Sit. Stare.

We're doing state testing this week at my high school. This means that for four hours a day for three days, the kids have to sit in my room and take a long bubble-sheet test. First day for math, then for English, and finally for science.

The tests are a pretty big deal, as they are the measurement of how "well" we "perform" as a school. The whole idea is inherently flawed and dangerously stupid, but it's federal law. I've blogged about why I think this system doesn't work in the past. I have never met a teacher who thinks this will work, actually. I'm talking about varied demographics, too. When some people think "teacher," they might get the impression of a leftist, socialist professor with a scraggly beard and a loud agenda that he indoctrinates his students with. While I'm sure those teachers do exist, that's not what I see around here. Around here we've got conservative teachers and liberal ones. Fairly moderate ones, too. There are religious teachers and some that might not be religious. There are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, members of the Green party, you name it. We come from very diverse social and economic backgrounds, too. One thing we all have in common: We don't think state testing accurately portrays the quality of the educational system whatsoever.

So no, teachers don't disagree with No Child Left Behind laws because we're all members of some teacher's union and we don't want to be held accountable for what we do. We just think it's a very flawed program.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about Diane Ravitch ("Scholar’s School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate").

This woman was once a driving force behind No Child Left Behind and federal testing laws, but has since totally reversed her opinion. She says now that the law was based on fads and trends in education, and that NCLB does far more damage than good.

A little too late now, seeing as how entire faculties are being fired due to low test scores. (You can read about that here.)

Even the high school I teach in, considered one of the best in the state, faces the same fate in two years. The same holds true of every other AA high school in Montana with the exception of one. Unless we have 100% of students passing those state tests in 2012, our entire staff can/will legally be fired.

I thought about this as I watched the kids taking the state test. I can tell most of them were trying their best. Some weren't. Others didn't really try at all.

We give them a ridiculous amount of time to work on each section of the test, and the vast majority of them are finished with about thirty minutes to spare. They're not allowed to text or talk during this time, but they are allowed to read a book quietly. What amazes me is that out of thirty students, about ten of them choose to read quietly. The other twenty would rather spend half an hour sitting and staring. Seriously, just sitting and staring. I don't know if they're thinking about anything or if they're just too mentally exhausted to continue, or what. Some lay their heads down and go to sleep. Many just sit.



I realize test-taking can be excruciatingly boring, but in my mind this is all the more reason to want to read an actual book. After sitting and reading those awful math equations and arid informational articles, wouldn't a book be some kind of pleasant release? At distraction, at the very least? In the four hours we get to test, the majority of the kids need about ONE to get done. Sitting in a silent room for three hours with nobody to talk to and nothing to do doesn't seem like the most exciting thing in the world, but in their minds it beats reading a book. Reading a book is about as foreign to them as assembling a transmission to a 1988 Chrysler LeBaron. It doesn't even register.



I think this little observation is more of a key about what's wrong with education than all the stupid data collected from those stupid tests. Most kids don't have the smallest desire to read a book even to pass the time, even when the alternative is DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I'm guessing most of these kids have never read a book on their own in their whole life. But why? How could this have happened? Are teachers just not reading anymore? Are iPods and Droid phones and hula-hoops to blame? THE KIDS ARE HAPPY TO SIT AND STARE FOR HOURS AT A TIME. Does this bother anyone else?! This behavior is akin to my pet frog, whose brain is the size of a grain of sand.

It's really not that mind-boggling, though. I'm a reader. You're probably a reader, too. How did I become a reader? I was a fan of books from a young age. I was never told to like books by teachers. There was never a point in school where I suddenly got turned on to books. My parents just read to me, told me stories, took me to the local library as a child. I didn't realize it at the time, but I could tell that my parents took reading seriously because they both did it on a regular basis. It happened early and it happened naturally. Conversely, I was never that into sports as a kid. This wasn't because I just hated sports, either. I was in T-ball and soccer, even a little basketball. I did them because my parents signed me up for them. If they would have pushed me further in that direction, I'm sure I would have pursued it. But they didn't, and I could tell that sports weren't very important to them. They didn't really watch a lot of sports or play a lot of sports. They didn't take sports too seriously. Now I'm all grown up, and I'm really not interested in sports at all. One of the main reasons is that I'm not very good at them due to years of not practicing! People don't like doing things they're not good at, especially when those things appear pretty pointless anyway. So most teens don't read, fine. The problem is that people expect English teachers and schools to turn them into readers.

