One of the first things I thought of when I saw Clay’s post on grading was the debate happening a few months ago over at The Faculty Room, about “the unthinking habits of grading.”

Clay’s post outlined a (brief and one-sided, but relevant) history of “grading” in the modern world and how it is destroying teaching and learning. His post also characterized how “grading’s evil twin,” over-sized classrooms, devalues learning.  While I agree with much of Clay’s post, I have to start my rebuttal with a strong disclaimer — so strong that it almost feels like a confession:  I hate the word “grading” and all its derivatives.

And that is why I prefer to talk about Assessment.  Yes, Assessment with a capital A.  You see, “grading” is a term that I never used or even really heard until I moved into international education.  I am originally from Canada and where I’m from, we informally call the whole shebang “marks.”  In my more formal discussions with administrators, parents, and colleagues I would use the term I was introduced in my B.Ed. programme:  Assessment.  But then, I moved overseas and my American colleagues started asking me, “So have you finished your grading yet?” 

Huh?

The Word

It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea that teachers viewed giving assessments as some kind of way to “rate” students.  A couple of quick searches reveals some of the reasons why I am uncomfortable with the word “grade.”  First, the definitions.  Note that I am purposely including only the first few definitions provided.

From Dictionary.com Unabridged v 1.1:

grade -noun

1. a degree or step in a scale, as of rank, advancement, quality, value, or intensity
2. a class of persons or things of the same relative rank, quality, etc.
3. a step or stage in a course or process.

There are several more definitions, but these first three give you an idea of why I’m uncomfortable with the term.  According to these first three definitions (and similar ones  on Merriam-Webster and the like), essentially, a grade is a rank or classification. The Online Etymology Dictionary says that “grade” (noun) is from Latin, gradus, meaning “a step or degree,” and is related to gradi, which is “to walk, step, go.”  So why are we using grades — and even the term itself –  to classify students’ abilities?

But wait — here is the bit I am looking for.  If I look carefully at the Dictionary.com definition, and scroll down to definition #7, I will see one that says this:

a letter, number, or other symbol indicating the relative quality of a student’s work in a course, examination, or special assignment; mark.

Ahh, that’s it.  A grade can be used to indicate quality — it can be an informant, so to speak.  This is somewhat similar to Definition #3, which is about steps or stages.  And then back to the Online Etymology Dictionary, where at the very end of the entry for “grade” it tells me the history of the term we are using now in 2008:

that of “letter-mark indicating assessment of a student’s work” is from 1886.

Ok, so I’m not so way-off base.  What I’m wondering is how we evolved, as teachers, from viewing (and using) grades as indicators to using grades as ranks and classifiers.  Something is wrong with this picture. 

A Proposal

I’d like to propose that we get back to the meaning that has to do with indicating assessment of a student’s work — that is, as indicators of growth.  And that’s why I prefer to use the term Assessment rather than “grade.”  The term “grade” implies ranking and classification, and this is exactly what we do not want to do with our students.  The reasons are obvious — we all know that ranking and classification of abilities can be absolutely detrimental to real authentic learning.  Ranking and classifying have nothing to do with intrinsic motivation and everything to do with jumping through hoops.

So I refer back to my original comment on Clay’s post:

As Gilbert said in the same comment thread,

If we are going to use Assessment as a way to indicate whether a student is learning or not, then most educators would agree: We Need Assessment!  Instead of using Assessment just to get grades (you know, those silly numbers that need to go in a column or box on a report card), instead, let’s use Assessment to show learners and their parents just how much (or little) growth is occurring.  Heck, while we’re at it, let’s use Assessment to guide our own teaching practices, too.  Are they getting it?  Do I need to teach something differently?  Or never again?

Let’s let the grades STAND for something else, something other than a rank, category, or class.  Let’s let the grades represent the descriptions of the learning.  (That definitely calls for criterion-referenced Assessment, by the way.)  Yes, let’s let the grades BE the description of what has been learned, and then let’s let those grades guide what will be learned next.

How-To

I personally believe that almost anything can be used to arrive at an indication of learning (indication of learning = Assessment).  A test?  Sure — as long as you’re not calculating some kind of percentage total.  An essay?  Maybe, depending on what it is you’re assessing.  A personal journal?  Absolutely — if it’s honest and personal, I bet there’s heaps of evidence of learning.  An overheard conversation?  Definitely!  A blog post, a Tweet, Facebook application, or a collection of shared bookmarks?  Why not?  The question I ask myself as a teacher:  Does this show evidence of the student’s learning? If the answer is yes, even to a small degree, then I see no reason why it cannot be used as some way for me to indicate that learning has occurred.

So the key, then, seems to be to come up with an effective Assessment descriptor.  Traditionally, we have used numbers — I’m not certain of the reason but I suspect it’s because they’re difficult to argue with and they fit easily into a transcript or spreadsheet, thereby making data easy to manipulate and process.  Well, that reason has little to do with the learners (to my mind, anyway) and so I am not sure that numbers are the best route any more.  Some systems use letters — a small difference from numbers, but easily translated and manipulated the same way as numbers.  And let’s face it — how do you usually end up arriving at the letter grade?  (Numbers.) 

I would prefer to use symbols of some kind to indicate to students, parents, and myself how a learner is doing in terms of skills and understanding.  The image I mentioned before is a drawing of a flower in different stages of development from levels 1 to 4. Level 1 = just sprouting; Level 4 = full bloom.  And next to each flower drawing, I might put a description of what it is I expect to see in the student’s work at that level.  So, for example, if I am assessing paragraphs, it might look like this:

(image of a barely sprouting flower)  The paragraph has a main idea, but sometimes goes off-topic.  Sentences are not yet organized and ordered in a way that is logical, but they are beginning to be connected in some places.  An attempt at a topic sentence is visible, though the main idea is not clearly stated, only implied.

(image of a full bloom flower)            The paragraph has a fully developed and explored main idea with very relevant connected details.  Sentences are in clearly discernible, appropriate, thoughtful, and logical order.  The topic sentence is relevant and attention-grabbing with a clearly stated and coherent main idea.

