to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
-Reinhold Niebuhr
This is my approach to this year's Smarter Balanced Testing. I could rail about the unfairness, the unreliability, the lack of validity, the political motivations and other aspects of the standardized tests and their connections with Common Core and NCLB. However, I'm not going to because I'm following the Serenity Prayer approach to Smarter Balanced survival.
The prayer is about being able to identify what can be reasonably done, and letting go of everything else. That's just what I'm doing with Smarter Balanced (and its good buddies Common Core and No Child Left Behind). I'm doing what I can (which is quite a lot), and not accepting the burden of what I can't do.
So just what am I doing?
Well, for one thing, I'm not freaking out. It's amazing how much power educators give to all the silver bullet mandates that are foisted upon us. We empower these initiatives when we freak out about them. It doesn't help anyone for me to get upset that some or all of my students may not meet the standards set by some secret pass panel that meets in a dark, educational bunker. It is far more helpful to be as effective a teacher as I can, and ignore those who claim I am otherwise (usually those who have never really spent time in my classroom).
Though I refuse to run around the school like my hair is on fire, I'm also not putting my head in the sand. There are several items that I have already put in place to support my student's progress toward meeting the Common Core standards. Others will be added over time. Here are a few:
- I'm focusing instruction on Common Core content. This is of course nothing new, as any reasonable teacher would make sure students are learning what they need to learn.
- I'm meeting kids where they are at. Students are in many different places when it comes to literacy knowledge and skills. Skipping content is not a wise strategy, nor is spending vast amounts of time on content that students already know. One instructional step ahead of each student's current skill/knowledge level is the most fertile of learning locales. The independent aspects of the customized approach allow students to be in a more constant state of growth while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive frustration (from the over pursuit of standards growth) and boredom (from the under pursuit of standards).
- I'm engaging all students with "grade level" content. While this seems to be in conflict with the prior point, it is not. Too often, instruction is seen as either grade level or not. Instead of an either...or scenario, instruction can instead be one of ...and. The independent aspects of customized approach allow for engaging students in content within their instructional range, and as a blessed side effect, instructional opportunities arise to meet with groups of students for grade level instruction. Of course, even the grade level instruction is customized, with varying levels of scaffolding in place to help students become familiar with the required content of Common Core.
With all of the above and more in place, and the reality that I'm working very hard to help my students learn, just what is there to freak out about? I've heard, "We have to worry because we'll be judged by the scores!"
I say, "So what?" My school earned an "F" from the Maine Department of Education last year, and guess what? The sky did not fall! Most people see right through the perpetual (and often fraudulent) crises that are proclaimed from the educational ivory towers of Augusta and Washington. And if you read the surveys, you'll find that most parents think their kids' teachers are great. I care a lot more about what parents and students think about my work than I do about the opinions of some overpriced government suit with a political agenda.
So, instead of worrying about how underprepared my students might be for this spring's Smarter Balanced assessments, I'm calmly adding to the list of ways I'm reaching out to kids, teaching them what they need to know. That, after all, is what teaching is. I'll leave the freaking out to the federal, state, and local politicians. It appears to be what they are best at.