I'm a big fan of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. For those of you unfamiliar with it, I made a nifty illustration with MS Paint here:



This thing supposes that the needs of any given level cannot be met until the needs of the lower level(s) are met. I've been led to believe, throughout college and my life, that high school teachers are mainly responsible for the Cognitive and Aesthetic needs of their students (the levels colored in blue). Don't get me wrong; high school, as an institution, can definitely help with the red levels (Esteem, Social/Emotional, and Safety needs), but you're a fool if you believe a school can have even a hundredth of the influence that family has, especially in those areas.

So I'm here, trying to impart lessons of critical thinking, self-awareness, beauty and form, introspection, and problem solving-- But the kid:

1. Went to bed at 2:00 AM the previous night having stayed up texting, resulting in four hours of sleep
2. Had a breakfast that consisted of a Red Bull and half a bag of Skittles



Right off the bat, we are not ready to experience any kind of Aesthetic or Cognitive awakening. I mean, come on. The kid is exhausted and running on caffeine sugar fumes. The kid's already set up to fail, and that's not even considering the other levels of the pyramid. Taking a look at the kid's Safety Needs:

3. The kid comes from a home where rules and limits are mostly arbitrary. The kid does not have a curfew or limits on what he can and can't do. The kid's mother does not react consistently to the kid's actions, sometimes punishing, sometimes condoning, sometimes ignoring. The kid's father is not a part of his home life.

4. Home rules are vastly different, sometimes opposite, from school ones. At home, the kid's mother and her friends openly swear and use curse words. They openly discuss sexual matters. The kid can, too, without repercussion. At home, the kid is allowed to wear t-shirts that advertise alcohol, tobacco, drugs. In fact, his mother purchases this clothing for him.

5. The kid has been involved in fights at school and at home. He has been taught from youth that violence is often necessary when solving any kind of dispute. He has also been taught that authority is not to be trusted, and that seeking help from authority is probably an act of cowardice.

So the safety needs of this kid aren't being met, on top of his neglected physiological needs. In the world of Emotional/Social needs:

6. Although the kid is loved by his mother, he has never been taught who he is or what his place in the world is. The kid has no concept of what the meaning of life is, as his life is made up of temporary, often fleeting, relationships.

7. The kid has a limited understanding of family and heritage. He probably does not know his grandparents, and has had very limited interaction with any extended family. He does not see family and home as the ultimate place of stability and security. Instead, he subconsciously understands that family is a source of pain and conflict, owing to his own parent's failed marriage.

I think the Emotional/Social needs are the ones that most of the failing students are so obviously (and desperately) trying to fill throughout the school day. Again, I think Maslow was a smart cookie, because the kids will do almost ANYTHING to get these needs met. Until they are met, nothing else matters to these kids. In successful students, a solid family life takes care of most of their emotional and social needs. In failing students, talking with friends, even one or two lines of text, means more to them than their grades. Many kids daily risk getting a zero on a test and dropping their whole letter grade to sneak a peek at that incoming text message. The threat of an F means nothing to them.

Bringing us to the Esteem Needs:

8. He has no plan for the future whatsoever. He does not have a calling in life or goals to aspire to other than living from day to day, as modeled by the adults around him at home. He may have a career in mind, but no idea how to get there and no family members to guide him.

9. The kid has almost zero responsibility at home. He probably doesn't have chores or any job to do. He doesn't have responsibility over much of anything. The kid owns a cell phone but contributes little/nothing towards paying the bill. The kid plays no part in any decision-making at home.

10. The kid has never been taught his own self-worth, or the sanctity of life in general. The kid has been indirectly taught that life is meaningless and not unique, and therefore of little value. This includes his own life.

11. The kid has also been taught that a man's value is directly proportional to the money/material goods he possesses. The kid is surrounded by a home and family culture that values wealth above all else. If the kid comes from a family that has money, he cannot comprehend the value of anything that will not make him money. If the kid is relatively poor, he will also equate his poverty with worthlessness.

Heh.

So, yeah. Eff my life.