I like this idea because it removes the numbers from the general picture and focuses instead on Assessment as an indicator of growth.  Not only do I like this idea in terms of assessing a particular task or learning goal, but I also like the idea of using this as a holistic way to report on a student’s learning growth over the course of a term or semester.  Even better, perhaps, might be to eliminate the symbols altogether from the “reporting” aspect and just focus on the descriptive comments.  But I suspect that university admissions personnel might not like that idea . . .

However I do want my students to understand that Assessment is important, but that it’s not about the numbers. As I said before — even if I don’t exist and they are teaching themselves, learners must understand that being reflective and “seeing where you’re at” is necessary for learning.  Assessment is just an indicator, it does not have to be a rank and classification system.

Numbers Again

I haven’t really said much about “grading’s evil twin: over-sized classrooms.”  I guess that’s because I think this one is a simple issue. No one actually believes that a lot of learning can happen in a class of 20+ students — do they?  To my mind, this is simply an issue of financial and human resources.  If we provide enough teachers to keep the ratios low (ideally, less than 16), then learning will increase.  That is, I think, a no-brainer.  Unfortunately very few schools or districts are willing to follow through with such a plan because human resources are the most expensive.  

Having said all of this, I do think it is possible to manage Assessment creatively in classes with more than 16 students.  What it means is that their teacher has to train the students — and rigorously — to be very good self- and peer-assessors.  Note that I used the word “creatively”:  in this situation a teacher has to think about Assessment very differently and be willing to give up some of that “grading power.”  I know I did not do this well in my first 5 years of teaching and I’m still not sure that I do it well.  Managing Assessment with groups this large is perhaps not impossible, but it is certainly difficult, not consistently effective, and definitely time-consuming.  It may even mean having to sacrifice some time at the start of the school year that you would normally dedicate to plowing straight ahead through the curriculum.  I would argue that it’s time well-spent, however.  What students learn in learning to assess themselves and others will take them far further in life than that extra novel study or history paper.  What good learner is not a reflective learner, after all?

Thinking More

I posted about “the unthinking habits of grading” on my own blog a while back, and my conclusions then and my conclusions now are the same:  We don’t need to get rid of “grading” altogether, we just need to change what it means, and think a heck of a lot more about why we are doing it.  (And perhaps we need to call it something different!)

12 Comments

• At July 7, 2008, Anand Thakker wrote:

  Nice post, Adrienne.

  It doesn't seem like the flower example actually gets rid of "numbers": how would it be different from having numbers 1-4 with the descriptive definitions? As I understand it, what it really does is give explicit meaning to the numbers, in a way that makes sense to students and is helpful to them. (Granted, the flower imagery may well help communicate this meaning.)

  What I really like about this is that, whether it's flowers or numbers or other symbols, a system like this seems designed to serve as a language, within the context of a relationship between the teacher (me) and the students.

  What freaks me out is the idea of someone (read: college admissions) taking it *out* of context, and assuming the number means something along the lines of, "This is how much knowledge student 142031 has proven she has acquired."

  (A colleague of mine explained a really helpful distinction between these two. The former, which aims to be an 'indicator' to help direct the next step in the learning process, is called "formative assessment". The latter, which summarizes what someone knows, is called "summative assessment". My apologies if I'm repeating stuff you all already know...)

  -Anand

  Anand Thakkers last blog post..Yeasayer - Yeasayer - LA BLOGOTHEQUE:“They were funny,...

• At July 7, 2008, Jim Walker wrote:

  As a special ed teacher I have been using narrative assessments for years. When I develop an Individual Education Plan for a student I list the strengths, learning styles, educational needs, goals and objectives. Each quarter I then write a narrative describing the curriculum and whether or not the student achieved the objectives. Last year I had 40 students in my math classes and each one had an IEP. I also had to give "grades" on a report card and a high school transcript. In special ed the grade is more of a reflection of students working to their ability level. I gave an A to a student who still uses a times table chart and an F to a student who is capable of pre-algebra work.

  I see teachers using grades as a carrot or stick to get students to work harder. The grades seem to satisfy parents and society that some type of learning is happening.

• At July 7, 2008, Jenny wrote:

  First of all, I'm a big fan of the flower symbol as a way to communicate assessment information to students and parents. I may have to give that a try this year.

  Your post has given me a lot to think about. I teach elementary and I often wonder how much of a difference that makes in my thoughts on certain topics.

  I think of assessment and grading as two very different things. Assessment is what I am doing almost all the time in order to plan instruction appropriately. Grading is what I do because I have to. Society here in the US demands that we give grades. Both because we (many of us) are naturally competitive and because it is what we have always done. I'd like to see us abolish grades all together and try some drastically different way of communicating assessment information. I think a huge shift will be necessary for us to not simply do the same thing with a different name and look.

  Jennys last blog post..FBs - Who are they?

• At July 7, 2008, lhagen wrote:

  Like Jim Walker, my background is special education. When I made the transition to "general" education teacher, I continued to see the value of using IEP-type narratives to assess the learning gains of my students. So, I use coaching rubrics similar to Adrienne Michetti's flower example to document student growth. I also try to take an A/B/Not Yet approach to "grading" based on the how well the student scored on the coaching rubric.

  This approach to student assessment has become more that I can manage. Though I can clearly articulate to parents exactly which skills a student has or has not mastered within the course, I am still required by the district to give a "grade" for student work at the end of every six week period. (Actually, I have to "give grades" by the third week of every grading period as a means of providing parents with a "progress report.") There is, for me, always a disconnect between how well my students progress and how I'm required to quantify that progress.

  Like Jim Walker, I'm conflicted with I'm asked to "grade" student A, who could, at the beginning of the course, barely write a complete sentence, but who has mastered complex sentences by mid-semester, and "grade" student B, who began the semester with a solid command of sentence and paragraph structure, and by mid-semester is well on the way to writing well supported, logically organized essays. Who gets an "A"? My documentation shows that both students made learning gains. According to the scope and sequence of the course, however, student A hasn't met the criteria for passing the course. (An added insult: Student A has also not learned enough to pass the standardized writing test.)

  I'm totally on the "assessment" bandwagon. I get it. I just don't know how to circumvent the system that dictates policies that bring relevant assessment practices to a crashing halt.

  lhagens last blog post..master story tellers

• At July 7, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Real quick, as I'm brain-dead from an all-night Wimbledon finals marathon (my heart breaks for Federer, but embraces Nadal too for a beautifully rising star) --

  Anand touches on my biggest "yeah but....": college admissions and the crushing pressure to brand students with a standards-based (if they're lucky) grade. I know many colleges are going SAT optional, but that's no help, since they're weighting GPA even more as a result. So....help.

