Ethan Demme

Thoughts and Policy for Building a Better Pennsylvania

book review

“Disrupting Class” – Book Review

Clayton Christensen (author of Disrupted Class) speaking at the 2013 World Economic Forum
Clayton Christensen (author of Disrupted Class) speaking at the 2013 World Economic Forum CC BY-SA 2.0 Source:

Once upon a time, computers were large, cumbersome, hard-to-operate, and expensive. Then Apple created a personal computer, broke into the market, stole the market shares from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), and revolutionized the world. Well, not exactly. Apple didn’t compete directly with DEC – to do so would have been futile given the stronghold DEC held. No, Apple created it’s own market by creating its model IIe personal computer which was marketed to a whole different set of consumers – children.

The true story above is the perfect example of a potent form of change. Disruptive Innovation. Apple reinvented the game. At first, Apple’s product was not nearly as capable as the computers DEC was making, but over time, as the cost of building went down even as the computing power went up, people quickly realized the personal computer wasn’t just a children’s toy – and the world has never been the same.

On the back cover of Clayton M. Christensen’s book Disrupting Class are endorsements by: a former Governor, a press syndication service operated by the Washington Post, a Chancellor of Education, and the author of Good To Great (a staple in the business world.) And while the book is focused on “How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” (subtitle), it’s equally valuable reading for its insights into business as well as education. And its vision for the reinvention of schools is one that has many leaders, myself included, excited.

Disruptive Innovations happen on the sidelines; they create a new way of doing things and once that new way has fully matured, it displaces what once was. And thus Apple PCs replace the DEC minicomputer and Wikipedia makes academic print encyclopedias almost irrelevant.  The School Choice movement is a Disruptive Innovation. Nevada’s new Universal Education Savings Account legislation is a Disruptive Innovation. And schools equipped with software that adapts in real-time to the learning styles and pacing of each student while providing ongoing assessment of learning? Well, that’s a Disruptive Innovation that is waiting just around the corner.

Currently customization in education is largely conditional on financial resources. Wealthy families pay for tutors who customize their instruction for their pupils. School districts with ample financial resources offer more AP classes and extracurricular studies. Imagine then if barriers were broken-down and students from all backgrounds had access to education that is customized to maximize their learning.

Like all disruptions, student-centric technology will make it affordable, convenient, and simple for many more students to learn in ways that are customized for them. – Disrupting Class, page 92

Are you concerned that such an approach, which turns teachers into mentor/guide/tutor and places software at the center of learning might not be effective? Consider this area (one of many) where student-centric technology would be of benefit and would alleviate a major concern of educators, parents and students: testing:

When students learn through student-centric online technology, testing doesn’t have to be postponed until the end of an instructional module and then administered in a batch mode. Rather, we can verify mastery continually to create tight, closed feedback loops. Misunderstandings do not have to persist for weeks until the exam has been administered and the instructor has had time to grade each student’s test.

There is a lot more great information contained within the pages of Disrupting Class. I highly recommend that you buy a copy and read it. Here’s a link to the author’s website – and here is a link to his Twitter page.

“How Children Succeed” – Book Review

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The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines grit as “firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.” Paul Tough, author of “How Children Succeed”, is convinced that grit and other similar character skills like curiosity and self-control are keys to success that are often overlooked. According to Tough, the narrative we normally use to explain success is one about intelligence and thus we focus on things like SAT scores and IQ tests. But, Tough posits, cognitive skill alone provides no guarantee that someone is equipped for success and rather that character is needed as well.

Right at the beginning of the book we are given a provocative study that exemplifies this understanding of grit being a crucial asset. James Heckman is famous in certain circles for his GED study. This study sought to compare high school graduates with GED-recipients.

“According to their scores on achievement tests, which correlate closely with IQ, GED recpients were every bit as smart as high-school graduates. But when Heckman looked at their path through higher education, he discovered that GED recipients weren’t anything like high-school graduates. At age twenty-two, Heckman found, just 3 percent of GED recipients were enrolled in a four-year university or had completed some kind of post-secondary degree, compared to 46 percent of high-school graduates.

In fact, Heckman discovered that when you consider all kinds of important future outcomes – annual income, unemployment rate, divorce rate, use of illegal drugs – GED recipients look exactly like high-school dropouts, despite the fact that they have earned this . . . extra credential, and despite the fact that they are, on average, considerably more intelligent than high-school dropouts.” (xvillll)

Heckman’s interpretation of the GED study is that the reason for the disparity is a lack of character traits (like grit) in the GED-recipients. Paul Tough explains: “Those traits – an inclination to persist at a boring and often unrewarding task; the ability to delay gratification; the tendency to follow through on a plan – also turned out to be valuable in college, in the workplace, and in life in general.” (pg. xix)

One crucial avenue for nurturing grit and other needed character traits is found within the parent-child bond. At one point in the book, we are introduced to the failing Roseland school district in Chicago. When the author asked Steve Gates, a YAP (youth advocate program) advocate about the situation, he mentioned that family issues at home spill over into the classroom. And of course there were other factors mentioned like gang violence and drug addiction in this exploration of Roseland. Still, Gates key insight was on the role of family.

