Louis C.K. hates the Common Core standards.
I first saw it here, on the HuffPo, from David Letterman. Later, a friend/colleague (I don't name her only because she is in the business, too, and I don't want to get her in trouble) sent me a message to make sure I saw it--thanks for keeping me in the loop.
Toward the interest of full disclosure, I have to say I’ve always had a little crush on Louis C.K.
Why, you may ask?
You may ask this because you’re thinking of the fictional-but-based-on-real-Louis and the elevator fantasy scene or fictional-but-based-on-real-Louis passed out and surrounded by empty pizza boxes and ice cream containers or fictional-but-based-on-real-Louis being rejected by a woman because she witnessed him shrinking from confrontation with a high school bully.
Why do I have a crush on Louis C.K.?
Oh, let me count the ways: for the pure and sheer humanity and vulnerability that he just goes ahead and expresses, seemingly without any filter, and most of all, for the breathtaking courage it must take for him to expose his humanity and vulnerability to the world. He’s willing to be naked, figuratively and literally, when most of us are frantically swaddling ourselves with ego padding, trying to keep our humanity and vulnerability zipped up, buckled tight, under wraps, armored up. We post only flattering glamorous pictures online, nothing that makes us look dumpy or frumpy or dorky, even though surely all of us spend more time being dumpy, frumpy, or dorky than we do being smooth and suave and glamorous and elegant and unruffled.
Unless we’re, you know, Kimye.
(That picture on my blog? Taken three years ago. I've aged. I hate having pictures taken of myself and probably won't update it until I'm seventy.)
Besides, I hail from the working class, as does Louis C.K.,and so I applaud and cheer preach it, brother! whenever he criticizes entitlement or laziness or ingratitude.
All right, so we have this comedian who is a father--a good father, if by “good,” we mean someone who engages in thought about parenting and participates in his kids’ lives, which is all fantastic, and those of us who didn’t have fathers like that think he is really amazing for being that kind of father, and probably those of us who did have fathers like that feel a bit of fondness for him because this is familiar territory--who pays attention to his daughters and their inner lives and who worries when his daughters suffer, and so when his daughters, upon encountering mandatory statewide standardized testing, feel anxious, Louis C.K. has something to say about it. Something really not flattering to the people who write the tests. Something really not flattering to me.
In the spirit of respectful discourse and intellectual debate, I’d like to address these points:
1. Who writes these tests?
I do. Not the bad ones--unless instructed by a client to write badly, and sometimes that do happen, much to my chagrin--and only English language arts. Someone else is to blame for math, science, and social studies. Not my areas.
You could talk to my friend Scott about math or my colleague Jim about science, I guess, but they don't write bad tests, either.
There are lots of bad tests, yes. It's a systemic problem. More on that.
2. Why do I do this horrible, horrible thing?
To earn a living and support my two children.
3. What are my qualifications?
I have a bachelor’s degree in literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara, a master’s degree in English with an emphasis on writing from Sonoma State University, almost two years community college teaching experience, twenty years experience in educational publishing, and five years elementary classroom volunteer experience, as well as other miscellaneous tutoring experience from college and grad school. Also I was a TA
in grad school, for the creative writing class, oh God, was that awful, all those stories about cats and sexual abuse and suicide mixed with the occasional fantasy of being a wealthy celebrity writer driving a red Corvette, clearly no
student in that class had ever read a word written by any writer other than their favorite writers: themselves. In addition, I’ve put in many, many hours of study--in education, in reading and language acquisition and of literature and literary criticism, and especially in assessment, and even more especially in the writing of test
questions.
4. What’s with the Common Core?
It’s a good idea to have national standards. Other countries do, and that’s how they make sure that all the kids in the country are learning the same things at the same pacing. It’s a good idea to consider career- and college readiness, and how to make that happen, particularly when kids in the United States are undereducated to a degree that must make us the laughingstock of industrialized nations. Finland and South Korea especially must snigger at our national ignorance and celebration thereof--is there any country in the world that makes a point of being so dang proud of being stupid? I ask you.
5. Why do people hate the Common Core so very much?
People fear change. People hate what they fear.
No one understands what the Common Core standards are, or what the shift means, or that it's really a good thing that kids in Alabama learn the same things as kids in Connecticut. There’s too much hype and not enough real education about the standards and their purpose. Teachers are scared because tests are being used for wrongful purposes (never a good idea to link teacher pay to test scores), and scared teachers are scaring the kids.
6. What is Louis C.K. really upset about?
Like any caring parent, he’s upset that his daughters are upset.
He doesn’t know enough about the Common Core to be upset about them.
That’s not his fault; it’s the fault of the top-secret test publishing industry that keeps all information under lock and key, supposedly to preserve confidentiality, but, really? Wouldn’t it be smarter to explain what’s happening and why? No. Because then they would have to explain everything else, like the billions of dollars spent on testing and how little of it changes anything really, and also how little of it trickles down to the people who are doing the
actual work which means that the majority of content developers (not me, I'm the exception, this is my career) are inexperienced hobbyists or inexperienced part-time teachers or hustlers who think they're getting away with something by getting paid to do something they don't know anything about and how much of the big money in testing gets bottlenecked up at the executive and shareholder level.
