education

Power and Pitfalls of Experiential Learning

Most people I know rejoice when they hear about students engaged with experiential learning, but what does that term mean and how far should it go? Ronald Reagan was largely responsible for making it less affordable to attend colleges and universities, and when he did many cynics muttered about industry and their political party lackies wanting cheaper, more subservient labor. This purposeful dumbing down of our society is having grave consequences, and not just in one spot on the political spectrum. Backlash is occurring, but not the kind of backlash you might hope for: increasingly close relationships between industry and university systems. Industry hungers for skilled workers. And so, we are witnessing the rise of the trade school. Well-run trade schools could nurture collaboration, fostering Democracy, but this runs counter to oligarchical aspersions of the 1%. How will we solve this tension?

California’s Public Institutions of Higher Learning

What is the difference between the 4 different public institutions of higher learning in California: the 116 “community colleges,” 3 “polytechnic state universities,” 20 other “state universities”, and 10 “UC’s?” Community colleges are sorting machines to bridge the ‘better’ students into higher division courses at the other institutions. Around 20% of lower division students in California’s universities drop out; to keep the machine running, there must be replacements in line –community colleges produce those replacements. The “mission of the California Community Colleges is to advance California’s economic growth and global competitiveness through education, training, and services that contribute to continuous work force improvement.” In other words, community colleges are the first step for students entering trade school in California’s higher education system. As such, community colleges are primarily designed to feed students into the polytechnic universities, the purest type of university trade school. The term ‘polytechnic’ refers to vocational training, aka “trade school.” For administrative efficiency as well as similarity of mission, California’s 3 polytechnic universities are administered by the California State University (CSU) system. The other 20 CSU’s are a bit more abashedly also trade schools. The UC’s are clearly distinct from trade schools by their promotion of teaching theory and nurturing critical thinking, conducting research that advances theories, not current practice – they eschew applied research.

The Danger of Trade Schools in California

Trade schools are often proud of experiential learning, a key component of skills-based training. Industry saves money if the State spends the money building skills in the soon-to-be workforce. The current overrated excitement about training grade school students in STEM is a symptom of this thinking. Skills based training, including STEM training, is a big problem when things change as rapidly as they are changing. Most skills we teach to make widgets today are not the skills that will be needed a short period of time. Despite this, trade school curricula leave little room for elective courses. By their sophomore year, students must define their major, and to succeed at that declared major a student has no room in their schedule to explore other subjects. On top of this, trade schools are teaching a narrow set of ‘soft skills,’ related to obedience to process: students who can navigate the bureaucracy are the ones that succeed. The result of this system is an emerging workforce trained narrowly in already irrelevant job skills excepting the skill to navigate protocol.

Faltering Trade Schools

Years ago, California’s trade schools hired professors with experience in private industry. After Reagan gutted public higher education funding, competition increased between colleges and universities for other revenue sources from skyrocketing student fees, public:private partnerships (industry funding), and alumni donations. This competition led trade schools to attempt to become more like UCs: “top-tier” universities. And so, trade schools turned changed the old model of hiring professors experienced in “real world” industries to hiring the same types of professors UC would hire. Lucky for them, there is a glut of academically aspiring PhDs. Trade school administrators increasingly apply the screws to faculty, who are caught in demoralizing  stress. Professors at trade schools must teach as many tuition-paying students as possible: low faculty:student ratios are more profitable. To be successful these faculty must help with fundraising, meeting with industry officials to keep up reputations of building a skilled workforce. On top of those obligations, trade school faculty play the game of courting ‘top tier’ status for their university by somehow, miraculously wedging in time for publication-quality research.

