Teducation

As I've said, a big part of my job thus far has been building databases and collecting data. In fact, all three of my projects last week were compiling information into spreadsheets, which leaves me with some extra processing capacity to listen to podcasts while I'm working. NPR collects all of the clips that address education and compiles them into a weekly podcast which I enjoy, but specifically, I discovered that TEDtalks has a section for talks about education!

I listened to four last week that made an impression:

1. Bill Gates on state spending. I listened to a TEDtalk from him a few years ago, actually, that really changed my perspective on the way we pay teachers. In this talk, he says that we need to be paying more attention to state budgets, because they define the money that goes to the schools and the teachers. He argues that we need to consider money for merit pay a necessary expense.
2. Cameron Herold on entrepreneurs. This entrepreneur coach totally rubbed me the wrong way. He said that we should recognize diverse talents in the school system, which is a legitimate argument, by telling stories about all of his business deals he made as a precocious 10-year-old. It was more of a 20-minute brag fest than a case for meaningful education policy.
3. Salman Khan on the flipped classroom. This one was especially fun because I am a bit new to this concept. This guy pioneered the idea that students can be more effective if they watch lectures at their own pace at home and complete traditional homework during class time. A really meaningful part of this to me was his assertion that the student-to-valuable-teacher-time ratio is more important than the student-to-teacher ratio, and this can be maximized by providing more work time in class. This makes intuitive sense, although I know that it's not always that simple.
4. Number four was just a soundbite on math education and how very few people use calculus in meaningful ways post-academia; instead of training people in levels of calculus, we should work toward statistics and more advanced uses of statistics. I loved this.

I know I've already talked about this, but there are so many ideas about what is good for education (and a lot of them are based more on politics than practice). Education Pioneer's mission has to do with education leadership which, by nature of the people they recruit, is based on a business model of the education system. EP also partners with more than 160 organizations in which they place their fellows, and the organization that takes the most is Teach for America. However, thus far, my Education Pioneers experience has been pretty apolitical. With regards to different ideas in reform, EP just looks for people who can make educated decisions about these based on data but doesn't try to make them themselves. They've given me this same freedom as an intern to learn and explore and come to my own decisions. I appreciate that a lot!