{"id":3401,"date":"2014-11-20T13:14:40","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T18:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3401"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:58:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:58:24","slug":"balance-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3401","title":{"rendered":"Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ah, balance!<\/p>\n<p>Balance is the Fabreze\u00a0of education policy. It is a chemical spray designed to mask\u00a0the stench of a two year-old tuna sandwich found in the minvan with the artificial bouquet of an April rain dancing on a lily pad.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Balanced literacy got us systemic phonics.<\/li>\n<li>Balanced math begot Singapore Math worksheets.<\/li>\n<li>Balanced standards produced The Common Core.<\/li>\n<li>Balanced policy debates produced No Child Left Behind and Race-to-the-Top<\/li>\n<li>A balanced approach to educational technology made computer science extinct in schools and has now taught two generations of children to find the space bar in a computer lab-based keyboarding class.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I could go on.<\/p>\n<p>Balance is elusive. It is fake and lazy and cowardly and sad. Balance is embraced by those who don&#8217;t know or can&#8217;t\/won&#8217;t articulate what they truly believe. Balance fills the void left by the absence of alternative models and excellence. It is anonymous.<\/p>\n<p>Educators are told that passion should be tempered. Every pedagogical idea is just fine\u00a0as long as it is &#8220;for the children.&#8221; We should just do our jobs and not complain about outrageous attacks on our dignity, paycheck, curriculum, working conditions, or the living conditions of the students we serve.<\/p>\n<p>Balance fills the school day with mandates and directives and lots of interruptions\u00a0that while offering an illusion of options make it impossible for a learner to focus on anything long enough to become good at it.<\/p>\n<p>Balance teaches children that teachers are helpless pawns in a system they don&#8217;t control or cannot understand.<\/p>\n<p>Balance is the absentee parent of incrementalism. As educators take &#8220;baby steps&#8221; towards what they know is right or\u00a0righteous they lead a long and meandering hike after which the followers cannot remember the original destination.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/genius.com\/545403\/Martin-luther-king-jr-i-have-a-dream\/Tranquilizing-drug-of-gradualism\">tranquilizing drug of gradualism.<\/a>&#8221; (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963)<\/p>\n<p>Educators are to remain neutral and seek consensus at all-costs. Balance programs us to find the silver lining in tornados. There MUST\u00a0be SOMETHING good in what Bill Gates or Sal Khan or any number of a million corporations with <em>ED<\/em> or <em>MENTUM<\/em> or <em>ACHIEVE<\/em> or <em>VATION<\/em> in their names happen to be peddling. That simply is not so.<\/p>\n<p>The laws of the political universe, and education is inherently political, greet each embrace of &#8220;balance&#8221; as ten steps in a more conservative direction. There is no balance &#8211; just weakness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>When schools seek balance, the weeds always kill the flowers!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I urge you to read <a href=\"http:\/\/stager.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Kozol-Extreme-Ideas.pdf\">one of my favorite passages<\/a> ever written about &#8220;balance&#8221; in education. It is from a lesser-known classic, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1851686312\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1851686312&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=superawesome03-20&amp;linkId=TVWKA2S2F4LJYWQU\">On Being a Teacher<\/a>,&#8221; \u00a0by the great American educator, Jonathan Kozol. Please take a few minutes to read, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/stager.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Kozol-Extreme-Ideas.pdf\">Extreme Ideas<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stager.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/balance.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3402\" src=\"http:\/\/stager.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/balance.png\" alt=\"balance\" width=\"200\" height=\"123\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ah, balance! Balance is the Fabreze\u00a0of education policy. It is a chemical spray designed to mask\u00a0the stench of a two year-old tuna sandwich found in &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[430,427,435,428,526,434,425,431],"tags":[1323,497,510,689,1209,1324],"class_list":["post-3401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-education-policy","category-featured","category-general","category-leadership","category-learning","category-politics","category-teaching","tag-balance","tag-bill-gates","tag-educational-leadership","tag-jonathan-kozol","tag-khan-academy","tag-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Balance - Stager-to-Go<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3401\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Balance - Stager-to-Go\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ah, balance! Balance is the Fabreze\u00a0of education policy. 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