“Jesus, I must be crazy to be in a loony-bin like this.” Randle Patrick McMurphy
An article from Science (Jan. 1973), On Being Sane in Unsane Places, (also at Susan Ohanian.org) described an experiment in which eight sane people volunteered to be secretly admitted to psychiatric hospitals to find out if hospital staff could distinguish them from patients with legitimate diagnoses. The author, David Rosenhan, asked whether characteristics of insanity are located in the patient or in the contexts in which observers find them.
If the sanity of such pseudopatients were always detected, there would be prima facie evidence that a sane individual can be distinguished from the insane context in which he is found. Normality (and presumably abnormality) is distinct enough that it can be recognized wherever it occurs, for it is carried within the person. If, on the other hand, the sanity of the pseudopatients were never discovered, serious difficulties would arise for those who support traditional modes of psychiatric diagnosis.
Rosenhan argued that a failure to discover the sanity of the imposters would mean that “Psychiatric diagnoses…are in the minds of observers and are not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed.”
How did the sane people in Rosenhan’s experiment prove they were, in fact, not insane? They acted normal. They cooperated with hospital staff. And they were never discovered! The label, insane, clung to them despite their best efforts to appear normal. Reasonable and compliant behavior, though genuine, did not signal sanity. Instead, they were each eventually released as “schizophrenics in remission.”
Interestingly, many of the other patients insisted the imposters were perfectly sane while none of the professional hospital staff ever considered the possibility. Some of the patients even suspected that the observers, who took notes, were checking up on the hospital, while the nursing staff reported “writing behavior.”
The power of labels to influence our perceptions is enormously important, and the resultant depersonalization of those who are labeled is the source of monstrous injustices. Racism, and all forms of bigotted intolerance are exercises of power based on categorical discrimination.
What does it mean to be sane? To be competent? Most people probably assume being sane or competent simply means that we aren’t insane, or incompetent. But is there a more positive way to view sanity? Based on the outcome of Rosenhan’s study, I think we should wonder.
S.I. Hayakawa explored what a sane person might look like in “The Fully Functioning Personality” from his book Symbol, Status, and Personality. He believed it would be worthwhile to think of sanity in terms of what he called the “genuinely sane individual,” referencing the work of both Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Hayakawa was attracted to Maslow’s description of the secure individual as a person who was comfortable with disorder and ambiguity. He saw this as dynamic security, a form of confident resourcefulness, as opposed to the security we gain from defensively building walls.
Hayakawa noted that “these sane people are not, in the ordinary sense of the term, well-adjusted.” The sane person does not conform, and does not fit in with the goals and ideals of a society that he finds himself in opposition to. At the same time, he does not stand in open rebellion. The genuinely sane individual, according to Hayakawa, wears conventionality as a cloak that is easily cast aside when conditions warrant it.
People with fully functioning personalities are concerned with social realities, rather than appearances. They are aware of their own feelings, and are not misled even by their own beliefs about themselves. They are creatively open to awe and innovation. And finally, their behavior is guided by an unwavering ethical compass.
Teachers should think about this because high-stakes pressure from federal regulation paradoxically pushes us to race through curriculum content, while leaving many children behind. It’s all about raising the bar and says little about helping the jumpers. That is supposed to happen from some kind of black box process called effective teaching. The professionalism and competence of teachers is being scrutinized under a new regime of accountability, which makes contradictory demands on the professional work force in schools.
…accountabalism whispered two seductive lies to us: Systems go wrong because of individuals; and the right set of controls will enable us to prevent individuals from creating disasters….by overly formalizing processes, accountabalism refuses to acknowledge that people work and think differently. It eliminates the human variations that move institutions forward and provide a check on the monoculture that accounts for most disastrous decisions….While claiming to increase individual responsibility, it drives out human judgment. (David Weinberger) -from Where the Blog has No Name
The release of the Aspen Commission Report (pdf) on NCLB’s reauthorization has been called NCLB on steroids by FairTest. It makes me wonder what they think we’re doing. Call it “teaching behavior.”
