The Year: The College Professor Returns to School, Week 4

The First Lady of the United States, End of Course Exams, and Thunderstorms

Education is the cornerstone for many.  It was for the Obamas. Whether you support the President and his family or not, they are an example of the American Dream.  However, there are those who would argue that people born with privilege who do not always see or understand that what they have did not come from the sweaty brow of their parents, ancestors, or themselves, are true heirs of the American Dream.  

When the First Lady of the United States spoke recently at the Civic Center in Tallahassee, Florida, my son was ecstatic. He cheered and fist-pumped himself silly. I chuckled when I thought to myself, This is the same little boy who did not want to stand in line for the ticket? Who kept saying repeatedly that he was going to give his ticket to his father? Truly kids often speak without understanding that they are living historians.  They speak from the here and now; the most important thing to him at the time was that he had to leave while in the middle of his Friday test.  This, too, is how adults miss out on the better opportunities in life.  It is easier to remain in our comfort zones than to try something new. Take a chance or a new risk, elevate ourselves and solve a challenging dilemma.  As Mrs. Obama spoke of student loans and not having family members from which to simply ask and be given enough money to cover the costs of their higher educations, I thought of the educational system many children in this great nation are inheriting. It is not just that the educational opportunities afforded some are becoming farther out of the commoner's reach, but access to consistent quality schools and teachers is becoming the great divining rod.

Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and its generations and parts are giving way to End of Course (EOC) exams.  An exchange of one high-stakes test for another, with more administrations, some starting as early as sixth grade.  The new tests have the urgency and stress that is often expressed of New York's Regents. I have always believed that some form of assessment is necessary.  For example, English Language Arts and math teachers often bemoan when new tests are created and implemented because both fields know they are the central tendencies. So when Science was added to the test pool for Florida public school students, many teachers felt it was about time some other discipline felt their pains.  So imagine my disgust when I learned from an elementary teacher that although students begin taking the science test in 3rd grade, science does not appear as a dedicated course in Pre-K, Kindergarten, First, or Second grade.  She stated that they receive sprinklings here and there.  Interesting.  Is this "sprinkling" going to spark students to enter the STEM+M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) related fields?  

Thus, I agree in part,  but not in whole with the Common Core.  I agree with national standards as a means for addressing those who travel from place to place whether with the armed forces or with their careers, and for eroding the ever evasive belief that "Northern education is better" than any offered in the South or south of Virginia.  One set of standards for the nation appears harmless, but does that not eventually equate to one set of assessments and one set of pacing guides? The question then becomes: Who creates such assessments? Nagging and tugging at my ear and heart are such questions as, What of elite schools? Private schools? For struggling schools, won't this increase the  'brain drain' that continues to belie these communities? I would think the purpose of an EOC (End of Course) exam for a course I taught would be to measure mastery.  If so, shouldn't I create my own assessment? Of course you see the inherent, supposed problem with this line of thinking... Teachers are not psychometricians, they can't create a fair and balanced assessment. 

My son uses SRA's Imagine It! series.  It includes a number of components but it offers a pacing guide that could lead one to believe that each teacher in a given grade level must be on the same page at the same time.  How else to ensure that you all end at the same place?  I am not offering an endorsement or critique, but does it matter if I am on page 45 and my neighboring teacher is on page 30 as long as we have the same goal - that each student works and achieves at his or her optimum best? Suppose I am more technologically inclined than my peer(s) and I wish to supplement the lesson with digital and audio/visual content.  This places me a day and some pages behind, what are my consequences? Who sets and delivers punishment?

While waiting in one of the longest, winding lines of my life, the faster we approached the entrance to the Civic Center to hear the First Lady, the worse the weather grew.  By the time we gained entrance, nearly two hours later, we were drenched.  However, as life often does, our dark clouds hid a silver lining. Kinda. Once inside the Center we were eventually ushered to the higher sections where we found seats and began to dry.  Those who came later, much later, avoided the thunderstorms and torrential downpour and simply walked into the Center and directed to the main floor which was standing only.  I wondered would their take on the historical significance of the night's events be different from mine.  After all, even though Mrs. Obama's speech was A W E S O M E, I was miffed for half an hour that the women's restroom did not have a changing table.  I had to spread paper towels over the bathroom floor in order to change the baby's diaper.  The fact that this was the week he decided to practice spinning and turning over has yet to be lost on me.  

I wonder when we tell of this day later in life, how will my 6-year-old's testimony differ from my own?  Will his be grand and emotionally charged, while mine is filled with belligerence toward the Center's management? Will our takes lead listeners to think that we are describing two separate events? This led me to ponder the reinventing of history that is taking place in states like Tennessee, who proposes to teach that the KKK was a good ol' fashion Southern social club, and in Texas, who not only want to denounce multicultural education and literature, but teach that Native Americans were the aggressors during the War of Expansion and that they themselves were not squatters. People can believe what they wish, but caution and care must be taken on the part of textbook companies that decide to include such foolishness in printed material, give it their seal of approval, and package, sell and distribute such falsehoods.  Since Texas, Florida, New York, and California wield much power when it comes to textbook creation and adoption (which came first I wonder), smaller states will have to "pick and pull" components of prepackaged units to form their book(s).  Thus, what was intended as some personal retribution for losing the war, now becomes a teachable 'fact' by social science teachers who may have come to education from some other field.  He or she may have the best intentions, but not the depth and breadth of subject or discipline to navigate students toward authentic primary and secondary sources to right their miseducation.