I’m just an operations and systems guy, albeit with 20+ years of university teaching experience ... but I have always bridled when people talk about “delivering” education.
That isn't right. From an operations perspective, it is a “co-production” or “service” process. In a service process, the customer (aka student) is both an input and an output. The student continuously interacts with the service provider (aka teacher) and the same student eventually emerges in an enhanced (aka educated) form. The instructional interactions that power this transformation happen quickly, perhaps many times per day.
In this type of process, the student’s subjective “experience” during the interaction can rival the importance of the content that they learn. The experience drives motivation and understanding, which drives effort by both parties. If
either party is demotivated, the outcomes are degraded. ... (consequences over the squiggy)
If we view education this way, the teacher is the only responsible person who can work inside this fast-turning interaction. We HAVE to trust the teacher. There is no one else … and we need to help them in this role. So what are we currently doing? Things seem to be going in two directions … one I would call an aligned approach and one that seems like a punitive approach.
An aligned approach recognizes the critical centrality of the teaching/learning cycle and does everything it can to strengthen, empower and enhance it. That means putting resources ($ or labor or knowledge of some form) into teachers and materials … and investing in tools, insights, resources, technology and techniques to speed up and strengthen the teaching/learning cycle.
Going farther, we can bring other stakeholders in to help. We can expand the cycle to accommodate interactions with parents, professionals (e.g. therapists), employers, experts, outside activities, and others. The goal is to strengthen and support the core teaching/learning cycle in every possible way. There are many, many teachers, professionals, institutions and programs that know and apply this.
They are the people and programs that make us proud!
But there are also places where a punitive approach reacts to perceived problems by imposing “controls” from outside the core cycle. The symptoms are well-documented. The syndrome is symbolized by mass vilification of teachers and the imposition of rules and systems to make them more “accountable” … often through standardized testing. There may be sustained conflict among teachers, unions, administrators and government. Regardless, the result is a war zone.
Think about it.
How can any punitive system possibly make the core teaching/learning cycle work better?
I’m waiting.
Each attempt at outside control steals resources from things that might actually help. Worse, if those external controls work as designed, they can only disrupt whatever residual teaching/learning interaction is still taking place. The more controls you apply, the more you stress (in a negative way) the core cycle that is the heart of everything you want.
Look, I get it that some schools are failing … and I get it that there are some lazy or incompetent teachers … just as there are lazy and incompetent cops, lawyers and truck drivers … there may even be some lazy and incompetent politicians.
But you can’t fix those problems by carpet-bombing the core productive system that does all the work.
That.will.not.work