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I knew I was about to say some things that many in the room would find offensive. So while speaking to an audience of teachers recently for a professional development activity, I took a deep breath and told them “No offense….but.”
I asked rhetorically “Why does anyone say that before they say something offensive?” but the truth is, it’s because sometimes hard questions need to be asked and while our intention isn’t to hurt anyone’s feelings, we’ve simply determined that the hard truth is worth speaking even if some find it painful to hear.
In this case, I was speaking on one of my favorite topics, Standards Based Learning, and in particular, the fact that when we say “focus on learning” in our Professional Learning Communities we’re often focused on anything but.
“Has anyone ever learned anything from a word search?” I asked to hushed chuckles from around the room. “Do reading logs really mean the student read, or just that someone signed the logs?”
I wasn’t finished.
“Do we REALLY need to assign a point value to WHERE a student write their name?” I asked, to a few more uncomfortable murmurs. “Because ‘students will write their name in the top right corner of every paper’ is not an ELA standard I’ve ever read in any state requirements.”
“Focus on learning” is something I write frequently on Edunators.com, say at the end of every podcast and speak on regularly. And THESE are the types of activities schools and teachers routinely focus on that have NOTHING to do with learning. They’re not objectives….they’re obstacles, a point I’ve written about before on Edunators.com.
As teachers, we need to be intentional about what we ask of our students. If we want to teach responsibility, then let’s develop lessons for THAT. Let’s figure out how to assess THAT. Let’s build interventions around it, model it, collect data on it and share it out with parents and other stakeholders if we feel it’s appropriate. But far too often we do downright silly things instructionally in the name of teaching responsibility, or organization ,or other ‘life skills’. Yes, they’re important. But don’t teach them at the expense of curricular objectives.
COMPLETION POINTS!? REALLY!?
Sigh.
Recently I wrote a new piece on this topic for Edunators.com entitled “5 Things We Seem to Value More than Student Learning”. It’s a big picture take on school systems as a whole, a kind of companion piece to the most popular article on our site “The Two Things Teachers Focus on Most...Instead of Learning”.
This is a topic I love speaking to teachers about and I’d be happy to encourage your colleagues to focus on learning as well. If there’s anything I can do for you or your students, please don’t ever hesitate to ask. Thanks for reading. As always, focus on learning and be great today!
-Mark
www.Edunators.com
markclements@edunators.com
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