Public education is failing, or at least that is what you would think in Maine. "If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck.” Paul LePage, the governor of Maine, described in a talk at York County Community College. As a teacher and long time advocate for students and schools, I am hurt, but does he have a point? Are "WE" failing? Who is included in this "WE"? Are the teachers and teacher preparation programs in the state of Maine failing? Could it be the standards? Are parents to blame? Do the policy makers need to stand up and take the blame? Are the kids just lazier today? The blame sure does get passed around in news and with political figures. Who or what is failing and how can it be remedied? Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?
THE TEACHERS stole the cookies from the cookie jar!
If anyone here is to blame, it must be the teachers. They have the students after all for 7/8 hours each day in their secluded classrooms. The problem as Jacobs points out is that teachers are secluded. Teacher's today do not have say many times about curriculum because they are either to teach to a test, or encourage creativity. There is hardly room for both as suggested by the Elementary Education: Current Trends article. Administrators are many times concerned that time for collaboration is code for time off which is simply not the case. A student that has moved from 4 places in the school year can likely not be taught as well as a student who has been in the classroom year round. Students that are not coming in with homework done, or studying multiplication facts will not have the same sort of practice or opportunity as a student who does. A teacher with 10 student in their class will be able to devote more time per child than a teacher with 21 students in their class. There are ultimately some ineffective teachers, however, with the pay, competition for jobs, and morale of being a teacher today, the job is done out of passion not ignorance or lack of ability.
THE STANDARDS took the cookies from the cookie jar!
I had a major "Ah ha" moment when reading Heidi Hayes Jacobs book Curriculum 21 book when she said at the very beginning, "A prevailing myth is that the standards movement exists to prepare students for their future. I wonder which particular standards movement we are talking about?... The disparities between states on the number of standards, the actual standards themselves, and the graduation testing requirements are so vast as to be startling... To be blunt, some tates have lower standards than others." She is saying that before the Common Core Standards, it has been impossible to compare schools because the curriculum has been inconsistent. And yet, our policy makers have been comparing schools to other schools, our state to other states, our country to other countries. It all goes back to the fact that you can't compare apples and oranges. I would like to add to her point. Just as the the standards are different so are the students. Students all have different needs when it comes to standards, and students need support at home to be successful.
THE STUDENTS took the cookies from the cookie jar!
It must be those lazy students! Are students the culprit to a failing US educational system? Students are complex individuals who have challenges as diverse, if not more diverse, than adults. From the obvious factor of ability, mental stability, parental support, interactions with peers, to the less obvious factors such as how their day went, the life of an elementary student trying to find their way in the world can be hectic and unpredictable! If you were to give the same exact curriculum to the most talented teacher in the world in a class of 21, the outcome would be different every time. There is no way to make education a factory where the students are "perfect" products who all meet the standard as a result of a hard working teacher. It is really hard to get someone who is use to the mantra hard work= success to understand that, which is the mantra the country is founded upon. I think that as a teacher one of the hardest things you have to accept year 1 is that you can't change the lives of everyone in your class. When applying to jobs and writing scholarship essays in college that is what people wanted to hear. But, there is too much out of your control to change the lives of every student who walks into your classroom. Not everyone will end up meeting the standards. The question then becomes is it the parents, the fault of the teacher or the faulty standards? There are these tests to determine if students are meeting the standards. Which is great, if the standards apply to that student. Otherwise, the tests are degrading and unnecessary. The students diversities ultimately stem from the parental differences. Oh, I got it,
THE PARENTS stole the cookies from the cookie jar!
Are parents to blame for not supporting children. After all, students go home to do homework and practice skills from the day. They are being taught at home more often than they are at school. It is my opinion that the majority of teaching and learning of a student will be encouraged by the parent. In my experiences, I did not have the best teachers every single year. I was not the smartest person. I had support of my parents, telling me that no matter what, I was going to be successful. That failing wasn't an option. In my classroom this is the approach I use. When reading the article about schools around the world, I appreciated the Japanese model for its parental involvement and building of a community around learners.
THE POLICY MAKERS stole the cookies from the cookie jar!
Should we be looking at policy makers for the answers to education reform? Does giving schools grades motivate them, especially with a governor who doesn't appreciate Maine schools. If as a teacher I told a student that there is nothing good about them (Paul Lepage with the quote in the introduction about schools) and that they were failing (the grading system created under his administration) I would /should get fired. Not only would it be inappropriate, but this is never an approach that I would use in the classroom because it just wouldn't work as a motivator. Students don't want to hear they are failing and that they are worthless just as teacher and schools don't want to hear they are failing and worthless. It will not solve the problem at hand.
It is a reality that the schools, teachers, and students get the majority of the blame in this epic match of finger pointing. Stop the finger pointing. Stop bashing the hard work of students, schools, and teacher and instead stand up and make positive collaborative change. As Loundsbery and Vars state in The Future of Middle Level Education: Optimistic and Pessimistic View, "Resolving conflict demands and and expectations of various stakeholders is a never ending challenge." but one that needs to be addressed. I urge law makers, students, and parents to work together with schools. Actually go into a school and see for yourself the struggles facing schools, students, teachers. Weigh in with an educated, up to date viewpoint.
It takes a village to raise a child, right? I think the problem is that no one is on the same page. We're all coming at education from different angles with different influences on what we think is right. The question is, how do we all get onto the same page? How do we get the parents, teachers, students, politicians, and policy makers to agree on anything, when we each of these has different pressures and different background materials affecting their actions? There must be a common ground somewhere.
ReplyDelete