The Governors of America and their Common Core cronies are stealing what should be an uncommon childhood from America’s youth. As with the best thefts, it is a cowardly crime that goes unnoticed until the perpetrators are away and free. In ballots each of us has casts we’ve nudged the perpetrators to power and continuing privilege, despite their lack of service. That we applaud, or stand silent while they steal the opportunities from our children, accumulates to our shame.
Political systems run most efficiently when well lubricated with fear and a bit of hate. A potent mix that looks good and is easy to sound-bite in the media, as they dangle shiny tidbits in front of us each election. Looking for the quick fix and easy electability, the arbiters of this sputum have centered their enmity on that most essential section of our society, teachers. That teachers have the critical responsibility to shape our future is not in doubt. However, this does not mean that all societies’ woes, such as poverty and neglect are their fault, rather than their challenge.
We know what raising children for generations without teachers looks like. Witness the societies of Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq become increasingly enfeebled, filled with fear and hate without a constructive system of education. Teaching is the antidote for these ills, but far from a one-time cure, it needs a constant infusion of positive energy to maintain itself. No doubt the act of teaching should call our best to the profession. Slackers who aren’t pulling their weight need to leave, or find a less important role. However, demonizing teachers and making them the enemy strikes too low a blow, undermining the very foundation upon which our civilization rest. The instrument of this destruction has the unique characteristic of seeming innocuous, or even helpful at first, but whose ultimate effect is one of devastation. The single greatest negative influence in education today comes from the single-minded obsession with content based learning objectives.
I tell my students who are themselves training to be teachers that there are three foundational aspects every lesson should contain: Content, Skills, and Affect. Though they are all essential, any good teacher will tell you that they are not equally weighted in terms of importance. The LEAST IMPORTANT GOAL FOR A LESSON IS CONTENT. Teaching and learning is an affective game, a good lesson is measured best by its emotional impact and ability to elicit critical thinking and doing. Content is best learned through direct personal challenging experiences. The critical dimensions of affect and skill are NEVER captured in a high stakes test. I challenge anyone to name a single positive, emotion filled, personal learning experience that has EVER shown up in a standardized exam they have taken. The single-minded emphasis on content over experience and abstraction over concrete understanding makes for an extremely unengageing curriculum that barely works with students who have the support and background out of school to make sense of their experience. The looming tragedy of this system is the population that is vastly underserved by the high stakes curriculum, students from all socio-economic levels who lack the necessary support and prior knowledge to care about intensely abstract and disconnected learning experiences.
High standards are essential, but requiring a common, or unified learning experience across the entire country makes as much sense as thinking a monocultured field of corn is a viable independent ecosystem. The city near me has numerous failing schools. I happen to know these students as a frequent visitor to the buildings in the district and I know them to be amazing, wonderfully talented individuals. What “Failing” really means in this context is that there is a large section of the student body who can care less about most of the curriculum they are being offered. To be clear, this “Failure” by no means should be interpreted that all the kids are “Failing.” Many kids do exceedingly well, with a very small fraction able to achieve at the highest level, winning entrance into the best 4-year universities. The students who are failing have varied interests, which generally don’t intersect what standardized testing deems as important. They spend what days they are in attendance avoiding education, accumulating an increasingly vast educational deficit compared to their peer group. Failing to fit into the rigid curriculum they play some version of a game of learning, be they the silent observer, social butterfly, obstructive avoider, or sincere attempter, the message that they get from the test is at least that they are unaccomplished and at worst convinces them they are dumb. Far from evidence for the failure of the school and teachers, this is a failure of the test and curriculum it inspires to adequately incite and capture the rich interests of young people.
Great changes need to happen in education to fully meet the demands of the future, but wrecking the ship of education on the rocky and unfertile shoals of standardized testing is the coward’s way out. It’s a way that looks good now, but will leave a twisted wreck in its wake.
Political systems run most efficiently when well lubricated with fear and a bit of hate. A potent mix that looks good and is easy to sound-bite in the media, as they dangle shiny tidbits in front of us each election. Looking for the quick fix and easy electability, the arbiters of this sputum have centered their enmity on that most essential section of our society, teachers. That teachers have the critical responsibility to shape our future is not in doubt. However, this does not mean that all societies’ woes, such as poverty and neglect are their fault, rather than their challenge.
We know what raising children for generations without teachers looks like. Witness the societies of Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq become increasingly enfeebled, filled with fear and hate without a constructive system of education. Teaching is the antidote for these ills, but far from a one-time cure, it needs a constant infusion of positive energy to maintain itself. No doubt the act of teaching should call our best to the profession. Slackers who aren’t pulling their weight need to leave, or find a less important role. However, demonizing teachers and making them the enemy strikes too low a blow, undermining the very foundation upon which our civilization rest. The instrument of this destruction has the unique characteristic of seeming innocuous, or even helpful at first, but whose ultimate effect is one of devastation. The single greatest negative influence in education today comes from the single-minded obsession with content based learning objectives.
I tell my students who are themselves training to be teachers that there are three foundational aspects every lesson should contain: Content, Skills, and Affect. Though they are all essential, any good teacher will tell you that they are not equally weighted in terms of importance. The LEAST IMPORTANT GOAL FOR A LESSON IS CONTENT. Teaching and learning is an affective game, a good lesson is measured best by its emotional impact and ability to elicit critical thinking and doing. Content is best learned through direct personal challenging experiences. The critical dimensions of affect and skill are NEVER captured in a high stakes test. I challenge anyone to name a single positive, emotion filled, personal learning experience that has EVER shown up in a standardized exam they have taken. The single-minded emphasis on content over experience and abstraction over concrete understanding makes for an extremely unengageing curriculum that barely works with students who have the support and background out of school to make sense of their experience. The looming tragedy of this system is the population that is vastly underserved by the high stakes curriculum, students from all socio-economic levels who lack the necessary support and prior knowledge to care about intensely abstract and disconnected learning experiences.
High standards are essential, but requiring a common, or unified learning experience across the entire country makes as much sense as thinking a monocultured field of corn is a viable independent ecosystem. The city near me has numerous failing schools. I happen to know these students as a frequent visitor to the buildings in the district and I know them to be amazing, wonderfully talented individuals. What “Failing” really means in this context is that there is a large section of the student body who can care less about most of the curriculum they are being offered. To be clear, this “Failure” by no means should be interpreted that all the kids are “Failing.” Many kids do exceedingly well, with a very small fraction able to achieve at the highest level, winning entrance into the best 4-year universities. The students who are failing have varied interests, which generally don’t intersect what standardized testing deems as important. They spend what days they are in attendance avoiding education, accumulating an increasingly vast educational deficit compared to their peer group. Failing to fit into the rigid curriculum they play some version of a game of learning, be they the silent observer, social butterfly, obstructive avoider, or sincere attempter, the message that they get from the test is at least that they are unaccomplished and at worst convinces them they are dumb. Far from evidence for the failure of the school and teachers, this is a failure of the test and curriculum it inspires to adequately incite and capture the rich interests of young people.
Great changes need to happen in education to fully meet the demands of the future, but wrecking the ship of education on the rocky and unfertile shoals of standardized testing is the coward’s way out. It’s a way that looks good now, but will leave a twisted wreck in its wake.