Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Does Kakonomics Theory help Explain Mediocrity in Public Schools?


Lower expectations, less work may be explained by
"kakonomics theory."
When school systems cannot or will not address issues that are clearly known to interfere with education, then apathy and mediocrity result. Examples of issues that educators and legislators know well include:
  • Overcrowded classes
  • Dilapidated schools
  • Disruptive students
  • Poverty
  • Lack of support personnel
  • Over-worked teachers
  • Poorly qualified teachers

The list could be expanded, but the aforementioned make the point. Sadly, some schools have all of the issues listed above — and more. When barriers are allowed to exist, then morale suffers. Teachers are unable to offer quality instruction because of constant distraction and they do the best they can. Unfortunately, “the best” is compromised, and students reciprocate by delivering learning of lower quality, which teachers accept without complaint.

There is even a name for the process described above — kakonomics theory, or the mutual acceptance of a low quality product that satisfies the participants in the exchange because the product is validated as high quality by all parties. Stress is diminished and everyone feels OK.

Teachers’ meetings tend center around the dispersal of information from inane to imperative. Bad news and good news are on the agenda, but bad news dealing with low student performance can be made acceptable by finding appropriate places to place blame. Everyone feels better and the meeting ends with accepting the issue of student performance as the best possible result.

There may be a number of “elephants in the room” which conveniently maintain their invisibility. For example, if one elephant might be poor leadership from a incompetent, but lax principal no none is likely to speak up and say, ”We could do much better if we had a new principal!” To do so would violate the implied agreement to accept lower standards creating stress and uncertainty. Kakonomics!

The acceptance of lower expectations will obviously be detrimental to the institution and its students, but it allows individuals disperse the angst of being overwhelmed.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Why Teachers Quit


The link below take you to a poignant account of a teacher who was overwhelmed by the indifference and of the system. Will enough educational leaders ever understand? Will our state and federal governments ever make meaningful efforts to help all students?

A teacher explains why she gave up a career she loved


Tuesday, June 12, 2012

"YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL!" WHAT DAVID MCCULLOUGH'S COMMENCEMENT SPEECH MEANS TO ME


We are becoming a nation addicted to grades, rewards, and awards. School is about "What'd you get?" rather the an "What'd you learn?" We have failed to instill a love of learning in most of our students. 


We drown them in a sea of papers and goodies attesting to their "good grades." The "paper chase" is no longer a pursuit of the pages of great books and what they contain, but the computer-generated, multicolored awards doled out daily all over our nation. Some are posted on refrigerators at home, some litter the school halls and grounds. All intend to motivate or reward students by emphasizing that some students are better than others. 

We forget that there are large numbers of students who go ignored because, for a variety of reasons often beyond their control, they are not better. These less-rewarded students become convinced by their consistent failure to achieve that they are, in some way they cannot comprehend, less worthy and defective. Many become discipline problems, and we seem surprised.

I shamelessly quote out-of-context, Wellesley High School English teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s faculty speech to the Class of 2012 last Friday. His "you are not special" commencement address has caused quite a stir. Nevertheless, Mr. McCullough "gets it."


"You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it… Now it’s “So what does this get me?”


No reward or award can replace the motivation of a love of knowledge. Rewards get in the way of that love in ways that are insidiously unseen. Mr. McCullough "gets it." Again, I quote:


"... the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.

                            Because everyone is."


Make ALL of your students feel special. You may be the only person who ever does. 



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