I once had a discussion online with someone who tried to tell me why she was homeschooling her children – because public schools were so awful with their over-testing and their obsession with data. She made it sound like the schools themselves were to blame and that the adults in public schools embraced these testing and data-obsessed approaches. I gently pointed out to her that politicians from both sides of the aisle were the ones who saddle schools with over-testing. She typed in response, “Oh – I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it that way.” She never typed another message back.
My wife and I have friends with young children who send their kids to private school for the same reasons as my online-commenter. They, however, know it’s not us. They know it’s the politics. And I can’t blame them. Honestly, if our children were still young (instead of young adults), I honestly don’t know what we’d do for school.
But there is more at stake than just over-testing and data. So much more. As a teacher who just passed 30 years of teaching in a public school system in Florida, I have seen what our policies toward education have killed, and what they are trying to kill.
In the name of “improving” public schools and making them more “accountable” and now responsive to demands for “parental rights,” politicians are creating a lot collateral damage in schools.
Because test-preparation has taken center stage and teachers have been disparaged as incompetent since the 1983 “A Nation At Risk” report, we have been attempting to micromanage teachers for years. This micro-management, in the form of curriculum maps, pacing guides, over-reliance on textbooks, and calls for “consistency” has killed many things.
Teacher professionalism is on its deathbed. Teaching, like an art, used to be about choices: choice of focus, choice of materials, choice of methods – all in the name of reaching your audience: students. That is what being a professional means: being trusted to know your stuff and make the best choices to do your job well. Teachers are no longer considered professionals. They are considered curriculum dispensers. I once wrote a poem here called “The New Ideal Teacher” that included these lines: “Original thought/She’s been thought/To self-censor/She pops lessons out like a big Pez dispenser.” Sadly, it’s only gotten worse.
Because teacher professionalism is on its deathbed, other things are being killed off as well. The Teachable Moment, for instance. Did your students ask a question that might lead to a great discussion and demonstration of great thinking and discussion skills and possibly a whole writing assignment you hadn’t planned on? That moment, and others like it, are called Teachable Moments. If you want to stay on the pacing guide, you kill that Teachable Moment. Teachable Moments are time consuming. They aren’t standardized. They must die.
Because the Teachable Moment is either dead or being killed off, so is the idea that learning is an exploration. With the death of exploration comes the death of curiosity. We don’t need students asking any questions – they’re just supposed to answer our questions. Wait – not our questions, because teachers are not professional enough to ask good questions – especially not on the fly. Students need to answer the question deemed worthy of posing by textbook companies and testing corporations.
Of course, since teacher professionalism and autonomy are being killed, the same happens to student autonomy. Don’t give students the autonomy to choose a writing topic: prompt them every time. Don’t ask them what they think. Get them to guess what the textbook or testing companies want them to think. And don’t let them choose their own books to read! Who knows what filth or subversive subjects they might chose to read about? Reading selections must be chosen to support test-taking skills and to please the most easily-offended members of the community, which means only the most watered down texts will be approved. Oh, wait, approval is not necessary, because you are only supposed to read what’s in the state-approved textbook.
So many things in schools are dead or dying. Creativity, both teacher and student.
Real thought and discussion about issues and ideas that matter.
Love of reading is being killed. Love of writing may already be dead.
Our sense of safety at work is lost. There is the constant threat of yet another school shooting (which we had at my school on Valentine’s Day and which left my classes half empty). In some schools, of course, where there have been school shootings (7 so far this year; 151 since 2018), and what has been lost is lives – teacher and student.
Of course there are other threats to be concerned about – sometimes it’s the vaguely worded state law that threatens to charge you with a felony if you give a child the “wrong” book.
Respect for teachers is suffering a long, slow death.
The teaching profession itself is dying, as we find it harder and harder to find anyone to put up with these working conditions.
And yet, despite all that, I am getting ready to assign my students several choices for Romeo and Juliet projects. While we read the play, I encouraged them to ask questions. I encouraged them to have their own ideas. I still have a classroom library. I encourage them to choose their own books, and we have silent reading in class. I am currently in the process of publishing nearly 25 children’s books my Creative Writing students have created. (I wonder if someone will have to approve them before we can give them to the first graders they were written for?)
They are trying to kill off what I do, but I’m still doing it.
If this is their idea of improving schools, they have funny way of going about it.