Education
2.0
“Welcome to the Machine”
( No Child Left
Behind )
Weapons of Mass Instruction
By
Johnathan Chase 4/25/12
What does education often do?
It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free,
meandering brook."
~ Henry David Thoreau
Working
with middle and high school students at a rural K-12 school for more than two
decades, it has been my experience that a lack of character development (perseverance,
ambition, responsibility, self-confidence, self-discipline, patience,
initiative, integrity, empathy, leadership…) has directly contributed to
declining student achievement and performance in the classroom and on the job.
While mastery
of content and literacy skills are important for career and college
readiness, these performance standards are too often trumped or canceled
out when a student or employee lacks a work ethic and has not
developed a personal code of conduct.
Should
the current SAT cheating scandal be attributed to a lack of skills on the part
of students, or an absence of values? Conduct a Google search for the
terms "Secret Service" and "GSA employees" for more
details on this topic.
Character
education is not just good practice, effective July, 2012 it will be mandated
in NY State by the Dignity for All Students Act…
“The Dignity Act
also amended Section 801-a of
Now, more
than ever, students need activities and lessons focused on character education and
media literacy. In addition to schools and the home, many students learn
behaviors and develop values from the media they consume. With the
proliferation of smartphones, WiFi, and 4G, increasing numbers of students are
“connected” 24/7 to on demand television programs, games, music, and videos.
Educators and parents would be wise not to underestimate the influence and
impact of this media on student performance in the classroom.
Every
parent and educator should wonder how do Jersey
Shore, Real World, Jackass, Punked, American Pie, Grand Theft Auto, Modern Warfare, Assassin’s
Creed, and Teen Mom impact
student behavior and attitudes… and what curriculum and programs are being
offered in schools to confront and challenge these negative influences?
Is it
possible that the Cosby Show, The Waltons, Eight is Enough, Happy Days,
the Brady Bunch, All in the Family, One Day at a Time, the Electric
Company and Zoom not only
entertained a generation of students but also helped to educate them?
The
proliferation of gadgets and gizmos in the 21st century may also be
a contributing factor to the poor reading and writing skills of young people.
In school, students are encouraged to read carefully and intentionally while paying close attention to punctuation, a critical component
for understanding what you read.
Periods, commas, question
marks etc. give structure to prose helping to organize ideas and provide
emphasis and deeper meaning to text on the page. When students read they must
look for these visual cues, remembering to pause and stop as indicated.
Unfortunately many students do
not practice and follow the conventions and standards of good writing after
school hours when it comes to composing countless emails, text messages, and
Facebook posts which often lack structure and read more like a stream of
consciousness.
My
awareness and understanding of career readiness and the importance of
character education is also informed by my work as a summer
youth employment counselor and the findings of a 1995 / 2002 NY
State Employer Survey regarding the top 10 most desired job skills
including; courtesy, responsibility, cooperation, hygiene, and honesty.
One of
the underlying premises of CCSS appears to be that students who cannot read and
write on an advanced college level are destined to be unsuccessful in life. Not
everyone can be an advanced reader, no matter how hard they try. Do proponents
of CCSS really believe that the 15 to 20% (NICHD) of our population with
language-based disabilities are doomed to failure in life?
I guess
Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Winston Churchill, Cher, Henry
Ford, Henry Winkler, Erin Brockovich, Tom Cruise, Pablo Picasso, Magic Johnson,
Anderson Cooper, Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Steve Jobs and other dyslexics
were fortunate CCSS wasn’t around when they were in school or some of these
successful leaders, role models, and visionaries might still be serving time in
AIS class trying to pass a tier two vocabulary word quiz rather than testing a
new theory, creating a new work of art, or discovering new principles that
actually generated brand new vocabulary words.
These
individuals and many others like them did not allow limited reading
and literacy skills or a low score on a standardized test to define them and
curtail their goals and achievements in life. Instead, they relied upon their
own unique gifts, talents, personality, and learning strategies to
overcome obstacles and compensate for any academic deficiencies.
The
current craze and obsession with measuring student growth and teacher
performance combined with a corporate mindset and for profit business model,
culminated last week in 8th grade students and teachers trying to
make sense of a ridiculous reading passage, “The
Hare and the Pineapple” on the New York State ELA exam.
“Friday (4/20) the
The moral? Maybe standardized tests should have no
sleeves?