“… But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.” – Ken Kesey
Current policy revisions are an attempt to standardize educational outcomes. High stakes consequences promote false security through assurances of certainty. We would be better served by a program that encourages diversity and flexibility instead of standardization. The monoculture which would come from long-term standardization will be vulnerable to sudden obsolescence in the face of rapid technological development. Furthermore, schools have increasingly become racially segregated, undoing the progress made by civil rights activists 40 years ago. The current standards movement’s narrow focus on work preparedness will breed resentment and hostility among students who stand to gain the least from its dubious promises.
To develop fully functioning personalities, we need to honor the natural creative impulses in our students and allow children the freedom to build self concepts that spring from their own fertile imaginings. Human beings are symbol makers, and we must honor our symbolic, as well as our functional needs. Teachers, especially teachers of young children, would do well to emulate the simplicity and naturalness of their students, for these are qualities of the truly sane individual. We teach who we are more certainly than what we know.
David L. Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Science, Vol. 179 (Jan. 1973), 250-258.
Hayakawa, S. I. (1958). Symbol, status, and personality. New York: Harcourt,Brace & World.
22 Comments
“To develop fully functioning personalities, we need to honor the natural creative impulses in our students and allow children the freedom to build self concepts that spring from their own fertile imaginings. Human beings are symbol makers, and we must honor our symbolic, as well as our functional needs. Teachers, especially teachers of young children, would do well to emulate the simplicity and naturalness of their students, for these are qualities of the truly sane individual. We teach who we are more certainly than what we know.”
THANK YOU!
I have nothing to add to this, but just wanted to express my appreciation for this post. I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about it, and the resources you provide, for quite a while.
Thank you.
I completely agree that it’s absolutely essential for teachers to help students think as individuals. I’ve developed and posted hundreds of lesson ideas that seek to promote this objective. Take a look at my Living Textbook at http://www.pass-ed.com/Living-Textbook.html
Since I spend so much of my time thinking about critical thinking and trying to promote creative thought, I am not ashamed to celebrate the importance of standardized tests and No Child Left Behind. Federal educational policy does not expect every child to turn out the same. Instead this policy expects every child to acquire the same foundational knowledge. Once students acquire this knowledge, they can manipulate it and respond to it in different ways.
The truth is this, for many many years some Americans have gotten quality education while others have learned nothing. This is simply not fair to those who have not learned anything. These students are often locked into lifes of poverty and helplessness. No Child Left Behind seeks to end this endless cycle of neglect. But, God willing standardization will not be the end product, but simply the beginning.
Andrew Pass
http://www.pass-ed.com/Living-Textbook.html
NCLB is at its core, legislation that says test, test everyone, publish results, expect to be called out if the results aren’t good, spend many years trying to due better before additional steps are taken.
That’s it. There is no teacher accountability in the bill. There is some school accountability after a many year time span. There is no Rx for doing better because it’s our jobs to know how to teach effectively, to structure schools effectively, to work with kids effectively. It’s not the government’s job, and it is appropriately absent.
Linking school segregation to NCLB, in much the same way the President links 9.11.01 to Iraq, is unfortunate here. School segregation comes about as a result of destructive capitalism and the institutionalized lack of meritocracy (which the generational legacy of poor schooling has fueled, like pouring gasoline on a grease fire) — not federal education legislation.
NCLB is not a perfect bill, but linking its implementation to the deprivation of sanity acquisition is just a wee bit, um, nuts.
To TMAO: “Commission urges tracking of teacher progress”
I wrote about this article in my post “Testing Teachers.”
Regardless of what NCLB says “at its core,” its effects have included a steady movement towards a mono-culture, a steady movement away from individuality, creativity, or depth of understanding, and–inadvertently but undeniably–a steady increase in segregated schools.
Can we lay all the blame at the feet of this bill? No. Does much of it have to do with the way the bill is interpreted and executed in schools? Yes. However, we see (from the article above and other sources) a movement that suggests NCLB wants to be interpreted and executed in this way. (In fact, we see this happening in many aspects of American politics and culture.)
Regardless of what a bill is designed to do, if it doesn’t achieve those results, or if it inadvertently achieves other results that aren’t desirable, then the bill should be revised.
