Bird Droppings September 17-18, 2010
I can’t do it

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” St. Francis of Assisi

I was giving a make up test in a literature class yesterday when a student asked why he should even take the test he was going to fail whether he took the test or not. My response was so if you already know you are going to fail at least try and get the best grade you can rather than a zero. Not sure how he did yet but he did finish the test. I came in the school this morning thinking about the attitude of this student who is not alone in today’s increased rigor across the country. How do we encourage kids who are so lost in education?

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. “ Albert Einstein

I wrote several years back about funneling where a teacher picks the key aspects of a lesson in order to teach a topic rather than teaching everything. In Georgia we have the Georgia Performance Standards which is what children are to learn in specific subjects and grade levels. All standardized tests then in Georgia are oriented to the GPS. So teachers know what is coming on End of Course Tests and various other check points and teach accordingly. Teach to the test is the mantra of those of us who have issue with standardized testing as a means of accurately assessing students.
Sitting here listening to students discuss what was in class today or what is coming and most are unaware that anyone is listening. Always amused at how kids can assume only kids hear kids talk when in a room with many people like a class room. I was joking around with my first period co-teaching class about sign language and how back in the day when I taught deaf education for a couple years my students would sign instead of talk. Most were profoundly deaf with little if any residual hearing and speaking was difficult and often hard to understand when they and they would get frustrated since signing was quick and easy for them. It turns out two of the kids in the class knew sign letters and started messaging back and forth.

“The limits of our cognition are not defined by the limits of our language.” Elliot Eisner

Back a few months ago when I completed my comprehensive exams for my doctorate one of my questions was based on Eisner’s ideas on education and art. Eisner looks at education as needing the contextual implications of creativity and imagination to spur on critical thinking and fix the understanding in the student. As I think about my deaf kids from nearly thirty years ago and ninth grade lit kids using sign language I wonder as I read again this thought from Elliot Eisner does language limit us if we let it? I think the confines of a magnetically tracked test scoring grid presents a limit as do machine scored tests. Obviously makes grading easier and of course more measurable. But do we lose something in that simple process.
I went out early this morning as the sun was rising to get a few photos and to sit and watch the smoke rise from a bowl of sage and red willow bark at my feet. An occasional fan with a red tailed hawk feather kept the embers smoking and the light wisp of smoke would glide along the ground in a slight breeze. As I sat in my quiet spot looking east towards the rising sun the fine lines of web from numerous spiders was clinging to the blades of grass and weeds in front of me. Without the sunlight being just right I would never have seen them. It was as if everything was tied together in webbing a line here and there intertwining everything. One of my favorite t-shorts on the back states “we are all connected”. For me this brief moment ion time is meditation, it is prayer, and it is solitude for me where I can clear my head and soul.

“We have inadvertently designed a system in which being good at what you do as a teacher is not formally rewarded, while being poor at what you do is seldom corrected nor penalized.” Elliot Eisner

Eisner hit a nail on the head with this statement and so often it is true. Looking around in schools I have been in it is not how effect you are that matters. Politics, test scores, brownie points are the driving factors for being considered a good teacher. A friend was recently chosen teacher of the year which is an honor since it is selected by the teachers and staff. In her job she touches so many kids’ lives. The impact is what should be a measure of how effective you are as a teacher. When that kid comes back after five years or ten and says what you taught me is being used everyday thank you. That is what really should be the measuring stick of teachers. But it is hard to keep track for a year let alone five or ten. Amazingly enough facebook has been a good tool keeping track of kids I have taught people I have met along my life’s journey. I missed a day yesterday and started this early in the morning as I wandered between schools but by the end of the day my head cold got the better of me and I succumbed to rest. A new week ahead and a week gone by please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your heart.
namaste
bird