7. What should Louis C.K. really be upset about?
Capitalism. The one percent. The war on poor people instead of a war on poverty. The state of education in the United States. Dogs that need rescue at animal shelters.
What’s so unfortunate here is that Louis C.K. is someone who’s got a public forum--people (including me) listen to him, laugh at his jokes, care about his opinions. He has an opportunity to make people think (at least a little) and that would be a really great thing if--and I don’t at all intend this as a snarky sarcastic dig--he knew what he was talking about. I'm sure there are a gazillion things he knows plenty about, but the Common Core standards are not on that list. Really, do you think he has even read them? I mean no offense, but I would be surprised by an affirmative.
There are so many things that are terribly wrong in education in general and in educational
assessment in particular, but from my perspective--as someone who does know what she’s talking about here--the Common Core is a paper dragon. Let’s talk instead about the corporatization of education.
How about that fewer than half a dozen test publishing companies rule assessment, and the king is Pearson? (Which company is now involved in a controversy over the award of the PARCC assessments as the result of a lawsuit filed by AIR.)
How about that the people who are actually doing the work are paid woefully inadequately (Hello? My yearly income today is the same as it was twelve years ago when I started my business, but guess what, inflation--can you see why this is a problem?) while the companies continue to earn profits that are obscene in comparison?
Let’s take me, partly because I am monumentally self-absorbed, but also because my experience is what I know. I do know many other people in this line of work, but very few have the depth and breadth of experience that I have in educational assessment: I’ve worked in hand-scoring, program management, content development from the ground up (item writer to editor to supervisor to manager to director and back to item writer and editor). I’ve worked directly with state department of education officials. For seven years, I had an annual contract with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the largest districts in the country, a district that has more students than some states.
For the last twelve years, I have concentrated mainly (with some side jobs involving higher level consulting of test design and product research) on the hands-on work of content development: writing and editing material (reading passages and questions) for tests. That is unheard of. In this industry, as soon as anyone shows a spark of initiative, and especially if that initiative is accompanied by a pebble of intelligence, that person gets promoted. Anyone else with twenty years' experience has been in management for at least ten of those years, and management is not the same as actually doing the work, as any line cook at KFC could tell you.
I mean no arrogance when I say that I’m the perfect person to write tests, considering the combination of education, experience, and
dedication--because I care about what I do, quality matters to me, the kids matter to me--when I write reading passages and test questions, I’m thinking about the experience of the kids who are going to take the test just as much as I’m thinking about my paycheck. Maybe more.
Not that I don’t think about my paycheck. I do. I have to. I’m a single mother with two kids.
Thinking about those kids who take these tests breaks my heart. Not so much kids like my daughters and Louis C.K.’s daughters--these girls are all going to be fine. They have parents who love them, ready access to books, music, art, libraries, documentaries on penguins and whales and volcanoes and subscriptions to the National Geographic and visits to the Smithsonian. Their parents talk to them all the time (maybe too much, in my case; Louis C.K. is probably a lot more interesting and a lot less pedantic when he talks to his daughters) and are willing to listen and answer questions and explain all about why everything in the world is the way it is. We the parents will support our daughters, consider their happiness, find ways to challenge them, look for opportunities to help them navigate the complexities of relationships, communication, education, and, eventually, careers.
And Louis C.K.’s kids? They’re especially going to be fine. They’re rich. They’ll have their pick of colleges, go wherever they want, do whatever
they want from now until they die and leave their truckloads of dollar bills (remember investment income is taxed at about half the rate of labor income, so their money is constantly making money, they'll have more money than they could ever spend) to their kids and their kids' kids.
That is awesome for them, and while I envy their good fortune (which I acknowledge comes from the hard work and talent of their father), I don’t begrudge it them. If they get a little upset about a
test, I understand and I sympathize and it's nice that their dad sympathizes, too, but really, there are a lot worse things in the world to happen when you’re a kid, and a lot worse things do happen to many of the kids in the world. Maybe some of that righteous indignation could go to someone else’s kids, kids who really don’t ever get a chance.
Not that I mean to be all sassy to Louis C.K.
Note: A little crush. Not a stalker crush. Have I ever written to or tried to contact him in any way? No. Geez. Of course not. Would I ever? No. Oh, God, no. What do you take me for? Have I watched his show and stand-up routines? Yes. Do I laugh at his jokes? Most. Some of the humor is a bit past my endurance, but I celebrate his right to express himself.
Showing posts with label common core standards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label common core standards. Show all posts
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Friday, January 25, 2013
Zip a Dee Doo Dah, or Go, Team!