Long-Lasting, Relevant Workforce Skill: Collaboration

Instead of, or at least in addition to, training trade school students on ‘how good are you at navigating protocol,’ trade schools might also focus on collaborative skills. What if experiential learning at trade schools focused on student engagement to solve real-world problems, interacting with real world stakeholders? In this case, faculty and students would interact with the stakeholders involved in any given issue…perhaps industry representatives, regulators, policymakers, financiers, interested citizens, labor leaders, etc. Students would be reviewed by their ability to critically evaluate situations and for the feasibility of their creative solutions. Faculty would be reviewed by the quality of their student mentorship on collaboration skills. Collaborative skill training would focus on power analysis, defining success, facilitating dialogues for mutual understanding, identifying gaps in knowledge, and identifying solutions of greatest benefit.

Contextual Shift

Training a future workforce skilled in collaboration would increase productivity while creating a more peaceful citizenry, but would also likely threaten wealth inequality…and so is a major threat to industry leaders. If those entering the industrial workforce understood the regulatory context of their work, they might favor solutions that meet regulatory expectations, rather than attempting to challenge or circumvent the rules. On the other hand, if those entering regulatory workforce understood industrial context of their work, they might be less likely to apply rules inappropriately in favor or in contravention of industry. In either case, accusations of a ‘dark state’ would evaporate and the people’s will for regulations would likely be more fully realized. Core to collaboration training is the idea that we can achieve more through collaboration than trade-offs faced with compromise. Those in power like the frame where the only pathway to solution is compromise because they think they always win as much as could be won. That mistaken assumption is evident in the politics of the USA.

DEI is the Answer

Even trade schools are teaching Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which holds great promise as a back door to training in collaboration. The skills I outlined above are inherent to implementing a more DEI-oriented society. The question is…will DEI suffuse everything at trade schools (and beyond), or will it be siloed as yet another idea in the world of ideas? In some places, we are seeing an attack on DEI training…after reading this essay, I hope you can think more critically about why that might be.

I also hope you will consider the implications of higher education tilting towards trade schools, away from the humanities, history, critical thinking, and theory.

-this essay originally published in Bruce Bratton’s amazing BrattonOnline.com blog: sign up and get an email reminder to read each week. It is worth it…even if you donate a bit to help keep it running!

Teach Your Children Well, Part 2

I received lots of great feedback from my column a couple of weeks ago, maybe in part because people resonate with the need for raising our children with love and respect for nature. When we see people damaging nature, we must redouble our efforts to make sure we avoid making new people like that – by reaching out to children, to teach them well. This made me wonder what are core lessons we need for children (and adults!) for being good to nature right here in Santa Cruz. I hope the following is a good start- please send me more ideas for a future, more in depth publication.

News: Apocalypse Cancelled

The most damaging words I hear regularly about nature is how we are doomed. Even generally well meaning and educated people I know enter into what I call the apocalyptic mindset. You’ve probably heard it…maybe even participated in such a dialogue. It starts with, for example, how can we ever address global warming…its such a huge lift…governments aren’t doing anything…oil companies have too much power…people are greedy…the planet is going to be uninhabitable…the human race is going to disappear. This type of conversation seems to always end with ‘the human race is going to disappear,’ sometimes due to disease, sometimes nuclear war, and now sometimes global warming. Maybe we avoid this story with children, saving it for adult conversation, but if you entertain such notions at all, you can bet the children catch on. This story is magical thinking, and the rationale for such stories is beyond my expertise (but, please: ask yourself “why?” if you hear such things). Humans have survived very hard times – through plagues, terrible wars…through ice ages, famines, massive volcanoes, long droughts, etc: it is a safe bet that there will be people around for a very long time…long enough for us to tell a different story, so we think about a longer term presence and the need for earth stewardship.

A Better Story

The different story is supported by evidence near at hand. Go to Pinnacles National Park and watch a condor soar. Take a whale watching boat and see a blue whale. When you drive across Pacheco Pass or tour Pt. Reyes, see the tule elk. All of these species were ‘doomed’ but people decided that they were worth keeping…we changed our behavior, and they are recovering. The better story is of the inherent compassion of humans and our ability to improve how we live with nature. If your better story has people living alongside elk, whales, condors, and mountain lions in a world with grizzly and polar bears, elephants, giant pandas, and coral reefs, then it will inspire us to work together to make it so.

