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All material is my personal opinion, and not that of any other organization. Copyright 2001. Permission is granted for individual teacher use. All rights reserved. |
This guest editorial ran in the Oakland Tribune, Saturday, May 5, 2001 Anthony Cody AS we enter the testing season, teachers and students are once more submitting to inspection. Those pushing for high standards have apparently concluded that the only way to achieve them is through uniform adherence to specific curricular objectives. The only way to promote adherence, in turn, is tests to measure how many of these facts and skills have been absorbed, and rewards and punishments based on these test results. As a teacher in a "low-performing school," which has further been designated for the honor of "immediate intervention," I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am confident we can raise our scores. On the other hand, I don't think our designation as low-performing has done anything at all to motivate us to improve. Instead it has created a feeling of resentment toward the tests and those who would presume to judge our efforts based on so narrow a measurement. Is this carrot-and-stick approach to school reform the only way? Are we even rewarding the best teaching? One way to look at our situation is as a choice between two models. The standardized testing model says you motivate people, teachers and students alike, by telling them exactly what to do, then rewarding them for doing it and punishing them for failing to do it. Everything in the system is rewired to focus on the standards, which translates into standardized test scores. This is where energy for reform has been directed much of the past decade. What has been ignored and sacrificed? First of all, the best teachers are thoughtful, creative people. They naturally resist coercion, especially if it goes against their beliefs about how children ought to be taught. But they are forced to fight to defend their methods, rather than being encouraged and supported. Alfie Kohn said in his speech in Oakland several weeks ago, "People don't resist change. They resist being changed." There is an important distinction, and it applies to students as well as teachers. Second, the whole emphasis is on something external to the central action in the learning process. Rather than focus on the quality of the teacher/student relationship, the quality of instruction and the conditions and support needed for optimum learning, the standards advocates have, along with the testing technicians, erected a huge supervisorial superstructure that looms outside and over the classroom, attempting to dominate and control instruction. An alternative model is one that emphasizes teacher professionalism. This model says teachers will do their best not when threatened or coerced, but when given support and the opportunity to grow. Teachers are and must be accountable. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards suggests that accomplished teachers are responsible for the learning in their classroom. They need to be able to organize and present curriculum, to give feedback to students, to assess growth, communicate with parents and participate in a professional community of educators. This is how they are accountable. They are not bound and determined to raise test scores. They are bound and determined to increase student learning, which is measured many different ways. Howard Gardner's work has shown there are many ways to learn and many ways to express understanding. Standardized tests focus on logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence only. An accomplished teacher draws them out, and uses them all to access every child. But the standardized testing movement is leading to the narrowing of instruction, dumbing down our classroom, dumbing down what is expected of teachers. TEACHER professionalism offers a strong counterpoint to the standardized testing movement. It does so not by rejecting the notion of standards. After all, central to the National Board process are a set of high standards for each specialty area. Rather, it says those standards need to be set and owned by the professionals who are to embody them, and they need to reflect the values, beliefs and aspirations of those professionals. These will be standards worth defending, not resisting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anthony Cody teaches at Bret Harte
Middle School in Oakland, where he has ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers |
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