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What “Downton Abbey” and 21st Century Learning Have in Common

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“First electricity, now telephones. Sometimes I feel as if I were living in an H.G. Wells novel. The young are all so calm about change, aren’t they?”

– The Right Honourable Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham

The success of the television drama, “Downton Abbey,” can be attributed to the following phenomena:

(1) No one can resist a show with so much drama, intrigue, and romance, whether it’s “Gossip Girl” or “Downton Abbey”–the latter, I argue (with a bit of cheek, of course), only made respectable by its Edwardian costumes and British accents.

(2) No one can resist a show that so deftly characterizes the cultural shifts of the beginning of the 20th century, shifts that obviously resonate with today’s viewers, an audience wrestling with dizzying technological changes; social, political, and financial maelstroms; and war overseas.

downton

The characters’ reactions to technological advances are responsible for much of the humor of the show: the Dowager Countess’ experiences with electricity and the swivel chair, the household’s first encounters with the telephone, the butler Carson suspiciously approaching the maid Gwen’s typewriter as if it were a bomb. However humorously change is portrayed, however, change is also sobering: Survival depends on it.

“Downton Abbey” begins with the sinking of the Titanic–April 15th, 1912, a century ago. The Titanic was thought to be unsinkable. People had unquestionable faith in its prospects for a successful transatlantic crossing just as they had faith in much of modern progress.

Its surprising failure in the first episode augurs a series of changes that shape the characters’ lives. Here we are, 100 years later, confronting the sinking of our own Titanics. As we look back on the last 100 years, in what did we once have unquestionable faith? How is change shaping us?

In education, technological change has altered the way we do things significantly. Students no longer sit in rows for lengthy stretches time. Instead, new tools allow students to construct and demonstrate their learning rather than passively receive it. “A telephone is not a toy, but a useful and valuable tool,” Carson says as he shoos the staff away from the household’s latest device. As our schools continue to facilitate the sharing of instructional materials over the Internet, we’re creating more opportunities for students to learn anytime, anywhere. Students can take more ownership over how and when they learn best.

In recent years, we’ve been hearing more and more about a new concept: “21st Century Learning.” The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.p21.org) has created an extensive framework outlining the essential skills students will need in the 21st century. In addition to relevant content knowledge like global awareness and digital literacy, the framework includes personal characteristics like creativity, adaptability, and resilience, traits that will be more valuable for our students than we first imagined 50 years ago when curriculum was considered a fixed body of knowledge to be transmitted from teacher or textbook to the students. “The top 10 in-demand jobs in the future don’t exist today,” says former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley in his book The Jobs Revolution: Changing How America Works, “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Students will need to adapt; they will need to teach themselves; they will need to create and innovate.

Sybil’s maid Gwen reminded me of this as I watched her lift herself out of life as a servant to life as a secretary. She takes a correspondence typing course and applies for a job with the telephone installer whose business is expanding so quickly he can’t find enough qualified employees. The applicants are either too old to change, he says, or too inexperienced. Are we helping our students acquire Gwen’s characteristics? Are we encouraging them to develop a habit of optimistic adaptability that will ensure their success in the future? What was necessary 100 years ago–at least in my favorite TV show–seems to be necessary today.

Recent psychological studies have focused on resilience as a predictor of student success rather than any sort of innate talent. The word derives from the Latin, resilre, meaning “to spring back” or “to rebound.” We often speak of “coping with change,” but the word “resilience” is quite different in pitch from the word “coping.” Resilience connotes an ability to integrate change into one’s being and respond with a spring and a bounce–with an optimism and a jauntiness that absorbs the shocks of change.

The word “cope” has a weakening feeling to it. Coping is adequate, but it sinks when you touch it. Coping erodes.

Resilience lifts. Resilient is lively and confident. Resilience is Edith driving the rollicking tractor; the bounce in Anna’s hair when she first uses a curling iron; Sybil’s buoyant smile when she cooks her first cake.

In a conversation with Mrs. Hughes, the head housekeeper, about life paths she didn’t take, Carson shares this wise insight:

“Life’s altered you as it’s altered me. And what would be the point of living if we didn’t let life change us?”

