Author: Alan Jones

Dr. Alan C. Jones

“Do all the even problems on page…”

by Alan Jones

The latest trend in school reform is the call by some educators to eliminate homework from the daily grammar of schooling. Alfie Kohn, in his book, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of Bad Thing,”  summarizes the research findings on the effects homework has on student achievement, which, in his words, is “all pain and no gain.” Other studies that have looked at the assignment of homework describe the social and emotional fallout that occurs in homes where parents and their children engage in the daily struggle over the when and how of completing homework assignments.

      The question that is never asked is the why of the assignments. When parents, school administrators, or teachers are questioned on the why of assigning homework, they will respond with one or more of the following debunked whys of homework policies.

  • Homework teaches valued work habits;
  • Homework increases student achievement;
  • Homework provides the practice necessary to master skills;
  • Homework offers students an option to earn additional points for a higher grade.

      Even when parents, school administrators, and teachers are confronted with research debunking a popular why of daily homework assignments, the practice of assigning homework has become the norm for judging effective schools and effective teaching. The only fly-in homework ointment occurred during COVID when parents observed up close and personal the mindlessness of the homework assignments their children were asked to complete. The typical homework assignment appeared to be afterthoughts at the end of class that sounded something like this: “OK, class, do all the even problems on page ____;” “That was the bell, finish reading the chapter and do the five-chapter review questions.;” “Finish the review sheet I handed out at the beginning of class.” All of these off-the-cuff assignments lack the fundamentals of a carefully designed homework assignment and, as parents noted during COVID, just appear to be “busy work” with little or no instructional value. Although the research offers mixed conclusions about the value of homework, all the research is clear about the following elements of an effective homework assignment: assignments are engaging; the purpose of the assignment is clearly understood; tasks are clearly explained; the assignment is related to course content; the product format is varied and clearly explained; the assignment asks the student to think deeply about questions that matter; assigned activities are particularly suited to the home.

      I recently finished a book titled, “Standout School Leaders: Connecting the Dots.” The book is published by Corwin and will be out in March. The theme of the book is the qualities of school leaders who are not only good at managing their schools well but are also leading their schools in doing the right things. The establishment of a research-based stance on the assignment of homework is a prime example of an administrator who stands out from their colleagues in doing the right thing.

“The Reflective Practitioner Part 2: Doing the Right Things”

by Alan Jones

            In Part I of this blog I summarized Donald Schön’s description of how professionals go about “getting stuff done.” His description was a significant departure from most organizational theorists who viewed the implementation function as a rational process controlled by research, plans, and strategies. Schön on the other hand viewed the process composed of continual ad hoc adjustments to what were thought of as “best laid plans.” Embedded in this ad hoc process was the function of reflection—continually assessing whether the particulars of implementation—goals, budgets, time, space, expertise, resources—were in alignment.  

      While Schön’s ad hoc reflection process was certainly a significant departure from most organizational theorists’ conception of implementation, it was the second part of Schön’s theory that was a radical departure: “reflection on action.”

      The question that is rarely if ever asked of the implementation process is are we “doing the right things.” The charts below list the two sets of questions that administrators would posed in the process of reflecting on action. The first set of questions are philosophical in nature. Each question is not interested in the how, what, where, or who of implementation, but, rather the WHY of mission driven goals and values. Based on the answer to these reflective questions, the administrator may decide to revise the original goals and strategies of the initiative they were implementing. The revision process involves reconnecting theory to practice, which in turn, would require a rethinking of the plans of action and reframing the narratives explaining the how, what, and who of implementation.

      The question remains: why do most main offices ignore asking the question: “Are we doing the right thing?” Part III of this blog will address that question.

TO REFLECT
  Why did we do this?  
Why did you try that?  
What did you expect?  
What did you get?  
What was the gap?  
What was the cause?  
What would you do differently?
REVISE
  DOING THE RIGHT THINGS
    RECONNECTTheory to Practice
Practice to Strategy
Strategy to Organization
    RETHINK  Strategy
Training
Organization
Assessment
    REFRAMETarget Audience
Practical Argument
Instructional Narrative

“The Reflective Practitioner”

by Alan Jones

Part 1:

Reflection in Action: Doing Things Right

            A required reading in most administrative certification programs is Donald Schön’s

 book, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. In the book, Schon describes how professionals really go about solving problems. Schön contends that most challenges professionals face at work rely less on various heuristics learned in schools and more on the kind of improvisation learned in practice—what Schön terms, “reflection in action.” Along with the listening, observing, and adjusting that professionals perform in the reflective process, at some juncture professionals will step back and “reflect on action.” When in action professionals are focused on “doing things right.” When stepping back from the action professionals are focused on “doing the right things.”

      School administrators are most comfortable with the first administrative move in Schon’s reflective model—reflection in action. Their training, along with the managerial tools in their offices, are designed to implement—getting stuff done. The table below outlines the steps and functions for doing things right. The distinction Schön will draw between doing things right and doing the right things is the pure act of reflection. In the implementation stage, reflection is embedded in the feedback function. Every task in the implementation function provides immediate feedback—budget overruns, lack of personnel, lack of time—which require immediate attention. All administrators good at their jobs will acquire the knowledge and skills to make the necessary adjustments to make certain that all tasks in the implementation function are carried out. In the next two blogs, I will describe what Schön means by reflection on action which is rarely practiced in main offices.

