Individulaity and Duality

I love the end of the school year. I love it for several reasons. Some are obvious. For instance, summer is around the corner. I can breath a sigh of relief that this year is almost complete. One of the biggest reasons I love this time of year, though, is that I know my students. We have a relationship as a class and with one another. I understand them better and, hopefully, that means I understand their needs better. I am so blessed in my position because many of these kids have had me for two or three years which really improves that relationship. This is a great lead in to something about public education that has been puzzling me lately.

Teachers are sent to many trainings. Most of these trainings focus on the individuality of the child. That is beautiful. I completely agree. All children learn differently, bring something new to a subject, come from a different background and have different needs. I buy into this completely. So, at these trainings we are taught ways to individualize education, ways to make this experience meaningful for each, separate, entirely different child. As a middle school teacher this gets tricky because so many students are added to that scenario. Still, I embrace the challenge and I work very hard all year to get to know my students and their needs.

Ironically, as we are being pushed to examine each individual child, we are also being told that we need to keep our lessons more uniform throughout the school and district. Some schools I have worked at have taken this to the degree that, honestly, we should just be given a script. These two trends do not mesh well in my mind. Yes, I'm creative and I will find ways to cover the whats and whens in my class while trying to maintain a classroom that considers each student. However, it still seems that this creates confusion and possibly has created the reason many students go through their school years as a name and number. It takes an immense amount of thought, planning and experience to be able to exist and do well in the dichotomy that the 'powers that be' have mandated. I want to tell the government and the board and all of these politicians that they cannot have it both ways.

When I was in school my teachers knew nothing about me. They barely remembered my name. I was a good student and I completed my assignments. I learned the one way they offered, I was one of the lucky few that did. I did not talk to them outside of class assignments, they likely did not remember me when I left their room each day. Teachers did not individualize instruction and they did not know us. I think that trend has shifted and the relationships are being built and I believe this is a positive change. However, with so much emphasis on student's performance on a single test(jobs being threatened, kids tested so often they don't even care how they do) we are not going to be able to maintain this ideal utopia of mutual understanding and respect between teachers and their students.

Doubting

I try to stay away from politics. It is a world that I know nothing about. I don't speak its language. However, right now it is affecting my life directly. It is affecting the way I teach and what I am considering teaching in my class. Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about standardized testing. I want to give the teacher's perspective.

I teach the advanced English classes at my middle school. These students are expected to perform above their grade level. I expect them to dig deeper, explore further and be self-motivated to do so. From my perspective, I should not worry about a minimal standards test in my classroom. I am taking them so far beyond what that test will cover that it should be easy for them. That does not seem to be the case though. My students have only sat in classes that were teaching to the test. They do not know how to dig deeper, nor do they have any desire to do so. They are frustrated with me because I'm asking them to do more than complete worksheets. They have said this to me in those words.  What they are seriously lacking is vocabulary. They are capable of making great connections and answering tough questions but they do not know the meanings of many of the words they read. If you gave them a passage and asked what it meant, they could tell you easily. But if you give them a multiple choice question and they don't understand three of the four words from the list of choices, they are going to miss the question.

So, back to my original thought that this test is affecting what I teach in my classroom. I pulled out Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing". They got excited about the story line. They got excited about the list of vocabulary words I gave them from Shakespeare's time. They started shouting insults to each other and laughing over the fact that their teachers wouldn't realize they were insulting them. I have not seen this enthusiasm all year. We are plowing through the second act currently. It's not easy stuff. But we're taking it slow and really trying to understand the writer's craft. This is all totally my ideal for my classroom. My huge worry is that it won't prepare them to take the state test in May. In fact, it worries me a lot. So I will probably resort to giving them homework each week that tests them on reading a passage and answering multiple choice questions. This angers me and it's so disconnected from how people learn. Yet I'm stuck.

In life my problems have never offered me multiple choice solutions. They have taken problem solving, thinking and planning. We aren't teaching these students how to apply things they learn in school to real life. We are teaching them how to take apart a test. It makes me extremely sad and it makes a great argument for homeschooling. Another solutioin is that parents can opt out of the test for their child. I'm sure the rules are different in every state, parents would have to do some research to find out what is required in their state but at least it is an option. But is one parent in a school district, pulling their child from testing going to make changes? No. What will make things change? I'm just not sure.