As I work my way through the list of 10 Reasons Why Assessments Make the World a Better Place, I realize that this list is more of a grab bag of opinions festooned here and there by ribbons of fact than an argument resting on a solid platform constructed of actual information. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; what else are most blog posts than someone's opinion? I myself have got lots and lots of opinions.)
Which means I am silly for engaging in intellectual discourse about what is essentially an attempt to look on the bright side from deep in the trenches of a beleaguered and much-maligned profession.
But once I've begun, I must onward go, silly or not. Let's address Reasons 2 through 10 from 10 Reasons Why Assessments Make the World a Better Place by John Kleeman:
2. Assessments make the world safer.
Absolutely. No doubt about it. Certification and licensure are very reassuring, whether applied to doctors, nurses, mechanics, electrical engineers or dog trainers.
3. Assessments are the best way to measure knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
They're the only way, aren't they? If by "assessments," we mean "measurements," and assessments may include the use of observation and other tools beyond the isolated pen-and-paper or online experience.
4. Assessments are the cornerstone of learning.
Not so sure about this one. Remember what Trollope said. How many modes of learning are taken into account? Which work best for which student?
And it would really depend on the assessment, how it was administered, how the results were interpreted and used, and whether instruction were subsequently guided by those results.
5. Assessments reduce forgetting.
I believe I read something about this somewhere, but I didn't take a test on it and now I've quite forgotten what the article said, except for the bit about how you remember more if you are tested on it.
6. Assessments are one of the few ways to be sure people really understand.
Subset of Reasons #3 and 4, and that is only if the assessments are solidly aligned with the curriculum.
7. Assessments give objective data.
This is what they are intended to do. If the assessments are sound, constructed according to best practices, and free of obstacles such as cultural and other bias, we hope to obtain objective data after administering assessments.
8. Assessments define standards.
Not so sure about this one, either. Often item review committees define and redefine standards. Sometimes individual item writers creatively define standards, and their work of a moment forms the template that is followed forever after. Assessments should define standards.
As an assessment content developer, I sometimes find myself stretching my brain until it snaps to find some logical way to target a skill that simply isn't assessable with a multiple-choice question. I know that it is not assessable, and yet I must do it, because that is the assignment. Am I defining the standard? I may very well be, but were I officially responsible for defining the standard, I'd approach it differently, perhaps starting off by working directly with groups of kindergarteners to obtain a baseline for what they actually are capable of doing and then burying myself in the library in order to see what people who spend their lives studying the developing minds of kindergarteners say about it.
9. Passing an assessment makes people feel good about themselves.
That's nice, isn't it.
Although I only feel good about myself when I absolutely and totally crush an assessment. 100% is what makes me feel happy, but we all have different standards, see Reason #8. A quiz will follow.
10. Online assessments give access for all.
I guess so, if a computer is made available to everyone.
And that's a wrap.
As ridiculous as I may seem in taking seriously what we can assume from the unbalanced and cheerleaderly perspective is most likely intended as marketing literature (using the term "literature" loosely because you know I am persnickety and Victorian in my literary aesthetics). But in a world when all of us are duped constantly and relentlessly, there is tremendous value in distinguishing between fact and propaganda.
By the way and just for fun, this blog post aligns to the following Common Core Standards:
UPDATE: Corrected a typo, ah me, but that's no guarantee you won't find another.
Which means I am silly for engaging in intellectual discourse about what is essentially an attempt to look on the bright side from deep in the trenches of a beleaguered and much-maligned profession.
But once I've begun, I must onward go, silly or not. Let's address Reasons 2 through 10 from 10 Reasons Why Assessments Make the World a Better Place by John Kleeman:
2. Assessments make the world safer.
Absolutely. No doubt about it. Certification and licensure are very reassuring, whether applied to doctors, nurses, mechanics, electrical engineers or dog trainers.
3. Assessments are the best way to measure knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
They're the only way, aren't they? If by "assessments," we mean "measurements," and assessments may include the use of observation and other tools beyond the isolated pen-and-paper or online experience.
4. Assessments are the cornerstone of learning.
Not so sure about this one. Remember what Trollope said. How many modes of learning are taken into account? Which work best for which student?
And it would really depend on the assessment, how it was administered, how the results were interpreted and used, and whether instruction were subsequently guided by those results.
5. Assessments reduce forgetting.
I believe I read something about this somewhere, but I didn't take a test on it and now I've quite forgotten what the article said, except for the bit about how you remember more if you are tested on it.
6. Assessments are one of the few ways to be sure people really understand.
Subset of Reasons #3 and 4, and that is only if the assessments are solidly aligned with the curriculum.
7. Assessments give objective data.
This is what they are intended to do. If the assessments are sound, constructed according to best practices, and free of obstacles such as cultural and other bias, we hope to obtain objective data after administering assessments.
8. Assessments define standards.
Not so sure about this one, either. Often item review committees define and redefine standards. Sometimes individual item writers creatively define standards, and their work of a moment forms the template that is followed forever after. Assessments should define standards.
