Lessons Learned
While Still On The Soapbox Of Metrics…
One of the most
significant outages of metrics driven educational accountability, as I see it,
is the absence of time for relational connection to the students. There
simply are not enough hours in the school day to accommodate all of the
paperwork that needs to be accomplished in terms of a variety of assessments,
high-stakes testing with endless prep for that, and documentation on each issue
of each student so that suitable amounts of paper trails can cover every
measurable aspect. Information is not the enemy, however. We have a tendency
towards the extreme, and that is the problem. The “go big or go home”
mentality which drives our culture and permeates our every moment, pushes and
extends the wide-sweeping swing of the pendulum of trends to new extremes that
readily enslave us all. We seem to have lost all sense of moderation and
balance and have traded that for superlative amounts of the next new-fangled
idea, whatever that may be. Excessive, obsessive amounts of metrics
fastidiously gathered for the purposes of something that may or may not be
working relative to educating students successfully is fast becoming
ridiculous. And what has been traded for the boxes full of pointless data which
will sit and ultimately become kindling for the fire resulting from the spark
of tomorrow’s next theory? Show and tell has been traded. Arts have been
traded. Field trips and special curiosity-driven projects have been
traded. PE, an extra recess and normal-length lunch hours have been
traded. All things that make education real and human and meaningful and
relatable have been traded. That is a gargantuanly pricey trade. The numbers
have added little besides significant stress and have taken beauty and
connection. In thirty years of teaching, I have sadly witnessed exponentially
increasing numbers of relational breakdowns all around but beginning with
families. Kids are resilient is what the experts all say and it’s true to a
certain extent but it is not the whole story. Scars. Fear. Pain.
Insecurity. And on and on. These are the rest of the story. These are
what students carry to the classroom, to recess, to the nurse’s office. These
are the things that tummy aches are made of. These are the things that stir in
bullies. These are the things that result in high distractibility and
disengagement. These things hurt deeply and permanently and affect every
single aspect of school. These things are not documented alongside reading
scores, but they influence every assessment. All of the traded elements
mentioned above provide balm for the deep hurts such as these, and without them
our burdened children merely go superficially through educational motions. To
talk, to interact, to share, to relate, to express, to create, these are
meaning-making attributes of education that inspire engagement and foster
affirmation that in turn will encourage confidence and desire to discover.
Swing pendulum, swing away from the numbers that allow decision-makers to
enthusiastically pat one another on the back, and instead swing toward those
deep things that honestly reach and nurture students. We yearn for connection;
it’s a human need, and it cannot be extracted from educating children without
suffering an unfathomable price. We are there.
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