  And Lucia touches another one: how "unmanageable" it is to assess students with care when class sizes are so large today (and considered normal when, as my Taking Back Teaching post discusses, were not always so) - AND to do it _on top of_ having to grade for the report cards and progress reports. Help.

  Really good comments already. Thanks for that.

• At July 7, 2008, Paul McMahon wrote:

  I agree that this is a great post but it stops short of actually being perscriptive of how we satisfy all stakeholders that the "assessment" that we are doing really is valid and reliable.

  Given that there are good examples of schools out there trying to do things differently, I really want to be reading more postings and articles in the mass media about how student presentations, portfolios, blog commenting etc, are much better indicators of success in the 21st Century world.

  I am in Hong Kong, the land where every school is rushing headlong into the IB programme as quickly as possible due to questions about continuation of A Levels beyond 2013. I run into lots of parents who know that their kids will suffer in trying to live up to the assessment criteria for the Theory of Knowledge component and the external examination regime yet in the weekend papers there was a report of the last big International School in Hong Kong deciding to fall into line.

  Seems to me that we are all doing a bad job of getting the message out about alternatives.

  Mind you, not being an IB Diploma teacher, I could have it wrong, maybe the external exams are flexible, open-ended assessments? Somehow, I don't think so.

  Paul McMahons last blog post..Slides: Using Podcasts for Teaching English

• At July 8, 2008, Adrienne wrote:

  Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. A few quick replies - I've got guests this week and I'm short on time.

  @Anand - the flower imagery can remove the numbers altogether so that we don't have to resort to the 1-4 scale that you mention. And yes, I am very familiar with the difference between formative and summative assessment, as are my students. However, what I question is why we must use NUMBERS for the summative assessment. Why can't the flower image work for different skill sets and be reported thus, with support from a narrative?

  @Jim - perhaps we need to re-train parents to understand that learning can happen without the numbers. The narratives you describe probably hold much more information about what learning is going on in with your students than any letter grade or percentage.

  @Jenny - I find it interesting that you think of Grading and Assessment as two different things. If you had to define Grading, what would your definition be? I guess a big part of my philosophy has a hole in it because perhaps I really don't understand the concept of Grading.

  @lhagen -- You said "I just don’t know how to circumvent the system that dictates policies that bring relevant assessment practices to a crashing halt." I completely understand how you feel. And it sounds like you are tied to more grading policies than I have ever been in my 10 years as a teacher, so you have made me feel very fortunate and thankful. I don't profess to have all the answers, but I wonder if you couldn't just leave the grade for the reports and nothing else. What I mean is, use the grade as the way you need to use it, but make all of your feedback to students and parents outside of reports of the narrative or symbolic type. I can't remember where I read about this -- I think it was in that Alfie Kohn article that Clay referenced -- where he suggested doing something of this nature. That way, your feedback to students is always and only about their learning, and their understanding of assessment is also only for their learning. But the grading, which you have a hard time getting around, is for the parents and so for those purposes, you just fill in the boxes and get it over with. I'm not suggesting that you don't assess the students' work without using the district scope / sequence documents that you need to -- of course you must. But give it a grade, write it down somewhere only for your purposes, so that you can "translate" it later on to the report -- and don't let the students see it or even worry about it. All they then have to worry about is the feedback you've given them which is specific to how they can become a better learner.

  (I have no idea if that suggestion is even feasible or realistic, however. I simply remember reading it a few weeks ago and thinking that I would like to give it a try in at least one of my classes in the upcoming school year.)

  @Clay - I'm afraid I have few suggestions other than the one I already made to Lucia about using grades for colleges, etc. Until the system changes, this is the status quo in that arena -- at the end of the day you have to put something in a box on a report. But as teachers we can make what is behind that "box" more meaningful by taking the emphasis off the actual letters or numbers. Can't we tell students and parents, "That grade is there only because I needed to put it there, but it is nowhere near as descriptive as all the other feedback and evidence in this child's portfolio of work"?

  And as for the difficulty managing large class sizes-- indeed this is a challenge. Depending on the ages of your students, I do believe that a teacher can train them to properly and accurately self and peer assess so that perhaps the load is lessened. Obviously this might be difficult with primary students, but my 6th graders know how to do it. I have to step in once in a while and guide them, but if they are intrinsically motivated to learn (ie., without the grades) then they will understand how to apply a set of criteria to their own work to see how they are progressing and what areas they need to improve.

  @Paul -- Other than essay exams, the exams at IB Diploma level are also based on criteria with different levels of achievement within each criterion. The levels of achievement are actually written as descriptors of the work, and so they are not based on percentages or other quantitative data. IB programs at all levels are about holistic assessment, and this is (to my mind) one of the things that makes them such progressive programs. Not to say they are infallible (they have many weaknessses), but they are definitely more forward-thinking.

  Adriennes last blog post..Google Teacher No-Go

• At July 8, 2008, Anand Thakker wrote:

  @Adrienne - I disagree that the flower imagery can remove the numbers all together. Even when you described it, you talked about "levels". I wouldn't even be surprised if students saw the flowers and started referring to them as numbers on their own! ("What'd you get?" "A two.")

  There's nothing inherently *wrong* with numbers (says the math teacher...heh). The problem seems to be (a) when numbers are the only form of "reporting", and (b) when the numbers are assumed to represent some kind of objective measure of talent, rather than a developmental stage of growth.

  Anand Thakkers last blog post..what the internet is doing to our brains

• At July 9, 2008, Adrienne wrote:

  @Anand - perhaps students might start referring to levels of development as numbers but I'm not certain about that. My guess is that the adults in their lives (teachers and parents) would be the first to do that, and not themselves.

  I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with numbers, but they do attach certain connotations to growth and assessment that I am uncomfortable with, and I sense that others are too. I'm not saying "let's get rid of numbers altogether." What I am saying is let's be creative and thoughtful about how we use them, and maybe we don't need to use them very much at all.

