My daughter is a great learner (she gets that from me). She is able to listen to instruction and implement the lesson on the first try. Whenever we buy something from IKEA she is in charge of assembly and has been since her early teens. She earned good grades in high school and with dedication was able to graduate a semester early.
My son, not so much. For him, learning doesn’t come as easily. It took until the sixth grade for him to get a teacher that took the time and effort to make learning fun for him. This teacher recognized my son’s love for baseball and hatred for reading. Whenever he gave out reading assignments (book reports, current events) he made sure to let Adam know he could use the sports pages or magazines he loved for the assignments. He also found ways to work baseball in to his math and science and even geography assignments. It was such a thoughtful and caring gesture, that to this day (10 years later) they are still friends.
Thank goodness all of this happened before No Child Left Behind (AKA Teaching to the Test).
I understand the reasoning behind NCLB – we need a way of measuring the success of teachers. In the corporate world employees receive an annual review, according to NCLB the standardized test is a teacher’s annual review. But in the corporate world an employee is not working with 35 different individuals.
Every student does not learn the same. I see it in my own family and I’m sure you notice it in yours. How many times have you gotten frustrated while helping your child with their homework? Now imagine that happening with 30 other children that are not your own. Imagine not being able to scream and yell and walk away (you know you do it, we all do).
We have all heard about visual vs. tactical learners. Some take direction better than others and some need to be more hands on to learn. Think of how difficult it is having 35 totally different personalities and learning styles and trying to teach them all the same thing. It is virtually impossible.
This image pretty much explains it succinctly.
Let me give you a typical classroom in my city of Glendale, Ca. We’ll go with the old Class Size Reduction room size of 20 kids per teacher.
10 kids will be EO (English Only), 10 kids will be ELL (English Language Learners). 5 of those ELL kids will speak Armenian as their first (and sometimes ONLY) language. 4 of them will be Spanish speakers and 1 will be Korean (or another Asian language for example).
Of those 20, 4 will be chronically tardy to school, 2 will be consistently absent, 1 will have behavioral issues and 3 will have learning disabilities. (all of these are suppositions based upon my 10 years as an elementary school secretary in Glendale, CA.)
To make it even more difficult, 8 kids will be visual learners, 7 will be tactical learners and 5 will be a little of each depending upon the lesson.
Let us not forget that halfway through the school year approximately 4 of these kids will move to a different school and 4 others will enter, thereby throwing the teacher for another loop just when she finally has her class all figured out.
Yet every May all 20 kids are expected to pass the standardized test with flying colors. Without fail we were processing tests to kids who had been in our school (let alone in our country) for less than a month. There is no grading curve, there is no leinency. Your kid and my kid are both expected to learn the exact same thing at the exact same pace.
I saw many amazing teachers retire because the spark of teaching had been extinguished via NCLB. I saw new teachers with a lot of promise get burned out within 5 years. I saw administrators throw in the towel and retire early because they tried to fight the system and lost. I saw students crying in the hallways because they were afraid to take the Test.
I don’t know what the solution is, but there has to be a better way. Learning should be fun and interesting not rote and monotonous.
Very interesting piece.
Thanks. It is a subject that has bothered me for many years.
Oh Adrienne, thank you for writing this. I’m in Santa Clarita and our class sizes have reached to 35 students with only one teacher… no aides. It’s just unbelievable what is happening to our public school system. My three girls are completely different learners. My oldest is super smart but has to study hard to get her good grades. My middle daughter can’t spell but is a math genius and loves to read but does it very slowly. My youngest loves school and everything comes easy whether she studies or not. For the past several years I worked in the younger classes ever week helping out the teachers. It was exhausting trying to deal with the “problem” kids and give extra help to the slow learners while the “smart” kids sat there bored to death. I really do feel for teachers but I have also seen really good ones… and really bad ones.
I don’t know what the answer is either, but somebody better come up with something better than this.
Yes, Carolyn, we are back up to 35 here in Glendale as well, sometimes even more. Class size reduction has gone the way of budget reduction.
