Schizophrenia of Teaching

The title of this blog came to me this morning after reflecting on the semester just ended. This year, semester-long courses ended before the holiday break and new students and courses arrive January 5. It is a good time to review.

Part of the ruminations included moments of deep despair, survived only by deliberately ignoring the larger system within which I labor and focusing on the details of each day.  It means setting aside an awareness that "official dogma" is in direct conflict with the necessary components for real learning.

Schizophrenia.  When being honest about what could be done in relation to what we are often asked to do there is a clear division.  At times it is impossible to hold the two images at once. It's crazy-making.

And then, in an effort to avoid writing, I clicked through some missives my brother shared, one being Pope Francis' Christmas address.  And here is one of the 15 ailments the Pope sees in the Catholic Curia:

Suffering from 'existential schizophrenia.' "It's the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill.  It's a sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people."

Yep.  That would be it.  Thinking too hard about education means living a double life.  I'm a hypocrite.  Let me count the ways.

1. Despising the tests that I neither trust nor find a reliable measure of ability (to do what? take a test? on an esoteric bit of old information that students will quickly forget? On a computer that's as far from the real world as you can get?) while simultaneously making sure that every student passes both the reading and the writing test.
Devoting hours to collecting and pouring over data, directing human and financial resources to remediation time and rah-rah "you can do it" sessions to insure that every child passes because they cannot graduate without those passing scores, and I desperately want their 13 years in school to mean something--though it is my firm belief that the tests mean that their degree means less and less....

2. To hating, absolutely despising and decrying grades while simultaneously using them as both carrot and stick to engage students in their work.
Seriously, what is an "A"?  An abstraction for.....I'm not even sure any more.
My students are fully round people.  Some break the rules in creative and disruptive ways, and we should encourage that.  After all, how will change come about if we don't have rule breakers? Others rise above difficult lives, come to school everyday, work hard, but still just don't 'get' what intellectual pursuit is, what it means to wrestle with ideas.  In fact, some students openly avoid any equivocation in their lives.  They want to comply, to have something they can count on day after day. They don't want disruption.  Is compliance an "A"? Is risk-taking?

3. Two days before break I proctored re-takes on our state tests. Every one of the hundred or so students in the room was a 'failure,' having already failed one or more of the tests. Some would return the next day to try, yet again, to pass more tests.   Of course the idea that you can fail the test one day and pass it the next, sometimes by a 30 point margin, begs the question: what is this test anyway?
Every computer in the building was employed and our Media center was a hush of test-taking seriousness--as it had been for the previous six (soon to be seven!) days.
The kids were incredible. Polite. Patiently waiting while teachers helped them reboot computers, find scratch paper and calculators.  Raising hands to tentatively ask "Am I allowed to go to the bathroom?"in the midst of the repeat of a sometimes four-hour long test (just one of many).  Not a peep when they were reminded that their addiction to cell phones would have to be curtailed.  Hushed voices, serious, focused faces.
I wanted to scream: Walk out!  Fight back!  You're better than this!  Hell yes, you can go to the bathroom, and if they won't let you, throw some furniture! You! You're the kindest student I've ever taught. You! You're hilariously funny! You! You're athletically gifted. Celebrate that!
But I did not. I helped and encouraged them to do their best.
I marveled at how well they have learned what we have taught them: This test, on this day, is all that matters.  Your worth is being measured now.
The kids have got it.

4. While working on a strategic plan for our district we listed our beliefs.  And I believe them--every one.  But, sadly, I do not think that we will realize our vision of helping every student find their purpose, talents, and skills in this world before they leave our system.
There are too many forces we cannot control.  Over half our students live in poverty.  Their parent(s) need jobs that pay enough to put affordable roofs over their heads and healthy food on the table. Some need even more than that. The children need safe places to grow and explore before their "official" schooling begins.  All children need a variety of hands-on, playful experiences and a chance to get off their block.  Otherwise all of school is just an abstraction to which they have no connection.  Some of our students have never see the other side of town, much less a hiking trail or an escalator.
Without these supports in place the yardstick that measures success deems them failures before they ever step foot in our buildings.  And once they arrive there we begin to sort them into 'awesome" and 'abject failure,'  perpetuating a dismal view of the world.
But I signed on because if we list and fight for what we believe maybe we can get the wider community to believe it too.
Maybe.

So a New Year's Resolution is in order when going about the daily work of teaching children.  I will follow Pope Francis' directives and strive to be the apostle of  education.  He urges us to avoid the 'funereal face':

"In reality, theatrical severity and sterile pessimism are often symptoms of fear and insecurity.  The apostle must be polite, serene, enthusiastic and happy and transmit joy wherever he goes."