Maybe you think I'm exaggerating the situation, but from what I've observed the hypothetical situation of this kid is quite common. It's common in Montana, and it's even more common in the urban world. Kids live with all of these things every day, and yet some will say that it's the teachers' fault if these kids aren't stimulated intellectually. They're going to turn those bubble sheets in, grade them, and tell us we're not trying hard enough because only 87% of the kids passed the test and we need to be at 93%.

We're trying our very best with the extremely limited resources that we have as a school system. We provide lunches (and even breakfast at times) to the kids who don't eat at home, we provide jackets and clothing to the poor, we try to establish rules for kids who have never experienced them, we provide various social outlets such as clubs and sports and dances to help the kids get socialized, we try to know each student as an individual and make them understand their own self-worth and give them a sense of belonging... On top of all this, we try our best to teach them critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and communication skills to succeed as members of society and as human beings...

I've said it before: this school system only works under the assumption that families will do their part. We can't be expected to raise these children. We're their teachers, not their parents. We can set a good example, guide, direct, encourage, even persuade, but we can't parent them.

It makes me very sad to hear that the President himself endorsed firing all those Rhode Island teachers from the "failing" school. It's enough to make me just give up on politics all together. Why bother? Nobody is listening to us. The insidious part of No Child Left Behind is how seemingly EVERYONE agrees on it (except teachers). It was passed by President Bush in 2004, so Republicans automatically love it. It was fought against by teacher's unions, and so conservatives automatically love it. It imposes a big business model on Public Education (a rather socialistic institution) and so of course Republicans and conservatives automatically love it. It injected the federal government into locally run schools, and so Democrats automatically love it. It supposedly creates "accountability" and "oversight" to government employees (teachers) and so liberals automatically love it. The media throws out all these insipid buzzwords when talking about the law, misleading everyday folks who now assume the law must be helpful if it creates "accountability" to those darn liberal teachers.



Everyone thinks they know how to fix the problems of our educational system, but I firmly believe we're putting band-aids on shotgun wounds when we make up idiotic laws like No Child Left Behind. I also think many people have this mistaken notion that all teachers do is complain about pay raises. News flash: WE DIDN'T GET INTO THIS PROFESSION BECAUSE WE THOUGHT IT WOULD MAKE US RICH. Teachers aren't stupid. I know this may not mean much these days, but we've been to college. Many of us for at least eight years, if not ten or twelve. If we cared about being wealthy, we had many years to change careers. I wouldn't say no to a pay raise, and I think a minor salary increase is definitely in order all around (starting salary for a teacher in Montana = $27,000), but massively increased salaries will not solve anything. I actually believe teachers should NOT be paid too much, because then the profession will attract a-holes who only care about making money. Keep the salary average, normal, livable. It will attract people who actually have a passion for learning and teaching the young. Save the high salaries for the jobs that require you to not have a soul.

Want a solution that will get kids' test scores up? Take away their freakin' cell phones. Make it illegal for anyone under 18 to own a cell phone. Better yet, make it illegal for any family with children under 18 to own cable television or the internet.



Most fifteen year-olds are well acquainted with internet pornography and view it regularly. Most underage girls have taken photos of themselves in their underwear, if not fully naked. Did anyone stop to think what kind of affect THAT might have on their life? I've confiscated cell phones where girls and boys were texting vivid descriptions of fellatio to one another. That's just what they do in the middle of English class on a Tuesday. Did anyone stop to think how these things might be affecting kids' ability to function in school and society? I know a thing or two about teenagers from working with them. Willpower is not their forte. Neither is foresight. They also have a disproportionate sex drive due to being in the throes of puberty. Take the hormones of a fifteen-year-old boy or girl, mix in a total and utter lack of parental supervision, add a healthy does of complete anonymity, and let them loose in a wonderland of infinite pornography known as the internet. Better yet, give them the tools and technology to create sexual images and films of their own that they can transmit anonymously to anyone on earth instantly and without a trace.

Great plan. Just keep blaming teachers, everybody. Keep blaming the teachers. I can't wait until all education is privatized and you're all paying five thousand bucks a semester to keep your dumb-ass child in school (which will now be known as The Local Wal-Mart Education Center of America). Kiss off.