If transformational learning is ever to be sustained, it needs institutional credibility and organizational cohesion. Models like the Berkman Center's event epitomize strategies that sustain change, at low cost, with high credibility.

Sustainability

A good idea isn't enough in any educational situation. It takes two very different kinds of sustainability to make any "innovation" worth bothering. First, the idea has to be useful to students or other users enough for them to own that idea, to innovate or vary their approaches due to the idea itself, and to have that transformation continue to transform whatever system is affected. That is neither obvious nor particularly easy. Lots of good ideas - project based learning comes to mind - are essentially close ended: that is they have a beginning, middle, and end, and produce something that may be nice, but has no point other than meeting an assignment, fulfilling a goal stated by somebody else, or meeting an expectation of some governing or "higher" authority. Many good ideas are just riffs on bad ideas, better ways to do standard things, rather than really new ways to do things unanticipated, and demonstrate many kinds of knowledge expected but in unexpected ways.

The second problem is perhaps easier to solve: sustainability depends on the "adoption" of the "innovation" by some system, teacher, administrator, bureaucrat, school, parent group, or organization or organizing principle that last longer than the project or problem or class or lesson. This issue of the "diffusion of innovation" has been the subject of lots of research - from Everett Rogers (http://www.amazon.com/Diffusion-Innovations-5th-Everett-Rogers/dp/0743222091/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3647020-0558541?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176080523&sr=1-1) to the studies of the Post-Sputnik innovations of the 1960's after the failure of New Math and New Science (from Paul Marsh and his updates like http://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/difusion_teoria.pdf). Much of this research addressed special cases - like the diffusion of agricultural innovation, or the sharing of particular educational practices - but, in general, it described a 25 year cycle during which an innovation became a tradition in about half the settings where it could be used. Various authors posited three to six phases of adoption, and a relative bell curve from those who early adopt to those who laggardly refuse to adopt.

That's all fine, but it does not address the more recent issues of technology adoption, of marketing and of information network theory which might be engaged to accelerate adoption or adaptation or - in the cases we promote - the sympathetic transformation whereby an innovation becomes the idea actually owned and promoted by those who sustain it's central transformative function.

That is also all fine, but the two - or three - different understandings of diffusion are not mutually exclusive. They feed on each other. Even the Rogers material posited some who adopt early - the networkers of new tech, for example - and those who adopt late or never. What that literature amply demonstrates is that adoption is too narrow a concept, since New Math, for one livid example, was adopted and then undermined, watered down into a variety of whole language like applications which are still being argued, still being undermined, and still highly contentious. The problem is that the "innovation" was too rigid to be owned by the adopter, too narrow to be adapted and changed in different settings, and too naively promoted as the "next new thing" to answer those who stuck by "tried and true" solutions.

Schools are not the typical markets. They are political systems that include professional, amateur, parent and tradition, new, young, and old, and a particular innovation will be seen as subversive or attractive depending on when, by whom, for what, and how it is first suggested. That requires a very unusual kind of marketing. Just because students might learn more things faster and with less pain and fear at lower cost and with higher expectations is not enough. An innovation must engage teachers, parents, administrators and politicians as well, and they must all have some kind of shared ownership.

That mandates a very different kind of "evaluation," "marketing," teacher and student training, documentation, credibility and engagement. It requires that the innovator look carefully at the potential market and tune that evaluation to anticipate opposition that can be whimsical to rigorous, naive to punitive, traditional to radical. And that the evaluation itself be in language, medium, and style as attractive as possible to any potential adopting party.

Wow.

A good idea is certainly not enough.

What was bad is even worse

And it took me another 12 hours to figure out that, if they'd not been so racist in their hiring, and if they'd kept up with the increasingly bilingual population of students with a bilingual pool of new teachers, they would already have the capacity to offer Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian French in every grade from 1 through 12. Kind of remarkable how obvious the solution really was: to maintain or at least attempt a little more parity with the school population among the teacher population. Now, with a 20% turnover every year due to an aging school teacher pool, and with salaries 10% to 30% lower than their neighbors, they can't find any more Irish teachers to hire. Surprise!

