It's strange, or maybe not so strange at all, that I should contract this illness at a time when NML is working harder, and finding more traction, than ever. The project's Learning Library team is in High Production Mode, aiming for testing and dissemination of materials in the next several months; our collaboration with Harvard's GoodPlay Project is humming along, with a core team of researchers working hard on developing strong curricular materials for our Ethics Casebook; and, perhaps most importantly for me, we have completed development of our first Teachers' Strategy Guide, launched it at a summer workshop, and are preparing to begin intensive work with a committed, enthusiastic group of educators who will work with us in this pilot study. Yet the harder we work, the more we accomplish, the more pronounced my symptoms have become.

When I first began working in educational research, my optimism knew no bounds. Okay, I thought. Now I will help to revolutionize education. It should only take a year or two. But the thing is, we tend to think our struggles are new--No Child Left Behind's (intended or unintended) consequences, de facto segregation of disadvantaged kids in faltering schools, the skyrocketing cost of higher education, the technology gap that prevents lots of students from learning what they need to know to thrive in our society. No matter what your stand is on these and other pressing issues in education, almost nobody today believes our educational system is unassailable. Many, in fact, feel some degree of panic every time they think about it.

But though the specific issues facing us today may be new, the struggle over the goals and practices of education is an old story. It's one that was already old when John Dewey, one of America's most famous educational thinkers, began speaking and writing about schools and schooling in the late 1800's. For him, and in his time, schools were preparing students for a way of life that no longer existed: a life of manual production, wherein each member of a community provided materials of service largely only to that community. The rise of the city and industrial structure in America, and the resulting change in labor and industry needs, had rendered obsolete the needs that schooling was still trying to serve. Yet, he argues,

it is useless to bemoan the departure of the good old days...if we expect merely by bemoaning and by exhortation to bring them back. It is radical conditions which have changed, and only an equally radical change in education suffices. We must recognize our compensations--the increase in toleration, in breadth of social judgment, the larger acquaintance with human nature, the sharpened alertness in reading signs of character and interpreting social situations, greater accuracy of adaptation to differing personalities, contact with greater commercial activities [1].

It doesn't take a lot of work to see how Dewey's argument could apply, pretty much word for word, to contemporary educational concerns. That's encouraging for about three and a half seconds, until you realize: We're still arguing about the exact same things that people were arguing about more than a century ago.

Thus, Drop-In-The-Bucket Syndrome.

The good news is that while there's no cure for this disorder, many have had success in managing the symptoms. Treatments vary by sufferer, so I'll tell you what has brought me some relief:

1. To treat symptoms of fatigue and malaise, talk to some practitioners who retain an excitement about working with learners and who have developed creative methods for dealing with barriers to learning. If possible, try to sit in on their classes. In preparing to test our Strategy Guide, I've had the extreme good fortune to bump up against a group of enthusiastic, committed, and smart educators from around the country. These are teachers who are racking up accomplishments both big and small. I don't want to get too cliched about it, but the bustle of research can make us forget at times what learning really is: A complex physical, chemical, and emotional reaction that we don't fully understand. A miracle, in short, that keeps our race alive.

2. For vertigo, try not to shift your focus too quickly. Either keep an eye on objects nearest to you or keep your eye on the horizon; but switching rapidly between what's near and what is farther off will only worsen symptoms.

I'm happy to report that I've had some early success using these self-treatment methods. The malaise has lifted and my world has steadied, bringing me great relief. I haven't found an effective treatment for the nightmares, though. Lately, I've been having lots of dreams that I'm trying to fix something and I only end up breaking it worse. If you have any suggestions, please contact me at jennamc_at_mit.edu .

[1] Dewey, John. The School and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1915.