America, and paying teachers based on their students’ test scores. Publicly pushing this “free market” line is a powerful trio: Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” movie; NBC’s semi-journalistic exercise, “Education Nation;” and Oprah Winfrey. And if one movie isn’t enough, this side also has “The Lottery” in the wings.

It has identified the villains: bad teachers and the evil unions that protect them, particularly Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.

The other side is clearly outnumbered: The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the two teacher unions; many teachers and some Democrats. Its villains are No Child Left Behind and its narrow focus on bubble test scores in reading and math. This side’s far weaker megaphone is wielded by historian Diane Ravitch, a former Bush education policy-maker turned apostate. …….

But what’s most striking about this bitter battle is its irrelevance. The adults in charge are fighting the last war, and whoever wins doesn’t really matter to the millions of young people now being denied on a daily basis the learning opportunities that modern technology affords.

Our young people should be learning how to deal with the flood of information that surrounds them. They need guidance separating wheat from chaff. They need help formulating questions, and they need to develop the habit of seeking answers, not regurgitating them. They should be going to schools that expect them to discover, build, and cooperate.

Instead, most of them are stuck in institutions that expect them to memorize the periodic table, the names of 50 state capitals and the major rivers of the United States.

That’s what I wrote five years ago. Since that time, Diane Ravitch’s megaphone has proved to have an astounding reach {{1}}, and Dr. Ravitch herself has only grown stronger, despite a serious knee injury and the normal physical challenges that age brings. Joel Klein has moved on, “Waiting for ‘Superman’” has been thoroughly discredited as a propaganda film with staged scenes, “Education Nation” has been shelved, MySpace has disappeared, and the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” has supplanted “No Child Left Behind” as the left’s federal whipping boy.

When I wrote those words in 2010, the Common Core State Standards existed on a drawing board. Today, they’re under attack by critics from left, right and center. The catalyst for the current battle was the CC testing now being administered. The ensuing “Opt Out” movement seems likely to lead to cuts in the number and frequency of standardized testing.

Just being opposed to ‘excessive testing’ is not enough, but, unfortunately, very few educators are addressing the fundamental irrelevance of schools, which was my point five years ago.

This rebellion will lead to less regurgitation, but no one who cares about the future of our democracy should be satisfied with that small step. It’s time for schools to enter the 21st Century, which, in my view, means embracing both “blended learning” and “project-based learning.”

We will always have schools, where working parents will send their kids. Beyond that, everything has to change. Young people’s bodies may be within a building, but their brains should be engaged with students across town, in other cities and around the globe. Young people can and should be doing real work. Discovering, not parroting.

Do any of the declared or likely presidential candidates get this? Any governors or mayors? Educational leaders?

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[[1]]1. As of today, her blog has had 20,244,461 page views.[[1]]