What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School?
By John Thompson.
Before the test-driven, competition-driven school reform movement, educators had plenty of issues to argue over. We didn’t face nearly as many controversies that we had to fight over. Educators might occasionally express our opinions in an intemperate manner, but our disputes were no more divisive than the debates in other professions.
Some of our most forceful advocates have long claimed that education’s normative culture was so permissive that it could kill public schools. But, those jeremiads were largely rhetorical. Dissenters might be so livid about the allegedly progressive views that supposedly made us soft-headed that they would threaten to take their ball and go home. But, rarely would they become so angry that they would actually promote the destruction of public education and our values regarding the free exchange of ideas.
Over the last generation, however, persons who believe that the education “status quo” is too progressive, too soft-hearted, and too slow to shut down debates have often committed to the corporate reform ideology. Because of the claim that school systems are so irreparably broken, the accountability-driven movement has a twenty-year record of taking dramatic action, mandating top-down “transformative” reforms, and then considering the evidence afterwards. They’ve consciously and openly set out to destroy that status quo in the faith that “disruptive innovation” will magically replace the old system that was supposedly too rooted in progressivism.
A discussion in the Teacher’s Lounge recalls the debates of the pre-reform years. I read it as an illustration of what was and what remains good about the education culture that is now derided as the status quo. It also offers insights into why some independent-minded educators, having failed to persuade the majority of their colleagues that they have a monopoly on the truth, turned to market-driven reform in order destroy the school cultures that they found wanting.
Henry Svec asked for teachers’ thoughts about throwing a pizza party for middle school students who get an A, but excluding those who do not reach that level. He hit a nerve and the question apparently prompted more than 1,200 responses. A wide variety of differing opinions were expressed, but Svec may be the only debater who believed that those who disagree with him are mortal enemies of public education.
The discourse over rewarding and punishing student performance started with examinations of the merits of external versus intrinsic motivation for learning and it led to an extended debate over the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program (which is an increasingly popular approach for replacing suspensions to maintain order in schools). The exchange brought in consultants, as well as practitioners. Most posters seemed to embrace “shades of gray,” or nuanced ways to increase the benefits or reduce the unintended harm incentives and disincentives.
Some posters (like me) remain committed to authentic instruction and focusing on the joy of learning. We stressed the importance of teaching students to be inner-directed. At the risk of being called “progressive,” we resisted behavioristic shortcuts that undermine the nurturing of internal loci of control.
Others, who seemed to represent the majority views, believed in grading as the appropriate accountability system. The grade, itself, might be seen as the reward. These educators speculated about ways of grading on What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School? - Living in Dialogue: