The student thought she had her teacher on the ropes. She said, “If we don’t pass the End-of-Course Test, you are going to be in serious trouble!”
What are we teaching kids in school these days?
I happen to think holding people accountable for their own work is a great idea. But all too often the message kids get is that their goal is to achieve conformity to some state-mandated standard. And since they have no say in shaping their own education, their effort is understandably lackadaisical. Why should they feel personal ownership of their test results? If they fail to perform up to someone else’s standard, surely it is someone else’s fault.
After 20 years of working in education, the most troubling development I have seen is the shift in responsibility for learning away from those who have the greatest self-interest – the students – and onto the backs of those who are still poorly compensated for their outstanding work as teachers, and under the threat of punishment if their numbers don’t add up. This change is not just an alteration in the terms of employment for teachers, it is a change in the nature of the job itself – one that I take very personally.
I guess conventional wisdom would hold that I got into education for the wrong reasons. The right reason is the altruistic desire to educate and set a good example for the young – and I had that too. But the real attraction for me was something different, something in the dynamics of the workplace itself.
I was always attracted to positions where I could do my work with no interference from others – where my goals were clear, but the way I achieved them was up to me. Working this way not only appealed to my independent streak, but also unleashed my creative side. I always seemed to do my best work when I did it my way.
Teaching used to be like that. Administrators were too busy to pay much attention to what went on in classrooms. Actually, they still are, but new mandates from the state, driven by the desire for federal funding, has forced enormous investment in time and paperwork to make sure that teachers are compliant with an elaborate protocol of standard practices.
Working with kids, I was always very much aware of the fact that any success that was going to happen in school needed to belong to the students. I got my satisfaction from setting things up for their efforts, and then giving them the guidance they needed to reach their objectives. I tried not to rein them in any more than necessary. They needed creative freedom as much as I did, and I wanted my students to feel the responsibility for their own learning and to enjoy all the credit they could get for their results (no matter how much heavy lifting on my part went into the mix). It was their education. My credo was there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.[1]
After working this way for a number of years, it was difficult to shift gears to make sure that the school administrators who visited my classroom knew I was checking off everything on the to-do list they had for me. Not impossible, but certainly more difficult. Of far greater concern, it felt like the focus of attention was shifting in the wrong direction. I was the old dog who had to show off some new tricks. Meanwhile, the kids were being asked to refine their ability to perform one old and very simple trick – pass a multiple choice test so that their school could be ranked.
I left teaching a few years ago, just before Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) was brought on line to replace the older, more subjective checklist. I returned to teaching in 2013-2014 in a school system that had fully implemented it. I like the new checklist. At the very least, here is nothing it requires teachers to do that I would judge to be contrary to the best interests of students. In fact it is a great inventory of strategies and ideals – a reminder of many of the things good teachers already know.
But there is no objective measure of good teaching that applies to all teachers in all situations. As valuable as the objectives in TKES may be, neglect of one or two items on the list does not mean that a teacher is not doing outstanding work. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t require teachers to conform to the list. And I wouldn’t ask them to take a minute away from the time they devote to actually being good teachers in order to prove that they are doing their jobs. The proof of that can’t be reduced to a list.
It was my own student who told me that if she failed the End-of-Course Test I would be in trouble. What she didn’t know was that I honestly didn’t care whether or not she could perform well on a test of rote memorization. I had higher expectations for her than that.
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[1] I learned some things checking into the origin of this saying. I remember reading that it was something Harry Truman said. A lot of people attribute it to Ronald Reagan. Apparently its origin is much older. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/21/doing-good-selfless/
J. Marcus Patton 