The Real Meaning of Irony

Dear Ohio Leaders*

It's testing season again for my elementary school students. I don't know what content is in these tests, because I'm not allowed to know. I'm just their teacher. I do know my students, though, because I am their teacher.
I know what they can do. I know how well they can read, how well they can write, talk, analyze, construct, synthesize, and evaluate. I know how well they can use mathematics and solve real-world problems using their skills. I know this because I evaluate them every single day, and we use that information together to improve tomorrow. I know what they can do.
But you say you don't trust me to honestly report that, because...? I don't actually know. I don't know why you've decided that Ohio's parents don't trust their kids' teachers because I have a feeling that if we took a poll, we'd discover that they trust me a lot more than they trust you. I have absolutely nothing to gain from saying a child is capable of something when she isn't. You, on the other hand, have lots and lots of financial support to lose unless you can "prove" that children who aren't actually failing are -- according to a testing company.
If schools are failing, then you can open charter schools, at taxpayer expense, enriching the owners of those charter schools so they will continue donating to campaigns to support your re-election. You know, charter schools like the honest, upstanding and effective ECOT. Tell me, how many tax dollars have gone towards that swindle?** If you can convince the public that their tax dollars should be used to pay for high priced testing, because teachers aren't to be trusted, then you can continue funding testing companies. Who can then go on use that money to lobby you. It's a neat little circle of taxpayer dollars, all swirling into private hands, with zero benefits to children.
What do I get if I honestly evaluate my students with tests that truly measure what they need to know? All I get is the ability to plan tomorrow's lessons.***
With mandatory state testing, I don't even get that. I NEVER get to see the questions and the kids' answers. No teacher ever gets to deeply analyze what those results mean in order to better teach students. Teachers, children and parents get NOTHING out of this testing except many lost hours of real teaching time, stress, frustration, tears, fearfulness, anxiety and prescriptions for ulcer medications. For 9 year olds. This testing, which is supposed to improve education, does nothing but make it worse. I suppose, though, we could use the situation to teach the meaning of the word "irony."

The only people who seem to be profiting are people who are benefitting YOU.

I'm fighting every day for my students.

Whose side are you on?

Sincerely,
An Ohio Teacher


*Specifically, ones who have had their elections helped by donations from charter schools or others who profit off of mandatory State Testing. If you aren't one of these leaders, then thank you. Keep up the good work.
**More about charter schools in Ohio here
***If I'm lucky, I get notes at the end of the year saying "Thank you for teaching me this year!" from the kids. Those are precious.

Zoetropes and Other Fanciful Things

I spent the better part of a Saturday at a professional development seminar about strategies for teaching gifted children. (Do I know how to live, or what?)

During one section, the leaders were talking about how we need to expose students to topics, ideas, culture, art, anything they have likely never seen before. They showed us a terrific short video of a zoetrope at Disney, featuring characters from Toy Story.

Everyone at my table perked up because we used to teach optical illusions, and our students loved it. So many teachers and administrators, though, would see what we did, and look at how hard the kids had worked, but they wouldn't get it. The most common response to nearly everything we did was "It must be nice to only get to teach the fun stuff. I have to teach the standards."

Zoetropes are just "fun stuff." That's not "real" learning. "Real" learning is diagrams and labels, worksheets, tests, and practicing their facts. It is reading and taking notes, class discussions, and making the map, the booklet, the letter to the editor, the approved project. Real teaching is what is in the standards.

The leaders asked what we thought about showing kids this zoetrope. I replied with something much shorter than this, but it's what I meant:

When a lot of teachers (and administrators) see this, they think "that's a neat magic trick." Or they may consider it cool art, but that's it. There's no other "real" educational value to it, and we shouldn't waste time on that in school. It's "play" and it's "trivial." It's not meaningful work.

That isn't true at all.

The zoetrope connects to science of the brain, and understanding how our eyes and brain work together to create the illusion of movement. It's complex and rich and requires some fairly sophisticated thinking to understand. 

The zoetrope IS a form of art. Art is not trivial. I'll say that again: Art. Is. Not. Trivial. It is connected to all elements of society. There is precision in a zoetrope, perseverance, and great attention to small details. This particular zoetrope takes two dimensional art into three dimensions which connects to the math of shapes and figures. Zoetropes have been created in all kinds of media, from stick figures on paper to Tim Burton characters out of cake. Exploring how one subject crosses in unexpected ways with other subjects requires understandings of both. And even if it were not all those things, Art still would not be trivial. 

Zoetropes are a wonderful lesson in change over time, which is in nearly every grade level's social studies standards. The earliest zoetropes began as simple two sided pictures and begat the entire motion picture industry.

Students can learn to create zoetropes which requires research, creativity, math, perseverance and precision. Each of these skills is absolutely a part of our curriculum at every grade level. If we are not teaching those skills then we are doing something wrong. 

Finally, the zoetrope, or any other "weird" thing we might expose students to can capture the imagination of a child and inspire her to study, to create, to invent, or to find her own connections. For some kids, that weird thing is going to be the ONLY thing that lights a fire beneath them. To trivialize and dismiss content that does that for a child just because is it not what is on "the test" is a crime against our students. It is antithetical to the very notion of real education.

Teach the unusual. Expose students to a vast variety of ideas even when you don't know exactly where the connections will be. They will surface. You will find them. The students will create* them for you. 

And best of all, they will remember it.

And isn't that the point?

*The next slide was a picture of a simple zoetrope. A student had gone home, researched zoetropes, made one and brought it into school. On her own. Not an assignment. Because she wanted to learn. That is great.