This one size
fits all approach to education makes no sense academically or economically
except for the plethora of Common Core test designers, specialists,
consultants, associates, sales reps, product managers and others with
"skin in the game" who are clearly motivated by money, not mastery of
content. Wonder how many teachers could have been hired with the $32 million
NYSED paid Pearson Education to create these “weapons of mass instruction”?
The heck
with art, film, literature, poetry, music, sports, vocational, trade, and
alternative education programs...force feeding complex informational texts 70%
of the time is the key to success in college and careers for all students...
why not 38%, 55%, or 61.25% ?
We expect
our students to question the accuracy and reliability of any data they may
collect from resources. We encourage them to consider the source of information
and look for any possible bias or conflict of interest. This same degree of
scrutiny and skepticism should be applied vigorously to the data and claims of
the CCSS sales team.
Is it
possible that this alleged epidemic of students who can’t follow directions and
the outbreak of poor reading skills on college campuses nationwide could
actually be dependent on situation or circumstance, indicating a lack of will
on the part of some young people rather than an absence of skill?
That
might help to explain how some students seem to struggle with readings in the
classroom but are still able to read a NYS driver’s manual, pass the written
test, complete a college application and essay, properly complete a FAFSA
application, obtain additional loans/scholarships while still finding time to
master the informational text explaining how to operate their iPhones,
Notebooks, Kindles, iPads, iPods and Blu-Ray players.
While
CCSS advocates may decry the plight of college students who can’t follow
directions, many students actually enjoy the challenge and mystery of a puzzle
and will refrain from reading the instructions for a newly purchased electronic
device as they prefer to learn through discovery, experimentation, play, and
trial and error.
Rather than focusing our efforts on teaching students how to learn we
should be creating rigorous learning activities and experiences that capture
students’ interest and stimulates their own desire to learn, also known as
“flow”.
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
students achieve flow when they find a challenge or task so enjoyable they will
pursue it as a reward in itself. When a person experiences flow they want to do
more of an activity leading to advanced skill development and mastery of the
task. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi further explains in, ”Thoughts
About Education”…
…Yet it seems
increasingly clear that the chief impediments to learning are not cognitive in
nature. It is not that students cannot learn, it is that they do not wish to…
Of the two main
forms of motivation -- extrinsic and intrinsic -- I focus primarily on the
second kind. Although both are needed to induce people to invest energy in
learning, intrinsic motivation, which is operative when we learn something
primarily because we find the task enjoyable and not because it is useful, is a
more effective and more satisfying way to learn…
When people enjoy whatever they
are doing, they report some characteristic experiential states that distinguish
the enjoyable moment from the rest of life. The same dimensions are reported in
the context of enjoying chess, climbing mountains, playing with babies, reading
a book, or writing a poem…When all the characteristics are present, we call
this state of consciousness a flow
experience, because many of the respondents reported that when what they
were doing was especially enjoyable it felt like being carried away by a
current, like being in a flow.
A teacher who understands the
conditions that make people want to learn -- want to read, to write, and do
sums -- is in a position to turn these activities into flow experiences. When
the experience becomes intrinsically rewarding, students' motivation is
engaged, and they are on their way to a lifetime of self-propelled acquisition
of knowledge…
Back in 2011, David T. Conley warned in his
essay, “Building
on the Common Core” about the potential for misuse and misapplication
of these assessments…
“Implemented correctly, the common standards and
assessments can vault education over the barrier of low-level test preparation
and toward the goal of world-class learning outcomes for all students.
Implemented poorly, however, the standards and assessments could result in
accountability on steroids, stifling meaningful school improvement nationwide.”
The
dynamic interaction between a teacher and student is unpredictable,
spontaneous, and an imperfect alliance that cannot be mass produced or scripted
through prepackaged lessons and units. There are some things of value in life,
like the powerful relationship between a teacher and student, that are not
easily quantified and measured.
A teacher
may wear many “hats” during the day; educator, counselor, mentor, role model,
referee, parent, advisor, and friend. It is fanciful to suggest that a single
score on a standardized test is somehow going to assess the overall
effectiveness and quality of a teacher or even begin to measure the impact a
teacher has had on his or her students and how that will be manifested and
revealed in their future achievements and accomplishments.