“But while Gates is careful not to blame Roseland’s parents for the neighborhood’s crisis, he has decided that for him, at least, the most effective vehicle for improving children’s outcomes is not the school or the church or even the job center; it is the family – or, if necessary, the creation of substitute or supplemental family structures for children who don’t have them.” (pg. 43)

Parenting is work of nurture. We know how powerful setting an example is and that kids will do as they see their parents do more so than they will do what their parents tell them they should do. In some ways, character – good or bad – is contagious. If a parent has a strong work ethic, the child will “catch” that work ethic. In other ways, teaching character is much more intensively hands-on, like insisting that a child clean up her toys when she’s done playing or having the child make his bed each morning. In all of these cases, it is the nurture-dimension of parenting that helps build character.

But interestingly enough, parenting is effective down to the molecular roots. Paul Tough writes about current neuroscience research on attachment which suggests that, in sum, the loving attention of a parent in the early years of a child allows that child – on a biological level – to deal with obstacles, stress, and set-backs down the road. This makes sense intuitively: parents provide a safety net that allows children to explore, fall, fail (and Tough reiterates that failure is an important part of growth), and develop while also protecting them from the cruel realities of the world until they are ready to deal with those realities.

If you’re still not convinced that parents can have such a profound impact on their children, listen to what the author says about an attachment intervention program for foster parents of young children, “ABC” – Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up. This program was developed by Mary Dozier, a psychologist at the University of Delaware.

ABC encourages foster parents to respond to their infants’ cues more attentively and warmly and calmly. After just ten home visits, children in ABC show higher rates of secure attachment, and their cortisol levels are indistinguishable from those of typical, well-functioning, non-foster-care children. What is perhaps most remarkable about Dozier’s intervention is that only the parents receive the treatment, not the children in their care – and yet it has a profound effect on the HPA-axis functioning of the children.

“How Children Succeed” is filled with a great many interesting tidbits and thought-provoking explorations. Contained within its pages are lessons learned from: middle school chess players forced to analyze each game, win or lose, challenges faced by elitist prep schools as leaders want to teach character even if that means introducing risk, and growth mindset as exemplified by the students at KIPP schools.

Ultimately though, my takeaway from the book is that children succeed when attachment is nurtured and parents are acting as buffer, compass, sage, safety net for their children as they cultivate within their children, these character traits that are so necessary to flourish in society.

Book Review: From Pariahs To Partners

Recently, I read David Tobis’ book on child welfare entitled: From Pariahs To Partners: How Parents And Their Allies Changed New York City’s Child Welfare System. Tobis was the Executive Director of the Child Welfare Fund and has worked to reform child welfare in the United States for more than three decades.

In his book, Tobis tackles the issue of parents rights when it comes to dealing with child welfare agencies. In the first chapter he writes,

“Compounding the problems of separation, parents until recently had been excluded from participating in most decisions about their children while the kids are in foster care. They were not allowed to decide simple matters, such as whether their adolescent daughter should continue to see her pediatrician or should switch to a doctor nearer her foster home or what school their first grade son should attend.” (pg. 13)

At the core of this exclusion of parents by “the system” is misguided or incomplete perceptions. “Most child welfare workers, the press, and the public, whose views were shaped by the press, saw these parents as the primary cause of their own problems and failed to focus on the role played by poverty, unemployment, degraded communities, and racism.” (pg. 56)

In contrast, many parents actually overcome extreme obstacles out of love for their children:

“We hear how parents, all for the love of their children, actually beat long-term drug addiction, debilitating mental illness and life cycles of violence. Listening to these parents’ trials and ultimate victory restores one’s faith in today’s parents.

In that room, on that day, hearing their stories, seeing these parents with their children, witnessing their hugging, kissing and tears of joy as they celebrate their family’s being together evokes spontaneous cheers of support and admiration.” – Esmeralda Simmons, director of the Center for Law and Social Justice (pg. 58)

The book shines the most when it shares the painful but ultimately victorious journeys of parents being reunited with their children. One such story was the story of Sharwline Nicholson.

Sharwline’s children were taken from her after her boyfriend beat her. A judge ordered the state to return her children. Fearing for the well being of her children as social workers continued to make unannounced visits to her apartment, she sent her kids to live with family in Jamaica, at which point a warrant was issued for her arrest. After a lengthy court battle, judge Weinstein issued a landmark ruling in her favor, setting the statue that children can’t be removed from victims of domestic violence solely because they are victims. Today Sharwline’s two kids are doing well and preparing for college. Sarwline is a few credits away from a bachelor’s degree, is considering pursuing a masters, and is hoping to become a social worker.