 

Technology vs. The Curriculum

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Educational Technology, it is widely argued, shouldn’t be about the technology. The cool new bells and whistles are not what matters; it’s the content of the learning that matters.

This belief is what has fueled the technology integration movement: Computers and other gadgets should be used within the context of the curriculum. It is the curriculum that matters; gadgets are the way we can have our students better access and process that curriculum.

But is this dichotomy—technology versus the curriculum—necessarily true? Perhaps it is a false one? For the most part, I have heartily agreed with the notion that computers should be integrated into the curriculum. The gadgets are merely tools and many times I have admired a cool new bell or whistle but recommended against its use in a particular classroom if it’s going to create more work and yield little value.

“But is this dichotomy—technology versus the curriculum—necessarily true?”

And for the most part, schools have gotten rid of “Computer Class” and instead expected teachers to seamlessly weave these skills into their daily classroom routine. Many teachers are fine with this. For whatever reason—be it generational (younger teachers are more comfortable with computers as a part of daily life) or personal tenacity (older teachers who readily master new skills)—many teachers are comfortable using computers in their work and pushing—no, allowing, really—their students to do so as well. But there are some teachers who feel they don’t have the time to teach computer skills, that it’s the content of their curriculum that matters more. This tension builds resentment: resentment between the teacher and the administration, the teacher and the perhaps younger or more technically adept teachers, the teacher and this “new world” that demands this of them.

I do sympathize with these feelings, but at the risk of alienating some of my teacher friends who feel this way, I’m going to go out on a limb and proclaim the following: Computer skills DO matter; they are extremely important. But when proclaiming this, I’m not thinking about “job readiness.” Nor even “college readiness.”

I’m actually thinking of thinking skills. I’m thinking of literacy, logic, and reasoning. Of creativity and risk-taking. Here is one example of what I mean:

If I plunked you on a deserted island and gave you a strange machine, a strange machine you have never seen before, and I told you you can use it send messages to the outside world, would you be able to figure out how it works? If you have a lot of prior experience with message-sending machines, you might be able to transfer some of that knowledge to this new situation. You see the buttons above. This is a NEW machine, but those buttons look familiar. Could that “B” button make your “Rescue Me” message look bold? You try it and indeed, it does. Two important things have happened here: 1) You have transferred your prior knowledge to a new situation; and 2) You have taken a risk and tested that knowledge.

While exploring your new machine, you find a file named “Rescue” with this icon next to it:

I certainly hope you click on it! Hopefully, because you have worked with media players before, you recognize this ubiquitous “Play” symbol. Sure enough, the “Rescue” video plays and offers you valuable tips on smoke signals and how to flash Morse Code with your cell phone screen or compact mirror.

In my years of teaching people of all ages how to do things on a computer, I have noticed that for the most part, folks break down into two categories. Those who tinker and those who don’t. The tinkerers push the buttons, pull down the menus, press, tweak, and play, often with the same joy as a kindergartener with a lump of Play-Dough.

When a young child first picks up the lump of Play-Doh, she doesn’t necessarily know what she’s going to make. As she rolls and twists the pliable mass in her hands, she gains knowledge of its properties and capabilities. Slowly, her imagination fires and the lump becomes something. As she gains more and more experience with Play-Dough, she learns what it can and can’t do and stores that understanding in her imagination’s toolbox. Then, in third grade, she is asked to make a model of a pair of lungs. Because she is familiar with these properties and capabilities, she thinks, “Play-Dough will be perfect for that!” Gaining familiarity with the tool allows her to integrate the tool into how she thinks and creates.

“Gaining familiarity with the tool allows her to integrate the tool into how she thinks and creates.”

The non-tinkerers want to know the steps for how to get something done—how to print that report and print that report only. How to open that email. How to merge that mailing.

This has affected how I teach people computer skills. In a recent “Computers for Beginners” class, I was asked for a step-by-step outline of all the skills I taught that night in the two-hour session. I immediately felt guilty that I hadn’t provided such a crib sheet. But I realized that I really don’t like to do so. I want my students to think. I want the two hours to be experiential, but also thoughtful. I want them to process the hows and whys behind the steps so that when they go home or when they are faced with a new software application, they are comfortable tinkering and thinking. When faced with a new interface of some sort, can they recognize how the menus are organized? Do they know what a palette is? Do they recognize the red x in the top right corner of the window and even though they’ve never used this application before, can they close it by clicking that red x?

