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The number of things that teachers are asked to "teach" that likely can't be taught, and even if they could be, can't be measured (though those at the top of the chain insist on measurement), boggles the mind. #WhyTheyCantWrite
In #WhyTheyCantWrite, I talk about how a concept like "grit" a useful framework as far as it goes, escaped the lab and took on a life of its own, and was applied in schools in ways Angela Duckworth, the popularizer of grit, even said were reckless.
I frame the chapter on fads through the work of Paul Tough who first wrote How Children Succeed, which helped advance the belief in the importance of character-based education (like grit), and begat prescriptive practices around these traits. This was supposed to be a panacea.
At the end I talk about Tough's next book, Helping Children Succeed, which acknowledges some of the systemic and cultural barriers students face when it comes to schooling. Thing is, these things were well-known when he first wrote, How Children Succeed. #WhyTheyCantWrite 
The systemic problems in education were not unknown and the time of Tough's first book, but the attractiveness of a fad and the power of hype was too strong to overcome. How Children Succeed has likely sold many many times, Helping Children Succeed. #WhyTheyCantWrite
I hope that each failed education fad means we're not going to fall for the next one, but the cycle is endless. The latest is "personalized learning" through software, driven by algorithms. This will never deliver on the pie-in-the-sky promises of developers. #WhyTheyCantWrite
I shudder at how much money districts are going to dump into personalized learning software that could be spent more directly on teachers and students and creating the conditions we know to be conducive towards learning. We can't say we haven't been warned. #WhyTheyCantWrite.
Those who champion these tech solutions would never allow their own children to be subjected to them. An excerpt from #WhyTheyCantWrite on Tom Friedman saying who great MOOCs are. His daughters graduated from Yale and Williams. amazon.com/They-Cant-Writ…
We are subjected over and over again to the opinions about what we should to about education from the Tom Friedmans of the world when the Tom Friedmans of the world would never allow their children to be subjected to what they're championing. #WhyTheyCantWrite
Tom Friedman could absolutely afford to pay $50k a year for his daughters' tuition because Tom Friedman makes that (or more) for a single speech at corporations. That he's willing to consign everyone else's kids to MOOCs is disgusting. #WhyTheyCantWrite.
And of course when the latest technological fad implodes, there's no price to be paid for those who championed it from their high perches cloaked in near total ignorance of what they're writing about. #WhyTheyCantWrite.
Thinking about my own book made my angry all over again. I desperately wish the messages of the book and the voices of teachers with whom the book seems to be resonating can penetrate into the spaces where decisions get made. As of yet, hasn't happened. #WhyTheyCantWrite
