Standards

I am going to comment this week about standards, not because I think it is more important than it is to discuss race. Instead I feel like I have written and discussed race at length in this class and others.

Linda McNeil's chapter about standards was very eye-opening and helped me think about them in a new way. Before I entered the school of education I knew very little about standards, outside of the fact that on the surface it appeared that they prohibited teachers from crafting their curriculum around what they believed to be important. After this semester, and particularly this reading, I know have a clearer understanding of not just how damaging standards are not only to teacher freedom relating to curriculum development, but also how threatening they are to student development.

The first line of the chapter crystallizes everything that is wrong with standards: "Standardization reduces the quality and quantity of what is taught and learned in schools," (505). Doesn't this statement counter lawmakers' original intentions? After reading this chapter, it the exact opposite of appears to me that standards became a problem shortly after their introduction because those that wrote the standards, lawmakers and administrators, did not consult teachers (this would not be shocking knowing that the Bush Administration pushed for and passed No Child Left Behind, and we all know they have a truly exemplary record on asking experts for advice). Perhaps the most striking piece of information taken from this chapter amplifies my statement above. McNeil argued that by "shifting...decision regarding teaching and learning away from communities and educational professionals and into the hands of technical experts following a political agenda," we have created a damning environment for teachers and students (510). The notion that experts should not be involved in the decision to create standards, nor were they had significant influence in determining what those standards actually are is like having a plumber tell an engineer how to do his job. Malarkey!

Beyond the political implications of standards and course requirements, there are actually serious consequences in the classroom. McNeil also discussed how teaching toward not only limits the willingness of teachers to venture into more challenging curriculum, but underestimates their students. In some cases, teachers do not want to dabble in what can be confusing material for fear that their students may not understand it. The problem is that their student actually could understand it and in fact, are almost thirsting for something outside of "the basics."

Also striking, but not surprising (my cultural foundations course really took the shock out of this issue) is the fact that teachers conduct classrooms that are so authoritarian that controversy and discussion are all but silenced. In addition (this actually floored me), according to McNeil, "one teacher even said he had eliminated student research papers because at a time of volatile political debate he found that students doing their own research could become 'self-indoctrinated,' that is, they came to their own interpretations on the subject," (512). I may be new to this, but did the Reichstag just burn down and was the Fuhrer swept into power? Perhaps this is my naivete, but McNeil also suggests that some teachers are so insecure in their delivery that they refuse to admit they may not know something about their subject. At the risk of sounding too political, isn't this the sort of "Dead Certain" (supposedly a good book about the Bush Administration's war policy) attitude that we have lived through for the last 8 years (and thankfully rejected on November 4th when "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla," [kudos to Dick Cavett's column on nytimes.com] was sent back to Alaska)? I would like to think that I know enough basic content to teach a class of hormonal teenagers, but I know I don't know everything (not even close) and if they present me with questions and information that I am unsure of, I am going to be damn sure to let them teach me.