Author Archives: jkuhns

Techno Terrors

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This post is part of a back and forth conversation between a friend and fellow blogger and I.  Both of us are in the education field.  His email addressed two concersn:  1) students who question teachers and other adults about why adults are allowed to do certain things when students are not: Teacher:  *Checks email on smartphone Student:  “Hey, why can you have a phone and we can’t?”  Their is no solution to this issue that can be handled by anyone but the person raising them.  It is disrespect and failure to know a child’s place in society.  I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on that topic because I think it is moot.  Parents and other adults have muddied the boundaries between children and adults.  Sometimes in an effort to “reach” them, sometimes to live vicariously through their children, and sometimes there is no leadership at home and students become the “parents” in a way – the head of household.

The second part questioned the crackdown on personal technology use by students.  My response to that part is the heart of this post.

On the second part, my position is that our struggle with technology is due to our own ignorance.  We don’t understand its power so we regulate it.  In a few short years the entire delivery system for education is going to change and at that point some of us will be ready to get on the bus and some will be left at the stop.  Those who insist that pencils and text books are the most important things that we purchase will assuredly be left behind.

From a management perspective, I have always been a proponent for teacher’s managing the content that student’s view.  Some districts have wide open internet access for students.  The teacher’s are then responsible to know what students are doing in the classroom.  That’s just good management.  It’s foolhardy to believe that students aren’t accessing illicit content on their smartphones if that is what they want to do.  I say that because in our district the biggest argument against personal technology use is that if we allow student to use devices with 3G capability, we have no way to control what they access.  Since it is impossible to tell some 3G devices from devices that are just Wi-Fi enabled, we ban them all. That goes full circle to my first point.  Our fear will continue to hold us back.

As we move towards project based learning, it is going to be more and more important that students have access to the tools they need.  As well, they will need to be proficient in using those tools.  As we know, the tools change quickly.  So quickly that schools can’t possibly keep up.  Students though are at the cutting edge of technology.  They get new phones every other year and most households now own a tablet device of some sort.  My opinion is that we should be welcoming these devices for the benefit of our students as well as our schools.

Arbitrary Age

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How often have you said, “I wish I had done that when I was young.”?  Have you ever said, “Why would I bother doing that at this age?”  Do you remember thinking, “If only I were a little older, I would be able to do that.”?

The “Rules” of age are stealing from us every day.  If we have this picture of what our life is supposed to be, stages of life set into a concrete foundation, that we feel destined to follow, we are robbing ourselves.  I have been knocked over by no other criminal than myself for things no less precious than time, memories, accomplishments, opportunities.  I have retired a thousand times because there are so many things that I want to do when I retire.  When I was young a put things off because of time and money.  I’m running out of time and so are you.  Chris Berman of ESPN responded to a story that a player was listed as “day to day,” with a spot-on, “But aren’t we all.”  Yes, without a doubt we are.  The sooner that we realize that and stop settling in to an arbitrary age, the sooner we can start living.

One of the biggest dangers, the biggest sins, of establishing arbitrary ages or setting out a path of the way things should be is that when the pattern breaks down, when something changes that does not match our grand vision, your entire world is bound for collapse.  What if a terrible tragedy keeps you from enjoying your retirement?  What if I never get to hike the Appalachian Trail because I put it off for so long?  I think I have wasted enough time, memories, opportunities in 40phor years.  Don’t get me wrong, I have done “Stuff.”  I’ve had a pretty damn good life with experiences that many people will never have.  I’ve never let grass grow under my feet.  To think, though, that I haven’t used my age as an excuse would be a lie.

When I was 2wenty I thought things would be different at 4orty.  Now at 4ophor I dream of 5ifty7.  Things aren’t going to be different and eventually I’ll be thinking of the grave.  So will you.  Our arbitrary ages are robbing us of our today’s.  Reap the memories, listen to the knocks of opportunity, accomplish it now, save your life from the thief that you are.  Oh what a day to day business life is.