Not More but Different

It took me nearly 15 hours and a night's sleep to consolidate my outrage at a desultory discussion on "new initiatives" (how I hate that neologism) with a school system. The end of the discussion - and clearly the objective of the school committeemen in charge - was to identify the "top five" priorities of those attending, as if this meant any more than the bottom five of the next group attending, and to illustrate how they all - or almost all, this was a savvy group - cost more money. They never reflected on how several alternatives might have saved money if they'd been re-configured, nor on how several actually displaced programs that were actively failing children, as observed by their parents.

When parents suggested that foreign languages begin in first grade, for one particularly insulting example, no one observed that the system is rapidly becoming 60% non-English speaking, with remarkable community (although certainly not school) resources for Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian French. No one - including myself, but not in the future - jumped at the opportunity to offer courses to parents, and thereby secure their help in offering bilingual speech courses to children.

While it is absolutely certain that not all people can teach, it is also just as certain that they do - particularly if they are parents. The question, therefore, is not "if they can teach," but "how can they teach better" their own and other children or adults. That is a very worthy charge for a school system to offer the larger community, since they are not - legally, constitutionally, or even organizationally - an exclusive province of children.

It is merely that we let them retreat to that safe, and often, much too often, unsuccessful refuge.

This is NOT because I have too much time, rather too little.

It's easier to write one thing to many here, than to copy and paste forever. There are some general themes relevant to all my current priorities - to Atra Luce, to Choice thru Education, to local schools and politics, to online tutoring from the Philippines or East Africa, to fora on "public safety" that engage Geographic Information Systems for safer neighborhoods, to ending the AIDS/HIV epidemic. They all reflect strategies to distribute information, expression, and respect to, with, and for often ignored, rarely heard, and usually dismissed individuals and groups. That's a pretty broad spectrum, and finding and refining what they share is the challenge of a lifetime.

My primary concern now is helping to frame Atra Luce - a new, small, foundation leveraging huge change in teaching and learning with very, very modest tools. That leverage is a common pattern for which I have much affection - the AIDS epidemic lever is similar. It is not even interesting to change the world if you're a Bush or even a Blair, although the "unintended consequences" of their mucking about are worth considerable attention. It's much, much more fun, and more deliberately consequential to transform learning, art, politics, health or whatever, with a key insight, and then trace those consequences, reinforcing where needed, promoting or restraining where critical. Atra Luce seeks to transform education with a modest (as Swift might call it) proposal: critical thinking and grammar can transform how people communicate in any language, any subject, any medium. Latin - or algebra 0r geometry or any subject you don't use on a daily basis - can, like a touchstone, cause you to see and be seen differently.

I strongly believe in the value of pool or even billiards. Working the cushions to cause lots of action on the table transforms not only the target you intend for that round, but the whole game, each time you shoot. Latin is precisely the kind of subject that affects many other subjects quickly, profoundly, and with the kind of connection that could, should, might, and with the right tools will transform those subjects. The obvious ones are grammar and expression in writing or speech, but just as significant are science, math, and technology: where a well placed word or ending affects meaning, and that change in meaning transcends time and place.

The parallel with ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic is compelling. There are new tests to make it easy - and far less threatening - to find out if one's been exposed; new treatments now and on the way to reduce the impact of that exposure; new methods to redress immediate exposure to the virus and reduce the probability of infection to tolerable levels; new medications in the pipeline to even further reduce the probability of infection, available to either partner anonymously; and new means of delivering these key resources to increasingly complex but ready publics. Focusing on the changes alone makes the public aware of both the risks and the precautions available. Bringing hope does not increase risk, but quite the reverse. Presuming everyone has some survival skills, and building more skills on that scaffold, saves the public no less than the person. And linking all these transformations to the convenient coincidence of a universal health insurance program in Massachusetts, that needs incentives for full enrollment, and rewards and security for all members, multiplies any reduction in the rate of infection by many, many times.

Just as there is a difference between individual health and public health - justifying serious public investment in prevention while helping each and all know and manage their risks - so there is a difference between teaching and curriculum - justifying critical thinking in any subject while delivering a universal skill like the pleasure of grammar and confidence of communication in Latin. Just as a simple, anonymous, low cost test can give confidence and key health information, a relatively modest, insightful, and fun way to learn Latin can lever huge benefits in learning, in communication and in many other key skill-acquisition activities of a lifetime.

Enough facile analogs. It's time to realize them a little in some proposals. More later.