Working
with teenagers for more than two decades, the most important lesson I have
learned is to be persistent, patient, and above all, never give up on a student
as the fruits of my labor are not always immediate and very often will become
apparent over time.
Perhaps
the 4.5 hours set aside during the school day last week to administer the New
York State ELA exam might have been better spent by students if they
volunteered to be a student leader in a classroom, served as a peer mentor,
tutored another student, or were on a field trip visiting a business, college,
or museum.
Above
all, instruction and assessment should be student-centered not Pearson and Grow
Network/McGraw-Hill centered. Education should be about preparing future
artists, caregivers, citizens, leaders, problem solvers, decision makers,
innovators, teachers, and volunteers....not test takers. Learning is more about
discovering what you don’t know than it is about applying and recalling what
you do know.
The efficacy and validity of any assessment program
depends upon the quality and integrity of the data it produces. Assessments
should measure multiple performance indicators and be administered over an
extended period of time to assure that accurate, comprehensive, and meaningful
data is collected.
There are a myriad of factors that can negatively
impact student performance on any given day including; carelessness, anxiety,
sleep deprivation, hunger, stress, apathy, depression, fear, illness, anger,
etc…
Attempting to determine a student’s overall level
of achievement for an entire school year (180 days) by measuring his or her
performance during a very narrow and limited period of time (3 to 4 hours) will
most certainly produce inaccurate data whenever the student’s performance is
hindered by extraneous factors. Important to note that numerous students stop
working or “shut down” well before the 3 or 4 hour time limit, so their
performance is actually being measured over an even smaller percentage of time.
Unfortunately, scores on a standardized test do not
differentiate between students who answered a question wrong because they lack
the requisite knowledge and skills, and those students who are sufficiently
skilled but suffered from diminished performance the day of the test.
Therein lies a critical flaw and weakness of
standardized assessments…while the results may identify specific questions a
student failed to answer correctly, they do not provide a definitive reason or
explanation as to why this occurred?
Project-based learning, performance assessments,
presentations, student portfolios and other forms of authentic assessment
provide a more reliable, robust, and comprehensive means of documenting student
achievement because they assess student performance over an extended period of
time.
Most importantly, an extended task generates
valuable data regarding student character development. The finished project
provides evidence of planning and preparation as well as how carefully the
student followed directions. Projects and presentations help students to
develop essential college and career skills including; time management, public
speaking, problem solving, creativity, decision making, endurance, initiative,
collaboration, communication, patience, persistence, resourcefulness,
risk-taking, and self-reliance.
The problem
with the CCSS does not originate with the standards themselves, but with the
contrived and carefully scripted rollout, implementation, and assessment
process now “playing” at a school near you.
Unfortunately
the impact and importance of the most vigorous and vibrant qualities of the
Common Core… constructivism, media literacy, technology integration, project
based learning, and performance assessment, are deliberately being
de-emphasized and devalued because these standards don’t easily adapt or
conform to the boilerplate format of a standardized test.
The
unhealthy alliance between the proponents of the Common Core State Standards
and advocates of standardized testing does not serve the best interest of students
and should cause people to consider whether high stakes testing has more to do
with maintaining the bottom line at companies like Pearson and McGraw-Hill than
advancing the career and college readiness of students.
"Rigor
Redefined"
and other research based writings by Tony Wagner offer great insights into
career readiness and the expectations of employers...
"...He’s an
engineer by training and the head of a technical business, so when I asked him
about the skills he looks for when he hires young people, I was taken aback by
his answer.
“First and foremost,
I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach
them the technical stuff, but we can’t teach them how to ask good questions—how
to think.”
“What other skills
are you looking for?” I asked, expecting that he’d jump quickly to content
expertise.
“I want people who
can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and
take. All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with
others. But you also have to know how to engage customers—to find out what
their needs are. If you can’t engage others, then you won’t learn what you need
to know.”
A
bachelor’s degree is not a requirement for every occupation in the 21st
century. Advising and encouraging all our students to attend college and
accumulate a considerable amount of debt, with no guarantee of future
employment, is both thoughtless and irresponsible.
The
headline of this 4/23/12 AP article says it all "1
in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed"...
"According to
government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations
with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a
bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors
and accountants. Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales,
fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers…
…Any job gains are going
mostly to workers at the top and bottom of the wage scale, at the expense of
middle-income jobs commonly held by bachelor's degree holders. By some studies,
up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in
middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to
return in a more high-tech age."