Bleeding

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Blogging has changed my life in one way.  One fairly painful way.  It causes me to think about what I have wanted to write for many years.  It causes me to be introspective.  Introspection is something I’m not necessarily adept at and it can be painful.  A lot of what I right here is easy because it has no real depth.  It’s superficiality doesn’t tell you anything about me or who I am. I believe it was Red Smith who said that writing is easy, you just open up a vein and bleed.  Today I’ll bleed a little.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.  – Marianne Williamson

The above quote is often attributed incorrectly to Nelson Mandela but was part of the book A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.  I have pushed that quote on my daughters for a couple of years.  Shine, strive, be powerful, be great, let your light shine.  In reality this quote really talks about me and where I have struggled in my life.  It seems like bragging to think that I could have ever been great at anything.  The reality is that in so many cases I have stopped short of ever becoming great.  The fear of being the best at something quashes my desire.  Being put on a pedestal or going out on a limb pushes me way out of my comfort zone.  I can name many times that I have become pretty good at things and then backed off before becoming great at them.  Pausing instead of taking that next step.  Photography, running, poetry, leadership to name a few.  As a younger man I remember being determined to never be content.  To always want to be a little better but in reality I just kept looking for one more thing.  A challenge that I could work at and be just good enough.  Not really adding to the quality of my life but adding to the quantity.  I’ve had a hard time pushing myself past that barrier to being really great at something.  When I got to “good enough” I would look for the next challenge.

I see, hear, read people all the time that I think have equal or lesser abilities than my own but that have climbed to higher positions.  They found their one thing to focus on and pushed past the barriers that I have imposed on myself.  Sometimes I think it is focus.  If I could find that “one thing” maybe I could push myself to be at the top of my game.  Possibly a few less balls in the air would be a start.  Other times I think it is laziness.  Its hard to be among the best.  It takes work and courage.  Its easy to just be good enough.

The dichotomy in my brain is that I really want to be recognized for what I do.  I get chills at the part in movie where the guy hits the home run that wins the big game. I get tears in my eyes when I see people triumph against all odds.  I want that feeling but my brain isn’t wired in that configuration.  On the outside I don’t know how to take a compliment but on the inside I need them to keep me motivated.  I want to do great things but I don’t want the responsibility of being expected to do great things.

Maybe this is what 40phor is about.  Maybe its about growing up, being introspective, and fighting off contentment. Maybe its about that search for that “one thing.” Or the search for the courage to let my own light shine.

Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don’t see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself. – Marianne Williamson

In Time Revisited

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Back in October I posted about the Justin Timberlake movie, In Time.  The post was based on what I could glean from the trailers.  An economy based on time and not money was the central focus.

Almost four months later I have finally seen the movie.  I’m not a movie critic but as a movie I might give it 3 out of 5 stars.  The acting was average, the stunts were low budget, and the story line was unbelievable at times.  As a concept, it was exceptional.

The correlation between the movies time-based economy and the current economical struggles of the world are readily apparent.  In the movie the “rich” are those who have a great deal of time.  The more time, the more prestige, the more power.  Not just hundreds of years but thousands or, as in the case of the central antagonist, over  a million years.  Far and away more years than can ever possibly be worthwhile except for the purpose of eternal life.  The world is divided into zones based on how much time you have.  Zone 12 is the ghetto, Dayton.  Zone 1 is New Greenwich.  In order to cross time zones the price gets more and more expensive.  Those in New Greenwich are very protective of their time and comfortable in the fact that they will live forever unless they die while taking a risk.  The wealthiest are constantly protected by guards.  In Dayton, the people are much more apt to share their time.  The “Time Line,” much like a bread line, is simply a gentleman who gives away as much time as he can.  In this time zone it is a gift to have a year’s worth of time.  Most people wake up with enough time to make it to the next day.  Earning time by working and trying to waste none throughout the day is how they continually survive.

