I honestly believe that what LEAP does can change our
world. I tell the kids that all the time
– you can use your words to change the world!
When we read and write we are connecting
with others – perhaps people who live far away or in a different time, perhaps
with someone right next to us – but we are sharing our ideas with them and they
are sharing theirs with us. Literacy
education, for those of us in LEAP, has to do with empowering people growing up
in some of the worst circumstances in the United States to communicate their
understandings of the world, and their solutions to the problems we all
face. Literacy, then, is about critical engagement with the rest of
society.
That is also what democracy is. In a democracy, we, the people, decide how we
will live. But we, the people, can’t
make those decisions unless we communicate with others, unless we connect with
others. And we, the people, can’t make
these decisions well without two important things: good information and the
ability to think creatively.
Having good information involves reading, yes, but it also
involves critical thinking. We need to
sift through the information we are bombarded with daily and separate the
important and useful information from the unsubstantiated blather. In our public schools today, do we teach this
ability? I would love to hear from
teachers about how that is taught. When
we worry about getting students through a test, so they won’t be “left behind”
but can “race to the top,” we end up spending weeks just telling students the information they need to pass. While we may pass on a lot of good
information, we also train the students to trust our judgment on what they need
to know. Memorization, not evaluation,
is the crucial task for students when faced with high stakes testing. It isn’t important that they know why D is the correct answer – they must
just recognize that it is the right answer (because we told them so) and bubble
it clearly! Understanding can happen,
but it isn’t essential.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau once warned that if you teach your
students to listen patiently, trust what you say and repeat it, you have set
them up to accept what others may say as well.
“With all these fine speeches
you give him now to make him wise, you are paving the way for a fortune-teller,
pied-piper, quack, imposter, or some kind of crazy person to catch him in his
snare or draw him into his folly.”[1] It is easy to manipulate someone who has been
trained to memorize and repeat – and the way political campaigns are currently
waged as a war of slogans attests to that.
People are guided by who says something the loudest, the most often or
with the most memorable sound bite. We
want, instead, to teach our children to think,
to understand, to evaluate. Although it may look like a democracy, a
system where people vote based on manipulation it is, at best, an oligarchy –
the people with the most money for ads, etc., decide who will rule and what
decisions will be made.
The ability to
think creatively is a higher order thought process. In Bloom’s taxonomy, the lowest mental
abilities are remembering and understanding; the highest are evaluating and
creating.[2] By emphasizing memorization (with or without
understanding) we are leaving our children behind and we definitely are not reaching the “top.” High test scores do not always equate with
creative and critical thinking. As Matt
Damon (who is Harvard educated) has said, the abilities that have contributed the
most to his success – such as creativity and imagination – cannot be measured
on a multiple-choice test! He is proud
that his mother (an educator) insisted that he not be tested when he was in public school.[3]
Back in the
1970s, a mother marching into the principal’s office and insisting that her son
not take a standardized test worked. Now
the situation is more difficult. One DC
school announced that students who do not take the tests will be barred from
participating in sports the following academic year. (At the same time, they offered “incentives”
like raffling off iPad minis and Visa gift cards for students who do take the
test – and giving gift packs to those who score well).[4] Here in Central New York, parents cannot make
this decision for their children – but the students themselves are refusing to
take them.[5] In Seattle, WA, the opt-out movement is
strong, with 600 high schoolers refusing to take the standardized test.[6]
Refusing the test
– refusing to be “dehumanized” (as Paulo Freire would put it) by being trained
to remember and repeat – is, in my opinion, a truly democratic move. Although it
is possible that these students are merely doing what their parents told them
to do, I hope that many of them are thinking for themselves. And I
hope that the opt-out movement grows enough that our legislators are forced to
rethink the democracy strangling practice of high states testing and give our
teachers the time to truly teach.
[2]
Overbaugh, Richard C. and Lynne Schultz.
Bloom’s Taxonomy. http://ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm
[3]
Strauss, Valerie. “Matt Damon’s Clear-headed Speech to
Teachers Rally” The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/matt-damons-clear-headed-speech-to-teachers-rally/2011/07/30/gIQAG9Q6jI_blog.html
[4]
Strauss, Valerie. “School Warns
Students: No test, no sports.” The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/22/school-warns-students-no-test-no-sports/
[5]
Hannagan, Charley. “Pencils Down!
Central New York Parents Tell Schools Their Children Won’t Take Tests.” http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/04/opt_out.html
[6]
Layton, Lindsey. “Bush, Obama focus on
standardized testing leads to opt-out movement.” http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-14/local/38537469_1_no-child-students-such-testing
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