TED Community » Ken McManus

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• A comment on Conversation: Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?

  Aug 7 2011: Seth- It has not occurred to me to view, or attempt to view, K-12 public education as "liberal arts": an interesting perspective and one I'd like to hear more about. Certainly, for secondary students with access to advanced placement or "honors" coursework, I can follow the logic, but for the majority of students I don't see the connection. Further, there seems to be declining interest in access a true liberal arts education at the post-secondary level as well.
  I can't imagine any system of education proving effective in the absence of feedback for all stakeholders. It is clear that other assessment, data aggregation and communication tools exist that more effectively engage students and invigorate learning.

• A reply on Conversation: Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?

  Aug 6 2011: Hi Mark- My concern is less with grades per se, albeit I agree that the tool set is antiquated and damaging along with all the standardizations in place. More largely, I am concerned with the bigger picture of our education system functioning as a system of oppression for students and educators. To eliminate grades will only be seen as an improvement when done in sequence with an aggregate of change strategies.
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  A comment on Conversation: Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?

  Aug 6 2011: The use of grades serves a number of important purposes, all of which can be attended by other tools in new school contexts oriented to invigorated goals. Building upon Sir Ken Robinson's well argued points for the long overdue transformation of education (why doesn't he use the term oppression?), eliminating grades would be one task involved in changing the conversations within education: conversations that connect stakeholders to each other and to the new visions of transformed education systems. As in all things, feedback is the crucial link for balancing autonomy and inclusion. Students will always need feedback to know, and value, where they stand in school communities. Replacing grades with feedback strategies consciously developed to broaden the basis of student inclusion beyond standardized measures can only enhance student engagement and everyone's capacities to thrive. Data drawn from strategies like project based learning and professional leaning communities (when well done) illustrate that motivationally meaningful feedback sans the imposition grades is a powerful means of engaging all students.
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  A comment on Conversation: Without spending money, how can I make the biggest impact on my community with 15 minutes/day?

  Aug 5 2011: Do (model) small things that others can pick up on and that collectively will make measurable differences. For example, on your way into stores, pick up a few pieces of trash and deposit in the receptacles usually placed at doors. Or take a grocery cart in with you. Randomly smile and make slightly prolonged eye contact with others. Follow up with someone and remind them of something they did, relatively recently, that positively influenced you. Voluntarily reach/help neighbors with little things, i.e. carrying in groceries or moving a large plant. The list is almost endless. All these types of things make the exchanges of community a bit more available, and in my experience, reduce the parallel living characteristic of so many of our communities.

• A comment on Conversation: Why should listening be taught as a skill in school?

  Aug 4 2011: I have to agree that effective listening is a skill, the mechanics of which can be taught in many settings. However, and this connects to a parallel TED conversation about "community", the heart of listening and its greatest source of value is in establishing and sustaining effective connections through which exchanges of all kinds can be accomplished. The narcissistic drive pervasive throughout so much of our culture has significantly diminished the value of meaningful, mutual exchange and with it the value of effective listening. It is imaginable that managers motivated to achieve outcomes for which they will be evaluated will find the techniques previously posted worthy of their attention and maybe they will be so bold as to apply them outside their world of work. However, before we advance the notion that school based training in listening skills will lead to improved outcomes of many types for many people, we will first need to culturally reestablish the importance of listening as something worth giving, not just receiving.
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  A comment on Conversation: If you could ask one question to all of your neighbors, what would you ask?

  Aug 4 2011: In 30 plus years of work as a mental health clinician and community leader the aggregate of my experiences has led me to several observations/conclusions about "community", particularly within the context of middle, upper-middle class America. The first is that that long-standing dominance of white male privilege has been the prominent force in the growing disconnections between members of our communities. There are a variety of data that point to higher levels of community experience among people of color and between women. Second, in this context insidious, internalized oppressions now degrade individual and community life within all cultural groups and in particular, our nations youth, including white youth. Changing conversations from emphases on laziness and intelligence levels to forces/habits of oppression will create opportunities for people to feel valid amongst each other across all differences. Third, as we have engaged the dramatic sift from dependence on each other to dependence on technologies, we have raised the "bar" as regards the matrices of self-sufficiency: what one has and what one can do for oneself have become extreme. Finally, within the digital universe there is growing evidence that despite ourselves we need and seek each other. Recent, brilliant presentations on TED provide illustrations of the power of this need, not only in its reach but in its potential for collaborative good. Regrettably, it may take a social-economic meltdown of sorts, seemingly assured by the impotency of modern political systems, to awaken people in their individual and collective fear to the deep resource of community- of each other.