The zones are very tightly controlled by the timekeepers.  They know how much time is in each zone and react whenever the time becomes unbalanced. Since it would be impossible for everyone to live forever, the central government controls inflation and interest rates.  If too many people in the upper time zones survive, the interest rates and daily costs increase so that more people die.

In the most telling scene of the movie Phillipe Weis, the millionaire, says that not everyone can be immortal; some people must die and Will Salas, Justin Timberlake, responds that if even one person must die then no one should be immortal.

Now, take that whole synopsis and replace the word time with the word money.  Do our economies function to keep the poor poor?  Do people in our ghettos wake up every morning with just enough to get through the day and wake up the next day back at square one?  Do the prevailing interest rates and inflation keep citizens from improving their lives? Are there people who have more money than they will ever need, grossly disproportionate amounts of money? Is the goal of the Occupy Movement to balance the economy?

In the movie Henry Hamilton, the gentleman who gifts Will with a century, writes on the window, “Don’t waste my time.” The time analogy is not lost on me.  Time is all we have.  The correlation to money is a poignant reminder.  When money is time we have lost our balance.

Hypocrisy in the Catholic Church?

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I am a Roman Catholic.  I always have been and most likely always will be.  My relationship with the Church is much like a marriage.  We have our disagreements but we’ll get over them and move on.  I know this post will be controversial to some but I hope it makes people think.

Recently the United States Conference of Bishops asked dioceses across the United States to speak to their congregations about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ decision that Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals and any other Catholic run venture that does not solely employ Catholics must provide contraceptive coverage to their employees.  The Roman Catholic Church is against all contraception including sterilization.  The Conference believes that the act of providing this kind of insurance to it’s employees, be they Catholic, Protestant, or other; violates their religious exemption.  The official position is that the Obama administration – and yes they are clear to point out whose administration it is – does not have the right to force Catholic money to be spent to support a government program.  The letter read to our parish also stressed several times that some of the allowable contraception in the plan would be abortion inducing medication. For many people this statement may have needed some clarification.  Abortion is a very strong word to many people and in fact the allusion was to the “morning after” pill.

I will state here briefly that I don’t agree with that position and have a fair amount of difficulty with the Church’s position on contraception.  I will also state that I don’t believe that the pulpit should be used to promote one political candidate over another which I think it clearly has in this case.  

The hypocrisy comes in at his point.  Earlier in the week the Bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Most Reverend Joseph McFadden, in a televised interview, came out in favor of vouchers for private schools.  He even went as far as to compare the public school system to the totalitarian governments of Hitler and Mussolini. The comparison was meant to highlight the fact that public schools do not support different beliefs. One of those flames that is constantly fanned by the religious right.  McFadden later apologized for that comment but it is not an unknown fact that the Catholic Church strongly supports vouchers.  Vouchers that would pull money into Catholic schools.  Schools that are not subject to the same regulations as public schools.  Schools that do not necessarily have an “open door” policy.

Do you see the hypocrisy?  Vouchers would be paid for with taxes:  public money.  Public money that would support a program provided by the Church.

 

Led by a Dog

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This afternoon, Fletcher and I went for a hike along the Appalachian Trail.  When your only companion has a canine brain, you think a lot.  On this trip I couldn’t help but to begin thinking about leadership and the lessons that I could learn from my furry friend.  Not all of them are lessons, some of them are things that I always knew or believed but were revived by today’s experience:

1.  Starting takes Courage – Fletcher was a rookie AT hiker and this wasn’t the easiest of hikes.  He was very tentative crossing the railroad tracks to the trail head.  Once he got a good sniff of the trail he was good to go.  We need to remember that we need this courage not only to begin to lead but most of us need courage every day.  We are charged with some tough tasks. Some days I pray for courage and some days I just bull my neck and take their best shots.  The important thing is to start.