As an assessment content developer, I sometimes find myself stretching my brain until it snaps to find some logical way to target a skill that simply isn't assessable with a multiple-choice question. I know that it is not assessable, and yet I must do it, because that is the assignment. Am I defining the standard? I may very well be, but were I officially responsible for defining the standard, I'd approach it differently, perhaps starting off by working directly with groups of kindergarteners to obtain a baseline for what they actually are capable of doing and then burying myself in the library in order to see what people who spend their lives studying the developing minds of kindergarteners say about it.
9. Passing an assessment makes people feel good about themselves.
That's nice, isn't it.
Although I only feel good about myself when I absolutely and totally crush an assessment. 100% is what makes me feel happy, but we all have different standards, see Reason #8. A quiz will follow.
10. Online assessments give access for all.
I guess so, if a computer is made available to everyone.
And that's a wrap.
As ridiculous as I may seem in taking seriously what we can assume from the unbalanced and cheerleaderly perspective is most likely intended as marketing literature (using the term "literature" loosely because you know I am persnickety and Victorian in my literary aesthetics). But in a world when all of us are duped constantly and relentlessly, there is tremendous value in distinguishing between fact and propaganda.
By the way and just for fun, this blog post aligns to the following Common Core Standards:
UPDATE: Corrected a typo, ah me, but that's no guarantee you won't find another.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
If You Get Any Closer, You'd Be Me
I'd just read The Sound and the Fury and The Hamlet, and then started Wise Blood because I'd read an excerpt that was one of the funniest things I'd ever read. Those Southerners, you know. (I'm reading my way through my own Southern gothic course now--I'll continue with Faulkner, then more O'Connor, and go from there. I also want to read a biography of O'Connor, partly because she was such a strange person and partly because I'm interested in her Old Testament theology, being as I was brought up in that tradition myself.)
My daughters had read the excerpt, the part about Enoch Emery meeting the gorilla. The eldest by five minutes, the one who finished reading Anna Karenina in two days (she liked it so well she didn't want to stop reading), went on ahead and did her own thing. She's busy making up a list of classics she wants to read and then ordering the books on Paperbackswap. It's an ambitious list. She generously said, when I eyed the list with envy, that she'll loan me any book I like.
The other, my youngest, wasn't sure she fully understood the excerpt, or at least not enough to write the essay I'd asked her to write, so we talked about it.
As we talked, we kept looking back at the text for evidence of what we were thinking and saying. We started from a reader response perspective--How did she feel when she read the excerpt? What did she like about it, what did she not like? What in the text created this or that effect for her? What did she think the author meant by this or that?--and moved to comprehension and making inferences--What did she think about Enoch? Why was he so different from other people? How did that difference manifest? What did he want? Why?--and then talked about patterns and motifs and style:
The more we talked, the more we liked the writing.
There was so much there to talk about, and the conversation led to one about the bigger meaning, that of transformation and of the human desire for connection and to be loved--how Enoch had intended to provoke the gorilla with some obscene insult, but then the touch of the gorilla's hand, even in this sort of perfunctory handshake, awakened in him a longing to be close to someone--anyone! even a jerk in a moth-eaten gorilla costume-- and how it's impossible to transform oneself simply by making some superficial outward change, just as it's impossible to find a shortcut to being loved or to force people to love you, that the only way to be loved is to be lovable, and so Enoch's attempt is doomed from the start.
This is what close reading looks like.
This is what the CCSS require, that students move beyond basic literal comprehension to an analysis of the elements in order to make connections between the text and culture, history, our personal experience, and, ultimately, to its greater universal meaning. All the while, the students must return to the text for evidence. What did the author say? Why? Why this word, why this gesture, why this action. Why why why why why.
Although we'd begun the conversation because my daughter had said she didn't really like or understand the story, by the time we were done talking, she liked it so well she wanted to read the whole of the novel.
(I couldn't remember if I'd read Wise Blood before, so I read it again. It's so good, and one of the funniest books I've ever read, especially in the first 100 pages or so--the woman on the train who, upon seeing the price tag still stapled to Hazel's suit, feels comfortable because she believes that places him, Hazel's insistence to all that he's not a preacher when he's clearly Jonah fleeing the voice of God, the sly asides--"After a few weeks in the camp, when he had some friends--they were not actually friends but he had to live with them--he was offered the chance he had been waiting for; the invitation"-- but the end is so horrifying and sad, I'm not sure my daughter will want to read it. I told her that, and she'll make up her own mind. Neither am I sure it would be as interesting to someone without a pretty solid understanding of the Old Testament, but maybe I'm wrong about that.)
My daughters had read the excerpt, the part about Enoch Emery meeting the gorilla. The eldest by five minutes, the one who finished reading Anna Karenina in two days (she liked it so well she didn't want to stop reading), went on ahead and did her own thing. She's busy making up a list of classics she wants to read and then ordering the books on Paperbackswap. It's an ambitious list. She generously said, when I eyed the list with envy, that she'll loan me any book I like.
