As the proficiency-based system unfolds, I become less convinced that it can really hold a key to creating a healthy education for all children. The effects of punitive measures for not learning are, IMHO, dire, both for those who appear to succeed and those who dont. But to have the goal of students be the successful accomplishment of standards makes assessment more important than learning. I know all the arguments against that statement; I know how hard teachers are working to make that not be so. Just listen to the Twitter conversations among Maine teachers about the science of assessment! But it is, and it always will be, as long as we impose all of the same standards on all children regardless of their interest, comprehension and connection. There are people who are working incredibly hard to make this system work. They believe in it deeply and defend it staunchly. They are trying, using all the tools they have, to take an assessment-driven system and make it look, sound, and behave like progressive education. But it just wont scan. They believe that in order for kids to be adequately educated, the same list of standards needs to be accomplished by all kids at just about the same time and regardless of interest and connection to the learning. The fatal flaw, but public education has no other choice. These things are required by law and enforced by testing. The daily problem teachers face is: how to get kids motivated. But this is only a problem when their natural motivation is ignored; ignore it long enough and it will go away. We need to think about two things: how to push back against this system and install one that works with, instead of against, childrens needs; and how to help the kids who are stuck in it now and are not thriving. I think once again about the Saul Kaplan concept of connected adjacencies; rather than tearing down a flawed system, build a new one next door.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 12:59:32 +0000
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