The 2012-2013 school year is over and I have had time to reflect on my year and on public education in general. My thoughts are not the least bit original, nor are they thoughts you have not recently read or even had yourself. But I want to add my voice to all of those who are seriously concerned about students.
The end of my school year included standardized, state testing. Data... that's what education is all about now. Perhaps it is all too easy to look at students in general terms and quantify them, categorize them, and label them according to a test score or even a plethora of test scores. But while administering the test to my students, I was struck with the thought that the test score each one earned would not even begin to tell his or her educational story. One or even 100 scores would not even begin to explain the growth, knowledge or academic achievement of children who are unique individuals with unique and varied backgrounds, experiences and interests. (I am not saying that standardized testing has no place in public
education. It can be a very useful tool for educators. Maybe a topic for
another day.)
No standardized curriculum, standardized test, or standardized anything is going to make me an effective teacher. If I want to encourage intellectual growth, creative thinking, problem solving and life long learning (all the things we say we are interested in developing) the only way I can do that is by designing units, lessons and projects that capitalize on students' experiences and interests or provide them with the opportunity to develop new interests. And the only way I can do that is by knowing my students as individual humans, not as a compilation of test data.
That brings me to the Common Core Standards. Are they going to help me be an effective teacher or constrain my ability to design units that best meet the needs of my students?
Recently, I participated in a professional development session in preparation for implementation of the Common Core Standards. The ELA anchor standard for "Close Reading" of complex text was the topic of this particular session. Application of this standard for 3rd grade was to be the example. The presenter suggested that students read Charlotte's Web by EB White "with pencil in hand", so they could underline key words and details, note central theme, and highlight information about main characters. WHAT?!?! Why would I want to reduce Charlotte's Web or any other piece of literature to a worksheet-like exercise? How is that going to encourage reading? How is that going to promote problem solving or creative thinking?
Why? Why are we reducing students to a number or a set of numbers? Why are we reducing great literature to "complex text"? Why are we reducing education, the opening of minds, to a set of skills that can be easily tested?
Shame on all of us who are allowing public education to be reduced to a narrow set of content standards and are allowing students to be reduced to a narrow set of data.
It's time to free the students.
