Show me the money...

I'll start this post by saying that I'm a huge fan of private schools.  I think they're a better form of education, and part of the reason I'm a fan will hopefully be revealed here.

Now that I've turned off probably 80% of my readers...my topic for today :)

It's nearing the end of the school year here in Alberta, and budget cuts are being seen across all programs.  I was curious one day just how much money is spent on children's education in Alberta.  I was quite shocked at the result - a little over $12,000 (that's education budget divided by students).  That includes everything to do with education in Alberta - all the administration, all the school upkeep, all the salaries, all the supplies...everything.

I then looked around and remembered that I worked at a fantastic private school last year that charged a grand total of $9,000 per kid.  Since the government gave them some money as well, it worked out to about $13,000 per child, or about a thousand more than the Alberta government is spending on education.

The differences are huge, I accept - managing an entire province costs money, managing multiple schools costs money, and helping all the kids we have to help costs money too...but, can't we spend it a bit better?

My proposal - treat every public school like a private one.  Give them the money per kid - all of it, minus a few salaries at the ministerial level - and say "go forth and teach".  Trust the principal, trust the teachers, and trust the parents to keep it all running.  There doesn't need to be a district, there doesn't need to be special funds to various schools for this or that...there just needs to be money, per child, in the hands of the people who are actually doing the teaching.

It works for some FANTASTIC schools in Canada - there isn't any oversight for the private schools in Canada - they sink or swim based on their ability to deliver quality education.

Some would argue that the parents donate huge sums of money to these schools - yes, they do, but not for programming.  Check for yourself - all their books are public because they're charities, and you can see that every dime they receive from parents and the government is spent on salaries and yearly programming - nothing capital.  In addition, parent donations are spent entirely on capital projects or scholarships, not yearly programming.

So really, what would go wrong?  If we hire a good principal, back them up with a volunteer board of appropriate business and education professionals in the community and run it like a business delivering education...what's the trouble?  The school would be accountable because the parents would have total choice over where their child went to school and the money would follow the child.  Schools that weren't using the money well and delivering bad programs would be simply put "out of business".

If a private school can deliver the kind of education they can on about the same as the government spends....where's the money going?

"Sounds" good

A quick share on what I've done recently in a "media arts" themed Options class (like an elective for Junior high kids).

I found some pictures on the internet that displayed an obvious emotion - a girl running through a field, a man sitting lonely on a bench, a goal being scored in soccer, etc.  Using Garage Band I had the students create a 30 second "theme song" to go with the picture - the criteria was "if someone heard your song without the picture, could they describe the same emotion as when they see the shot?".

Some lessons learned:

Any loop software works for this - Aviary was a close second choice in terms of using their instruments to create, but they don't have "loops" like Apple does.

Showing students some "good" music/clips can be really helpful - especially pointing out which instruments are generally used for which emotions.

Talking about beats per minute (here's a great math lesson!) can also help get students into the idea of creating music for a mood.

"Less is more" tends to be good for my kids - they want to put 6 tracks of loops all at the same time, completely drowning out the idea.  Three or four max would be better.

Showing them how to "space" their tracks so that instruments and beats come in and fade out at different times can be an easy way for them to discover "creative" song production.

Try it yourself!  You'll have a better understanding of some of the struggles the kids are about to go through if you've tried to create a mood using some sort of audio program.  Some things I found were the difficulties in not being too repetitive, as well as the challenge of finding instruments to match specific moods.

Overall, it was a fun class, and the kids came up with some really neat songs to go with the pictures.

Yes, you have to...

As part of pretty much every teaching professional body/union/licensing agent/other "thing", teachers agree to ongoing professional learning.

It's a hot button issue around contract time (oh, we need more PD!)

In fact, one of the biggest things I keep hearing from my colleagues is that they aren't trained on xyz equipment.

Okay.....so why do we have to wait for someone else to teach us?  I suppose it's because we're teachers who are used to guiding students slowly but surely towards a "lightbulb moment".

Here's the problem....ask most teachers, and they all want their kids to be more independent, more able to solve problems, more able to "figure stuff out", and yet, some people will sit idly by and say "I don't know how".

Here's my solution - tell them to learn!

We're not allowed to be "bad" teachers - we need to have criteria to mark with, we need to ensure that we have an orderly class, we need to ensure that our assignments are more than simply stand at the front and lecture, and we need to ensure that our students learn things.  These things are professional obligations that, rightfully so, are enforced (or could be enforced) through our contracts.

Why then are we allowed to simply say "Sorry, I know all this research says that using this idea or that idea or this thing or that thing is a great tool for learning, but no thanks, I'll stick with what I've got".  This is the response given far too often when teachers are asked to implement this idea, or this technology, or this lesson.

So I go back to it - tell them to!  My first VP was fantastic, and a major innovator in educational technology.  He told the whole staff "You will use Twitter and you will use a blog roll.  We're going to talk about what you learn at monthly staff meetings".  This was my first job - I didn't know that, in the culture I see now, he apparently wasn't "allowed" to tell teachers this.

So brand-new-me learned how to use Twitter.  I learned how to set up a blog roll.  It didn't take long, and it still doesn't - he wasn't expecting the moon, he wanted us to get into it.

And I thank him for it every morning when I use these tools to better my learning.  I didn't know what it was at the time, but I went along with it, and it's really made me a better teacher.

So really folks - why CAN'T we be told to learn something?  That's just one example - I've taught myself how to edit videos, shoot photographs, use twenty-three million online tools, and generally how to be a better teacher.  It didn't take forever - 20 minutes here, 15 minutes there.  I see it as part of my professional obligation.

Doctors and engineers and pilots and the like (appear) to have done it right - they subscribe to journals, they talk to colleagues, they stay up on the cutting edge stuff because they're required to by their professional obligations.

So a message to administrators - please, force us to learn!