The book cites a national bill of rights that, while not legally binding as of yet, is a manifesto for inspiring change. From Rights to Reality (pg. 147):

  1. I have the right to not lose my child because I’m poor.
  2. I have the right to services that will support me in raising my child at home.
  3. I have the right to speak for myself and be heard at every step of the child protective services process.
  4. I have the right to be informed of my rights.
  5. I have the right to a meaningful and fair hearing before my parental rights are limited in any way.
  6. I have the right to quality legal representation.
  7. I have the right to support from someone who has been in my shoes.
  8. I have the right to have my child quickly placed with someone I trust.
  9. I have the right to frequent, meaningful contact with my child.
  10. I have the right to make decisions about my child’s life in care.
  11. I have the right to privacy.
  12. I have the right to fair treatment regardless of my race, culture, gender, or religion.
  13. I have the right to services that will support me in reunifying me with my child.
  14. I have the right to offer my child a lifelong relationship.
  15. I have the right to meaningful participation in developing the child welfare policies and practices that affect my family and community.

Ultimately, through Tobis’ efforts in New York City, some important changes took place. These important changes include: reduction in the number of children in foster care, improved legal representation for parents, and the participation of child welfare-affected parents in child welfare programs, in shaping policies, and in their own cases. (pg. 169)

For me, the takeaway from the book is that parents need to be empowered in their parenting and even more so when they require help and support. We should always start with the premise that parents want the best for their kids and are willing and capable of being the best parents they can be. Let’s #TrustParents and help them be the best parents they can be.

Toward A Theory of Instruction (Bruner) – Book Review

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Jerome Bruner is one of the foremost education psychologists. A graduate of Duke University (B.A.) and Harvard (Ph.D.), Bruner has contributed greatly to the study of development, cognitive ability, and pedagogy. I recently read a collection of his essays published in a book entitled “Toward A Theory of Instruction.”

Jean Piaget is perhaps one of the earliest well-known child psychologists. Piaget theorized that children move through distinct stages and are limited in what they can learn and understand by the stage that they’re in. Rather than distinct stages Bruner sees stages that a child moves continuously through. Bruner’s research suggests that even young learners are capable of learning any material if the instruction followed a sequence of action to icon to symbol and is adapted to the learner. Bruner writes,

“. . . There is an appropriate version of any skill or knowledge that may be imparted at whatever age one wishes to begin teaching – however preparatory the version may be . . .The deepening and enrichment of this earlier understanding is again a source of reward for intellectual labors.” (pg. 35)

Regarding sequence of learning, Bruner identified three systems of representation: enactive representation (action-based), iconic representation (image-based), symbolic representation (language-based) – (pg. 10-11)  He writes that

“. . . the nature of intellectual development . . . seems to run the course of these three systems of representation until the human being is able to command all three.” (pg. 12)

Bruner also used blocks to teach mathematics to children. He found that allowing them to build (action), and giving them imagery (the blocks illustrated the math problems and concepts), helped the kids learn the language (symbolism) of mathematics. He writes that,

“The children always began by constructing an embodiment of some concept, building a concrete model for purposes of operational definition. The fruit of the construction was an image and some operations that ‘stood for’ the concept. From there on, the task was to provide means of representation that were free of particular manipulations and specific images. Only symbolic operations provide the means of representing an idea in this way . . .”, the children “not only understood the abstractions they had learned but also had a store of concrete images that served to exemplify the abstractions. When they searched for a way to deal with new problems, the task was usually carried out not simply by abstract means but also by ‘matching up’ images.” (pg. 65)

One last really important contribution by Bruner in regards to education is his emphasis on sequential learning. He rightly points out that we learn at different paces and that there are personalized factors that are at play in determining the speed at which an individual can master a new concept.

“Instruction consists of leading the learner through a sequence of statements and restatements of a problem or body of knowledge that increase the learner’s ability to grasp, transform, and transfer what he is learning. In short, the sequence in which a learner encounters materials within a domain of knowledge affects the difficulty he will have in achieving mastery.” (pg. 49)

Our philosophy of education at Demme Learning, as seen in our Math-U-See and Spelling You See curriculum, is very similar in these regards to the research of Bruner. We too place importance on sequential learning that is student-paced and individualized, builds concept on concept, and moves from enactive (action, building the problem), to iconic (looking at the problem via the blocks), to symbolic (language, which is why have the children build then say or teach back.)

Towards the end of the book, Bruner writes with insight on the necessity of mastering the two major tools of thought, mathematics and the deployment of language.

“It was Dante, I believe, who commented that the poor workman hated his tools. It is more than a little troubling to me that so many of our students dislike two of the major tools of thought – mathematics and the conscious deployment of their native language in its written form, both of them devices for ordering thoughts about things and thoughts about thoughts. I should hope that in the new era that lies ahead we will give a proper consideration to making these tools more lovable. Perhaps the best way to make them so is to make them more powerful in the hands of their users.” (pg. 112)

Bruner’s book, “Toward a Theory of Instruction” is an excellent foray into his thoughts on education theory and is a must read for anyone interested in education. If you don’t have time for the book here is a five minute interview with Jerome Bruner to get you started.