• At July 9, 2008, Adrienne wrote:

  @Paul - I realized that my reply to you was ambiguous. *ALL* IB Diploma exams, including the essay-based ones, are assessed with criteria descriptors. Most IB Diploma exams are open-ended, requiring critical thinking rather than remembering information and knowledge. There are some exceptions (History and Biology come to mind) but this is the general status. And admittedly, I'm not familiar with all the subject areas at the IB DP level.

• At July 9, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @Adrienne

  Nice post. Well thought out. I like your take on assessments and the meaningful value they bring but the question still comes back to classroom size then. It is virtually impossible for a teacher to provide meaningful formative assessments with a teaching load of 140 plus as my school has.

  I'm the administrator but unfortunately I don't think i could pull of 16 or under without doubling the tuition. Personally I'd like to but the board would most likely have my head.

  So if smaller classrooms are the key to unlocking the power of formative narrative assessment how do we pull that off? I'm not saying it can't be done. If our culture (America) valued education as much as say NASCAR funding probably wouldn't be an issue. All these posts make me want to start my own school someday.

  @Clay

  I think we both watched what will go down in history as the greatest moment of all time. As someone of Swiss ancestry I was sad to see Federer fall after such a great fight. My hat off to Nadal- a young man with so much poise. Congrats on the new apartment. Looks like a great view.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Finding Balance

• At July 10, 2008, Adrienne wrote:

  @Charlie

  Thanks for the positive feedback. The issue of classroom size is one that is related to assessment, but to my mind, as I said earlier, it's a no-brainer. Class sizes just need to be smaller, period. And yes, while it is virtually impossible to provide meaningful formative assessments with a teaching load of 140+, I do think it IS possible to train one's students to be effective self- and peer-assessors. While I would not advocate use of peer- and self-assessment exclusively, I maintain that it is certainly possible to use it creatively enough to lighten the assessment load overall. And, if a teacher is using criterion-based assessment ALL the time, this means the actual act of marking is easier for whomever is doing it, be it the student, the peer, or the teacher, because the assessor is matching work with a descriptor and providing reflective feedback related to those descriptors.

  I guess what I'm trying to say (in a very diplomatic way) is that sometimes I wish teachers would stop complaining about "the unthinkable acts of grading" and instead think MORE and be CREATIVE about how they can assess in ways that are more meaningful. I'm not implying that teachers are bad teachers for grading the way they know how to presently, but if one is genuinely concerned about how assessment can inform meaningful learning and instruction, then one will find the best tools for the job, even if that means completely re-inventing the wheel. We are always advocates of teaching critical thinking to our students, but are all teachers as critical of their own ways of doing things? Especially with something as important as assessment, which is so necessary and important. It does not have to be a big, ugly, nasty evil of education.

  And you are right -- I mentioned this in my post -- you, as an administrator might love to shrink class sizes to 16 or under, but the board probably won't let you. My Assistant Principal said the same thing to me last fall when I suggested that the 2008-09 timetable be re-jigged so that we had more EAL support in every class, rather than in one "streamed" class. His response: "We just couldn't justify that human resource expense to the board. There is no point in hiring 5 more teachers when if we just change the timetable, one teacher can do the same job as those 5." Sadly, the meaningful learning of 100+ students does not "justify the human resource expense."

  So, until those in financial control are willing to think more creatively about funding so that class sizes can decrease -- or maybe there will be no classes in the future? -- we as educators need to think and act more creatively about how we use our time with students to instruct, assess, and report in ways that are as meaningful as possible.

  Adriennes last blog post..Google Teacher No-Go

Related posts:

1. Screencast: Using Class Scribe Blogs to Create Self-Grading Moodle Quizzes and Tests
2. Random Acts of Deceleration (Bill Farren Guest-Post 3)
3. Overdrive: That Classroom Blogging Grail, and How Teaching and Grading Obstruct It
4. Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being

Shared with permission. Bill’s Education for Well-Being website has transcripts of the quotes used in the video and more, along with some of the most thoughtful and substantial content around. No echo chamber over there.

See Bill’s guest-blogging posts on Beyond School here.

Does anybody else in education have these kinds of A/V skills? Please leave links in the comment, if so. (Actually, Nathan Lowell is doing some great stuff, but I can’t find the exact links on his blog. Scott McLeod featured them last week on Dangerously Irrelevant, though.)

*Who came up with the term “digital storytelling,” anyway? Is it me, or is it far less sexy than – and far too schooly for – the good old word, “film-making”?

4 Comments

• At April 2, 2008, Suzie Boss wrote:

  Hi Clay,

  Bill's got filmmaker chops, all right. Craig Lindvahl and Joe Fatheree are a couple more teachers who are also self-taught documentarians, working in small-town Illinois. Naturally, they teach digital storytelling to their students (and have an annual film festival showcasing some pretty powerful student work). Here's a post that gives some more details: http://reinventingpbl.blogspot.com/2008/03/big-screen-big-lessons.html

  Cheers,

  Suzie

  Suzie Boss's last blog post..Ideas in the Nick of Time

• At April 2, 2008, YouTube - I'm Afraid Not wrote:

  [...] Sites Linking to This Video: 5 clicks from http://beyond-school.org/ 3 clicks from http://www.ed4wb.org/?p=59 2 clicks from http://beyond-school.org/2008/04/01/edit-envy-for-fe... [...]

• At April 2, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  Bill does some incredible work. I love this video. The ability to tell "story" is one of the six skils Daniel Pink mentions as essential in the new conceptual age.

  Charlie A. Roy's last blog post..Education for the Conceptual Age

• At June 4, 2009, Journeys: I'm Afraid Not wrote:

  [...] tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." -C. S. LewisClay Burell pointed me to a video made by his guest blogger, Bill Farren, entitled I'm Afraid Not.I shared this [...]

Related posts:

1. Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being
2. Random Acts of Deceleration (Bill Farren Guest-Post 3)
3. The Age of Paradox (Guest Blogger Bill Farren, no. 4)
4. Quality Student Podcast: Patrick Interviews Bill Farren for Project Global Cooling

I’d like to give a huge “thank you” to Clay for inviting me to guest post on Beyond-School and for helping promote the concept of education as an instrument of well-being. His desire to do what’s best for students, the planet, and for education in general, inspires.

