Alarming Educational Statistics

Education seems to be in the news these days more than out. Reports are often conflicting and most of us are not sure what to believe. For instance, we keep hearing about educational reform and school improvement. The latest statistics will not cause you to rest any time soon.

According to the Broad Center, an agency designed to recruit and prepare leaders for the public sector school system, 70% of 8th graders can not read on grade level, 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year and 44% of dropouts under the age of 24 are now jobless. If these numbers were not bad enough, American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to students in 30 industrialized countries. America's top math students only rank 25th out of 30 countries when compared to top students elsewhere in the world. Why?

What are the reasons for these alarming statistics? We are a wealthy nation full of promise yet, there seems to be issues in our educational system. There are no easy answers here, but there are answers if one wants to find them. There lies the key, in my opinion. We once had the best education in the world, and now, we do not. It seems to me that we could find the answers, if we really wanted to find them. Does anyone really want to find them?

The NEA is the most powerful educational force in this country. Go to their website and read what their vision is. It looks and sounds good, but now, investigate what they support financially and what bills and policies they push in DC. There, you will find the crux of the issue leading to my question: does this country really want to solve their educational issues? I have been following these international literacy scores for a long time, and our scores have not changed all that much. Again, the question: do we really want to solve our educational woes? The answer to this question may lead you into some educational decisions of your own.

I am for every student and do not want to play the public vs. private game, but with all the resources, funding and support available, there is really no excuse for our public sector schools to fail in the ways that they do. Except, if the answer lies beyond the pragmatism and practicality of education. If that answer lies in the spiritual realm where morality has finally succumbed to the years of war against it and become extinct in our public schools, then, what are we to do? The answer to this question is almost the same as above, it may force you to make some educational decisions of your own. The future of any nation lies in the education of its youth. Can you afford to wait and see? The decision is yours. Blessings!

Movement and Learning

The picture to the left is called "Movement in Squares" and is an optical illusion of sorts. My point for using it is to bring emphasis to an important concept in education - movement!

Just how important is movement to learning? According to neurophysiologist Carla Hannaford, it is very important. She believes that we have always known that movement had a place in education, but in recent years, research is starting to expose just how important movement is to learning. Dr. Hannaford provides us just one example from her work that supports the idea of movement and learning.

According to Dr. Hannaford, "the vestibular (inner ear) and cerebellar system (motor activity) is the first sensory system to mature. In this system, the inner ear's semicircular canals and the vestibular nuclei are an information gathering and feedback source for movements. Those impulses travel through nerve tracts back and forth from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain, including the visual system and the sensory cortex. The vestibular nuclei are closely modulated by the cerebellum and also activate the reticular activating system (RAS), near the top of the brain stem. This area is critical to our attentional system, since it regulates incoming sensory data. This interaction helps us keep our balance, turns thinking into actions, and coordinates moves. There is value in all those playground games that stimulate inner ear motion like swinging, rolling, and jumping." But, that is not all.

Peter Strick at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center of Syracuse, New York, made another link. His staff traced a pathway from the cerebellum back to parts of the brain involving memory, attention, and spatial perception. The part of the brain that processes movement is the same part of the brain that's processing learning. Many suspected this, but now Peter Strick has provided proof.

Our brain is amazing as it creates movements by sending a deluge of nerve impulses to either muscles or the larynx. It is always sending these impulses, but because each muscle has to get the message at a slightly different time in order to coordinate with the other muscles, it takes place a bit like a well-timed explosion created by a special effects team. This amazing brain-body sequence is often referred to as a spatiotemporal (space-time) pattern. Researcher William Calvin calls it "a cerebral code." While simple movements like gum chewing are controlled by basic brain circuits nearest the spinal cord, complex movements -- like dance steps, throwing a ball, or doing a science experiment -- are quite different and require more complex sequences. Some simple movements like those with simple sequences, are controlled at the subcortical levels, like the basic ganglia and cerebellum. But, novel movements like dance steps shift focus in the brain and require more complex sequencing because it has no memories to rely on for execution and must create new ones. This is why it is difficult to learn something new and much easier to do for the young than the old. All of these movements are like cognitive aerobics for the brain and are vital to brain development in our younger students.

There is so much more to examine in this field; if you are an educator, I encourage you to begin to do some reading on this subject. It will make you that much better in your field. Blessings!

The Motivation to be a Head a School?

Pat Bassett, Head of National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), writes on the job of being a Head of School on his blog,

"So what is it that makes anyone agreeable to give school leadership a shot?

Idealism: the feeling that if all the pieces miraculously fell into place, one could actually shape the destiny of an institution devoted to a major “good”: that of educating kids well to create a better world.

Meaning: the notion that, as a teacher, one could influence the path of many classes of students, and that, as a school leader, one could inflect the trajectory of education, maybe even beyond the boundaries of one’s own school.

Courage: the sense that we have a better way within our grasp if only some of us were courageous enough to overcome the inertia and resistance around us."

He then references author Dan Pink and his ideas on motivation.

"Dan Pink in his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, reveals fascinating research from the science of motivation. (One can get a good sense of the science and theme from Pink’s summary at TED.com If you have never visited TED.com, I highly recommend it.)

"Pink’s “surprising truth” is that, even in the for-profit world, financial incentives do not motivate most people; rather, three other incentives do: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. When I think about these three factors, I recognize that there is not another environment I can think of where one at every level — teacher to head of school — enjoys more autonomy, more opportunity to develop mastery, or more of a sense of noble purpose, than ours."

I will post the 18 minute talk below. When you listen to it you will discover Christian truths wrapped in the language of today. You will also discover that what Bassett identifies, above, as true for private schools is also true in a deeper sense for Christian schools and all Christians. Whether we teach, sell, manage or doctor our motivation ought to be rooted in excellence and motivated by the factors found in the three incentives above.

Enjoy the talk below. It is well worth the time spent, but be warned, you will not agree with everything said, but that is not the goal, is it? The goal is to continue to develop our ability to think and discern from a presupposition that is Christ and allow it to wash over every decision made. May He be glorified.

Safety

I have been thinking about this whole idea of safety these days. Are we Christians called to a life that is safe and secure? What about our ministries? Is our goal to get them to a point of safety?

This morning I did a word search in the ESV for "safety," and what I found was surprising. In the Old Testament, there are 25 verses that contain the word safety. In the New Testament, there is not a single verse that contains that word.

The word "safe" provides us more insight. There are 55 verses that contain the word "safe" in them. Of those 55, 45 are in the Old Testament. These verses in the New Testament that refer to this word "safe" have to do with safe passage, as in Paul missionary journeys, or as 2 Timothy 4:18 references, "being rescued from our evil deeds and brought safely into His heavenly kingdom."

I have been thinking of this issue since Dr. George Grant challenged us all on this idea of safety. Is our goal to be safe? Do we spend energy striving to be safe and secure and live our lives accordingly? It certainly is tempting, is it not? Is it wrong to desire safety and security? I do not think it is, but I think the Bible has more to say on the issue. This morning's study peaked my interest in this subject and motivated me to do a deeper study on the subject. Blessings!