Why can’t we find a common ground? We all want schools and teachers to be accountable to all students and to provide the best education possible. We realize that the definition of “best education” is complex and cannot be handed down from some higher institution. We realize that any genuine accountability must ensure that the methods for determining that accountability are suitable. We realize that the creation of a single type of assessment is not suitable for the stated objectives and will–intentionally or not–be detrimental to the stated goals.
I don’t want to hog Doug’s comment box, but I’ve been writing about these things in posts like “Honest Speculation” and “Working Backwards to Assessment.”
I think we need to focus on details (which you rightly seem to be focus on, if I’ve been reading your blog correctly) without losing sight of the larger issues and implications.
This post reminds me of a conversation I had on a flight a few months ago.
We were sitting with an employee from Cisco and she was talking about the metrics driving the wrong behavior.
I think we’ve missed the boat in a lot of ways on this issue, but one of them is the human element. To have better and more effective teaching, there should be a serious, sustained, and mindful effort for professional development for teachers.
To lay down a set of metrics and somewhat punitive metrics at that and hope that they will drive the right behaviors IN AND OF themselves seems foolhardy.
In the rush to implement the testing and measurement portion of NCLB, I think the teacher quality portion(other than the numeric aspect and the finger pointing at colleges of education) has been virtually ignored.
What do we mean by teacher quality? How can we help existing teachers innovate, employ twenty-first century techniques, seek a more reflective understanding of their own teaching and students, and how can we support them by giving them TIME to work with individual students who have special needs, and TIME to learn new strategies.
The whole issue is tremendously complex with so many moving parts. Thanks for stimulating the conversation.
Hi Eric,
I hear you on teacher accountability. Thanks for writing that. Yes, we need multi-faceted accountability measures of which student performance must be a major factor. It simply must be. That’s a good starting point.
You don’t find many of these starting points in this debate because many folks seem real commited to fostering this notion that pre-2002 things were great. They weren’t great. They were bad.
Let’s talk about intentions versus effects because you wrote: “Regardless of what a bill is designed to do, if it doesn’t achieve those results, or if it inadvertently achieves other results that aren’t desirable, then the bill should be revised.” If I give you hammer and you smack your thumb with it over and over because you refuse to concentrate on the task at hand, should I revise the hammer? If I give you a car and you repeatedly crash it into mailbox because you will not drive with forethought, should I revise the car?
Because that’s what schools and districts are doing in response to this law. We argue against testing because many of us are afraid of what those tests shows, because we know our kids cannot achieve to the standards being set, because we know we don’t know how to get them there. So we cut electives and invest in scripted curricula (which isn’t an NCLB-specific phenomenon). But there are different ways, and better ways, and I’m afraid by laying blame at the big federal boogyman over and over and over — even with caveats, even with declarations that we need accountability — we’re passing the buck. We’re absolving adults of the responsibility they assume in creating the conditions for teaching and learning.
The part of Rosenhan’s experiment that I have always found interesting is that the patients in the hospital knew that the ‘sane’ participants didn’t belong in the hospital. How many ‘sane’ students do we have in our school system that just don’t belong there?
It seems to me that the square pegs that we ‘fit into’ round holes: the gifted, the learning challenged, the attention deficit, the socially challenged…
Or maybe just this Eric:
So much of the NCLB debate seems to me like the guy who T-bones his car into a lightpole and then shouts about how the trunk was assymetrical and the stereo only had a tape-deck that didn’t work. No doubt he’s right, but is that the reason the car is trashed?
(I submitted too soon- oops) Continued from above…
“It seems to me that the square pegs that we ‘fit into’ round holes: the gifted, the learning challenged, the attention deficit, the socially challenged…” These students are easily identified by the greater population of schools as ‘not belonging’ and teachers spend a lot of time teaching Social Responsibility and Inclusion.
It also seems to me that policies such as NCLB and pressure created by the ‘new regime of accountability’ hinders teachers’ ability to make academic accommodations for ‘special’ students… forcing us to continue trying to ‘fit them in’ to a system where they don’t feel like they belong.
