Bird Droppings April 18, 2025

Watching a hawk fly by

I recall a favorite memory of mine: from five years ago, for the first time in my teaching in public school, nearly twenty years, I was not required to teach to the test, which got me thinking back. Over the years, I have attended numerous track meets. I would take a few photos, as I tend to do. I recall about fifteen years ago when I was not able to get to the regional meet till after school. Since it started before school was out, I let one of the team managers take my camera to get a few photos of some of the events I would miss. In looking up photos this past week, I looked at old photos of pole vaulting; a thought crossed my mind in conjunction with an article I read. I have used numerous articles in my research by Ronald A. Wolk, founder and former editor of Education Week.

“Standardization and uniformity may work with cars and computers, but it doesn’t work with humans. Today’s student body is the most diverse in history. An education system that treats all students alike denies that reality.” Ronald A Wolk

I reviewed my photos and talked with one of the coaches about a particular student who had really done well that year in pole vaulting. She missed going to the state meet in a tie, and she had too many misses as she vaulted. So, while she cleared the same height as the winner too many times, she had missed at other heights.

“Standards don’t prepare students for anything; they are the framework of expectations and educational objectives. Without the organization and processes to achieve them, they are worthless.” Ronald A. Wolk

I have pondered this idea of an event like pole vaulting and comparing it to our current trend in education of raising the bar. The practice of making it harder to achieve a high school diploma, for example, is commonplace across the United States. We set the bar up and do not have the processes within some students to make it to the bar. I could see in a pole-vaulting contest where the high school state record may be fourteen feet, and we set the bar at sixteen feet, and believe all potential pole vault contestants will now attain that level of skill. Most will quit pole vaulting, and Wolk uses statistics from various states showing dropout rates as an issue, and most recently, with national changes in calculating dropout rates, even more so.

I have been pondering this concept of raising the bar for some time, and teachers have been fired for not attaining goals set by states and federal legislation. I am doing bus duty this spring, and we have several elementary students who catch the bus to take their teachers ‘ children to their schools from the high school. Perhaps to no one other than educators and parents, the stress level in an elementary school during CRCT time among teachers and students should be looked at. If we deliberately stress children over testing, are we going in the right direction? If we deliberately cause anxiety among our children over test scores that have little validity other than what the publisher has stated, and in reference to state and federal mandates, are we even being sane?

Thinking back nearly twenty years, I was working on several questions for my graduate school comprehensive exams. In that process, I would head to the University of Georgia Library on weekends to review material. I recall as I was driving to the University in Athens, and as I turned on the highway bypass towards the University, a red-tailed hawk flew over the road, gliding by into a patch of pines. About three hundred yards further, a dead hawk appeared alongside the road. It appeared the hawk was trying to feed on a dead armadillo, which had been hit by a car. The hawk had become roadkill as well. As I drove on, I wondered if maybe this was a pair, considering how close they were and if they had a nest and young, and this might have been the reason to venture that close to the highway. I have seen other times similar situations with dead hawks at road kill sites.

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. Whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. All things are connected. You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, and man belongs to the earth. “Chief Seattle

It has been many years since Chief Seattle spoke, but his words ring true today. It may be that in our time, we so often take all around us for granted, the trees, animals, and even other people. We live a life so self-centered and focused on us that we tend to miss so much. It was many years before man realized he was not the center of the universe and was just a somewhat insignificant speck. I am sitting at my writing desk, typing on my laptop, wondering about an interesting question. So many people see problems with public education, and yet few offer solutions that seem to go in the right direction, as I was mentioning in Wolk’s statements.

I have been reading numerous books on curriculum theory, but I am waiting for a book on curriculum action to be published.

Over a hundred books are scattered about my table, each with a different author and a different idea on how to solve issues in schools and life. A graduate school professor commented several months ago about how many curriculum theorists have moved to Canada to practice, to learn, and to do research. It is interesting that in this world where we want to be the best, Canadian schools want to get better. In Canada, however, they are looking for ways to improve beyond politics.

We have numerous laws and ideas, but we never seem to get better. A recent headline in the local newspaper titled ” Students’ scores highlight disparity. In several systems mentioned, nearly a third of eighth graders will be retained because of a test at the end of eighth grade. I wonder how they were at the end of seventh grade and the beginning of eighth grade. Maybe we should do a sort of pre-test and post-test thing.

A simple practice would give a better indication of learning, and it seems we do not do that. We simply test at the end of eighth grade, so we know this child is at this stage and knows this at this point, but what did that child learn in eighth grade? We still do not know.

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” Sydney J. Harris

It has been nearly twenty years since a fellow teacher first showed me a Sydney J. Harris column. So often, as I watch people in school or out in the community, these people reflect everything around them. Harris says we should be more like windows, letting in, not just reflecting.

“Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education.  Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.  We must make our choice; we cannot have both.” Abraham Flexner

I wonder, thinking back to my hawk flying by, I hope that if there are chicks, they were far enough along to survive, and as I think, maybe it acts on the part of parents who truly want a good education for their children. In Georgia, a big push is for vouchers and Charter schools, and sadly, both are profit-driven, not in the interest of children, and neither offers much more in terms of new ideas, nor have they, from research, done as well as public schools. The sad part is that many kids in today’s diversified world often do not have parents at home anymore, and that puts stress on everything, including tests and school. As I end today, maybe we can all take a moment and try to please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart, namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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