The Age of Paradox

This from a book I’m currently reading:

“We live in the age of paradox. Our buildings are taller, but our purposes shorter. We have more labor saving devices, but less time for neighbors and friends. We have more money but less fairness; more weapons but less security; more power over nature, but a less-stable nature than ever before. We have more science, research, and intellectual capability than ever, but less common sense and good judgment in our public affairs.” David Orr, Design on the Edge

Ours is also a time of skills—skills that far outstrip purpose. We have the skills to put people on the moon, move whole mountains, create 100,000 different chemicals, and build stealth bombers. I’d like to argue, following Orr’s thinking, that it’s not a lack of skills that will keep us from succeeding. It will be a lack of reflection on the values needed to wisely manage an ever-growing skill set.

Almost exclusively, the educational dialogue today centers around the skills students will need in order to succeed in the 21^st century. Discussions about the values needed for success happen with much less frequency. I’m guessing this has to do with the fact that many consider the teaching of values beyond the purview of educational institutions, especially secular ones. There is some validity to this. Who is to say what values should be taught? So as not to walk onto this slippery slope, I’d like to frame the discussion differently. Instead of arguing about whose values should to be taught, I prefer instead to look at the concept of value itself.

We can study value. By doing so, we will be better able to direct our limited cognitive, material, and emotional resources towards more fruitful ends. Our skills can be put to better use. There is an ever-growing body of information about value that is shattering many ideas that are currently the standard fare in our curricula. Redefining Progress believes “that if policymakers measure what really matters to people—health care, safety, a clean environment, and other indicators of well-being—economic policy would naturally shift towards sustainability.” The burgeoning field of true cost economics allows us to get a better picture of value that goes beyond the incomplete view taught in most classrooms today. “True Cost Economics is currently creating a sizable ruckus in the academic world, and its value as a system of thought is starting to be recognized by the economic establishment.” [Underline added; source: Utne] We currently spend vast amounts of money training people for military service and for jobs associated with the military industrial complex. (M. I. T. has been dubbed the Military Institute of Technology in the popular press.) Vision of Humanity put out an interesting study which looks at the economic value of peace (among other benefits). On their site they state, “Although we have the concept of a war industry and the economics of war, few people would relate to a peace industry and the economics of peace. Yet it is evident that business wishes to invest in areas where there is minimal violence. The economic benefits of peace seem obvious.”

Natural capitalism and the understanding of ecosystem services can also help us better judge value. During his annual Independence Day address to congress, Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, referring to a $2.6 billion deal struck with gold companies giving them mining rights on the tropical island, announced to applause, “This will be the largest investment ever realized in the history of the Dominican Republic.” One wonders though, had the leadership of this fragile island been better educated in the issues of value, would they have struck such an unfavorable deal? It’s easy to look at $2.6 billion as pure gain when no consideration is given to what is lost.

The paradoxes we see today are largely the result of our pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, our ideas about what will make us happy are often wrong. On the positive side, subjective experiences like happiness are starting to be studied scientifically. As this new area of inquiry matures as is given more prominence, schools would be wise to incorporate the findings into procedural and curricular domains. The scientific evidence available to date should have schools questioning the pursuit of high test scores in the name of high-paying jobs. (For more about our poor choices related to happiness, watch this video:

Author Juliet Schor, in her book Born to Buy, notes in a survey of students that, more than half agree that, “when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are,” and 62 percent say that, “the only kind of job I want when I grow up is one that gets me a lot of money.” She later goes onto say, “American children are deeply enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending, and they are getting more so. We find that the more enmeshed they are, the more they suffer for it. The more they buy into the commercial and materialist messages, the worse they feel about themselves, the more depressed they are, and the more they are beset by anxiety, headaches, stomachaches, and boredom.”

If educational institutions have as their mission the improvement of lives, then they should consider how they are preparing students to critically deal with the dysfunctional value systems that permeate our lives. If looked at objectively and approached scientifically, we can discuss the pedagogy of values as easily and frequently as we do that of skills.

Bill Farren

7 Comments

• At March 17, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @ Bill

  You can't have happiness and contentment without self reflection and a purpose. The pursuit of wealth is a never ending quest that can never satisfy. As a former options trader turned teacher I had to learn the hard way that having all the money I wanted didn't do much to make me happy. I hated who I was becoming and wanted something else.

  How you teach this with out an appeal to religion is difficult. I do think the liberal arts model of pushing students to think critically about values is part of the story but I imagine in most public schools at least in the states their would be a fear of being sued by some radical secular activist.

  Personally I feel Catholic education offers the ability to debate freely these issues within a setting that tolerates the push for truth and meaning. If what we believe is true then the fear of dialogue on the issue is irrelevant.

  Charlie A. Roy's last blog post..A Jott in Line and Saving Time

• At March 17, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Charlie, Funny I was holding a copy of The Moral Animal: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology in my hands when I read your comment. Like so many other branches of science (including the new, data-driven "happiness studies" featured in the video Bill embedded), this one posits an understanding of values and ethics rationally derived and cross-cultural, and thus breeding unity across the great religious tribes, rather than further consolidating them.

  This is delicate, but I have to say that the odds are at least as strong that a secularist who opened the validity of religious beliefs up to critical thinking in the classroom would be targeted by a "radical religious dogmatist."

  I know this from experience, in fact. A parent tried to have me fired for including Bishop John Shelby Spong's "Call for a New Reformation" in the classroom, as a modern example of the effects Martin Luther had on his contemporaries.

  We both agree, though, that the Gospel of Consumerism - by far the most dominant religion in the world today, regardless of our Sabbath habits - is not the one that leads to happiness.

• At March 17, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @ Clay

  I see your point. I personally would find it hard to teach in a public school. This difficulty doesn't come from a lack of appreciation for the differences in religious affiliation but for the fact that how can one really discuss history, philosophy, or art while pretending that religion has nothing to do with any of it.

  As human beings we are religious creatures be it the cult of consumerism, Catholicism, Hinduism and on and on our lives are animated and directed by the principles we adhere too. Everyone could benefit from thicker skin and a sense of humor especially some of the sensitive families we work with.

  Sorry to hear that you had such a wonderful run in with the above mentioned parent. I listen to parents every week demand the firing of someone for something. My favorite was this past fall when a parent actually demanded the firing of a teacher for not making her daughter's yearbook picture big enough. She was serious. I'm writing all this stuff down so I can author a book one day.