2.  Sometimes its OK to follow – My travelling companion was very cool on single track.  He would pull me through clearings at a brisk pace.  He was also very adept at finding the trail through some rocky terrain.  I had hiked this section numerous times and knew how I wanted to go but there were times when it was more interesting and rewarding to see how he would conquer the trail.  One of my basic beliefs about leadership is that you have to surround yourself with the best people and trust them to make decisions.  I work with some tremendous teachers and I learn as much from them as hopefully they learn from me.  They are leaders.  My hope is that I give them the tools that they need and them let them lead me.

4.  You have to be trustworthy in times of trouble – At times Fletcher would get very skittish.  He’s a bit of a nervous dog.  At these times he would walk so close to my ankles that I was afraid he wasn’t there because there was no pull on the leash.  His trust was in me to get him to a place were he felt safe.  This is not always the easiest thing to do.  A leader has to build trust in the good times in order to be trusted in the hard times.  Let them walk behind you if they need to until they trust themselves enough to walk beside you.

5.  Sometimes you have to lead with a short leash – On this particular section of the AT the terrain is scattered with large limestone boulders and fields of smaller limestone rocks.  Anyone who has hiked through Pennsylvania knows what I mean.  Through-hikes have cursed it as the most miserable section from Maine to Georgia.  The white trail markers are the only things that indicate that there is any trail at all.  Basically you are walking boulder to boulder from one blaze to the next.  Through some of these sections I had Fletch on a three foot leash.  Not as punishment but as added guidance.  When people who you lead are struggling they need to be on a shorter leash.  You need to interact with them more frequently.  You need to guide them through the pain.  This is difficult because its so much more rewarding to interact with the people who are blazing the trail. Remember, they have already earned the longer leash or the ability to run free.

6.  If no one is following you, are you the leader? – Probably not.  Fletcher had this odd habit of looking back to make sure that I was following him.  Specifically he would turn his head after he traversed a typically difficult stretch of trail.  Almost as if to say, “Are you going to make it?”  When things get rough in your organization you need to make sure that you haven’t lost your followers.  In particular the core group of people who you trust and who trust you.  Those people are your disciples.  They will make sure the others aren’t far behind.  If you lose them you are leading no one.  Consider the opinions and thoughts of these people when you make plans to weather the storm.  They’ll bring the coffee.

7.  Leave the path sometimes – It is a cardinal rule of hiking to “Leave no Trace.”  Not only does this mean cleaning up after yourself but it also means to stay in the trail in order to protect the living things that survive just off the trail.  I always hike this way.  The pooch at the end of my leash didn’t always like this tenet.  He had a penchant for jumping on the huge, limestone boulders.  It looked like fun but I knew my knees couldn’t take it.  On the trail it is important to stay the course.  In our work it is sometimes important to go in another way.  Take a chance on something that you believe in.  Go against the status quo.  Great leaders know when to hold strong to the path and when to take a chance.

8.  You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps – Fletcher knows this.  When he came to a portion of the trail where it was rock to rock he would debate in his little canine brain the distance and decide whether to jump or to step down and back up again.  These decisions are the big decisions that leaders must deal with.  The distance across the chasm  can be calculated by how far we are already behind everyone else and how important is it that we catch up or go ahead.  Sometimes you have to take the leap and sometimes a step will get you there.

Funny how a walk in the woods with a dog can bring up all these thoughts.  Funny how when your mind has nothing else to do but smell fresh air and take in the scenery how clear your thoughts are. My ninth lesson would be that:  whatever it is that you do for relaxation, for mind clearing, for thinking without distraction, make a date with yourself to do it as often as possible.

Why Not A Referendum?

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I know I’m jumping on the bandwagon late but that’s my personality flaw.  Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has me beat.  His personality flaw is that he talks so much that eventually he can’t help but put his foot in his mouth.  The darling of the Republican Party this week stated, “I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”  The GOP genius said this in comparison to putting a referendum for gay marriage on the ballot.