The other, my youngest, wasn't sure she fully understood the excerpt, or at least not enough to write the essay I'd asked her to write, so we talked about it.
As we talked, we kept looking back at the text for evidence of what we were thinking and saying. We started from a reader response perspective--How did she feel when she read the excerpt? What did she like about it, what did she not like? What in the text created this or that effect for her? What did she think the author meant by this or that?--and moved to comprehension and making inferences--What did she think about Enoch? Why was he so different from other people? How did that difference manifest? What did he want? Why?--and then talked about patterns and motifs and style:
- the use of color (especially the black/white)
- the animal motifs (the umbrella handle is the head of a fox terrier, the gorilla)
- how seemingly harmless, everyday things transform into weapons (the joke box of peanut brittle, the landlady's cast-off umbrella)
- the funny things--how Enoch never sets out to do anything without eating first; how Enoch is always thinking of something else the moment Fate is "drawing back her leg to kick him"
- the economy of writing--how O'Connor gives so much information about Enoch without any heavy analysis of his character, instead letting the reader feel smart and draw those conclusions
The more we talked, the more we liked the writing.
There was so much there to talk about, and the conversation led to one about the bigger meaning, that of transformation and of the human desire for connection and to be loved--how Enoch had intended to provoke the gorilla with some obscene insult, but then the touch of the gorilla's hand, even in this sort of perfunctory handshake, awakened in him a longing to be close to someone--anyone! even a jerk in a moth-eaten gorilla costume-- and how it's impossible to transform oneself simply by making some superficial outward change, just as it's impossible to find a shortcut to being loved or to force people to love you, that the only way to be loved is to be lovable, and so Enoch's attempt is doomed from the start.
This is what close reading looks like.
This is what the CCSS require, that students move beyond basic literal comprehension to an analysis of the elements in order to make connections between the text and culture, history, our personal experience, and, ultimately, to its greater universal meaning. All the while, the students must return to the text for evidence. What did the author say? Why? Why this word, why this gesture, why this action. Why why why why why.
Although we'd begun the conversation because my daughter had said she didn't really like or understand the story, by the time we were done talking, she liked it so well she wanted to read the whole of the novel.
(I couldn't remember if I'd read Wise Blood before, so I read it again. It's so good, and one of the funniest books I've ever read, especially in the first 100 pages or so--the woman on the train who, upon seeing the price tag still stapled to Hazel's suit, feels comfortable because she believes that places him, Hazel's insistence to all that he's not a preacher when he's clearly Jonah fleeing the voice of God, the sly asides--"After a few weeks in the camp, when he had some friends--they were not actually friends but he had to live with them--he was offered the chance he had been waiting for; the invitation"-- but the end is so horrifying and sad, I'm not sure my daughter will want to read it. I told her that, and she'll make up her own mind. Neither am I sure it would be as interesting to someone without a pretty solid understanding of the Old Testament, but maybe I'm wrong about that.)
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Where Ask Is Have
That meaningful conversation about the Common Core Standards I was asking for?
At our house, we're constantly looking things up. Last night, we were walking the dog in the canyon. It was a starry night, and so we were talking about the stars, and the names of the constellations, and how these came from myth, and how none of us knew the real story of Cassiopeia. When we got home, we looked it up.
Here it is, by Freddy Hiebert, of TextProject and the University of California at Santa Cruz, in her blog Frankly Freddy:
Acquiring knowledge is the raison d’etre of the Common Core. In the digital-global world, the “haves” are the ones who have knowledge and know how to acquire more knowledge. When you know something, you can build on this knowledge and in this way knowledge grows. Knowledge begets knowledge. The “have nots” are the ones who depend on others to filter their knowledge through talk radio, television shows, and conversation. (Hiebert, 2012)
The problem with the latter is obvious, for the boredom factor if nothing else: all those recycled opinions with no facts to back them up. The more you learn, the more you're curious about, the more you want to learn.
And so early access (or obstacles) to knowledge can change a kid's destiny:
In one sense the economic forces that have improved the lives of all minorities in America make the educational disparities more dire. The economy has become and is likely to remain “knowledge- driven”; making a living increasingly requires most individuals, regardless of race or gender, not only to pursue higher education, but to draw fully upon its resources to develop the kind of skills needed to compete and thrive in the job market (Hershberg, 1998; Murnane & Levy, 1997). Individuals unable to attend or finish college are, more than ever, at risk of being left behind (Fullilove & Treisman, 1990). The apparent irreversibility of the knowledge-driven economy underscores the importance of addressing the per- sistent underachievement of underrepresented minority stu- dents at all levels of schooling. (Fried et al, 2001)
At our house, we're constantly looking things up. Last night, we were walking the dog in the canyon. It was a starry night, and so we were talking about the stars, and the names of the constellations, and how these came from myth, and how none of us knew the real story of Cassiopeia. When we got home, we looked it up.