TO IMPLEMENT  
  Doing things right  
    STUDYObserve
Research
Theorize
Select  
    PLAN      Goals—
Objectives
Assessment
Organize
Train  
    DO  Train
Schedule
Allocate
Monitor
Measure
Adjust  
    INSTITUTE  Budget
Personnel
Material
Location
Supervise
Assess
Document

“Philosophy at Work”

by Alan Jones

“…Real knowledge arises through confrontations with real things. Work, then, offers a broadly available premonition of philosophy. Its value, however, does not lie solely in pointing to some more rarefied experience. Rather, in the best cases, work may itself approach the good sought in philosophy, understood as a way of life: a community of those who desire to know.”

(M.Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft)

     For a number of years, I taught a Philosophy of Education course to teachers seeking certification in school administration. For the first couple of years I used a traditional philosophy of education textbook, which, was a compendium of philosophical writings in education from Socrates to Dewey. While I personally enjoyed rereading these philosophers, it was clear to me that the students in front of me found little relevance in the vocabularies and stances of these philosophers.

      What did spark some interest in the class was when I related a particular philosophical stance to school policy or a personal experience in the classroom or main office. I responded to these sparks of interest by redesigning my instructional approach into three parts: case study—>concepts/theories—>philosophy. On the one hand I was pleased with the class discussions that were generated by this redesigned pedagogical approach. On the other hand, I felt somewhat guilty that my students were leaving my class unschooled in the particular philosophies covered in my colleagues’ classes.

      As I was struggling with how to reconcile both pedagogical approaches to teaching philosophy of education, I came across the quote that begins this blog from M. Crawford’s book, Shop Class as Soul Craft. My epiphany in reading Crawford’s book, was treating philosophy, in his words, as “some more rarefied experience,” rather than as a “confrontations with real things.” My experiences in the classroom and main office, the “work” of schooling, offers, in Crawford’s words, “a broadly available premonition of philosophy.”

      The point Crawford in making is all work experiences involve the what and how of getting stuff done. Lurking in the background of all work experiences is a “why.” The why may be reduced to an instrumental outcome—a paycheck—but, also may pose a variety of moral, ethical, intellectual questions that philosophers have grappled with and, which, guide the what and how of enactment.

      The error I had made when assigned the course, the same one my colleagues were making, is creating a firewall between philosophy as an academic discipline, and philosophy as a living, breathing, discipline that serve as a means of making collective sense out of the problems that arise in all work experiences. This divide between academic ideals and workplace realities is made worse when a discipline, like philosophy, is presented as embodying eternal truths that, if interpreted correctly, will offer up truthful answers to human and worldly problems.

      The pragmatists philosophers, John Dewey being the most notable, countered this academic view with the position that truth is not discovered, but, rather developed based on experience. For pragmatists philosophy is not a discipline so much, as just one more tool, among many academic tools, that come in handy when solving real world problems. Again, returning to Dewey, in his words, it is not what you study, but, rather, habits of thought and methods of inquiry that become the all-important tools in making sense of the day-to-day home and work problems.

“We Must All Fail in Life”

by Alan Jones

“No one should be allowed to work in the West Wing of the White house who has not suffered a major disappointment in life.”

(Bill Moyers)

     Of all the dramatic experiences children and adolescent experience in schools, is their first encounter with an F on a school product they have submitted. The F becomes more onerous when accompanied with that look of sadness or contempt on the part of teacher handing out the F. From those early days in elementary school to university classrooms, students go to great lengths to avoid the F, most of which, dismiss the corrective goal of the F, and, instead, develop all manner of strategies to obfuscate the meaning or impact of the F.

      I will not in this blog critique of the educational problems with the zero-sum game created by institutional grading policies. [1]What I will focus on is a broader look at the value of failure in learning and living life or to be it more succinctly: we must all fail in life to succeed in life. Strictly from a pedagogical stance, the feedback function, is integral to mastery of a subject, of an occupation, or of human experience. One does not learn from being right, but, from being wrong—assuming the feedback function is correctly practiced.

      Putting aside failure as a pedagogical tool, as a human tool, those unacquainted with failure or have become skillful at rationalizing failure, develop a lack of caution that business and political leaders often display in the actions they undertake on behalf of other people. A thread that runs through all of our great leaders is how they came to terms with human fallibility. Lincoln, for example, was very open about the mistakes he made and the human cost of those mistakes. And, in admitting these mistakes, he followed up, by working to correct those mistakes, often by making dramatic changes to strategy or personnel. Lyndon Johnson on the other hand, had great difficulty admitting mistakes, and in fact, instead of changing course, he often doubled down on what had become clearly a big failure.

      Last, but not least, failure is the source of all forms of innovation in our world. No part of our lived experience has not been touched by someone, somewhere, sometime, trying to figure out what went wrong with a failed idea, and, trying again to make that idea work. In the real world, we applaud those pioneers who never give up on an idea that has been branded with a F. In the world of schools, however, an F, terminates any further study of a topic, idea, or concept. Not only does an F terminate further learning, but, leaves a student wearing the the Scarlet Letter F until the next test.  

[1] Joe Feldman in his book, Grading for Equity: Why it Matters, and How it Can Transform Schools and Classrooms, provides an extensive critique of institutional grading policies of schools and alternative grading policies that understand the proper function of feedback as both a learning and motivational tool.