The consequences of too much pressure and too little thought and engagement on middle school math...
My kids are way behind a long and far too complicated curve...
I just want to go on record to say that the irony of people who don't take thought serious enough is that they generally end of making life far too complicated, when, if they had taken some time to think, up front, they likely would have found the best and simplest way, possible, without making life such a hassle for everyone...
This is one such story...
The curriculum that Kansas City, Kansas operates under is driven by scores on a District MAP test of basic skills and a Kansas State Assessment of skills like math, reading, social studies and science...
No matter what other kinds of learning may need to take place for kids or what would be constructive for their educations, these two test drive education in our district, right now...
And that is a problem...
It's not a problem because the skills on the test aren't valuable...they are valuable...and ones that I would love to cover in a math or reading or social studies or science class...and it's not a problem because we are teaching too low of skills...to the contrary, in my math class, we are teaching algebra and geometry and probability and all kinds of skills that were advanced skills when I was in middle school to every kid in the district...
The problem is the drive...
The problem is that we push so goddamn hard...
And my classes are where that problem show up most starkly...
The irony, I have discovered, as a math teacher, is that if I take the curriculum slowly and teach skills thoroughly and with a lot of review, most kids can get higher level math...it just takes a lot of patience and review and patience and review...our curriculum emphasizes creative application and exploration, so there is higher purpose to math, in particular, rather than just rote learning...
So those developments are all great...
The problem is the drive...that the tests push the kids (and the teachers) too goddamned hard...
As a consequence, the general attitude by many teachers is: we are not teaching for mastery, we must pace through the curriculum at the district-proscribed pace, and if kids get left behind, then so be it (ironic for a system driven by laws and philosophy that say no child left behind, huh?...yeah, if you're not used to reality not matching policy intentions, yet, just follow a few issues like this one to get a sense of it)...
You see...whether political leaders and representatives want to admit it or not...there is a reality outside of their intentions...so, no matter how strongly they may feel or how much they may push for a certain objective to be achieved, it can only be achieved at the pace and in the way that it will be achieved...and pushing the matter is often counterproductive...and this is a classic example...
The problem for me and my kids is that the kids I work with are the ones who regularly get left behind...most of my kids don't have formal, rigorously identified disabilities...they have makeshift labels for why they are failing and struggling in school and why there's nothing some teachers feel like we can do about it...except that we could (and I do) do a lot about it, it just takes veering, somewhat, from the mandates and getting focussed on how to achieve the goal, whether it is by the mandated path or not...schools are failing my kids -- out of a combination of a lot of factors, but legislation forcing measures on schools of teachers, administrators and parents who have not been consulted has a lot to do with the failure...though you would never find a politician or activist willing to take responsibility for their role in that failure, of course...
And this situation illustrates the problem...
Teachers get convinced that if they and the kids are going to make AYP -- adequate yearly progress -- then some kids just have to get left behind to match the ambitious drive of the tests that AYP is judged upon...
Ironic, isn't it?...yep, for me it's just another day in the policy field, where realities frequently -- and these days, more often than not -- fail to meet expectations...
And noone takes responsibility for that fact, of course...because generally they are driven by a self-righteous and self-centered sense of what MUST happen, with little regard for what CAN happen, at any given time...
The wonderful thing about being self-righteous is that when your efforts fail, they are never your fault...it's the nature of self-righteousness...the nature of self-righteousness is that when your efforts fail, you look to others and other variables to account for your failure, because admitting that you might be wrong is the farthest thing from your mind...admitting you're wrong makes you look weak and like, well, you're wrong, which most self-righteous people, really, just don't have the balls to do, frankly...
So instead of admitting that maybe what you're doing is not helping, you just advocate for more of the same because of course the reason why Communism failed because not enough motherfuckers followed the program, not because it's a bad system...the reason why self-righteous theocratic notions of religion fail to translate into a moral, self-governing citizenry is not because of a failure of theocratic notions, but because all of those goddamn liberals who keep letting everyone cheat on their wives and watch all that pornography with reckless abandon...
And, in this case, the reason why kids have to get left behind in math or reading or whatever skill we are dealing with...is not because mandating our way to student achievement is a bad path (though I do have to say that, to their credit, most teachers I talk with recognize that this is a bad path) but because some kids are just never going to get it...or because somehow we have to separate the wheat from the chaff...or because some people are meant to be trashmen and some people are meant to be President...or whatever million excuses that people have for why this stupid law mandating student achievement doesn't work and is counterproductive to the interests of the kids struggling the most, many of whom are in my special education resource room math class...
I do my best with the law...and the kids in my class will likely get a better education than kids in other classes since I teach a high level curriculum with lots of differentiation for different skill levels and lots of review and remediation and lots of reinforcement for the kids that they can do the math, given better opportunities to do so...so maybe they might learn to take advantage of opportunities down the line even if, as has forever been true, they are far from ideal in their offering...
Mandated achievement -- much like the use of force in a whole lot of situations where it is counterproductive, which is more situations than which it is useful -- is a compromise...people who advocate for the use of force to mandate a result always count on the fact that people will have to compromise with them...I just want to make clear, in this case and in many if not most cases, it is a compromise where the better direction is generally less force and less aggression...and no force and no aggression, when that is possible...
Because in this case, the means of mandated achievement -- namely standardized testing -- lead to all kinds of counterproductive results...hiding and fudging scores are one consequence...as is standardized achievement being substituted, legally or substantively, for creative, original thought (an issue that the Florida state legislature has problems with, lately, in their history "standards" -- they hardly become standards the more they veer from actual standards of historical scholarship -- largely because the people passing the laws have very little familiarity with creative, original thought, I am sure, which is all the more reason to humble themselves and to let the thinkers rather than the politicians guide the process)...stressing the fuck out of teachers and administrators and students with not nearly enough results to warrant it...but the most serious consequence is teachers getting convinced that certain students have to be left behind to make sure that the rest of them can make AYP, annual yearly progress...
It's like watching Stalin justify the slaughter of millions to defend an ideology based on the notion of caring for peoples' needs...or Ahmadinejad justify serious incursions on civil and human rights in the name of a more moral world-order...
It really makes no sense at all, really, when you look at it objectively...but when you're rooting for the philosophy or the law or the leader or the need to force the situation, involved, it's much harder to see the weakness because it means calling into question the premises of the endeavor...
The sad fact of the matter is that at Eisenhower Middle School in Kansas City, Kansas, the No Child Left Behind Act and all of the local and state mandates that have accompanied it or guaranteeing that many kids get left behind...because teachers are having their efforts driven -- meaning forced -- by testing that leave them afraid that making sure that all kids learn means that they and the rest of their kids will be left behind the curve...
It's foolish...we would all be better served by a more thoughtful and less forced process...a sequential and progressive curriculum that systematically reinforced math skills while teaching creative and exploratory and integrated math -- meaning geometry and algebra and probability and all sorts of stuff are taught together to solve real world math problems rather than by rote and in the abstract -- and which did so in a way that taught all kids similar work, while reinforcing basic skills along the way and gave all kids plenty of time to cover material and master concepts would serve everyone...
It would also make way too much sense compared the current policy...
And to do so would involve much more thought and much less force, which means that those involved would have to question their efforts in a way that I'm just not convinced that they have the courage to do...
I have to go home...I am pushed beyond my limit, today...
Have a great week, everyone...
Love,
Ben