You would think that a popular politician like Governor Christie would study history or at a minimum know the type of government in the United States.  The government of the United States is a Constitutional Republic.  Look it up!  A true democracy means that we vote on everything.  In a republic we elect officials to represent us based on the laws that are established.  In the US the big one is the Constitution. Therefore we became a Constitutional Republic.  One of the very reasons the founding fathers went this direction was to protect minorities and minority interests.  Blacks, Latinos, women, homosexuals, the poor have the right to be protected from the tyranny of the majority.  Interestingly the “minority” groups that needed protected in 1776 were the wealthy capitalists and the revolutionaries themselves!

If we were a true democracy we could vote away taxes no matter what the Constitution says.  Maybe we could vote everyone a brand new Cadillac. I don’t see a lack of majority in either one of those referendums.  My fear is that if we begin to allow states to vote away individual freedoms eventually our country will do the same.  All people will become tyrannized by the majority.

 

Response to ‘A Decade Left Behind’

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(link to the article: A Decade Left Behind)

Matthew Brouillette in his commentary on public schools places a lot of emphasis on incentives.  With incentives he and apparently The Commonwealth Foundation believe that public education could rise to great heights. With the right incentives that is.  I couldn’t agree more.

Incentives, according to economists and sociologists, are the basis of all courses of action; why we do what we do.  Unfortunately, in his argument the only adequate incentive is money; creating school choice by the use of a voucher program.  This would, in fact, make schools reliant on attracting customers.  If a school can not attract enough customers to pay the bills then they would be shut down.  What Mr. Brouillette fails to mention is that there are other types of incentives and not all are remunerative or financial.

Moral incentives would be one of these.  These incentives are ruled by our moral compass therefore compelling us to act in a certain way not because we would make more money or attract more customers but because it is the right thing to do or because not doing something would be viewed as morally apprehensible or indecent.  In this instance, I am sure; we could have a rousing debate on whether it is more morally apprehensible to take money from poor schools and give it to private schools or to support and maintain public schools as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania establishes.

There are also coercive incentives.  In this scenario if you don’t do what is asked of you or you act in a way that is not desirable, physical force will be used against you.  I don’t perceive that Mr. Brouillette is advocating physical punishment but I do believe that the he is indeed advocating coercion.  In his opinion and that of the Commonwealth Foundation, schools that are charged with educating the poorest, most at-risk students should be bled of any capital because they can’t bring their students to proficiency. No consideration is established here for environmental context.

Finally, economists and sociologists also talk about natural incentives.  These may include the innate desires to be the best that you can be and to be mentally and physically fit.  It is shortsighted to imply that there are no natural incentives in places like Chester Upland, Steelton Highspire and Harrisburg.  These natural incentives may lead students to charter schools or private schools, but it also may lead to students rising above poverty, discrimination, single parent households, and high crime rates and being role models in struggling districts.

It would be hard for anyone to argue that urban and rural schools are struggling.  Can the answer possibly be to shut them down?  Those students are going to go somewhere.  Those families who have the wherewithal or the natural incentive will take them to the best school they can get into.  Those who are relying on financial incentives won’t find any.  They will find a voucher that will help them get there child in a “better” place but without the natural incentive would they even make the effort?

I read the summaries of the research on vouchers that Mr. Brouillette sited and interestingly what he refers to as minor gains when discussing PSSA scores in his article seem to be more significant in the research he sites concerning charters.  Even in the poorest school district PSSA scores continue to climb and in looking at 2011 PVAAS data only one charter school in Pennsylvania made AYP in 11th grade math and only two showed at least one year’s worth of growth. Reading wasn’t much better with six charters making AYP and 12 making a year’s worth of growth or more.  It’s also notable that only one of those charters is in an urban area (City CHS in Pittsburgh).