We look up ridiculous things, too. Yesterday morning, we were reading the New York Times online, and saw the great video by Bill Cunningham about shoes, and got interested in Fashion Week in New York, and looked it up.
Another night, the dog and I were walking with my youngest-by-five-minutes daughter, and she was telling me she wasn't good at English and writing.
Me: But you scored in the advanced category of the STAR test. You must know something.
Daughter the Second: I guessed. I don't understand it.
(Not that I believe that a test score is the final determination of what a kid knows or doesn't know; it is, as everyone in the industry agrees, merely a snapshot of student performance at a point in time. But I did think the score was a piece of data that I could use to bolster my argument.)
Then we agreed that for both of us, even if we know something about something, we don't feel like we really get it unless we have a thorough understanding of how it works.
We talked about it more. I told her the 7% story. I asked her if she felt she lacked the capacity to understand English and writing, if her brain worked in some way that prevented her from understanding it. She thought about that for a second, and then said, no, she probably could learn it.
Which brought us to talking about how so much information is available now, and which brings me to a favorite poem by Christopher Smart, "A Song to David":
A Song to David
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell
That watch for early pray'r.
Sweet the young nurse with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flow'rs to hive.
Sweeter in all the strains of love,
The language of thy turtle dove,
Pair'd to thy swelling chord;
Sweeter with ev'ry grace endu'd,
The glory of thy gratitude,
Respir'd unto the Lord.
Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong thro' the turbulent profound
Shoots xiphias to his aim.
Strong is the lion—like a coal
His eye-ball—like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes:
Strong, the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide, th' enormous whale
Emerges as he goes.
But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide;
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.
Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
Beauteous the multitudes in mail,
Rank'd arms and crested heads:
Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild,
Walk, water, meditated wild,
And all the bloomy beds.
Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;
And beauteous, when the veil's withdrawn,
The virgin to her spouse:
Beauteous the temple deck'd and fill'd,
When to the heav'n of heav'ns they build
Their heart-directed vows.
Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these,
The shepherd king upon his knees,
For his momentous trust;
With wish of infinite conceit,
For man, beast, mute, the small and great,
And prostrate dust to dust.
Precious the bounteous widow's mite;
And precious, for extreme delight,
The largess from the churl:
Precious the ruby's blushing blaze,
And alba's blest imperial rays,
And pure cerulean pearl.
Precious the penitential tear;
And precious is the sigh sincere,
Acceptable to God:
And precious are the winning flow'rs,
In gladsome Israel's feast of bow'rs,
Bound on the hallow'd sod.
More precious that diviner part
Of David, ev'n the Lord's own heart,
Great, beautiful, and new:
In all things where it was intent,
In all extremes, in each event,
Proof—answ'ring true to true.
Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious th' assembled fires appear;
Glorious the comet's train:
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
Glorious th' almighty stretch'd-out arm;
Glorious th' enraptur'd main:
Glorious the northern lights a-stream;
Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
Glorious the thunder's roar:
Glorious hosanna from the den;
Glorious the catholic amen;
Glorious the martyr's gore:
Glorious—more glorious is the crown
Of Him that brought salvation down
By meekness, call'd thy Son;
Thou that stupendous truth believ'd,
And now the matchless deed's achiev'd,
Determin'd, dar'd, and done.
Then we agreed that for both of us, even if we know something about something, we don't feel like we really get it unless we have a thorough understanding of how it works.
We talked about it more. I told her the 7% story. I asked her if she felt she lacked the capacity to understand English and writing, if her brain worked in some way that prevented her from understanding it. She thought about that for a second, and then said, no, she probably could learn it.
Which brought us to talking about how so much information is available now, and which brings me to a favorite poem by Christopher Smart, "A Song to David":
A Song to David
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell
That watch for early pray'r.
Sweet the young nurse with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flow'rs to hive.
Sweeter in all the strains of love,
The language of thy turtle dove,
Pair'd to thy swelling chord;
Sweeter with ev'ry grace endu'd,
The glory of thy gratitude,
Respir'd unto the Lord.
Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong thro' the turbulent profound
Shoots xiphias to his aim.
Strong is the lion—like a coal
His eye-ball—like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes:
Strong, the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide, th' enormous whale
Emerges as he goes.
But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide;
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.
Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
Beauteous the multitudes in mail,
Rank'd arms and crested heads:
Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild,
Walk, water, meditated wild,
And all the bloomy beds.
Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;
And beauteous, when the veil's withdrawn,
The virgin to her spouse:
Beauteous the temple deck'd and fill'd,
When to the heav'n of heav'ns they build
Their heart-directed vows.
Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these,
The shepherd king upon his knees,
For his momentous trust;
With wish of infinite conceit,
For man, beast, mute, the small and great,
And prostrate dust to dust.
Precious the bounteous widow's mite;
And precious, for extreme delight,
The largess from the churl:
Precious the ruby's blushing blaze,
And alba's blest imperial rays,
And pure cerulean pearl.
