For a bookmark-friendly version of this page, click here. Then bookmark this page.

Note from Jane Bluestein: I hear from large numbers of teachers at all grade levels and throughout the country who face a great deal of pressure to produce measurable, quantifiable results in their classrooms. They tell me what these pressures are costing them—and the kids they teach. Whether instructed to “get through the curriculum” or “get your test scores up,” the feedback I get—sometimes on a daily basis—reflects a great deal of frustration, disillusionment, and anger. The following “rant” speaks for many. I share it with the permission of the author.

Testing: One Teacher’s Perspective

From a High School English Teacher,
34 years in

by Patricia Stathas

So anyway, I was policing the girls’ bathroom on my floor. Checking out the stalls, looking for feet, I saw four where there should have been two. I knocked on the door and asked what was going on. Out walked two students—one of them a guy.

This, I was not prepared for. Flustered, I blurted out, “WHAT THE HECK?!” The young man apologized politely, saying, “This is the only way we can spend time together during the school day.”
HONEST TO GOD.

I figured I’d start out with a humorous anecdote. Isn’t that what speakers do before getting down to the really serious stuff on the agenda? Here’s the really serious stuff:

If you’re a teacher who cares more about helping children learn than helping your school raise its test scores, LISTEN UP.

That which we love and dedicate ourselves to is being hijacked by the “Standards and Benchmarks Gang,” aka NCLB and NBPTS among others, and, in my home state, PI 34. You can probably add a few more to the list. You know who they are—bureaucrats who perhaps at one time used to be us; now they feel comfortable swimming in alphabet soup. You know them. They publish reams of standards that read real good. Yup they do.

I wonder, do these folks get paid by the page? I checked out the Wisconsin State Standards for Secondary Social Studies Teachers. Whoa! Would turn me right off that particular career path.

This weekend I partied with my 80-year old aunt and other relatives, including a California cousin who teaches in a Bay area middle school. He and I sheepishly admitted bringing student work with us, “just in case.” He showed me a standards-aligned essay question that his 6th graders were working on. We counted 8 concepts that would have to be taught or mastered before a kid could even start writing a response. And that didn’t include problematic vocabulary.

GEEZE LOUISE!

I teach in a highly regarded private school. We do the jumping-through-the-hoops thing so we can boast that we’re “keeping up with state standards.” Fortunately, we’re not mindless. Yeah, I’ll sit through 2 days of REALLY BAD INSTRUCTION so I can become a “certified” mentor for those poor souls who get their Ed. degrees after 2004.

That is, IF there are any poor souls to mentor. Who the heck is going to put up with a 5-year portfolio certification program? AND PAY FOR IT? Actually, I’ve mentored several teachers right out of education. Subversive you say? Damn straight. I may be an aging hippie, my best days of passionate protest past, but I’m hooked on this teaching thing, and plan to go out, if and when I have to, kicking and screaming, raging against the dying of the light. (Apologies to you, Dylan)

You know that light, don’t you? It’s what happens everyday when you work with kids: The light that touches both you and them. It’s RIGHT THERE, in the relationships. The connections. The reciprocal energy. The power you share. Read The Tao of Physics. You’ll get it. Read Parker Palmer. He gets it. So does Nel Noddings. And just so you know I’m not all touchy-feely, read James Zull, or Caine & Caine or Brooks & Brooks.

The current administration in D.C. doesn’t get it. Some principals do. Lots of teachers do. But not the one I’m going to tell you about: I’m sitting in on a district-wide conference small group meeting of secondary English teachers. A middle-aged bearded gentleman touts the advantages of teaching from a 10-pound text book. “Literature’s not my area. I’m a composition person. I find it valuable to simply assign all the reading selections and the accompanying activities. I figure this material is solid. And the best part is, the students always know what their assignments are, and so do their parents. I just publish a homework list for them to follow and check-off. The kids all have the same materials and I’ve got the teacher’s guide, so we all know what they’re supposed to be learning. No questions.”

I’m sitting there listening to this crap, wondering, “Do I rip out his throat? Do I politely suggest other strategies? Or do I just swallow it because he’s too far gone? ( I think it’s the beard.)

And then the questions: Who the hell hired this person and is that school so hard up that this is what passes for competence? And what about those poor kids in his classes? What are they learning? Will they check out the back of The Lovely Bones to see if there’s a section that explains the author’s literary techniques and states two or three possible themes?

And don’t tell me that I can’t speak to your situation because you’re in another discipline,or that YOU have to cover content, or that your department chair or principal, like Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, will morph into a monster and perform the equivalent of professional castration on your career.

Instead, tell me that you’re mad as hell (sorry Paddy) and aren’t going to take it anymore. Tell me that I’m not alone. Tell me that somewhere out there I’ll find teachers who have the guts and heart to stop this beast before it kills good teaching, drives the best people out of the profession, discourages new people from joining us, and turns the art and science of teaching/learning into a religion where educators worship the gods of standardized tests, standards-aligned textbooks, and content-centered instruction.

—Pat in Milwaukee, for Wayne, wherever you are, with love and appreciation. Spring, 2006.

“Testing, Testing...” Excerpt from Creating Emotionally Safe Schools.

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version

Links to other articles about testing and NCLB

Back

For a bookmark-friendly version of this page, click here. Then bookmark this page.

Testing: One Teacher’s Perspective

From a High School English Teacher, 34 years in

From a High School English Teacher,
34 years in