Sep 11
15

The Fallacy of Due Dates

7 Comments

I’ve written about this notion before – the idea that time IS the currency of education.  The more time we have, the more we can learn, and in most cases, we never feel as though we have enough time to teach and learn all we want*.

But, Seth Godin’s post this morning, along with the work we are doing at VLACS around this notion of “any time, any place, any pace” has me thinking we have this whole thing backwards…for some.

Here’s where Godin makes me think:

We have deadlines for a reason, but the key word is ‘dead’. In fact, you don’t have to wait for the deadline or get anywhere near it, especially if you want to speed things up.

Too often, we find ourselves using the deadline as the lever to overcome our fear. If you’re relying on drop dead dates to push yourself, the project is paying a price.

Do we slow kids down by creating deadlines?  Do kids moderate themselves because something is not due until “then”?  What if we didn’t set due dates?

competencieswithtime

Well, that’s what we do at VLACS.  As a fully competency-based school, we allow our students to work at a pace that meets their social and intellectual demands.  Take a look at the images to the left (images courtesy of Steve Kossakoski, CEO of VLACS). The top shows the relative ability of three students to meet the academic expectations (competencies) of a course.  The Red student is able to meet the competencies the quickest, while the Blue student needs more time.  But, in a system based on due dates and deadlines, the only student perfectly matched to the system is the Green student. Green is the only student able to meet the competencies at the exact time we designated by creating a due date.  Red met the competencies a while ago; Blue has not met them…yet.

competenciesnotime

But, what if we eliminated due dates?  What if we stopped putting a stop watch on learning? What if we allowed students to be able to meet competencies at a pace that best meets their social and intellectual needs?  What if we freed ourselves of the boundaries time place on our ability to teach and learn.  Does it really matter if the Red student meets the competencies a month before the Blue student?  (Answer:  only if that month is July or August.)

I can tell you that some of our students at VLACS do take more than the standard 36 weeks to finish a course.  I can also tell you that some of our students complete their course in less than the standard 36 weeks.  I can promise you that all students are meeting competencies regardless of how long the course takes.

But, as long as education continue to rely on arbitrary calendars, due dates, and deadlines, individual learning will continue to be secondary.

 

*if we are truly passionate about learning something, will we ever have enough time?

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Posted in Local by Tony Baldasaro 7 Comments

7 Responses to "The Fallacy of Due Dates"

  • JW says:
    September 15, 2011 at 12:05 PM
    Reply

    As an educational construct, I see the value of eliminating due dates when obtaining competency is the ultimate goal. In the working world, this approach isn’t practical. A quarterly report has to be finished at the end of the quarter. Employees usually aren’t presented with optional due dates, and those who wish to keep their jobs must finish their work when it is expected. What responsibility, if any, does education have in “training” the future workforce to meet the demands that will be waiting for them after the “formal” learning years have passed? Are education and the “real world” necessarily at odds?

    • Tony Baldasaro says:
      September 15, 2011 at 2:23 PM
      Reply

      JW,
      I appreciate your thoughts here and understand where you’re coming from. Here are a couple of thoughts relative to your comments.

      This difference between a quarterly report in business and one in school, is that a quarterly report in business is really a report on progress – progress which doesn’t just end on that day. Quarters 2, 3 & 4 respectively all build on quarter 1 (and each other), but none signal a stop in progress. In school, however, quarters or any other time constraints typically result in a stop in learning. There are loads of studies documenting the effect that summer vacation has on students, that in fact much of the beginning of the school year is spent recouping that which was lost over the summer. Further, does the grade at the end of quarter one effect the grade at the end of quarter two? Never – in fact a student’s final grade at the end of the year rarely takes into account progress over that year, it is simply an average of all his grades. And, how often do we talk about a “fresh start” for a student who has a poor quarter, semester or year. Business never gets to start over, those problems in quarter 1 still have to be fixed even though they are already in quarter 2. In school, however, rarely do we ever hold a student accountable for learning that has already been graded – all too often we say, “well you got a D this quarter, but quarter 2 you start fresh.” Would it be more real life if we said, “You got a D this quarter and you really need to understand these concepts in order to be successful moving forward, so we’re going to make sure you do.”

      I also don’t subscribe to the notion that making student adhere to deadlines for school work that has little meaning to them “trains” them for the workforce. Part of the reason we meet deadlines for work is because we are passionate about what we do and those deadlines are relevant to us and our passions. Further, we have a lot of choice as to what passions we wish to pursue. I’m not convinced kids are empowered to that extent.

      Perhaps instead of thinking of school as training for real life, we should make school be real life and allow students to engage in meaningful, inquiry-based work that isn’t test prep, but is instead a place where we empowers them to explore and expand on that which they are passionate?

      So, I agree with you that education and “real world” should not be at odds, I suppose I would just like to see school be real life in that it allows students have more ownership over their learning. I think once we do that, the deadlines and due dates will take care of themselves.