  I always enjoy your posts.

  Charlie A. Roy's last blog post..A Jott in Line and Saving Time

• At March 17, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Charlie - and I always enjoy your comments. But really, that teacher _should_ be fired! ;-)

• At March 17, 2008, Danielle wrote:

  The issue is a complex one partly as there is no real agreement on the important values in society. the desire for wellbeing as I see it is not of a moral nature in it self. The agreement that the most important thing is to pursue the general wellbeing is a different thing all together. As I see it the only thing that is agreed upon is not to disturb each other in their attempt to achieve wellbeing and this is not enough as the differences between people and belief systems are on the things that are more important then wellbeing when other things are equal.

• At March 19, 2008, Danielle wrote:

  I found this post to be an articulation of the thoughts and feelings i have been having for quite a while.

  especially agree with what Juliet Schor says in her book.

  this is incredibly sad.

  the question is - what can really be done about it by us - moms and dads?

• At March 21, 2008, Bill Farren wrote:

  @Clay @Charlie: Clay, you said it better than I did right here:

  Like so many other branches of science (including the new, data-driven “happiness studies” featured in the video Bill embedded), this one posits an understanding of values and ethics rationally derived and cross-cultural, and thus breeding unity across the great religious tribes, rather than further consolidating them.

  If you look at the major religions, most, if not all (I'm not a theologian by any means) seem to point to what the science of happiness and well-being seem to be finding: moderation, limits, purpose, charity, involvement... are good for us. The religion of consumerism, by far the most powerfully adhered to ever, points in the opposite direction: no limits, greed, competition, individualism, shallowness... The fact that science and religion often seem to be in agreement here, I think shows the value of science and religion while also unifying and harmonizing.

  I also think that if we discuss values framed as practical self-interest, then we can avoid the traps, especially in secular places, that shut down the conversation and keep the consumer juggernaut safely on track.

  @Danielle: I would say as parents, one thing you can do is ask, then demand, that your school teach media literacy so that kids (at any age) can have a different way of looking at marketing. As it is now, they don't have a chance. My experience shows that few people in schools are thinking to any degree worth noting, about how they can set up a curricula that helps children defend themselves against the noxious messages they continually encounter. I think it would also be very helpful if parents started to demand that schools realign the curriculum to be on the side of kids not corporations. In the meantime, I highly recommend Juliet Schor's book if you haven't already read it. I think most parents would be aghast at what marketers are doing to their children in the name of profits. Most seem to think it's harmless and cute. The science and the statistics shows otherwise.

  Bill Farren's last blog post..Winner Takes Pizza

Related posts:

1. Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being
2. The Hidden Curriculum (guest-blogger Bill Farren, post 2)
3. Random Acts of Deceleration (Bill Farren Guest-Post 3)
4. Quality Student Podcast: Patrick Interviews Bill Farren for Project Global Cooling

Remixing Curriculum: An Interview with Lisa Stewart

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend the Learning and the Brain conference in San Francisco. The areas of focus were: brain plasticity, learning styles, reading development, emotional responses, and mindsets. If you’re interested in more details in these areas, I’ve been posting my notes, albeit slowly, to Watsoncommon. What I want to write about in this post is a question I asked at the conference for which there wasn’t a research-based answer.

It goes like this:

I was in a session about engaging students’ emotions with curriculum and leveraging their brains’ social needs with activities in class. As you can imagine, the examples covered in the session were things like group work, task-specific stations, anticipatory sets that give students the opportunity to generate the essential questions for a unit. And there was all kinds of brain research to show that these kinds of activities trigger the best hormone balance for long-term, meaningful learning to happen. My question was if virtual social environments and activities also create the same ideal brain chemistry for learning.

Apparently, there is no research in this area yet, according to the presenter. So at my school, this has become somewhat of a guiding question. What are effective practices with technology and what are the results? And there are a handful of teachers who are purposefully employing and reflecting on new kinds of activities with these questions in mind. To frame the creation of these activities, we’ve been using Marzano‘s research on effective instruction as structure: Identifying similarities and differences, Summarizing, Reinforcing efforts and providing recognition, Practice, Nonlinguistic representations, Cooperative learning, Setting objectives and providing feedback, Generating and testing hypotheses, Cues, questions, and advanced organizers. Let me know if you’re interested in the full article.

Lisa, mentioned in my first guest post, is one of the teachers (she’s a technology resource teacher too) designing and implementing activities in her class that not only use the technology but explore these essential questions. The other week, I subbed her class and learned about a remix project that she’d given to her students. It was an opportunity to create a nonlinguistic representation of their understanding of Holden Caulfield. In this podcasted interview, Lisa describes the design of the assignment, some observations of the products, and how it led to a different kind of essay. Also embedded below are some example projects, one of which she references in the interview. The Voicethread blew me away! Enjoy.

3 Comments

• At March 15, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  One of the interesting findings of brain based learning is the impact of gender differences. The younger the student the larger impact they have. Leonard Sax in "Why Gender Matters" makes pretty persuasive arguments for early gender separation in school. I'm still undecided on the issue but it is a good read.

  Charlie A. Roy's last blog post..Possible Bullying Speaker to Share

• At March 18, 2008, Chris Watson wrote:

  Charlie, Thanks for bringing up gender differences. At the Learning and the Brain conference it was an area of focus. I found it fascinating that in opposite parts of the brain are activated with the same stimuli. Even just the research that shows how girls tend to be more successful in classes, since the structure of most high school classes favor verbal/linguistic learning styles. I wonder how web tools could help individualize what we ask of students and how we assess what they can do.

  Chris Watson's last blog post..My Wife Wrote The Post I'd Been Working On. And I Had A Blogger Format Blowout

• At April 4, 2008, YouTube - Over and Over Again (Remix) wrote:

  [...] This Video: 26 clicks from http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user... 9 clicks from http://beyond-school.org/2008/03/13/guest-blogger-ch... 4 clicks from http://beyond-school.org/ 1 clicks from [...]