Sunset on the North Coast

Stewarding Soil, Air, and Water

There are, of course, other things to teach the children, such as care for soil, water, and the air. The science of soil formation has been taking place on Santa Cruz’ North Coast for a while, so we are fortunate to be proximate to the story of soil, and how incredibly slowly it is created. The Dust Bowl lessons are long forgotten and chemical fertilizers have been hiding the need for soil, but all the same- soil is sacred and everyone should know that soil loss is a terrible thing, that prime agricultural land is precious to conserve, that soil needs stewardship. All children should know where their food comes from. The same goes for water; I wonder how many appreciate where their water comes from and the care that must be taken so that it isn’t contaminated…thanks to government and rules. And, it is similar for the air. That we have good soil, water, and air are again testaments to the good that humans can do when we work together. But, we can all use some education about what we can do to help keep those situations improving.

For the soil, water and air lessons, here are some field trip ideas. Next winter, go for a walk at Wilder Ranch and see if the soil is covered or if it is washing off into the ocean. Take a trip to Loch Lomond then to an auto repair shop upstream in Ben Lomond; discuss the dangers of petroleum ending up in drinking water. Watch road runoff in ditches next winter and think about what that oily sheen means for water quality and how it might be captured. Stand next to a busy street and smell the air, talk about what is in tail pipe emissions and where that stuff goes and what it does. To have these kinds of conversations might take some homework- how many of us can have informed conversations about these simple and everyday situations? If children knew more about these things, would it help?

Non-Humans

Children should know about living well with non-human animals. Often, kids are introduced to domesticated animals…and too often they share their parents’ misconceptions about how best to care for and train those pets. Perhaps family time discussing well vetted videos about living with pets is in order. Meat eaters have an obligation to have some honest conversations about how livestock are raised and how they come to the plate. Field trips may be in order on that front. A little more on the wild side is the need for children to understand the host of issues from animals that aren’t domesticated that tag along with human civilization – termites, Argentine ants, roaches, stray cats, rats, mice, pigeons, starlings, etc. Just around the corner is another teaching subject: native wild animals which are doing perhaps too well at adapting to human ecosystems, such as ravens, crows, gulls, jays, racoons, etc. By learning about these and the invasive animals, perhaps children will learn to be more tidy and perhaps they’ll figure out other ways to mediate the impacts of these species. Into the real wild,  children need to learn about the needs of wildlife – for habitat, landscape connectivity, peace, respect, and for the science needed to better plan for conservation.

Santa Cruz’ North Coast

Children Becoming Citizens

As age appropriate, children will one day be old enough to need education about how the above concepts enter the civic world. They will need to understand how land management agencies do or do not protect open space for wildlife. They will need to understand how clean air and water regulations are promulgated, incentivized, and enforced. And, it would be good to teach them how to critically think about the environmental issues they encounter and how to seek credible information to inform their thinking. Are these issues addressed in schools adequately? How else might we help children to understand these issues so that they are engaged citizens?

Engaging

Nature brings peace, so perhaps the most important lesson for children is how to experience nature. I see families taking talkative strolls with children, but few parents sitting quietly in nature with their young ones. With luck, children should be able to witness a bird building a nest and feeding its young. They should see tadpoles and then tadpoles with legs. We all feel delighted to see a fox or coyote pounce on prey. There’s a fascination to watching the dusky footed wood rat taking a huge mouthful of twigs to its 4’ wide stick home. There are salmon swimming upstream to spawn in nearby creeks during the early winter. Giant whales are lunging into schools of anchovies close to boats that leave every day from local harbors. None of these things are easy to see as chance encounters. Like all good education, it will take some work, but it is worth it.

The more time we spend with children sharing these types of lessons, the better the chance of future generations saying ‘we are sure glad that people figured out how to restore beavers!’ or ‘wow- look at that tule elk!’ Richer lives and a better planet require us collectively to raise children who are eco-literate. Please do your part, even if you aren’t a parent.

-this article appeared first in Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com weekly blog.