  • Steve Kosinski says:
    September 16, 2011 at 10:34 AM
    Reply

    I liked this article and agree with it’s basic tenets, but on the other hand, I also see the point JW is trying to make. Quarterly reports may be just that, however, there are plenty of real deadlines in business – a presentation deadline for a new client, an advertising deadline to get a new commercial on the air, April 15 for taxes, etc.

    That said, when I taught and directed HS theatre, I never gave my students an “off book” deadline to memorize their script, as did so many of my other teacher/director colleagues. I found that this caused students to “crimp” their lines, and NOT learn them deeply in the author’s words. Shakespeare never wrote the phrase “she goes” which many HS students say. I also emphasized to them that, while paraphrasing a playwright’s scrip showed a certain creativity, my guess was that Neil Simon and Tennessee Williams were better writers than a 10th grader from Livonia MI.

    Trust is an important factor in student learning. I would tell my student actors that if they trusted me to rehearse them thoroughly and completely, they WOULD memorize their lines accurately. I trusted that if I reinforced to them that when opening night came, they could not take their scripts onstage with them, they would take that responsibility seriously, and they never let me down.

    I also agree with your stance that school should be meaningful and inquiry-based, and that discovery of one’s passion can fuel the desire to meet deadlines, or whatever assessment or achievement is the ultimate educational goal at the moment.

    Thanks for a good article.

  • Tracy Brady says:
    September 18, 2011 at 8:58 PM
    Reply

    I love it! That is something I would love to try to do with my beginning level French classes, but I don’t think I will have administrative support. Age-based organization of students such as most schools have are, in my opinion, very arbitrary, and stigmatize students who take longer to learn. They create the issue of “social promotion” where there should be none. I truly enjoyed your post.

  • Rachel Small says:
    September 20, 2011 at 9:53 PM
    Reply

    Definitely love this post, Tony. I read it at lunch and have been thinking about it since then. I totally want to try this approach. Usually when I’m really excited about something (like this) and my passion drives my teaching, I get resistance from various stakeholders. So, I am going to do something different this time. I’m going to think about this from the perspective of those stakeholders for a lot longer before I change my practice.

    I’m trying to predict what the resistance would (will) be. The first being, how am I going to come up with the quarterly grades? We’ve just gotten rid of grades for the first quarter, so that is helpful. (Yayy!!) I detest grades and everything they stand for; so far (thank goodness), my grading philosophy hasn’t been questioned too much. But I think it would be if I got rid of deadlines. That really scares me.

    Already addressed, was the aspect of preparing the kids for the “real world.” I enjoyed JW’s comment, as well as your response. As a fifth grade teacher, my number one job is to prepare my kids for the middle school. (That is my perception of what I believe my job is, which is not necessarily what I believe what my job should be.) I need to help kids learn how to manage their time well and I think it would be an even more daunting task if I did not implement deadlines. I know we shouldn’t live in such a black and white world; and, as you know, I’m always striving for that grey…sometimes it’s just really hard. I guess I just don’t know how to teach my kids how to manage their time well without giving deadlines; however, I can learn to do this, I just need help. If you know of any elementary school teachers who have been successful, please let me know.

  • Chris says:
    September 27, 2011 at 1:17 PM
    Reply

    I have heard the statement about “Time being the currency of education” a few times in recent years, and while I can find enough truth in it to agree with it, the idea that just adding in more time will increase learning needs further examination. You must factor in not only the amount of time, but how we use that time, such as its transitions, flexibility, and focus. Just giving more time to a student, school, or teacher does not ensure learning, and while due dates on the surface may run counter to this, I believe they go hand in hand.

    Due dates are not the issue. They serve a valuable purpose in that they help us define time, which allows teachers and students to regulate and adjust, when necessary, the “currency” of education. They are bench marks and are very important when it comes to assessing what we are learning in order to inform instruction. Unfortunately, what happens all too often is that there are harsh consequences applied to these bench marks that serve to undermine their value. This can be seen in our state/national assessments as well.

    I understand your perspective on time, and for the most part agree with it, and applaud VLACS’ approach. Students should be given the time to relearn and reassess along the way, using due dates as “bench marks” and “check ins” so that students and teachers can reassess, strategize, reteach, and relearn. With regard to calculating yearly grades using a non-weighted or equally weighted system of averaging, this does seem bizarre. If we applied that to the “real world” I doubt many of us would have gotten our driver’s license.

  • Jaclyn says:
    December 3, 2011 at 9:07 AM
    Reply

    “What if we allowed students to be able to meet competencies at a pace that best meets their social and intellectual needs?”

    Such a thought provoking question. I have experimented with this so much and have found that students relax, feel respected that they have a choice- The concern is that more will procrastinate, though I would argue (and should collect some data on) that procrastinators will procrastinate no matter what- Some do it to avoid and some do it because they weren’t inspired yet. If we want quality, inspired work, then we need to allow the time for the inspiration.

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