The United States is a score crazy culture. If you can't separate the winners from the losers, why do it? NCLB is a natural extension of this underlying sociological need to keep score.
Before WE condemn THEY for forcing US to give tests to THEM...WE should take a good long look in the mirror. We may be teachers during the day but in the evening, we become raving lunatics shouting at coaches, referees, and our children as they compete on various athletic fields.
Last night provided a welcome reprieve from The Great American Sorting Machine. It came in the form of a middle school chorus concert. The kids danced and sang their hearts out. There were no booing fans or yelling coaches. My spirit was lifted.
The music teacher gave a sincere, impassioned speech to the assembled audience including school administrators about the need to make time for the arts. I could not agree more. The students expressed their heartfelt gratitude for this teacher who had confidence in them, cared about them, and helped them be their best.
My 16 yr. old son, who inexplicably wanted to attend his little sisters' performance, brought the message of the evening into focus for me. He wasn't there to see his sister. My son had come along to see his Jr. High music teacher. The one who inspired him to play the drums and return to the Piano that his father had forced him to play as a child.
Despite the absence of a scoreboard, it was clear who the winners were last night.
I hope it is equally clear to anyone reading this who the losers will be if we continue to marginalize art and music classes.
Showing posts with label holistic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holistic. Show all posts
Friday, May 9, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The more things change...
The more they stay the same...
There is no “science” which can teach us to do under all circumstances the things which will insure our happiness and success. Life is too complicated for that, and no man can foresee exactly the consequences of his acts--“the future is a thing unseen.” All that education can do is to develop a sound judgement (as opposed to knowledge) which will meet the contingencies of life with resourcefulness and, in most cases, with success. This is a fundamental doctrine of his “philosophy” which he emphasizes and echoes again and again in opposition to the professors of a “science of virtue and happiness.”
~Isocrates
There is no “science” which can teach us to do under all circumstances the things which will insure our happiness and success. Life is too complicated for that, and no man can foresee exactly the consequences of his acts--“the future is a thing unseen.” All that education can do is to develop a sound judgement (as opposed to knowledge) which will meet the contingencies of life with resourcefulness and, in most cases, with success. This is a fundamental doctrine of his “philosophy” which he emphasizes and echoes again and again in opposition to the professors of a “science of virtue and happiness.”
~Isocrates
Monday, February 4, 2008
Don't be an Ass.
Pulling the Cart of NCLB:
In order to understand the prevailing climate in public education one first must examine the impact of No Child Left Behind which was spawned by the Smith and O’day led standards based movement (Linn, 2005). The basic premise of NCLB is school accountability for student achievement with the admirable goal of producing a generation of adults better prepared to meet the demands of contemporary society. The carrot or stick if you prefer for accomplishing this task is federal funding and standardized tests are employed as the metric du Jour (Linn, 2005).
It has often been said that what gets measured gets done and unfortunately what is getting done in our public school system is an alarming narrowing of the curriculum as resources are redirected to meet AYP (Hass, 1991). With the educational spotlight firmly fixed on core subjects such as math and English, education in the area of the arts and humanities has been seemingly left to wither in darkness (Eisner, 2005). Additionally, the contemporary curriculum rationale involves mandated learning objectives which are in essence, what we teach. Educators then prep to teach the what, help students learn it, measure the results, and then apply a points system of reward. This cycle is perpetuated until the educational objectives are achieved (Baker, 2004).
In order to validate that learning has taken place summative assessments are used to measure classroom level student performance in our public schools. In actuality, educators could and should be incorporating formative assessments which help to focus students on the task instead of the right answer and have been demonstrated to result in significant learning gains (Black & William, 1998).
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.
-author unknown.
So what are we getting from our present educational process which has basically existed in it’s current form for the last century? According to a 2005 survey from the National Association of Manufacturers, 80 percent of employers say K-12 schools are not doing an adequate job of preparing students for work. Furthermore the same study reported 55 percent of employers believe our high school graduates have not even acquired basic employability skills such as attendance, timeliness, and a good work ethic.
If you put a carrot in front of a donkey it will pull your cart right off the edge of the cliff to get the carrot. I believe it reasonable to assume that the current White House administration which signed No Child Left Behind into legislation is driving the educational cart. The question remains, who is the ASS pulling it?
In order to understand the prevailing climate in public education one first must examine the impact of No Child Left Behind which was spawned by the Smith and O’day led standards based movement (Linn, 2005). The basic premise of NCLB is school accountability for student achievement with the admirable goal of producing a generation of adults better prepared to meet the demands of contemporary society. The carrot or stick if you prefer for accomplishing this task is federal funding and standardized tests are employed as the metric du Jour (Linn, 2005).
It has often been said that what gets measured gets done and unfortunately what is getting done in our public school system is an alarming narrowing of the curriculum as resources are redirected to meet AYP (Hass, 1991). With the educational spotlight firmly fixed on core subjects such as math and English, education in the area of the arts and humanities has been seemingly left to wither in darkness (Eisner, 2005). Additionally, the contemporary curriculum rationale involves mandated learning objectives which are in essence, what we teach. Educators then prep to teach the what, help students learn it, measure the results, and then apply a points system of reward. This cycle is perpetuated until the educational objectives are achieved (Baker, 2004).
In order to validate that learning has taken place summative assessments are used to measure classroom level student performance in our public schools. In actuality, educators could and should be incorporating formative assessments which help to focus students on the task instead of the right answer and have been demonstrated to result in significant learning gains (Black & William, 1998).
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.
-author unknown.
So what are we getting from our present educational process which has basically existed in it’s current form for the last century? According to a 2005 survey from the National Association of Manufacturers, 80 percent of employers say K-12 schools are not doing an adequate job of preparing students for work. Furthermore the same study reported 55 percent of employers believe our high school graduates have not even acquired basic employability skills such as attendance, timeliness, and a good work ethic.
If you put a carrot in front of a donkey it will pull your cart right off the edge of the cliff to get the carrot. I believe it reasonable to assume that the current White House administration which signed No Child Left Behind into legislation is driving the educational cart. The question remains, who is the ASS pulling it?
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