The Escape of "Death Valley"

I always loved school. As a young student myself, I was an eager learner, ready to take on what each year had in store for me. I looked up to my teachers as experts, intriguing individuals with fascinating personal experiences and passions for the subjects they taught. I remember Mr. Miller, my English teacher, who shared his personal struggle with schooling himself. How he didn't "get things" like others but worked twice as hard to complete his degree after serving in the military. Mr. Miller who recreated our class into the show "Survivor" with weekly competitions based off our latest Shakespeare novel. I never studied so hard as I did before those big competition days. I remember Mr. Connelly, an innovative Social Studies teacher who single handily proposed the new and only class in our district, "Civic Empowerment". The first class that required us students to study a real problem in our community, research, interview, question, and report back with proposed plans. There was no textbook in that class, but there sure was learning. As I work today in the very same school district, I see fewer and fewer of these learning experiences. Much of my day, faculty meetings, urgent emails are centered around one word - testing.


It is true, many of our schools are stuck in a "death valley". As Ken Robinson discussed, many may be going through the motions of "teaching" but that does not necessarily mean that learning is occurring.  This notion that if we find the perfect test, the perfect tool to assess our students, all will fall into place, is absurd. I agree, as Ken said, testing has its place-to assist and improve instruction. A better test does not result in better students, unless one uses it to influence and improve instruction. Yet year after year it seems all these state officials can talk about is testing. What about exploration? Art? Music? These are being cut instead of embraced as amazing learning platforms. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a teacher say, "Why am I going to teach that? It's not on the test." Honestly, at times I can't blame them, with the intense pressure administration holds these tests as a reflection of their teaching.


Another big concern today is the overwhelming classification of kids. The alarming amount of ADD and ADHD students has become a huge concern in schools. I read this article a couple weeks ago that discussed this very issue. It takes a comparative look at how the United States and France differ in this area. It highlights how currently, the US had around 10% diagnosed kids with ADD while France, less than .5%. Check out the full article yourself - Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD