Kim here. Usually we use the RRVWP blog for info-sharing, thought-provoking type material, but I was inspired by a Thomas Friedman column reprinted in yesterday's Herald to let off a little steam. I hope you don't mind.
In the essay, Friedman points out two issues that concern him. The first is that the U.S. ranks 11th (not even in the top ten!) in a recent Newsweek ranking of "the best countries." The second is that "student motivation" is the problem most impeding our attempts to reform schools and raise student performance. He goes on to attribute low student morale to a loss in values, invoking the whole "greatest generation good/baby boomer generation (and their kids) bad" cr-- um, stuff, but that would be a whole other rant.
What made me most want to fly to New York and yell at Mr. Friedman is this: the reason for his second issue is embodied by his first--our obsession with ranking and reducing humans into numbers to be constantly assessed.
If student motivation is indeed on the decline, what has paralleled that development (among other things)? Our obsession with numbers-based assessment systems. Imagine how de-motivating it would be for any of us if all we ever heard about our job performance was "yes, I gather you've had some real personal growth this year, but your cumulative score is a 3.4 and that's below our mean so you need to get that number up there so that I can make my boss happier." It reminds me of an oldie-but-goodie essay from Peter Elbow: "Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment." Or, if you really want to dig into this, Lennard Davis's fascinating look at the rise of statistics and how it negatively impacted those who fell outside the bell curve.
I'm curious: how do you think the form assessment takes (quantitative, qualitative, written, spoken, etc.) affects student motivation? And what about that practice of ranking--whether for class rank or in some other way. Does it have any real pedagogical value at all?
I have been a fan of TF for a long time. He understands the Middle East but, does he understand education? Alfie Kohn makes a good point about these "experts" in education popping up everywhere.(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alfie-kohn/what-passes-for-school-re_b_710696.html) Yes they were students and maybe guest lecturers but classroom teachers and being demonized, tied to unions who seek only more money for less work. Just today, I read an article about the loss of Mayor Fenty and probably Michele Reiss in DC...crusaders about the forces of evil.
ReplyDeleteBravo to the province of Ontario, Canada. They have tossed out high stakes tests from their schools. Too expensive and destructive to learning.
Wow, that was fun to write :)
Bonnie
Thanks for the great response to TF and the reference to Peter E., one of my heroes!
ReplyDeleteBonnie
I started reading the article when I was called away by the various morning craziness that is my house, but it sounds like I didn't miss much.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit though that I am interested in the concept of student motivation as the elephant in the room with all of these policy and curricular debates. My interest though isn't from the stance that this generation is so terrible, but from the view of a learner-centered/learning-centered classroom. We seem to be focused on the teacher as an important player, but less so on what students can bring to the classroom (in a good way). Can we all just admit that teaching involves a relationship between dynamic, complicated human beings situated in a dynamic, often complicated set of circumstances? I think, Kim and Bonnie, this is part of your contention with the inadequacy of much of the measuring we do and the meaning we assign it, right?
I think the way we often talk about education in terms of what it can gain a student monetarily is another measure that is meant to motivate but may not be serving us as well as we think. Perhaps there is something intrinsically satisfying about learning that can't be measured very well by tests. Video game designers seem to have figured this out, but not education policy makers.