By Mark
It is wonderful when businesses offer ways to support effective teaching. People can speculate about the advancement of agendas, but anything that can offer opportunities to help teachers hone their craft and thus increase student achievment is a good thing.
I'm sure you've seen these commercials from Exxon Mobil about supporting science and math education:
Let's solve this: I like that. However, one piece of rhetoric is more troubling: "Let's raise academic standards across the nation" (00:15).
Here we have a situation that fits perfectly into the framework of education: students are not performing, what do we do? When we look at what they are finishing with, it is unsatisfactory. From an outsider's perspective–especially a corporate perspective–the solution is simple: make them finish with more. How do we do that? Redefine a higher expectation of what finishing with more should look like.
I don't think the U.S. is lagging because we had low standards to begin with.
It is fitting that I saw this commercial most recently while I was watching the Olympic trials on TV. If education is a race and we are not satisfied with how we are finishing, we don't just look at where the finish line is. Likewise, we don't just look at what our time is. If Ryan Lochte (the swimmer I'm hoping will humble Michael Phelps) is unsatsifed with his time in the 200m IM, he doesn't make the pool longer or just say he needs to raise his standards to match the competition. He thinks. He trains. He watches video of his turns and his entry. If Tianna Madison wants to shave four hundreths of a second off of her 100 meter sprint time on the track in order to match Carmelita Jeter, she knows she needs to do more than just have high standards. She thinks. She trains. She watches video of her starts and her footstrikes and her form.
There are so many factors which place other countries "above" us in the rankings of science and math standards. We could, for one, point out that our data is based on all of our students, whereas the data for many of those countries who outrank us does not do the same.
This is why I hope that one other phrase from the Exxon Mobil campaign (though it was sadly absent from the commerical above) carries more weight than the standards rhetoric: Exxon Mobil calls for us to invest in science and math education. From a scientific approach it is a no brainer–we could even craft an experiment and use the scientific method. Our question: which will produce increased results, higher standards or greater investment?
It is less about standards being too low/high and more about a system whose variables and inconsistencies offer little support in achieving said standards. I often wonder if the system truly drew the line in the sand and refused to pass kids not meeting standard along would we see an uptick in the work ethic? In parental support? In drop outs?
Also, how often are the standards set before all of us written by practicing teachers with real students in mind? There often seems to be a disconnect between the standard/goal and the reality of where kids are starting from.
In my observation the standards/goals (based on those prescibed the state or Common Core) set by classroom teachers for the students currently in front of them are the ones moving kids from the unknown to the known. Because the teacher knows the child and the traing program ( to use your sports analogy) that will take the child to the finish. As long as the student attends and completes the workouts.
I agree that there should be an emphasis on work, but we do not need new standards for that. We need a culture with a work ethic…and I agree we should not be moving kids along when they are not ready. Neither is related to higher standards–it is about effective policy, effective teaching (upon which we agree). I do also see standards as goals–but were the goals (standards) that we were already not meeting too low?
How did you fit a whole video into that post? I need to brush up on my tech skills.
I like the analogy of moving the finish line, but when I hear “raise standards,” I don’t think of just increasing the volume (lengthening the race) of the end product, I hear “improve its worth.” In the race analogy, that would be “reduce your time.” And to do that, you have to increase the workload of every minute of practice. Elite athletes do this. They don’t skip practice one day to have free time because their teacher didn’t plan a long enough lesson.
Maybe I’m seeing different classrooms than everyone else in education, but I see a lot of time wasted. I see it in my own room, too. There are the days when instead of coaching every student during study hall, I’m busy grading quizzes and “monitoring” from the front of the room. There are the 30 birthday celebrations my daughters have each year in their elementary classrooms. There are the class parties that happen the day before winter break, spring break, and summer vacation – days teachers assume kids aren’t able to work anyway, so why try?
And I know, social skills and relationships are one of the biggest agendas of public schools. That time isn’t wasted time, but it’s also not academic, and we have too much of it.
For athletes, down time is important because if they don’t rest their bodies and stay healthy, they can’t improve.
For students, is it important that they rest their brains? Take a break from the habit of working hard? And do students need to do that from kindergarten to their senior year? A lot of teachers say they do.
I think we need to find a balance that puts a little more hard work into the school day. We need to do a better job of using every minute of school to work hard and like athletes, we need to have specific goals in mind and then diligently work toward them, tracking our progress. The fun breaks mean more when the rest of a child’s day is spent working really hard.
Overall, I think American education leans a little too much toward “let’s have fun and spend time together” and not enough toward “you are going to work really hard, and I’m going to check to see if you know this.”
All of this is exacerbated, if not caused, by our system of moving children along every year whether or not they’ve learned the material. This system is crippling teachers way more than lack of funding.
I have no business climbing Mt. Rainier. I have no business swimming the English Channel. I have no business backcountry skiing. But if athletics were like education in the United States, I’d be doing these things simply because I’m 42. And that would be a catastrophe. Rescuers would risk their lives saving my life.
Moving children into territory they aren’t skilled enough to tackle simply because they’re a year older is a catastrophe, and teachers are not successfully rescuing them.