Schools
should be in the business of creating diverse and stimulating learning
environments and experiences where a child's athletic, artistic and creative talents
are free to flourish and thrive. Education should always be focused on helping
each student to discover his or her unique gifts and abilities while providing
numerous opportunities for students to pursue their passions.
With the
new testing regime, the whole school experience has been diminished and
transformed into a forced march toward a "state designated performance
level." Under this system students are actually learning more about what
they can’t do, than what they can do.
“The
Mechanically Challenged Generation” 8/29/11, reported that the
effects of a narrowing school curriculum and a reduction in student programs
has already begun to impact career readiness.
“…Shop classes are
all but a memory in most schools—a result of liability fears, budget cuts and
an obsession with academics. Still, even in vocational high schools where shop
classes endure, a skills decline is evident. One auto shop teacher says he’s
teaching his Grade 12 students what, 10 years ago, he taught Grade Nines.
…Occupational
therapist Stacy Kramer, clinical director at
…That leads to
difficulty developing skills that require a more intricate coordination between
the hand and brain, like holding a pencil or using scissors, which kindergarten
teachers complain more students can’t do. ‘We see 13-year-olds who can’t do up
buttons or tie laces,’ she says. ‘Parents just avoid it by buying Velcro and
T-shirts.’
…So what happens if that all-important hand-brain
conversation gets shortchanged at a young age? Can it be reintroduced later, or
does that aptitude dissipate?
…We only have these uncomfortable clues, such as young
people who can’t visualize how to best wield a hammer. Or teens who, despite
years of unscrewing bottle tops and jars, can’t intuitively apply the
righty-tighty, lefty-loosey rule of thumb.
Predictably, this is affecting other industries that
depend on a mechanically inclined workforce. After NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab
noticed its new engineers couldn’t do practical problem solving the way its
retirees could, it stopped hiring those who didn’t have mechanical hobbies in
their youth.”
Matthew B. Crawford’s 2006 essay, “Shop Class as Soulcraft”
discusses the importance of vocational education programs along with the
inherent value and rewards of manual competence. Crawford’s essay may lead
readers to consider the possibility that readiness for career and college might
be mutually exclusive endeavors for some students, and our noble efforts to
prepare every student for the academic rigors of higher education could be
negatively impacting the career readiness of those students who wish to obtain
employment in the manual trades. In 2009 the essay was expanded into a book; “Shop
Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work”. This
excerpt from the book jacket explains…
On
both economic and psychological grounds, Crawford questions the educational
imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” based on a misguided
separation of thinking from doing, the work of the hand from that of the mind.
Crawford shows us how such a partition, which began a century ago with the
assembly line, degrades work for those on both sides of the divide.
But
Crawford offers good news as well: the manual trades are very different from
the assembly line, and from dumbed-down white collar work as well. They require
careful thinking and are punctuated by moments of genuine pleasure. Based on
his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford makes a case for
the intrinsic satisfactions and cognitive challenges of manual work. The work
of builders and mechanics is secure; it cannot be outsourced, and it cannot be
made obsolete. Such work ties us to the local communities in which we live, and
instills the pride that comes from doing work that is genuinely useful. A wholly
original debut, ‘Shop Class as Soulcraft’ offers a passionate call for
self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever
more abstract world.
If education leaders and
proponents of the CCSS want to be taken seriously regarding their campaign to
improve career and college readiness for
all students … perhaps they should consider if accounting, athletics,
business law, character education, civics, community service, culinary art,
foreign language, geography, health, history, home economics, humanities,
keyboarding, media literacy, psychology, sociology, speech and debate, sports
management, trade and vocational skills and visual and performing arts, are
being adequately addressed in our schools today, or have they been left behind
in a race to the top?
"You can get all A's and still
flunk life."
~ Walker Percy
Johnathan Chase is a 7th and 12th grade
social studies teacher at Edmeston Central School and also works as a summer
youth employment counselor with at-risk youth.
He is also founder and president of the Musicians United For
Songs In The Classroom Inc. (M.U.S.I.C.) and creator of Learning from Lyrics
art and technology integration curriculum.
For more information … http://www.learningfromlyrics.org/
