Teach Our Children? Well…

I have a stash of folders in my classroom. In my school, in which supplies provided for teachers and student’s own supplies don’t really exist, my stash is like gold. I’ve hoarded my folders, dolling them out for the truly needy student and lesson objective. A couple weeks ago, I used some of my precious trove for one class’s essays. As students picked a folder out of the bin, we discovered some had names on them, and some still had work in them. Attained by hook and crook, not all the folders came from students I had taught. I leafed through names I didn’t recognize, and I flipped through some of the work, always curious what assignments other teachers give their students. And then I found it. A piece of evidence for something I’d been thinking about for some time. It feels good to be validated, but often validation about educational issues usually means you’re right about something that harms the students. This is the text of an unlabeled assignment from a middle school student, dated 9/8/08:

“Last Year I was Proficienct. Now I will try to be advanced. (In Reading.) I will try to be advanced because I promised my mom I will try my hardest. If I am advanced in Reading, My mom will be proud of me. If I get advanced in Reading I’ll be advance in both Math and Reading.
That’s why I want to be advanced in Reading.”

The student received a check plus and a 50/50 on this assignment.

Some background before we get to why this paragraph breaks my heart.

I started teaching in October, 2003, almost two years after the No Child Left Behind law was signed by George W. Bush. NCLB brought with it a new atmosphere in teaching. I didn’t realize it then because I didn’t know anything else as a rookie teacher. But now as I’ve gained experience in education and have seen the previous generation retire almost completely and heard their stories, it’s clear how much NCLB was its own era. The basic idea is that schools needed to have a certain percentage of their students score “Advanced” or “Proficient” on a state-determined standardized test (the PSSA in Pennsylvania). If a school scored “Basic” or “Below Basic” in math or reading, penalties kicked in. The penalties ranged from requiring a school to create an Improvement Plan to the school being taken over by the state with administrators first and then teachers fired. This draconian law turned schools into compliance-checkers instead of educators. There’s much that can be said about this law and the devastating effects it had. But I’ll stick to what pertains to this student’s assignment.

I took issue with the way students were scored because of its deleterious effect on them. Students received a score of Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic. We were directed to inform the students of their score, to post the scores in the classroom, and encourage those scoring Below Basic or Basic to improve their scores to at least Proficient. The first problem I had was the scoring labels. Unlike the traditional A, B, C, D, F scale, Advanced, Proficient, Basic, and Below Basic label a student’s abilities. While a hierarchy exists with the traditional scale, and students are labeled as a “B student” or a “D student,” there doesn’t exist in the wording itself a means of labeling a student’s ability and inevitably the student himself. If I as a student score Basic, then I am Basic. What a horrible word to describe a child! Yet our government mandated it with a threat of penalty, and educators acquiesced and became complicit.

The second problem I had was the Advanced – Below Basic shaming system gave no clear and direct path towards improvement. If a student has a D or F in my class, I can give them specific steps to improve their grade. I can talk to the student about turning work in, putting in more effort, or how and what to study better. I can give them a path to success. With a state test given once a year (one that brought with it a carnival atmosphere complete with pep rallies, useless incentives, and in fact a carnival), what direct steps can a teacher give a student to improve? The answer is to pay attention and do the work in the tested subjects throughout the year, but that’s useless advice. It lacks in concrete terms, something a child needs from adults. So we as adults said to the students of our country, “You are Basic, and there’s nothing you can do about it except cross your fingers you do better next year.”

The true sadness of this paragraph is that the student bought into it. She accepted the terms by which our country’s educational system has labeled her. Her hopes and her need for her mother to be proud of her are tied up in these labels. What happens when she doesn’t score Proficient? I hope to God students weren’t punished liked they would be for a traditional grade.

One aspect of teaching that’s more difficult to handle than most is the unintended effects the system has on students. NCLB swept the land, and while there were small pockets of resistance as some parents opted their kids out of these tests, if you went to an American elementary or secondary school between 2002 and 2015, NCLB dictated your education. It can be argued you received a subpar education because NCLB took the focus away from learning and placed it squarely on doing well on a test. Art, music, and other vital subjects were cut. Though no fault of their own, American students were educated in inadequate schools. As a teacher, it was tough to comply while witnessing my students buy into something that helped only the adults running things.

What students should learn in school is a hotly debated topic. Though it always has been, today’s difference is that technology is the great disrupter. What will the technology look like when our current students graduate? What do they need to know in that world? So much is in flux that we as a society haven’t yet defined what’s important going forward. We simply don’t know yet. Whatever comes, I hope we never see a paragraph from a student like the one above. As a teacher, I need to start seeing empowered students rather than pawns for disconnected adults’ untested and theoretical ideas.