
Most people are quite familiar with the concept of factory
production. Let’s use muffins as an example.
Blueberries + batter= muffins. Easy…piece of cake! Factories
turn out thousands of muffins, millions of muffins.
Of course the blueberries must be uniform in size. The batter
must be mixed to exact specifications. The mix must be put into little forms
and baked just the right amount of time. But it can be done. And it can be done
just as well by one factory as another, providing they use the same blueberries
and the same batter recipe. It can be done in Ohio just as well as in Florida. And
it can be done year after year with the same results.
There are people in Washington, D.C., in Oklahoma City, and
perhaps in your home town who think we can do the same thing with children.
Child + teaching= graduate. Easy…piece of cake! Schools turn
out thousands of graduates, millions of graduates.
Only one minor problem with that otherwise perfect theory.
It’s baloney. That’s a scientific term imparted by my grandmother that means it
might look like meat, and it might taste good, but it’s still a cheap imitation
of what you really want…which is steak.
Let’s be honest for once and admit that our goal in education
is a college graduate with a PhD in something that will employ him and reward
him for the rest of his life. He will be a productive member of society,
contribute something worthwhile to the world, and in the meantime not cause us
any trouble (crime, welfare, mental illness, etc.) doing it. He will also be
kind, honest, hard-working, sociable, and perhaps even creative and
entertaining- all because he is a product of a great education!
So that’s the steak. Let’s go back to the bologna for a
minute. Or maybe we should return to those lovely blueberries.
Blueberries are the perfect little factory fruit. Uniform
size, flavor, color, taste. Thanks to modern farming and harvesting you hardly
ever see blueberries that don’t look just like their brothers and sisters and
cousins and friends. But even if they are too big or too little to go to the
muffin factory they can still be used for juice or jam.
You just can’t make children fit that same scenario. They
aren’t blueberries; they’re more like apples and oranges, peaches and pears.
All fruits. All from trees. All basically round. But oh, my! The differences
after that….
Yesterday I sat down
with the results from our recent DIBELS testing. That’s Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Learning Skills for those of you
not in education. It’s a “set of
assessments used for universal screening and progress monitoring in grades K-6.
They are standardized, efficient, and extensively researched. They help
educators identify students who may need additional literacy instruction in
order to become proficient readers.” I would agree. And other than the three
major problems I have with DIBELS, I’m perfectly agreeable to using the results
to assess the reading progress of my students. After all, if the whole K-6 is
taking the same test, then regardless of its flaws, the results provide some
useful comparisons.
Well, here’s a useful comparison for my class: there is a 190 point difference between my lowest
and highest students. I’ll just wait a few minutes while that sinks in and you
think about the implications of those results.
Yes…
Everyone has been in my room for about 100 days. (Other than
the recent flu epidemic we have had 100% attendance most days.)
I have only been absent a couple of days, so all of my
students have had the same teacher.
I’ve been teaching in public school for thirteen years and
in pre-K before that for about ten years. I kinda know what I’m doing.
We have a great curriculum, plenty of supplies, resources,
experts in special education, and a good administration.
So why don’t I have more consistent test results? Why can’t
I produce a more uniform product?
Apples and oranges my friends.
I spent twelve years participating
in physical education. I learned to run, skip, hop, climb a rope, and jump over
a sand pit. I learned to play volleyball, tennis, basketball, and softball. I even took swimming lessons sponsored by our
school. But I never became an athlete. The best program and the best
coach in the world could not have made me into an athlete!
But I could read long before I graduated from kindergarten. Reading
was easy for me. It was magical. It was exciting. I knew that reading was the
key to entertainment and enlightenment. And I could never understand why my
classmates struggled with something so simple.
Now, as a teacher I have to figure out why some of my
students struggle with something their peers find so simple. I have to find a
way to intervene and provide them with additional instruction, individual
tutoring, or a different approach that might help them become “proficient”
readers. But I know that despite my best efforts some simply won’t be able to
do that, any more than I could become an athlete.
But don’t think I’ll ever stop trying. I know that some of
the students in the middle and even at the bottom of that curve will become “sufficient”
readers and good students and eventually graduate because of attitude,
motivation, hard work, and determination. Some of the most gifted
students will become dropouts. Yet another flaw in the product theory. There
are so many emotional, cultural, and environmental differences in students as
to make the possible variables beyond calculation.
Apples and oranges, peaches and pears…