My dad said that he learned to swim when my grandfather threw him in the Cape Fear River. No life jacket. No walking in a little at the time. Sink or swim. That's certainly the opposite of how I learned to swim. I remember clinging to my dad in the pool, screaming at him not to let me go. I wanted to swim so I could play with my friends, but I was also very afraid. Finally, my mom enrolled me in lessons at the Y. I didn't dare scream. I methodically learned to swim--at least well enough to pass the required swim test at UNC.
There's something to be said for the sink or swim method. Cautious tip-toeing can consume a lot of time that could be spent on the deep end. It also allows more time for you to consider all the things that could go wrong. Being thrown into the water puts survival in your control--certainly terrifying at first, but empowering when you realize you control the speed and direction. When you get tired, float.
I've joined the #etmooc, a massive open online course about educational technology. I feel like I've been thrown in the middle of a lake, basically treading water. I feel pretty comfortable in the webinars and following along on Twitter. But connecting with others is proving to be the challenge. For example, at the time of this writing, there are 1,469 blog entries on the #etmooc blog hub. But I'm starting to swim.
Here's what I hope to learn from participating in this MOOC:
Tools to empower students to take charge of their learning
How technology can be an effective tool for personalized learning
A friend of mine shared the following YouTube video posted by 8th grade teacher R. N. Gutierrez:
I hooted and cackled. We've all probably heard (if not actually said), "When in doubt, choose C." Use the process of elimination to select between A, B, C, and D. And how many times have we had our students write about school uniforms and cell phone use? Guilty as charged.
And as satire is supposed to do, it got me to thinking. Just this week, I received a request for a test-prep book for the new End-of-Course test aligned with the CCSS. How did we get here? Some like Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman in Pathways to the Common Core, assert that high-stakes testing as part of NCLB has led to flatlined NAEP scores because we have dissected reading into discrete skills, with comprehension taking a hit. Writing instruction became formulaic with a focus on writing for a test rather than writing to think and share.
Then come the Common Core State Standards with its "promise" to prepare all students for college and career. I like the ELA standards with their clear learning progressions from kindergarten to the College and Career Anchor standards. But as the Brookings Institute concludes in "The 2012 Brown Center Report on Education":
Despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards--not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states--the study foresees little to no impact on student learning. That conclusion is based on analyzing states' past experience with standards and examining several years of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). p. 5
This conclusion is not at all surprising. Standards and curriculum alone will not impact student learning, rather how the two are enacted does. Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to accountability and testing. I find the sample test items from Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium much better than what we've been using the last decade. I am opposed to tests being the be-all end-all of education. If our focus remains on test preparation rather than college and career preparation, (and likely it will as scores are now tied to teacher evaluation), we will stay mired in the process of teaching students how to "choose C" rather than how to think, communicate, collaborate, create.
The teacher creates the conditions for student learning, not policy makers. I am an educator because I am hopeful. I believe in the power of public education to help students learn to live a good life. I choose teachers and their students. I just hope policy makers choose them, too.
