Skip to main content

Not Training Seals

If there is one word that hits a nerve for me it's the word performance.  Used in many of the educational circles I frequent, that one word, so popular today when discussing student assessment, seems to encapsulate all that is wrong with the so-called "reform" movement today.  Humans, unlike corporations, are people.
The use of the word once prompted me to interject at a faculty meeting, "We're not training seals here."
Yet, the constant use of the term student performance leaves some doubt.
Sure, teachers care about "outcomes" and scores and how data can "inform" our practice, but we care more and know more about people and their diverse learning styles and what motivates an individual.
In a recent interview, leading education historian Diane Ravitch noted that because of the corporate assault on public education, some large American cities (Dallas, Philadelphia) might no longer have public schools.  She followed that comment with the statement that this just might be the most significant threat to democracy that we, as a culture, face.
I think so.
Especially when performance involves so much judgment.
Some think that data in the form of test scores is objective.  Impossible.  Consider this metaphor.  Two boxers in a ring for 10 rounds.  Three judges see the same fight and come up with three different scores.  Sometimes they give the victory to different competitors too.  Hardly objective.

Some years ago a important and thoughtful book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity scared a lot of people.  It's true message wasn't something to be feared, but you know how that word subversive can conjure up images.  Postman and Weingartner were simply saying that teachers need to build relationships with their students, teach the whole person.  Modeling empathy is another message that comes across clearly.  They emphasized the inductive method of class discussion as well.  Complicating questions, not settling for simple one word answers was part of the message.  A classroom where students talked to each other about big ideas was often the goal.
Given the current state of affairs, the threat to public education and how the vast majority of the American people can be easily lulled into believing that "choice" is the answer to all the ills that face public education, we need something that borders on the subversive.  It's crunch time.  Subvert the mistaken notion that student's "perform" rather than think critically.  Teaching is, after all, the ultimate political act..

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...

Body Language

I'm sitting there in a hospital gown, waiting for my doctor to complete my yearly physical.  This is when I look at everything on the walls, read the medical posters, the instructions on any equipment in the room, look in every corner and behind every chair.  I study the paper on the examination table, laugh out loud at the picture of a smiling child holding a bouquet of broccoli, and the note the placement of the computer in the room. Finally, wondering if the gown I'm wearing is on correctly, I focus on myself.  At this point in my life I'm fairly comfortable in a doctor's office.  But it always seems to take so long when waiting for the doc to enter.  So I fidget.  Then I begin a tour of myself.  Scars are tattoos.  I look at the one on my knee and see myself at 12.  Whittling a piece of wood with my Boy Scout jack knife.  The blade slips and I cut a crescent slash through my jeans and into my flesh for life.  50 years later ...

Sex, Religion, and Politics

Watching TV to keep up with the news is like going to a party.  Sex, religion and politics, in any order.  Those are the topics of choice.  We hear about "twerking," and are confronted with all manner of exhibitionism in local news.  Should women be wearing yoga pants in non-yoga areas.  The office, the workplace, school, church...and that's just the teachers! Religion encroaches in all the right places.  Christian Mingle, the online dating service pops up on the screen during the grisliest of crime shows, the politician's speeches and the sit-coms so full of sexual innuendo that every second of canned laughter barely hides the grins, the gasps, the outcries, or the mindless guffaws. So what's the message?  Are we a society and culture in decline or just rapidly changing?  Probably both.  I recall a student once coming to school with a most offensive tee shirt.  Offensive in that the cartoon image on the front made it impossible for hi...