So what is it all about?

This journey I’m embarking on has been simmering and percolating under the surface for quite a few years now.  It started, not coincidentally, with the new and improved emphasis on standardized testing for all.  At first, I didn’t really change what I taught and things seemed to be chugging along okay.  My students didn’t do great, but we are a very small school so we didn’t have a lot of valid data to work with and I would try to read the reports and tweak a few things every year that might help bring up scores.  But nothing worked.  The more I tried to get students to score better, the worse their scores got!  Finally, in the last few years, I felt like I was just bludgeoning them over the head with released test questions and rules and detentions and whatever was necessary to “tighten things up,” which I was certain would ultimately lead to better test scores.  It never did. 

For the last few years, I’ve begun to recognize a disturbing trend.  Low morale among the students caused by bludgeoning and tightening and an inordinate focus on testing has created a backlash.  Before, I think they would sort of try.  Now I think they are intentionally blowing the tests out of anger and spite.  And honestly?  I don’t blame them. 

Part of me wishes my students had stellar test scores so that I could say “look, my scores are great and I still hate testing.” 

Because you know the first thing someone is gong to do is look up my test scores and say “Who are you to speak?  Look how crappy your scores are.”

Part of me wonders if I would be as magnanimous and understanding if I had great scores.  I’d hate to be that teacher in a privileged neighborhood saying “I don’t know what’s wrong with those other teachers—getting high test scores is easy!”  (Yeah, just move to Palo Alto.)

So I consider it a blessing that I am responsible for such crappy test scores because it has made me seriously reconsider the way I am doing things and my reasons for doing them. 

And when the going gets tough, what do I do?  I read.  So I’ll talk about some of the books that have influenced me as I take this trip. 

The first book I read is Role Reversal, by Mark Barnes.  Barnes really turns teaching on its head—no rules, no homework, no tests, no grades, huh?  You’ll have to read the book if you want to know how it turns out, but you know it is good because who would write a book about teaching methods that don’t work? 

Me?  I like his ideas.  I’m not sure how I’m going to apply them to a high school math program where I am teaching 6 different classes.  Barnes teaches middle school English so you can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.