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2. Podcast Part 2: More Conversation with Chris Watson
3. New: 1001 Reflections Podcasts: Chris Watson on Improving Peer Feedback in the Writing Workshop
4. Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being

Two years ago, I hardly knew what a blog was, and, frankly, I didn’t feel the need to spend any more time in front of my computer than absolutely necessary. Then, at the beginning of last school year (06-07), I was assigned to teach an upper level Composition course. Pretty generic title, which really should have read: creative non-fiction essay writing. In an English department of nearly 30 teachers, there was only one other person teaching the course that semester. Our weekly meetings were talking story about writing, student writing, the purpose of writing, authenticity of audience, amongst other Englishy (not schooly) topics. At some point Lisa, my colleague, started to tell me about having her students blog their compositions and journals. She explained the idea of a blogosphere, a network of writers interested more or less in the same topics, reading and commenting on each others’ posts. Then, it was the concept of the blogroll, something called del.icio.us. Organically, the next move seemed to be to try this thing out for myself and my students. Where blogs seemed like they’d fit best was as digital commonplace books; we ask all sophomore to keep an analog version for a quarter to follow and reflect on essential questions and critical thinking exercises. That sounded good, and Watsoncommon began.

I realized a lot of things during the first few months of blogging. Namely, it could easily take over my life. But I welcomed the intellectual insurgency. I didn’t write great stuff, but I had a reason (and an audience of one, maybe two) to pay patient attention to what happened during my day, in my class. I needed material. This went on, and in early 2007, my wife stumbled on a wiki where edubloggers and blogging classes were listing themselves. (Do you remember this one Clay?) Near the top: “B”eyond School, where there was a call for blogging classes to collaborate. I replied.

Creating our own 2-class blogosphere was a noble first effort, and some really interesting conversations emerged here and there. What became apparent after this collaboration was that the web 2.0 tools were more powerful than we knew, yet the challenge was the same as ever: getting students to be active participants in their own education. Clay’s 1001 Flat World Tales writing project on a wiki came next. Being far more teacher-driven, the students had an easier time moving through the project. But Clay, Michelle, and I spent many weekends skyping at respective odd hours and driving the wiki for the kids. Not to mention we had committed ourselves to a grueling 6 week time frame. In the end, we had an annotated and podcasted trail of breadcrumbs, an ebook, some good stories, some engaged students, and a lot of new ideas for the next collaboration. Now, I’m a week deep in 1001 Flat World Tales #2 with Deb Baker’s class in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and I’m getting far more sleep this time around.

Since that semester of enlightenment, it’s been Moodle, Twitter, Diigo, Ning, the list goes on. Not to mention planning and implementing the vision for our 1:1 program. At some point a couple months ago, I found myself coming full-circle, away from the tools, widgets, and gadgets to stories. The story of collaboration, the story of communication, the story of empowerment, the story of sustainability and stewardship, the story of apprenticeship, the stories of learners. And the stories have me asking these questions:

What is an education?

How can we engage the emotions, passions, and original ideas of students more?

How does a large, successful independent school become a culture of technology?

How can we empower students with an understanding of the way they learn and then nurture it daily?

3 Comments

• At March 12, 2008, diane wrote:

  Chris,

  You seem to be providing the necessary environment; the growth must be theirs (with guidance and encouragement, as needed).

  Send students like Lindsea out into the world, to be passionate apostles of the power of the word!

  I'm journeying in a similar direction, but have much farther to go. Thanks for the inspiration.

  diane

  diane's last blog post..To Know The Nature of Joy

• At March 12, 2008, Chris Watson wrote:

  Dianne,

  We are very lucky here to have such a supportive administration, faculty, and student body as we move forward with collaborations and web technologies. What's been really exciting to me is that the technology has provided an opportunity to purposefully get back to basics. Much more important than ever is a developed sense of voice, awareness of audience, the ability to tell a story. I keep going back to Neil Postman's The End of Education where he asks his readers to consider what it would look like if the students contributed just as much as adults, if we allowed them "real world" jobs and responsibilities. I love that now that's possible on a global scale. Thanks for the comment.

  Aloha, Chris

  Chris Watson's last blog post..First Guest Post For Beyond School

• At March 13, 2008, Guest Blogger Chris Watson: Remixing J.D. Salinger | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] in Honolulu, with whom I’ve collaborated in Seoul for over a year now. See Chris’ first guest post here. — [...]

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2. Podcast Part 2: More Conversation with Chris Watson
3. New: 1001 Reflections Podcasts: Chris Watson on Improving Peer Feedback in the Writing Workshop
4. The Age of Paradox (Guest Blogger Bill Farren, no. 4)

I’d like to preface this post with something unrelated (but way more important)–An Irish toast to Clay and his wife: May you both live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live. Congratulations!

Random Acts of Deceleration

Attempts to decelerate the lives of young people seem to be few and far between. When any significant attempt is made, it is so rare and goes against the grain at such a sharp angle, that it makes national headlines. The New York Times wrote an article about the efforts of principal Paul Richards to address the issue of academic stress at his high school. Mr. Richards states that he is trying to “bring the culture to a healthier place.” For this, according to the article, he has been mocked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno. He has received hate mail from all parts.

While reading Dangerously Irrelevant, I came across this reply to a post about the documentary 2 Million Minutes:

As a senior citizen of a fairly affluent suburb of Boston, I have been shocked at the recent changes taking place in our town’s high school. No homework over vacations; no or little homework over long weekends; no required reading over summers and no publication anywhere of the high school honor roll. However, the super-jocks on all high school sports teams are always written about in the local paper. It’s disgraceful!

Academic achievement has become irrelevant. Our high school principal believes kids already have too much “pressure.” He cites several high school suicides in recent years and blames them on pressure to achieve high grades. [School officials, according to the NYT article, emphasize the suicides were not related to stress.] As a result, our high school has been dumbed down to mediocre, where it will stay until we get rid of our current school committee, superintendent and high school principal – all the while wasting over 50% of the town’s tax revenue on the school system.

Finally, our town’s high school certainly doesn’t appear on U.S. News’ list of the best 100 high schools in the U.S., but 3 towns within 10 miles do, as well as does The Boston Latin School.

(Background: 2 Million Minute’s site asks, “How do most American high school students spend this time? What about students in the rest of the world? How do family, friends and society influence a student’s choices for time allocation? What implications do their choices have on their future and on a country’s economic future?”)

