|
Blog: FCAR
Speakout
|
Support open, broad-based assessment of learning --
contribute to FCAR.
|
| |
Faulty paint-by-numbers
By Marion Brady
*May 3, 2003
My wife does volunteer work in a Hospice thrift store. I think she does it
because her heart's in the right place, but I suspect that some other motivation
is also at work. Digging through the mountains of stuff dumped on the store's
loading ramp is a little like shopping, and she likes to shop. She isn't crazy
about buying, but she likes to look and touch.
She says it's interesting, and is convinced that anything that will fit through
the store's door will eventually show up. When she comes home, "You'll never
believe . . ." are often the first words out of her mouth.
Among the items that sometimes find their way to thrift-store shelves are
paint-by-numbers landscapes -- works of "art" created by daubing pre-selected
paints inside pre-printed spaces on a canvas.
Think of it as a metaphor for what's happening in our schools.
About 15 years ago, politicians and business leaders sidetracked some extremely
promising developments in education reform, developments growing out of research
on how the human brain selects, organizes and integrates knowledge. In its
place, they put together a paint-by-numbers approach to reform. The federal
legislation titled No Child Left Behind, supported by both major political
parties, is the latest salvo from their guns.
Educating, these reformers in corporate offices and legislatures believe, isn't
a complicated process. Teaching is mostly a matter of telling, and learning is
mostly a matter of remembering. Out of this view comes "standards and
accountability." "Standards" tell the teachers what they're supposed to tell the
kids, and "accountability," in the form of a big, one-shot test, checks to see
how much of what they've been told the kids can remember.
Simple. Just follow the directions, and you, too, can be a master teacher.
Simple. Just follow the directions, and you, too, can be an artist.
About two weeks ago, I got a copy of a letter sent by Laurin MacLeish, an Orange
County Teacher of the Year, to the parents of her students. Read how it feels to
be an artist, a real artist, who's been handed a paint-by-numbers kit and told
to put away the palette, open the little numbered plastic capsules, and paint,
taking care to stay inside the lines.
"Dear Family,
"I must first tell you that your children have given me one of the happiest and
most fulfilling of my 32 years of teaching kindergarten. And as parents, you all
have been beyond supportive of our many classroom projects and activities. Our
school 'family' has been one of the most special ever.
"However, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided that I will not be
teaching kindergarten next year. It seems that the profession that I so dearly
love has lost much of its validity. Teaching kindergarten is no longer teaching
as I know it should be. . . .
"The very roots of early childhood education are founded on leading children on
adventures of joyful learning through discovery and exploration, communication
and problem solving. These adventures allow time to embrace children as
individuals, to acknowledge their unique differences in past experiences and
emerging personalities.
"Teaching the 'whole' child also encourages the identification and enhancement
of individual learning styles, interests and abilities, strengths and weaknesses
of all children. Throughout my career as a kindergarten teacher, leading
children on this journey has been as joyful for me as it has been for the many
children whom I have taught.
"Unfortunately, in a recent attempt to have all children in the state of Florida
'reading by 9,' this natural bent of developmental learning has been replaced by
a 'one-size-fits-all' curriculum. A single 'high stakes' test score is now
measuring Florida's children, leaving little time to devote to their character
or potential or talents or depth of knowledge.
"Not only has this current state of 'mis'-education filtered down to
kindergarten, it now seems to begin in kindergarten. Kindergarten teachers
throughout the state are replacing valued learning centers (home center, art
center, blocks, dramatic play, etc.) with paper and pencil tasks, dittos,
coloring sheets, scripted lessons, workbook pages, etc. Recess has even been
taken out of many schools in order to have time for more 'concentrated
teaching.'
"I fear that childhood has now become a race, not a journey. Because I feel so
strongly that I was born to be a kindergarten teacher and not a track coach, I
am opting to step out of the race. . . ."
*Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel. Published here by
permission of the author.
|