Less hypocrisy.  More joy.  That is the tonic for teaching schizophrenia.

Next blog: Moments of joy.

Zombies, Ghosts, and Raised by Wolves: A Student View of Test Creators

Teachers aren't the only ones who are not asked their opinion about standardized testing in schools.  Nobody asks the kids how they feel about it.

My good friend, Susan, a Teacher Consultant in the Northern Virginia Writing Project, used the testing schedule as an opportunity to get some creative writing out of her seventh grade students.

Currently immersed in the testing season--which eats up an entire month in middle schools--(we must test every subject in every grade) and ties up technology and the library for the duration, gave her students plenty of time to think about audience.  A good writer (and test taker) should know her audience.

Mosey on over to her blog "A Year in the life of a Writing Teacher" and see what the kids have to say about testing and the test creators.  They provide illustrations too.

Awesome.

From the category of OMG...

I missed this story:  Pearson is now including product placement in its tests.

Here is the post from The Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post.

Pearson argues that they are using authentic texts and the trademarks are part of the original readings.  In a recent third grade reading test for New York State, third graders read passages that included references to Legos and Mug Root Beer.

We recently gave the new reading test to students in Virginia, another Pearson product.  As promised, there were many more non-fiction texts than literature.

Many more.  And they were pulled from current media.  And there is a reference to at least two major American products.

Teachers, of course, are forbidden to speak of what is on the tests.  We are threatened with the loss of teacher credentialing.  Pearson is threatened with.....?

I suppose if teachers reveal the test content Pearson might have to create new items and that would cut into their profits.

So you will have to ask your local public school student what they had to read about.  I have an official gag order.

We used to read Emerson, Frost, excerpts from plays, short stories.  No trademarks on them.

Who's dumbing up or down?

I think Noam Chomsky had something to say about our culture creating savvy consumers and not critical thinkers.  "Too much democracy" can really get in the way of the indoctrination of young people into a "life of conformity."

Huck Finn Takes a Standardized Test

I have a soft spot for the "bad" kids.

My definition of a "bad" kid is a creative disrupter.  These students refuse to follow rules simply because they are there and show their disdain for "stupid" ideas by acting independently, following their own logic.

I qualify these characters worthy of celebration.

Huck Finn lives.  Mark Twain's quintessential bad boy is the American spirit incarnate: He looks at the landscape and acts adventurously, getting off the beaten path and creating his own.

Where would we be if whole legions of Huck Finns had not asked us to reconsider "sivilization"?

So I was amused by the student response to the MAPS test required by the district in Seattle.

Some of the kids just would not play by the rules.

And sometimes they made errors that fit only into the category of kid logic, the delightful way a child's mind can shift adult paradigms. (My son at age three observed that a jet plane was "scratching the sky."  Yeah. Take a look at those jet trails some time.)

So here's what some kids did:

• When some kindergarteners were directed to put the mouse on the item, they lifted the mouse and placed it on the computer monitor. 
• When students figured out that a correct answer up-leveled the questions and made them harder, they deliberately answered questions incorrectly so the computer would serve up easier questions.
• When students were told it would not affect their grades, they rushed through the reading comprehension test without reading so they could get back to doing something they wanted to do.  (Have you ever read something you didn't want to read?  It's really hard to care about it.)

I would qualify all these errors as "good mistakes" a phrase I first heard from a tennis coach.  "That was a good mistake!" he exalted once when a ball went long.  Hitting balls short was a bad mistake--holding the racket incorrectly.  A long ball meant I was starting to get it: follow through and let it sail.

The qualification of an error as a good one was so empowering that I still use it, rewarding errors that show a new skill in the offing.    

I'd qualify all of the above actions as a good mistakes. In every one there is strong evidence of critical thinking.

To a mechanized standardized test, the answer is either right or wrong--no qualification.  It takes the observation of a human being to follow the logic of the error.  

Ironically, these mechanized tests are to be used to measure the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom.  To a teacher who has a led a career of watching and coaching kid's through their own kid logic, relying on mechanized scores feels like tying your hands behind your back while someone slaps you in the face.

So Huck Finn broke the rules.  

He could not ignore his own logic when deciding whether or not to steal Jim out of slavery and help him back to his family. He tears up the letter to Miss Watson that would have revealed Jim's whereabouts:

I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right then, I'll go to hell"--and tore it up.  It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said.  And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. 

Sometimes, when faced with injustice, the only choice is taking the road to hell.

As of four days ago the administration of Seattle was still sticking to its sivilized notion of holding teachers accountable.

Long live Huck Finn.