Precious the penitential tear;
And precious is the sigh sincere,
Acceptable to God:
And precious are the winning flow'rs,
In gladsome Israel's feast of bow'rs,
Bound on the hallow'd sod.
More precious that diviner part
Of David, ev'n the Lord's own heart,
Great, beautiful, and new:
In all things where it was intent,
In all extremes, in each event,
Proof—answ'ring true to true.
Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious th' assembled fires appear;
Glorious the comet's train:
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
Glorious th' almighty stretch'd-out arm;
Glorious th' enraptur'd main:
Glorious the northern lights a-stream;
Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
Glorious the thunder's roar:
Glorious hosanna from the den;
Glorious the catholic amen;
Glorious the martyr's gore:
Glorious—more glorious is the crown
Of Him that brought salvation down
By meekness, call'd thy Son;
Thou that stupendous truth believ'd,
And now the matchless deed's achiev'd,
Determin'd, dar'd, and done.
Are there any lines in literature more beautiful, more full of hope than these:
But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide;
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.
But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide;
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.
References
Aronson, J., Fried, C. and Good, C. (2001). Reducing the effects of negative stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Hiebert, Elfrieda. (2012). It's not just informational text that shapes knowledge acquisition; the critical role of narrative text in the Common Core State Standards. Text Project.
Smart, Christopher. A song to David. Poetry Foundation.
Aronson, J., Fried, C. and Good, C. (2001). Reducing the effects of negative stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Hiebert, Elfrieda. (2012). It's not just informational text that shapes knowledge acquisition; the critical role of narrative text in the Common Core State Standards. Text Project.
Smart, Christopher. A song to David. Poetry Foundation.
Friday, September 7, 2012
What I'd Like to See
. . . is some kind of real discussion of the Common Core Standards, instead of something like this:
Rarely do I see anyone write about or hear anyone talk about the Common Core Standards who has read through not just the standards themselves, but all the ancillary materials.
Do the Common Core Standards actually address quality over quantity? No, not really. Does alignment with the Common Core Standards guarantee a more rigorous or even just a more consistent educational program? No, not at all. That would be impossible.
It's all in the implementation. Even the best, most comprehensive standards are meaningless unless sound instruction lays a solid foundation and sound assessments are used to evaluate progress. A thoughtful approach to curriculum and assessment design could address quality over quantity. A haphazard, just-get-it-done approach will not.
As far as rigor goes, I'm thinking that one can't transform oneself from TV-watching, chip-eating, pajama-wearing couch sloth into superfit triathlete overnight. It's a mistake to demand rigor simply so we can say that our programs for students are rigorous. It's a mistake with serious consequences for the students most at risk. We need to keep our intention in front of us at all times. In this case, our intention may be to make sure that students "will be college and career ready."
To make that happen, we have to determine where students are in their learning and identify where we think they should be. Then we figure out which are the gaps that prevent them from attaining that destination and think about strategies--as many and as varied as possible-- to bring students from where they are to where they should be.
Every teacher, school administrator, district superintendent, and school board member should read the Common Core Standards just to be informed, just to know what the conversation should be about, just to be able to review curriculum and assessment materials. Parents should, too.
"One thing that the Common Core addresses is quality versus quantity," said Dr. Nicholas Jankoviak, coordinator of federal programs for Paragould School District. "With Arkansas Frameworks we're talking about student learning expectations, with Common Core, we're talking about standards." Jankoviak said Common Core would also better prepare students for college and career readiness and would provide a national standard for students who may move from one state to another. "So what you have is a child from Michigan coming to Arkansas and in Michigan they have a set of standards they're working with," Jankoviak said. "Then when they move to Arkansas, they find that it is much more rigorous here. So that child in Michigan was not adequately prepared for what takes place in Arkansas."Or this:
". . . the program will be tougher and more comprehensive, and is expected to better prepare students for life beyond the district. “It’s a more rigorous program, and the standards are designed so all students, when they graduate from high school, will be college and career ready,” Smith said. “People around the state are very excited about this because it is a strategic commitment to raising the standards and bringing consistency to the educational program."(Both mentioned by Catherine Gewertz in Curriculum Matters at EdWeek.)
Rarely do I see anyone write about or hear anyone talk about the Common Core Standards who has read through not just the standards themselves, but all the ancillary materials.
Do the Common Core Standards actually address quality over quantity? No, not really. Does alignment with the Common Core Standards guarantee a more rigorous or even just a more consistent educational program? No, not at all. That would be impossible.
It's all in the implementation. Even the best, most comprehensive standards are meaningless unless sound instruction lays a solid foundation and sound assessments are used to evaluate progress. A thoughtful approach to curriculum and assessment design could address quality over quantity. A haphazard, just-get-it-done approach will not.