In another random act of deceleration, Harvard Dean Harry Lewis made national headlines when he sent out a letter asking students to slow down, have fun, and reflect on what would truly make them happy in life. It’s disconcerting that students considered paragons of what our educational systems have to offer need to be reminded to have fun and to reflect on what might make them happy in life. That the whole purpose of life can be an afterthought needing a reminder, makes one wonder what happened in the 6 million minutes prior to college. I applaud Dean Lewis for his efforts but at the same time wonder about the system and culture that creates a need for such a letter. Our culture seems to have accepted that stress, unhappiness and distaste for learning is the price worth paying for that ill-defined concept called success.

But I don’t believe we have to enter into such an insolvent arrangement. What is now called hard work and higher standards is too often just an indication of how much suffering students are willing to put up with in dealing with boring, schooly, meaningless lessons in very controlling environments. In the process, we are creating a generation of stressed-out, materialistic and miseducated students, to borrow from the title of Denise Pope’s book.

The better bargain involves removing the speed and stress caused by school by removing the schooliness. My observations point to schoolines as a prime source of stress, speed, and wasted learning opportunities. If we were to remove schooliness and replace it with unschooliness, then well-being and learning would quickly improve for students. Life and work would improve markedly for teachers, parents and administrators as well.

I’m afraid though, what schools often suggest as remedies to stress, burnout, disengagement and “playing the system” (cheating), deal mostly, in very schooly ways, with the symptoms and not the underlying causes. Take cheating for example. Most schools see the student as the source of the problem. In an article about the importance of looking at the context in which students act, Alfie Kohn states, “cheating is relatively rare in classrooms where the learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students and where a commitment to exploring significant ideas hasn’t been eclipsed by a single-minded emphasis on ‘rigor.’” He goes on to say that, “when students perceive that the ultimate goal of learning is to get good grades, they are more likely to see cheating as an acceptable, justifiable behavior”. Most schools, instead of reflecting on what they are doing to cause cheating, throw out a bunch of schooly solutions like using turnitin.com, giving anti-cheating workshops, all the while creating ever more policies and punishments for cheating. Similarly, health texts for students often deal with the issue of stress by correctly suggesting exercise, eating well, and relaxation techniques, but never question the underlying causes of school-related stress. In these obtuse, unreflective environments, stress and speed are bound to thrive.

So, what would happen if we slowed the treadmill down? Would it all unravel? Would students learn less? Would their lives be diminished?

Clearly, it’s an uphill and often thankless struggle to slow down the lives of students today. The belief that faster, harder, and more, produces better learning, will not go away easily. Whether it produces better lives, both in the present and in the future, is seldom asked. Fortunately, as the NYTimes article suggests, small inroads are being made both in the parent community and in the culture at large to improve mental health and school climate.

(I’d like to thank Clay for birthing , elevating, and expanding the idea of schooliness. Once we are aware of it, start to reflect on it, then act to remove it, schools will become more capable instruments of well-being.)

Thanks for reading,

Bill Farren

3 Comments

• At March 11, 2008, Danielle wrote:

  I agree that faster, harder and more is not in many occasions the key to a happy life, still slowing down is something that most students can't really afford. If for example they take a year off to travel and then return and start study that's fine but if they are not sure of their path, they'll just stop.

  High school can ease the burden of the homework but if this is taken too far the pupils won't be able to compete in college.

• At March 11, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Danielle, I can only offer my own college history to counter your generalization:

  My first year of college was 1981. I wasn't sure of my path, so I stopped. I went back two or three years later, sure only that I suddenly loved learning the humanities - and stopped again, because the college courses were going too fast for my taste.

  In other words, I dropped out to read and learn more slowly, and more deeply, than the college treadmill allowed. (One semester I took off to read the complete work of Plato; years later, I took a semester off to read the complete works of Nietzsche.)

  People always said, "Don't stop college. You'll never go back." They were wrong.

  I also wasn't competing with anybody. I was loving the learning. I graduated Magna cum Laude without ever noticing (or caring, really). Intrinsic pleasure, not extrinsic, lead to my academic success.

  I'm an exception, I'm sure. And my life didn't follow the normal mold of high school - college - job and marriage.

  And I thank my lucky stars for that. I took a left turn from the road more traveled and haven't turned back yet.

  I guess it all depends on what our idea of the good life is.

• At March 11, 2008, Liv wrote:

  I've also been thinking a lot about this issue of stressed students. I find that when students are doing things they don't find meaningful that causes more stress. However, if they're working on a project they like they'll stay up all hours of the night and while it's exhausting, it's not frustrating and causing them to burn out. There is definitely a connection between making something meaningful and learning, and sometimes the most meaningful things are not the ones that are done on monumental scales or hurriedly.

Related posts:

1. The Hidden Curriculum (guest-blogger Bill Farren, post 2)
2. The Age of Paradox (Guest Blogger Bill Farren, no. 4)
3. Guest-Blogger Bill Farren: Education for Well-Being
4. Quality Student Podcast: Patrick Interviews Bill Farren for Project Global Cooling

Student Amy made this for our Sentence Style wiki. Projected it on the screen via LCD, and I was spellbound. Watch the creativity, as grammar homework approaches film art.

Have I mentioned I’m amazed? I want to interview this girl about her attitude while she made this. I mean, it’s grammar, for crying out loud. But it seems not to be, in her hands.Maybe she’ll agree to a Skypecast interview. Hope so. [Update: She did. It's here.]

And isn’t this better than reading a textbook section about this pattern? Anybody want to buy Amy’s lesson instead? I’m sure she’d sell it for a fair price.

[Postscript: "But at my back, I always hear / The teacher cynics drawing near....". So: Yes, Amy was front and center, body and voice, to clarify and answer and speak.]

Technorati Cosmos: other blogs commenting on this post

3 Comments

• At February 15, 2007, Kristian wrote:

  Hi, yes, I spoke with Doug about your first post. Very impressed. The young lady concerned is clearly creative, shes left handed isnt she?

• At March 13, 2008, Talia wrote:

  I would to listen to your skypecast interview with her. But the link doesn't work... any chances it can be fixed so I can have a look??

  Talia's last blog post..How To Create a Quiz in Moodle

• At March 13, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Talia - wow, you're back in Feb. 07! But I love Amy's work still, and thanks to you, fixed the link. You should be able to find the podcast now. :)

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