I wonder if we spend enough time asking these students what works for them?
Dave
[Sorry for the double post. I linked my name to a specific post 'Square Peg, Round Hole' that is a composition of other people's thoughts and ideas on the topic.]
Here in my end of the universe:
What the NCLB law said was it would address the achievement gap and close it. The purpose of NCLB is to “close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.” Quote from Dept. of Ed.
It has failed to do that, probably on all three fronts.
(and in the aggregate it has expanded this gap.Though in some sub groups there is a raise in score on this one test measure but relative to another group then you understand….I see one group with additive growth while the other had exponential growth)
Given that…… the law should be shit canned. (sorry)
It failed and it may have actually widened the gap.
Depends on the data and how it’s collected, defined, discussed, how clearly we see this.
To me this is the ONLY thing to discuss. Everything else is a diversion…schools of future discussion is just a diversion (because this isn’t an NCLB issue really), lazy teachers another diversion…smoke screens.
Poor kids aren’t doing well enough. Poverty is not broken by education in America today.We are failing to bring kids out of poverty into educated jobs and lives and a body of data supports the notion these jobs don’t exist anyway.Certainly college is now too costly and these socio-economically disadvantaged kids aren’t getting to it. More kids than ever are going to college,sure, and sure the population is greater, the question is which kids. More graduate high school, these trends continue, but the “who” exists starkly revealed. And that’s pretty clear. Period. This does fall on partially on geographic or neighborhood or racial lines. The law (NCLB) should answer to that but a whole smoke thing is going on. And if not racial then on economic lines-opps- economic looks to be racially defined. Well we will agree to say something once in awhile on this. It’s clear we are not addressing well enough with NCLB this serious issue.
Also one might argue that what we are measuring, where education is taking us, if jobs and opportunities are there fully for all in society, geographically especially, this was the purpose of such a system. Did NCLB include ways to look more fully at that nationally?. That seems worthy data to look upon.What people into what jobs coming from where. By measuring this move toward future, life data….you see some serious issues. Issues NCLB proported to be able to address.
Hi Sarah,
I do not accept the argument that NCLB has widened the achievement gap. Not at all. If you want to convince me of that, I need to see numbers, because anencdotally, in my high-poverty, high-immigrant, high-ELL district, achievement has just about doubled since NCLB implementation. Doubled.
I do agree with you when you write, “[p]oor kids aren’t doing well enough. Poverty is not broken by education in America today.We are failing to bring kids out of poverty into educated jobs and lives…” But you I fail to see how “shit-canning” a law that forces schools, districts, and state boards of ed to focus time and resources on those very poor will help the situation any.
TMAO:
I get your analogies, I think: we’re blaming the tool and focusing on the wrong problems. If I’m reading you right, that means that you do see some negative results coming from NCLB (regardless of where the blame lies). And, if we assume your analogies are accurate, then the negative results exist because of improper implementation of NCLB and a focus on the wrong issues. Help me out, then (and I’m being serious here … no sarcasm intended):
- What are the right areas to focus on?
- What can/should we do about the improper implementation? On the personal level (i.e., as a classroom teacher working with my particular set of students) and on a national/political level (i.e. as citizens with a voice to lobby for particular changes)?
[If you've already been addressing this in your blog, point me to the posts. I just started reading you recently, so I may have missed much ...]
Also, you say that “we argue against testing because many of us are afraid of what those tests show …”
Speaking personally, I don’t argue against testing at all. I’m just arguing for better, more accurate, more authentic, more thoughtful assessments. Huge repercussions rest on the results of these tests, so they better be the best, most appropriate tests we can devise. In my opinion, that’s not happening, yet the stigma associated with the current test results is still in place.
I’ve agreed with you before on this: yes–we should assess everyone and support (not just demand) improvement where it’s necessary. I just think we’re not using effective tools to do the assessing. (Or doing enough to support improvement …)
If I had my way, schools would probably come off looking worse than they currently do because I’d want to look closely at a lot of areas that the current tests don’t even touch.
So I’m actually arguing for even more accountability, but I think we need much better tools in order to get there.
