This article, written by Maja Wilson who taught high school English, adult basic education, ESL, and alternative middle and high school in Michigan’s public schools for 10 years, captures what is wrong with the data-driven madness in vogue in Kennewick for the past decade. Realize this is happening to your children. Is this what you really want? If not, it is time to stand up and say so.
Teacher: Data, my new dirty word
– November 14, 2010Posted in: Articles
Every parent and teacher in Kennewick needs to read this article.
As a high school teacher in our system, I have watched the same dismantling of what has been good about our public schools in exchange for turning learning into a coldly objective experience. The very best instinctive and natural teachers who use subjective judgment? Rapidly disappearing from our profession. Recognizing and dealing with the natural motivational needs of our students? Gone. Giving attention to our students’ aesthetic needs? You must be joking! We can’t collect data on music, painting, poetry, and drama! The physical needs of our students? Even though it is widely acknowledged that 1 in every 3 American kids is obese, and the rate of childhood diabetes is unprecedented, we have to make sure at least 90% of our 3rd graders are at least at the 38th percentile in reading so eventually they can graduate, work a year or two, and then pay for their own funeral. Furthermore, in order to achieve this end, we will most certainly keep this future generation of workers in from recess to drill on vowel sounds if their reading scores are too low. And finally, the idea that these children are complex human beings with a variety of needs coming from a wide range of experiences? Forget it! American children are as homogeneous as a flock of white sheep. They all speak English very well. They all go home to a mom and dad perfectly in love and living in white house with a perfectly white-washed picket fence. There is always intelligent family conversation over a nutritious dinner, a wide range of reading material throughout the warm and comfortable house, and each member of the family goes to his or her respective bedroom for homework and evening prayer before bedtime.
More and more and more, the kids that I am getting in 9th grade who have come through this data-driven system, are not in love with reading or learning. Over the last 10 or so years, even many of the really bright kids have been losing their shine.
It is difficult to watch this decline, and it is even more difficult to go to work each day knowing I am paid to be complicit in the destruction of what has been good about public education.
Every parent and teacher in Kennewick needs to read your comment, Kurt. How can we drive more readers to our site? We are getting readers from all over the country and we have as many from Seattle and Othello combined as we do from Kennewick.
Bob, that’s one of the damnable things about statistics like the 90% Reading Goal. It caters to human laziness. As a parent all I need to do to feel good about my child’s education is look at this number. Good numbers equal a good education . . . and now I don’t have to give it another thought. It’s like that bright big red “Easy Button.”
Interesting situation. When I taught for Heritage Institute I had more teachers travel from Bickleton to take visual literacy classes than from the Tri-Cities.
Data can be used to help guide decisions, but should not be just handed out in its raw form. I remember when just such a thing was done at a teachers’ meeting at our school. We sat at tables and pored over pages of very raw data, as if someone in attendance would have some sort of epiphany, and it was all I could do to keep from either laughing or leaving. Data only become useful after some analysis, preferably by someone who understands the concept of what “standard deviation” means. Without this and some other basics of statistics, that’s all they are…tables of numbers.
Hello. You will have to forgive me. I went to one of those parochial schools that had 44 kids in a class so I find some things difficult like key boards on computers. It appears that I am trying to take credit for Kurt’s posting and I assure you it was an error. I hit the wrong key. Here is my intended posting. Whenever I hear people say that private or parochial schools do a better job I always think of my background. I think I missed some learning in overcrowded classes that emphasized only reading, math and religion. We rarely had art, never had drama although I did portray the angel Gabriel in a nativity scene once. We had band once a week. This being my 40th year as an art teacher I always wonder what would have happened if I had been encouraged to explore my genuine interests instead of being told that art is a waste of time. Since I had worked in industry as a technical illustrator I was asked to teach math at the high school. There was an item in the MATH book that stated that graphics (commercial art) was the 7th largest industry in the country. The industry has grown to where I understand that it is the 5th largest in the country now and yet it is still considered a frill by the public schools. The best place to get graphics training in Washington State is in the prison system. It seems to me that if we are really concerned about our children’s futures we would base our schooling on research instead of myth and hearsay. According to the US Dept of Labor, Occupation Outlook Handbook there are more people working in graphics than there are chemists, biologists, and mathematicians combined. I cannot express how revolting the current trend is. It appears to me to be 180 degrees off and picking up speed. The damage being done to our youth will expand exponentially and just like you cannot unring a bell you cannot undo educational damage perpetrated upon our youth. They will take this insanity into adulthood and pass it on to their children. It is self destructive. Thanks