Or when they get stuck on a desert island, will they press a “Play” button they have never seen before?

Learning how to use a computer—really learning it—is an exercise in thinking and too many of us relegate “computer skills” to the job-readiness part of the curriculum. Much has been said recently about how in 10, 15 years, our students will be working in careers that haven’t been invented yet. How will they be ready if they don’t practice learning how to experiment, transfer prior knowledge, and implement what’s in their imagination’s toolbox?

“How will they be ready if they don’t practice learning how to experiment, transfer prior knowledge, and implement what’s in their imagination’s toolbox?”

The ability to deeply learn a tool doesn’t end with Play-Doh and computers. All kinds of 21st century situations will demand that people call upon something they know and apply it to a new situation. Indeed, hasn’t all human growth and progress demanded this of us?

As I watched a cable show tonight on Paroxysmal Extreme Pain Disorder, I was struck by the kind of thinking involved in treating this rare condition. There are only 15 known families with PEPD in the world, so therapies have obviously not been extensively researched. They know that the terrifying and painful sysmptoms are caused by irregularities in the sodium channels, so doctors are taking what they do know about sodium channel modulators and testing it on these patients. While treatment protocols for many illnesses have been standardized—and one is considered an excellent doctor if one can select and apply the appropriate protocol–the effective PEPD doctor does not look for a step-by-step crib sheet—the algorithm—for how to treat this disorder. Because there is none.

So, yes, I believe in so-called Technology Integration. But I am frustrated when schools say they don’t have time to teach computer skills, that they are too busy with the “curriculum,” as if the two are diametrically opposed. We should all be in the business of teaching thinking.

Imagination and Compassion

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I was thinking the other day about a little game my mother and I used to play while I was growing up. Whenever we were faced with a long wait–at the bank, for instance, or in an airport–we would make up stories about the lives of the strangers around us. The ruder and meaner the stranger, the more epic and tragic the story.

An angry woman in the bank line became a mother waiting on a most-likely non-existent kidney transplant for her only child. The slow-as-molasses cashier at the fast-food joint became a war hero, shrapnel still embedded in his skull, grateful he can work at all.

“The ruder and meaner the stranger, the more epic and tragic the story.”

I had what I thought was a pretty ordinary childhood. I’m just now beginning to realize just how extraordinary my upbringing was. There was nothing in my external environment that you wouldn’t recognize as typical of many suburban towns; my school years were filled with tee-ball, Girl Scouts, the Kiwanis Chicken Barbeque, orchestra concerts, and riding my bike with no helmet.

“Now I see it as teaching me the convergence of imagination and compassion.”

But, for as long as I can remember, my mother taught me to look beneath the surface of things.  So my childhood memories of these tangible things–the tee-ball and barbecues–are painted on top of what was the core of my growing-up. What was as the core was this way of seeing, this worldview that taught me to consider not only someone else’s point-of-view, but also, their experiences. I thought for a long time these waiting-in-line stories were intended to keep me entertained. Now I see it as teaching me the convergence of imagination and compassion.

My mother taught me to see into people and read their stories. I wonder when our schools will do the same.

Creativity and Computers

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Like many of us, I didn’t end up in the career I thought I would. I became a technology consultant and computer science teacher, but I wanted to be a journalist and actress in middle school.  At the end of high school, I wanted to major in women studies and win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. I ended up majoring in English, did an M.A. in English, and spent the first 11 years of my career as an English teacher.  Peppered in there were freelance gigs as an improv comedy teacher and a graphic designer. How on earth, people ask (and I ask myself) did I end up in computers?

“How on earth did I end up in computers?”