Carolyn: I think teacher quality is a huge component of this. Until we find ways to address that, many of these issues will never go away. That’s a whole’nother mess of a discussion, but very important.
David: The “square peg/round hole” issue definitely is a problem. With the “accelerated” kids, I’m much more in line with TMAO, I think–teachers should be able to work effectively with those students without letting NCLB get in the way. I don’t have enough experience with or knowledge about special ed or ELL students to speak to that.
(Finally, to Sarah: I don’t know enough about the statistics related to poverty and NCLB to join that debate.)
NCLB is profoundly about the academic achievement of students in poverty. A law to address this.This gap.
Would that not then be logical to know absolutely?
No Child Left Behind….clear data is essential to consider.
Your one school or district thoughts are nice. Could I not assert that might have happened coincidentally? But stats in the whole aggregate matter. WestEd might be of use to you as you research the issues. I consider it worth your time. And I’m putting links to a place that is working on this issue. I think you’ll find quality research and information relative to these issues. http://www.wested.org/cs/we/print/docs/we/home.htm
In a quote from their site:
“Without complementary investments in early childhood education, health care, housing, after-school and summer programs, and other social and economic supports, the academic achievement gap between lower- and middle-class children will never be closed. In this new Policy Perspectives paper, Richard Rothstein, Research Associate of the Economic Policy Institute, outlines a series of reforms, in addition to school improvement, that could help narrow the achievement gap. As Rothstein writes:
“If as a society we choose to preserve big social class differences, we must necessarily also accept substantial gaps between the achievement of lower-class and middle-class children. Closing those gaps requires not only better schools, although those are certainly needed, but also reform in the social and economic institutions that prepare children to learn in different ways. It will not be cheap.”
http://www.wested.org/cs/we/print/docs/696
But please read here….
Again a quote and source…
Closing the Achievement Gap: Lessons From California
http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/feat/56
Overall test score improvements often mask the continued weak performance of poor and minority students. In a report on California test scores from 1999-2002, the average Academic Performance Index (API) score for all schools steadily increased, but achievement gaps among and within schools — even those that are getting better — persisted. In other words, poor and minority children still trail their peers.
“Most willing schools can be helped to improve student achievement, but closing the achievement gap is a more difficult proposition, “ says Fred Tempes, Director of WestEd’s Comprehensive School Assistance Program (CSAP). For several years, CSAP has supported schools implementing reform strategies, such as through an “External Evaluator” process that helps low-performing California schools evaluate their needs and plan for improvement. Such interventions can frequently make a difference for struggling schools.
Although current education reform efforts, which emphasize holding all students to the same high expectations and distributing resources more equitably, have shown some success in raising test scores, they have done little to close the achievement gap, Tempes says.
“If we are really serious about these inequities,” he continues, “then decision-makers must target resources for schools based on their level of need. Even if you level the playing field, the achievement gap will still exist. More needs to be done.”
EQUITY INVESTMENTS
Tempes says we know what strategies are likely to help schools, but the achievement gap calls for a concerted effort to combine those strategies in low-performing schools. He recommends that education decision-makers do the following:
* Make sure our best teachers are assigned to our most challenging teaching situations. Research shows not only that fully credentialed, experienced teachers make a difference in improving student academic achievement, but schools most in need of these teachers are least likely to have them. Talented teachers should be offered salary and other incentives, such as increased time for collaboration and periodic sabbaticals, to take on tough assignments.
* Increase instructional time. A standards-based system that expects all students to reach academic proficiency should not be a time-constrained system. Some students can attain proficiency relatively quickly, while others need substantially more time. Whether by extending the school day or year, supporting universal preschool, providing after-school support, or enhancing summer-school opportunities, schools should create extra time for student learning.
* Make more time for teacher professional growth. Teachers serve students better when they have the time necessary to learn new techniques, plan lessons, review student assessments, discuss instructional approaches, and craft interventions for struggling students. The top request WestEd’s External Evaluators hear from teachers is for more time to collaborate outside the classroom. Granted, it is difficult to balance needs for more instructional time and more professional development time. The issue deserves the increased attention of the education research community. There is little research-based evidence that the currently popular approach of cutting professional development time in favor of instructional time is the best strategy pedagogically.