Another great economic property is correlation without causality.  Just because the number of people carrying umbrellas when it rains increases doesn’t mean that an increase in umbrellas causes rain.  In instances where charters or private schools show improvements over related public schools it is important to keep in mind that these schools also have choices.  For the most part they choose the students who they want to attend. The will prey on students who have that natural incentive to achieve.  They also choose the location where they are located.  In many cases they choose to have less rigorous standards (especially in the case of cyber charters) in order to attract students.  [It is important to note that schools that have established their own cybers are struggling to fill them because the rigor is so high.] The incentives here are obviously remunerative. The more bodies we get in our chairs or in front of our computers, the more dollars we generate.  When was the last time you saw a public school with a billboard on the turnpike or a television commercial during a football game?  Attract the best and the brightest and the Commonwealth Foundation will rally around us and probably conduct some “research.”  Take all comers and your demographic changes dramatically as well as your student bodies’ natural incentive.  Place a charter school in Bucks County or Lehigh County and watch how well they do.  Place one in Greene County or center city Philadelphia and compare the results. It’s the clouds not the umbrellas.

It’s a funny thing about statistics.  As Marilyn vos Savant (arguably the most intelligent person in the world) said, “Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.” They can pretty much say what you want them to say.  That’s what I love about Economics.  Economics questions everything.

Of Elephants and Leadership

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Recently I read a quote that I have been contemplating ever since: You don’t let the guy with the broom control how many elephants are in the parade. Pretty witty and thought provoking stuff.  I came across that in Seth Godin’s blog which has become a daily read.  The gentleman credited with the quote is Merlin Mann.  I stumbled across his blog’s 43 Folders and 5ives .  I’m new to them but they are both introspective and insanely funny.

But back to the quote.  I began this week to relate this quote to some decisions that I need to make at work.  How often do we consider the lowest common denominator when we make a decision?  Do we think about the crap that we will need to clean up or do we think of the gallantry of 100 marching elephants?  Do we shy away from making big decisions because the fallout will be too much or even that the fallout will be (period)?  It’s way easier to cancel the elephants and replace them with firetrucks because we’ve always had firetrucks.  Sometimes the thing that makes the show, the product, the lesson, the experience, comes with some crap.  As leaders, we’ve got to be able to handle the fallout; the crap.

I guess to me this quote means to make the best decision based on what’s right – in my case what’s right for students – and be prepared to pick up an extra broom if need be.  As Godin says in his contemplating of the quote:  It is some people’s job to create commotion.  No commotion; no job.

Smacked by 44

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The realization that your not young anymore sometimes smacks you in the face when you least expect it.  For me, Tuesday was one of those times.  I had been not feeling well for close to a month.  Nothing serious but it was enough of a pain that I was finally convinced to see the doctor.  I hate going to the doctor.  They never think I’m as sick as I do.  And since I hate going I only go when I feel horrible.  This time it was less about how bad I felt and more about how it was impacting my running.  I was toying with the idea of running a marathon and was tring to buld a good base.  Unfortunately the congestion in my chest was limiting my runs to a max of 4 miles.  A couple of days over the Christmas break I couldn’t even run two. 

This is where 44 comes into play.  I caled the doctor on Tuesday morning and gave the nurse my symptoms:  sinus congestion, chest congestion, tightness in my chest and shortness of breath when I was trying to run.  She told me she would talk to the doctor and see if he could see me.  Within a few minutes ahe called back to say the doctor wanted to see me immediately!  What? Immediately? Yep.

Apperently when you are 44 you should never say tightness in chest and shortness of breath to the doctor.  Within minutes of my arrival I was electroded up for an EKG, a chest xray and blood work were ordered and the doctor came in to say no more running until you go for a stress test. What the hell?  Twenty years ago they would have given me a shot or some pills and sent me on my way.  But no, old guys get the assumed heart attack drill!

Since then, the results of the chest xray revealed bronchitis so it looks like I probably won’t die.  I will be heading for the stress test on Tuesday though, just as a precaution. 

Happy New Year!