Bird Droppings September 8, 2025

Why are we deliberately wrong in education so often?

I stopped playing the lottery nearly five years ago, except for Powerball, which two folks stole from me over the weekend. I was supposed to win 1.8 billion dollars. I will admit that I was pondering retiring with that Powerball jackpot. I might need to play my numbers again. I would fund educational programs trying to help teachers devote time to education than what today’s teachers are allowed. Due to so many mandates, edicts, pontifications, justifications, and whatever other impediments to education our school, local, state, and federal governments have imposed, it is hard to teach. Generally, over the years, a teacher with a challenging class talks about changing careers or retiring each semester. This past year, it was a pandemic. Teachers, whom I consider some of the best, are dwindling, and others are tired of the constant imposing of near-impossible attainments for students with no curriculum changes or courses they are told to teach to the test. As with many issues, education has been bastardized and taken over by those seeking to make more money.

“I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who have no right to talk. Too many misinterpretations have been made; too many misunderstandings have come between the white men about the Indians.” Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, January 14, 1879, addressing representatives of the President of the United States

I am saddened that nothing has changed in over one hundred and fifty years since Chief Joseph surrendered. Today, over three hundred thousand complaints against the Bureau of Indian Affairs are unanswered and in nationwide courts. The highest suicide rate of teenagers in the nation is on reservations. Around the country, we are arguing about illegal immigrants. Many of these people’s Arizona and New Mexico ancestors were kicked off their land when we won the Spanish-American War. Navahos, Apaches, and many other tribes were dispersed to the Indian Territories in Oklahoma, never allowed to return to their ancestral homes. We are so self-centered that we can argue about illegal immigrants; maybe we are genuinely illegal immigrants. An old Indian was approached by an anthropologist and asked what his people called this land before the white man came. He calmly said, “Ours.”

“If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to grow and live.” Chief Joseph

My thoughts often come randomly after a few hours of sleep and rising to go out chasing the moon and sunrises. I will honestly admit to counting deer as I drive around with a high total of twenty-one. Nearly five years ago, at about two-thirty, I got off the phone after talking with a good friend from many years ago. We talked for nearly three hours, and in heading to bed, something came to mind. My friend is from Oklahoma and a Muskogee Creek. It seems the powers to be back in the day now always want to mass-produce. In the late 1800s, as far as Native Peoples go, they devised a blanket policy, and no pun intended, to cover all tribes. There was no consideration of culture, family, language, and history; this included education using the Carlisle School as an example.

The white Christian way was the best and only way. No exceptions. Indians should be farmers like white folk; no more hunting and gathering, no more Sundance ceremonies banned in the late 1800s, or rituals that might offend Christian folk. Treaties and promises were made with little or no attempt to fund and implement that plan. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Corruption ruled that little funding did reach reservations and holding areas. I thought it was easy to tie this government outlook to today’s education, coincidentally.

In 2004, a massive educational bill entitled No Child Left Behind was passed. The critical point is that in 2014, all children would be on grade level in math and reading. Sadly, there was no funding for states, and so they implemented as best they could. However, penalties were still in place for not meeting the standards imposed. The idea of all children being standard includes all socio-economic, cultural, children with disabilities, ethnic groups, and any other sort of sub-group that might be thrown in. Children would be evaluated with standardized tests in specific grades and graduate. Dr. William Ayers, who was accused of being too friendly with our past president during the previous presidential election, is a nationally known educator and author.

“The root of the word evaluation is ‘value,’ and authentic assessment includes understanding first what the student’s value is and then building from there. An authentic assessment is inside-out rather than outside-in. It is an attempt to get away from sorting a mass of students and closer to the teacher’s question: Given what I know, how should I teach this particular student?” Dr. William Ayers

One of our states’ efforts to get an assessment aligned with national standards and accountability has been a new math curriculum and subsequent testing. On the front page of a past Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Only 52% of the students who took the End of Course test for Math II in May 2017 passed.” This was across the state averages in high schools on this particular test. The State Department of Education says students will need time to get used to the new curriculum. In special education, we have told parents in IEPs that kids may be in high school for five or six years due to higher standards for graduation. Interestingly, by chance, should you take over four years to graduate, you are considered a dropout until recently, when the graduation rules were again changed.

I question who is setting the bar up and why. As I read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it is due to mandated standards in the No Child Left Behind legislation. What about schools so far behind that it will not happen, no matter what bar level is set, it will not happen? Many reservation and inner-city schools have never hit AYP to date in nearly ten years of testing. Another low point is that it is common knowledge among administrators and educators that test scores and zip codes correlate strongly. How is that for a statistic? Borrowing a phrase now that is a Catch-22, yes, most definitely, zip codes and test scores correlate. I had an idea last night after a brief discussion on a blog about what could be done. I asked for some time to think about solving this dilemma, and I went to Barnes and Noble to get some backup material.

Great educators have known the answer; John Dewey offered suggestions and thoughts well over a hundred years ago. Numerous other authors have expanded on and clarified Dewey’s thoughts. All seem to conclude the solution is not in one test fits all; one curriculum fits all; it is not about leaving children behind, which is currently happening at an alarming rate. So here I was, walking my dog last night, and a thought came to me. It is about one child at a time.

“Teachers are explorers. As they explore their students’ world and lives, they cast lines to different ways of thinking. Teaching is often bridge-building; beginning on one shore with the knowledge, experience, know-how, and interests of the student, the teacher moves toward broader horizons and deeper ways of knowing.” Dr. William Ayers, to Teach the Journey of a Teacher, 2010

You might say, Where do we start? In step one, we start asking students. After talking with many Foxfire program students who graduated many years back, I see commonalities in their opinions of what they learned. They learned about community more than any other topic; this has come up numerous times. It was not a measurable academic lesson or standardized test score. It was the interactions with others in a valuable and viable manner. It was being allowed to be an individual and to be creative. It was about one child at a time.

“From the beginning, learner choice, design, and revision infuse the work teachers and learners do together.” Foxfire Core Practice One

John Dewey emphasized the democratic classroom, giving students a voice and allowing their past experiences to be utilized, not just those perceptions and experiences of the teacher. One Child’s Idea at a Time may sound far-fetched, but when you look at how we currently test and evaluate, it is not truly an indicator of what a child knows or even cares about. It is what has been drilled in the past semester. You will often hear the term life-long learner, and yet is cramming for lifelong learning a standardized test? Is 52% of students taking tests failing in lifelong learning? What if we could take more time to learn who the student is, to allow students to incorporate their weaknesses and strengths into the learning process? Wouldn’t it be great if we could do an individual IEP for all students instead of a blanket testing policy? Would it not be great if each student had a portfolio that accompanied them in each grade, showing progress and achievements? One child at a time is the key to educational success and failure. I will wander more another time, so please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and your hearts, and always give thanks, namaste.

My friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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