* Cut class size in those schools where students need more individual attention. As Bruce Biddle and David Berliner argue in What Research Says About Small Classes and Their Effects (2002),1 studies suggest that the achievement gap can be narrowed significantly by reducing class size in high-poverty schools to 20 students or fewer. This approach is at odds with current proposals and programs that reduce class size in all schools. Across-the-board reductions often have a negative effect on low-performing schools, as experienced teachers from those schools are recruited into newly created assignments in less challenging schools and are replaced by less qualified teachers.
While each of these investments individually is costly and taken together they are intimidating, not making them may be the most costly option of all, Tempes emphasizes. “Unless we really reconceptualize how we invest in education, the achievement gap won’t be significantly narrowed,” he says.
http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/feat/56
I think NCLB let down a great many of us. And I think this group offers information to use to think.
TMAO says that we can spend “many years before additional steps are taken.” That’s not quite right, and he doesn’t say what those steps are. They are punitive, and they result in state takeover and reorganization of the school. Teacher accountability has been introduced in the recommendations for reauthorization mentioned above. If the “Rx for doing better” is “not the government’s job” then why will the state be taking over the schools and mandating corrective action?
I took some time to look up the Alaska regs and found an accountability workbook. This is what it says about the sequence of events, for which my school is now at LEVEL 1:
“Districts identified for improvement that do not demonstrate AYP by the end of the second year of improvement will be subject to corrective action. The State will take an approved corrective action appropriate to the reason the district has failed to make AYP and consistent with state law.
Overview of Consequences
Sanctions for Schools Receiving Title I Funds-In compliance with NCLB, the following sanctions shall apply to schools that receive Title I funds:
Level 1 “Alert” – Fails to meet AYP one year. Technical assistance available to develop and implement a school plan.
Level 2 “School Improvement, Level 1” – Fails to meet AYP two years in a row, in the same content area. School must submit a School Improvement Plan to the district that is forwarded to the Department. Provide school choice or supplemental services if choice is not available and inform parents.
Level 3 “School Improvement, Level 2” – Fails to meet AYP an additional year after Level 2, in the same content area. Continue to revise and implement school improvement plan, continue to provide school choice and supplemental services and inform parents.
Level 4 “Corrective Actions” – Fails to meet AYP an additional year after Level 3, in the same content area. Continue to revise and implement school improvement plan, continue to provide school choice and supplemental services and inform parents. District required to take one of the following actions: replacement of staff, implementation of a new curriculum, decrease management authority at school level, appoint an outside expert, extend the school day or year, restructure the internal organization of the school.
Level 5 “Restructuring, Year 1” – Fails to meet AYP an additional year after Level 4, in the same content area. Continue to revise and implement improvement plan, continue to provide school choice and supplemental services, inform parents, and implement corrective action. District required toprepare an alternative governance plan to take one of the following actions: reopen school as apublic charter school, replace all or most of the staff, enter into a contract with a management company, turn over operation of the school to the state, or any other major restructuring of the school’s governance that makes fundamental reforms, such as significant changes in the school’s staffing and governance, that will improve student academic achievement and that has substantialpromise of enabling the school to make AYP. District will submit the alternative governance plan to the department.”
As to racial segregation, I don’t know if federal legislation is contributing to it, but I do know that achievement testing reliably measures socioeconomic status. Since large numbers of “underperforming” schools are located in poor urban neighborhoods, the sanctions will affect them first. I disagree with the assumptions that we can punish people into better performances – teachers, students, parents, and even legislators. I also doubt that education alone will provide the necessary social capital for economic mobility.
I do believe that every child is entitled to the best educational opportunity we can offer.
Since TMAO’s analogies all exemplify operator error, I gather that they are meant to say that teachers are the sole cause of student failure. I can’t accept that. But, then again, I may be nuts.
Thanks, all, for the comments.
Hey Everyone,
I just want to say thanks for the great discussion. It has the right amount of disagreement and common ground. TMAO, thank for bring up valid points and not making personal attacks. We all empathize with people who find themselves with contrary views.