It’s funny to me that my colleagues don”t see me in these roles now. In fact, I dare say that I’ve experienced some mistrust emanating from a few of the people I work with. There is a huge swath of thinkers and dreamers out there who dislike the technologists. We are cold and heartless, they say, concerned only with flashy efficiency, giving our lives over to “the machine.” Isn’t increased machination and automation how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place? And by “this mess,” they usually mean something related to cold-hearted, Ford-ian, Taylor-esque vision of Assembly Line culture, where all variables are simplified, codified, and digesti-fied by some algebraic formula  and manipulated at light speed by a tiny silicon chip. Looking for a mortgage? Forget those old paper applications where there was a box in which you could explain, inked in natural language, some blips on your credit record, hoping to twang the sympathy string of your file”s reviewer. It’s all number crunched now.  Job hunters are coached on how to make their uploaded text resumes “bot” friendly; a human no longer reads about your qualifications. Instead, a computerized recruiting engine uses optical character recognition to scan your resume for horrifying buzzphrases like “mission critical applications” and “relationship marketing” and “return on investment.” If the variable of you–the variable that is you–somehow falls outside the confines of this algorithm, you’ve missed your chance.

“If the variable of you somehow falls outside the confines of this algorithm, you’ve missed your chance.”

I have to admit, I don”t like how people look at me when I tell them I teach computers. When I say it, I see it… they think I don’t have a heart, don’t have a soul, and don’t have any creativity.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In truth, I find teaching computers to be closer to my vision for education. With a few tweaks, of course, it could, quite potentially, be the perfect subject to teach.

Let me explain.

Strangely, at a recent training session for a computer summer camp, I met two of my fellow site directors, both graduate students who will be running our company’s camp on various university campuses. Neither of these women (Yes, I did say “women.” There are plenty of us in technology.) is pursuing a PhD in machine learning or statistical language processing or hardware architecture. No, both of these women are studying divinity. Divinity.

Harnessing computers and their power does so much to fuel a sense of wonder. A sense of “what if?” And once that it unleashed in a student, there is no telling where the world will be in ten, twenty, or thirty years.

But there is a key component to the curriculum that is missing. Creativity can be coached, but not necessarily quantified. Researchers have tried; in the 1960s, J.P. Guilford and his team attempted to include creativity as something that could be measured through psychometric testing. But quantification belies creativity.

“Quantification belies creativity.”

There is a remarkable place at one of the top STEM universities in the world. The Media Lab at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT’s Media Lab is responsible for improving the mobility of the disabled with advancements in prosthetic limb sensors. They are responsible for improving the education of autistic kids by inventing affective robots that teach social skills. The founder, Nicolas Negroponte, is the brain behind One Laptop Per Child, an initiative that brings crank-powered, Internet-ready laptops to kids in the developing world at a cost of roughly $100 each.

MIT”s funding model is unique. They do not draw the funds for their budget through the larger MIT institution. Instead, the Media Lab is funded almost entirely by corporate sponsorships. I know, I know. This may seem like a perfect example of nefarious corporate infiltration into intellectual life. But listen to how the Media Lab gets around that: Corporations are not allowed to fund specific projects; they must fund one of the Media Lab’s themes.  This prevents industry from tapping MIT”s brain power for specific inventions; rather, corporate funders must trust that their money will be funneled in a worthy direction. Since the overaching theme of the Media Lab is “inventing a better future,” they have successfully channeled millions from the wealthiest tax demographic of our country–lawsuit-protected, person-less incorporated entities–towards philanthropic goals. Guided at the helm by some very bright minds.

I don’t think I”ll tell anyone anymore that I teach computers. I teach the future. No… let me put that another way… I teach for the future. What the future holds is unknown. But unless we infuse school with a cross-disciplinary curriculum of empathy, the deluge of the information age will get us nowhere.

Last Day of School

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A friend of mine wrote a piece about how mothers need to support each other. We teachers need to do the same thing. We nurture our students and forget to nurture ourselves and each other. We are all in this together and choose the same path because we share the same passion. Working together should be a joy, not a fearful trek through an obstacle course of misunderestimation, one-up-manship, gossip, and negativity.

We spend so much time focusing on healing our students’ dysfunctions and neuroses that we forget our own… and we become intolerant of it in others. But choosing teaching as a career means we are constantly learning; none of us is ‘finished’ yet. We must hold each other’s professional journey within the same cradle of compassion that catapults our students into the sun. Remember this:

“Everyone has at least one story that will stop your heart.”-Claudia Shear