I have been on both sides of this personally. I grew up with a brother that tested off the charts (Merit Scholar). I was the artsy – fartsy girl that was okay as a student but never off the charts in academics… creativity maybe but that didn’t count when it came to testing. Now, I have a son that is smart as a whip and tests well but his true passion lies in creativity, robotics, animals… I see his friends and classmates in similar ways – they all have their ‘gifts.’ I don’t know the answer either but I would love if there was a solution that encouraged all children to feel like they excel in whatever there strength is not just what the tests say.
exactly
Adrienne, this is so well-said! And I can tell you that conditions are nearly identical over here on the Westside, except we don’t have nearly as many Armenian students as you do in Glendale. But still, at least 1/2 to 3/4 of the kids are English Language Learners.
There are plenty of good answers, but my gut tells me that none of them would work in a school district the size of LAUSD. And none of the solutions involve more testing, I couldn’t agree with you more on that issue.
NCLB was intended to do one thing and it has done quite the opposite – it’s leaving kids behind right and left. I am a huge supporter of public schools and have spent many years in the trenches trying to help make things work better, but the testing system is un-fixable. It needs to be thrown out altogether and a new idea can take its place.
Great post!
I don;t think there really is ONE solution. What works in LAUSD may not work in Padukah KY. It just isn’t feasible.
There is a great article assessing the 10 year anniversary of NCLB in last week’s issue of Time Magazine.
Which is sitting on my kitchen counter waiting to be read. LOL
NCLB is a disaster and I was disappointed that Obama didn’t just toss it out when he had the chance. My girls had very different experiences at the same elementary school. Of course, they are also very different people with unique strengths and gifts. But what they both walked away with was an ability to think. Critical thinking skills go far too unrecognized in today’s traditional educational models.
Parents can supplement with a rich home life, but I don’t know the answer for the school system. LAUSD is trying to make changes. Will it be enough? Are they asking the right questions? I don’t know. My friends who work in education, work very, very hard and I appreciate their efforts.
I know that the teachers who really get my kids as individuals are the ones they will remember and the ones they learn the most from. Institutional remedies for a personal learning experience don’t seem effective. But we’re in the system. What’s the solution?
It isn’t easy to “toss” something like this out. Without a feasible solution to replace it, we are stuck with what we have.
I agree! Teachers should be creative and engage the students and stop teaching by the book!
I agree! I have so much respect for teachers that are able to teach 35 kids at once! I seriously do not understand how they do it.
Going by the book seems like the lazy way out, though. I’m assuming most teachers know better…
However, like I said, I’m aware it is not easy.
Homeschooling my boys I see how vastly different they learn. My poor bio son learns like me (artistic ADHD brain…good thing I understand it) and my adopted son has the mind of an engineer. Trying to teach them the same curriculum I find myself spending a lot of one-on-one time to make sure they both grasp the concept.
So, yes, teaching tactics need to change. I also salute anyone following their passion, making teaching a career. Little pay and a bit of a thankless job, it is admirable. They are really helping shape our future.
Thanks so much for writing this informative post. I do believe teachers should start actually teaching and being unique and not just boring the kids by reading out of a book so to speak.
My children are still quite young so we haven’t broached the subject of standardized testing yet so I don’t know that I’ve even had a chance to think about it. Every child learns differently….I really need to spend time focusing on each of my children to find out how they learn best. And I agree that education, particularly in our economy is suffering but I don’t know what the answer is : ( Thank you for raising some critical points to think about
My daughter starts Kinder this year and this has scared me. I hope our schools wisen up and help teach the way that is best for the child, not by how some book/test tells them to.
I can’t imagine being a teacher any more than I could be a doctor or a pickle taster. I really think the DoEd should be looking at the Montessori system of individualized learning. Each child is taught to make plans, think critically, and take charge of their own education. It is as close to homeschooling as you can without actually quitting your job to take on that task.
This was one of the big reasons why we chose to move our kids to a charter school (still free public education) but we all deserve the right for our children to have the best education