So much discussion nowadays (House debate on Iraq last week) degrades into a brawl and becomes pointless. Doug, thank you for not letting that happen here.
It seems that we are actually defining common ground and progressing.
cheers,
nsl
Hi Sarah,
Your citations have not provided evidence that NCLB has “widened” the achievement gap. They provide further support that we need to do better, to which I emphatically agree, but little else, especially as one of them concerns student performance pre-NCLB.
You write that NCLB has let us down, but I would argue that we, as educators (and Doug, here I mean everyone who works in education) have let kids down, have been doing so well before 2002 and should look to ourselves before blaming a piece of legislation that shines light onto our continued letting down of kids. Something about rocks and glass houses. To make it clear, you listed a number of reccommendations I wrote about on my blog when they first came out, ideas I think are fantastic. Please show me where NCLB has prohibited the implementation of these reforms.
Hi Doug,
Operational error is correct. The student achievement gap is an effect of the larger educator achievement gap. Does that include classrooms teachers? Damn right, but it does not stop there, nor should it. But again, glass houses. As teachers, we’re not doing well enough by kids, and until we do so, other issues remain secondary.
As to the timeline, how many kids will fail as we progress through those stages. How many kids failed before the clock started. You write that the responses are “punative,” but I would argue that being a young person who has been systematically denied the skills necessary to be successful is far more punative, far more disastrously punative, then some ineffective teachers getting involuntarily excessed to the school on the other side of town.
Hi Eric,
It’s not about proper/improper implementation of this law. It’s about appropriate and effective responses to student factors. We must focus on how we structure the environments where teaching and learning can occur. That structure must make teaching and learning the highest priority, and let’s take a deep breath and say reading and math are more important than the french horn, y’know? I want Johnny to learn the clarinet, and make friendship bracelets, and take a drama class, but I want him to read more. I know he’ll ultimately be happier 20 years later knowing how to read.
Hi TMAO. Thanks for your continued input to this discussion.
I’ll agree that it’s more important to know basic math and have basic literacy skills. No doubt. I get concerned, however, when that gets used as a reason/excuse to sacrifice other parts of the curriculum, to educate/address only part of the student, or to lose sight of the importance of student engagement and the affective domain. (Again, a problem with execution of the bill, but one that’s still too easy to read from the bill.) “The law without the spirit is dead” and all …
The idea that you can just address one thing if the other things are failing just doesn’t work. A wounded body needs immediate medical attention to the wound, yes. However, if you don’t quickly get some water and food into it, all your excellent wound treatment will fail. Afterwards, if you don’t get that body some exercise (while continuing water and food), the body will fail itself. I get priorities, but they are limited in scope and cannot come at the expense of other things.
I’m definitely with you on the “larger educator achievement gap.” But you’ve addressed this in your own blog … it will not go away until we provide an incentive for more talented, successful teachers to join/stay. Is that secondary to kids’ success? Of course … but also, no: many of these problems have to be addressed together before we will see any benefit reach the students.
As you know, I agree with greater teacher accountability (across a wider spectrum, using more appropriate forms of assessment). On the other hand, there are only so many things teachers can do. That’s not a cop-out, that’s just a fact. We are, after all, people with lives beyond the classroom. We are, after all, part of a system. To the extent that the system ties our hands, we will fail. To the extent that we are asked to repair problems that are societal, particularly without the support of the society to do so, we will fail. We ask schools to do more than schools are capable of doing (or were designed to do) and then blame the schools when they fail. (This is Doug’s “can’t accept … that teachers are the sole cause of student failure.”) I’m not trying to let teachers off the hook, here … but I’m not letting anyone esle off, either.
Doug’s concerns about punitive actions are still legitimate, and you don’t really address that. You appeal to the students who are being neglected, but don’t discuss how these punitive actions will remedy the problem. Replace staff? Yeah, a good idea. Problem is, where are we going to get the new staff? Turn schools over to the state? What’s the state going to do with a school? My state can’t even successfully address traffic concerns (seriously).