As far as rigor goes, I'm thinking that one can't transform oneself from TV-watching, chip-eating, pajama-wearing couch sloth into superfit triathlete overnight. It's a mistake to demand rigor simply so we can say that our programs for students are rigorous. It's a mistake with serious consequences for the students most at risk. We need to keep our intention in front of us at all times. In this case, our intention may be to make sure that students "will be college and career ready."
To make that happen, we have to determine where students are in their learning and identify where we think they should be. Then we figure out which are the gaps that prevent them from attaining that destination and think about strategies--as many and as varied as possible-- to bring students from where they are to where they should be.
Every teacher, school administrator, district superintendent, and school board member should read the Common Core Standards just to be informed, just to know what the conversation should be about, just to be able to review curriculum and assessment materials. Parents should, too.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Turn Up the Heat
A friend and her 4-year-old came to visit last week. While I was making dinner, the fire alarm shrieked. The warning was on account of the scallops with bacon (I was feeling the call of the south).
Our Little Friend: What's that sound?
My First Daughter: It's the fire alarm.
Our Little Friend: What does it mean?
My First Daughter: It means Mom is cooking.
Our Little Friend: We never hear that when my mom is cooking.
My Second Daughter: Maybe she's not cooking hard enough.
As states adopt and begin implementing the Common Core standards, there's bound to be a bit of a shock. In several arenas, but just now I'm thinking of reading passages.
Our Little Friend: What's that sound?
My First Daughter: It's the fire alarm.
Our Little Friend: What does it mean?
My First Daughter: It means Mom is cooking.
Our Little Friend: We never hear that when my mom is cooking.
My Second Daughter: Maybe she's not cooking hard enough.
As states adopt and begin implementing the Common Core standards, there's bound to be a bit of a shock. In several arenas, but just now I'm thinking of reading passages.
Rigor is what's got all the nerves in a twist at the moment, and I'm all for rigor, but it's not all we should be considering. Rigor out of context--like most anything out of context--is meaningless. One could take it to mean increased readability measure, or higher grade level vocabulary, both of which can be used to unintentionally silly effect that diminishes any credibility a text might have had without such manipulations.
In "Publishers' Criteria for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3-12," David Coleman and Susan Pimentel describe how we--the providers of text in curriculum and assessment--need to be cooking harder in order to produce high-quality texts of sufficient complexity to meet the demands of the standards.
So there needs to be what I think of as content density and richness of ideas. Passages need to show evidence of thought and care, both in terms of the approach to the subject and the craft itself.
We're not just filling pages with print. We're giving students opportunities to learn and think and reflect and make connections and then come up with their own ideas.
UPDATE: Formatting fixes.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Ringside
This debate about the Common Core Standards is one in which I have a deep and abiding interest. In the last year, much of my content development work has been to write (or edit or review) materials addressing these standards.
As standards go, what I can say is that they're fine. Nothing unusual. Nothing at all outside of the realm of what is commonly assessed (here I speak only of ELA as I'm not qualified to evaluate the soundness of the math standards from the perspective of a content area expert, but my math colleagues have told me their opinion of the math standards is similar). We all agree that the standards do bear the smudges from many sets of fingerprints--and that this is to be expected from anything produced by a committee, our experience being that members of committees often come to the table wheeling bearing their own baggage agendas, and much compromise is needed in order to reach the Promised Land consensus.
However, we none of us think that there is a monster hiding under the bed anything to suggest a federal brainwashing campaign conspiracy hijacking of state and local authority in the schools.
To bring you up to speed, Catherine Gewertz at Curriculum Matters reported Thursday that "a senate subcommittee in South Carolina voted against a bill that would have barred implementation of the common standards. But it will proceed to a hearing before the full senate education committee."
Arne Duncan employed a Jab, Right Hand, Left Hook in his response (which I paraphrase below):
2. States have been slacking off lying down on the job lowering their expectations for students and are a bunch of big fat liars.
Being just a lone voice crying out in the wilderness an independent consultant unaffiliated with any government office or department (or any publisher), of course I am not privacy to the politicking. There is probably more here than meets the eye.
On a completely separate note, in re high school exit exams and college readiness, I hear from the Center on Education Policy (CEP):
27 of the 31 states with high school exit exams reported participating with Partnership for for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and/or SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) to develop common assessments that are aligned to the CCSS [Common Core Standards] to measure college and career readiness. Of these 27, at least 16 states plan to replace their current exams with consortia assessments. . . .
More here.
UPDATE: I was just taking a look at the national drop-out rates:
UPDATE: I was just taking a look at the national drop-out rates:
Roughly 1.2 million students did not graduate from high school in 2011; the lost lifetime earnings for that class of dropouts alone total $154 billion.
[In the spirit of transparency rather than bragging, I tell you that an article I wrote for National Geographic Explorer, "Seeing Eye to Eye" was reprinted on page 74 of The Common Core Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks. The reprint permission request went through National Geographic, so this was a fait accompli long before I received the unexpected reprint check, and much (if not most) of the credit should go to my editor at NGE for reasons previously discussed.]
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