Education

Plumbers clear drains, mechanics fix cars, and cooks make good food, but what is the result of teachers teaching classes? There is a clear, quantifiable, and indisputable result with the first three, but what is the end result, the payoff, with teaching? How can we tell if teachers have done a good job or not?

Some would say that we do this with grades and test scores, but is it really that simple? Yes, teachers give grades to assess performance, but those grades are based on standards that always seem to be in a state of dispute and flux. The term “grade inflation” describes the modern tendency of lessening standards to artifically increase observable success. Since teachers now are accountable for every student’s success, even the lazy and indifferent ones, it makes sense that schools either A: set the curriculum at a low bar so more people can get over it, or B: teach only what is going to be on the standardized tests that gauge teaching effectiveness so that everyone passes them.

Here, then, is the real issue, this indeterminacy of results. When you can skew everything in your favor, how can you have standards at all? I mean, why not teach what is on the test? If students pass the test, they’ll know the material, right? Well, maybe they will know it just enough to pass these tests and no more. Maybe they will cram it into their short-term memory and regurgitate it onto the answer sheet. But will they actually know any of this stuff, aside from being able to pick the right answer on the test?

I remember a discussion we were having in one of the English classes I taught where, for reasons lost to time, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was brought up by a student who had obviously remembered this for a test in high school with the mnemonic device “22nd = 2 terms.” She even had a little hand gesture where she held up two fingers in a peace sign when she said it. I, however, had forgotten the number of the amendment, but I knew the relevance of it, so I of course started talking in detail about the 22nd Amendment, beginning with the 2-term tradition set by Washington, and talking about FDR’s four terms as president, which was the reason Republicans pushed for this amendment, and how Republicans later regretted it when Reagan came along and was a very popular president. I stopped, of course, when I saw her eyes were blank and I realized she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

See, all she knew was “22nd = two terms.” I didn’t remember the number, but knew every other detail of it. If I had taken that test, I would not have gotten the answer right, even though I knew everything else besides the exact number. But hey, that was what was on the test, the two fingers. Technically, she knew what the amendment was, so the standards are upheld, right? However, could you really say that she understood what it meant? To her, wasn’t it just a soundbite, a meaningless factoid? Can you really know historical facts without knowing the history behind them?

Here is the real question, though: if education is reduced to a test to pass, a hurdle to jump, then why should students care about their education any more than they would care about passing their driver’s exam? Who cares about meaning and comprehension and internalization anyway? I mean, I passed the stupid test, didn’t I? Give me my keys so I can drive the hell out of here!

I am sure that somewhere, either in a roomful of bureaucrats in Washington or in a board meeting in New York, the fact that she got that answer right on the test validates the system. I am sure that somewhere, some tabulator of data is looking at a bank of statistics and is pleased at their rosy numbers. But I urge you to look around you and ask if these newer and more formulaic systems of education are making America any smarter. Gauge for yourself whether or not this country is on an intellectual upswing. Use your own analysis to figure out whether or not education is working. Look down that pipe and see if it is clogged.

Copyright 2013 Brian Stacy Sweat