Also, your dismissal of the studies that Sarah referenced seems a bit too off-handed. I’m not trying to be confrontational here, I’d just really like to hear more about the reasons you dismiss them (perhaps in a blog post of your own?). I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this article.
Finally, I’m not trying to make you into the poster-boy for the pro-NCLB movement, and so I realize you’re not responsible for providing all the arguments/support and that yours are not the only ones. You may not have time to address all these issues as fully as I’d like. (I’ve had snow and holidays giving me free time lately.) You may know of others who are doing so … ?
Thanks for your input so far.
I posted on my site…too long for here.
I feel from the persepective of a veteran teacher the thing that bothers me most about NcLb and the way schools have responded to it, is that we are not creating teachers, real teachers, you know the kind, you had a few of them in your life, teachers that do things, and say things that change your life, teachers that start the dialogue of education in a persons life,teachers that inspire life-long learning. NO one enters the profession able to do this, make a real difference, there are very few teacher prophets, however given some ability to move creatively in a classroom, and swing a cator two , many mediocre teachers will become great teachers.Teachers who will inspire real passion in their students. Unfortunately the ways schools have interpreted NCLB much of the classroom is a scripted affair, (or perhaps conformity is inherant to NCLb) Either way it pains me to see new teachers, who are fooled to thinking that teaching is formulaic, (and easier) than it really is.
We are robbing young teachers of the chance to become the kinds of teachers we want our own kids to have, great , gifted, inspiring teachers, teachers that kill themselves to get across to kids.
As a teacher with a family member with schizophernia, I read any references to being ‘insane’ with some emotional baggage. I recognize that you are not in fact talking about mental illness here but it is important to recognize that people with mental illnesses, prefer not to be called ‘insane’ or ‘crazy’ but to have their illness idenitfied. But I hate to miss an opportunity to raise a flag against the misconceptions which plague people with mental illnesses.
I found the experiment with labelling very interesting. I don’t know if you are familiar with the movie “A beautiful mind” but in it the character has ‘voices’ or ‘delusions which are not clearly idenitified in the beginning but become apparent closer to the end of the movie. My sister could identify the delusions long before they were idenitified by the action of the movie. She has had experience identifying the real from the unreal. It is not at all surprising to me that the patients could identify person who are well from person who are not. Nurses and doctors are as institutionalized as their patients and institutions are not very adept at handling exceptions. Schools also have this difficulty. It seems, from the outside (as a Canadian), that NCLB is making this institutional quality worse in U.S. schools.
The definition of a ‘sane’ person as someone who is confident and can deal iwth ambiguity holds for my sister and her illness. Mental illness truly robs a person of confidence and the ability to handle changes. Now I know that you are not expressing opinion about the nature of mental illnesses and how we margainalize people who are ill in this particular way but it does strike me that the society that we build when we work towards a monoculture resembles a prison – institutional and rule bound. What a shame that the society that we live in is being shaped by a need to create clones instead of developing individuals. What a fool’s errand to try to make all persons’ clones. Will this system develop a society of persons more open to each other and the variety which nature produces, likely not. Although test get us caught up in the measurables of school life, we need to remember that not all of the important things are measureable. To quote from a sign in Einstien’s office at Princeton “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts”. Thus the name of my blog – What Counts. When we teach for the purpose of developing compassion, trust, empathy, honesty, we are fighting the societal stream. It can’t be counted, it can’t be measure and you’ll never find it on a national exam. We can’t forget the important uncountable stuff.
Thanks for keeping the important stuff on the front burner!
Susan, thank you for your comments about the conceptual baggage that comes with discussions about mental illness. In many ways this is like what happens when we talk about learning disabilities. I did give the term, ‘insanity,’ some thought as I wrote this. Hayakawa wrote about sanity, and Rosenhan used the word ‘insane’ in his article. In my initial draft I said ‘mental illness’ but then I took a look at the wikipedia entries for mental illness and insanity, and I decided to keep it simple and stick with the terminology that the authors used themselves. I realized that there were problems no matter what word I chose. The point you make speaks directly to my concerns about the harm and confusion that can come from labels.
Thank you, as well, for echoing my thoughts about the things that really count.
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