Wagner and Dintersmith's, Most Likely to Succeed, is a treasure trove of important ideas. I may not agree with all of the ideas I have read in the book, but I know that I need to consider them. This is a quote from early in Chapter 4 that I do agree with and believe we really need to have conversation about:
"In an ideal world, schools would be riveted on preparing our kids for life, helping them learn and develop essential skills and character traits. Assessments would reinforce the goal of helping students master what matters most. College admissions would have thoughtful criteria aligned with kids' long-term interests. And, we'd periodically review historic practices, keep those of enduring merit, drop what's obsolete and innovate.
But when it comes to education, we don't live in an ideal world. Instead, the forces that determine what gets taught in our k-12 schools are largely:
My axe to grind comes with what has been done historically. Throughout my career, I have bumped my head against the, "that's the way we have always done things," justification of weak practice. I had to fight to bring in AP Calculus in two schools because they had always done Honors Calculus, so they saw no need to change things. It was a struggle to bring in Stats and AP Stats because we had never had them before. I had to fight with a social studies chair to ensure that honors and college prep students got the same text. I had to work against tests that used scantron sheets because I believed that a test that is designed to be easy to correct is probably not really assessing, just testing. The lists goes on.
What are some "The way things have always been done," sacred cows do you/have you face(d)?
What to do about them?
"In an ideal world, schools would be riveted on preparing our kids for life, helping them learn and develop essential skills and character traits. Assessments would reinforce the goal of helping students master what matters most. College admissions would have thoughtful criteria aligned with kids' long-term interests. And, we'd periodically review historic practices, keep those of enduring merit, drop what's obsolete and innovate.
But when it comes to education, we don't live in an ideal world. Instead, the forces that determine what gets taught in our k-12 schools are largely:
- What's been done historically
- High Stakes tests
- College admissions"
My axe to grind comes with what has been done historically. Throughout my career, I have bumped my head against the, "that's the way we have always done things," justification of weak practice. I had to fight to bring in AP Calculus in two schools because they had always done Honors Calculus, so they saw no need to change things. It was a struggle to bring in Stats and AP Stats because we had never had them before. I had to fight with a social studies chair to ensure that honors and college prep students got the same text. I had to work against tests that used scantron sheets because I believed that a test that is designed to be easy to correct is probably not really assessing, just testing. The lists goes on.
What are some "The way things have always been done," sacred cows do you/have you face(d)?
What to do about them?
No comments:
Post a Comment