The Partnership for 21st Century Skills was a report I could sink my teeth into and agree with wholeheartedly, and I think we could honestly use this as a guidebook on how to educate in the 21st Century. Ironically, every theory, strategy, idea, and principle is negated by the manner in which the local and federal government regulates and assesses education in the U.S. Further, higher education does not do a fabulous job of preparing future educators to learn, conceptualize, and act on solid and innovative teaching/learning research. It’s maddening, all of it.
Because of standardized tests, teachers and admin. feel handcuffed. They, by necessity of self-preservation, resort to the Industrial Era status-quo style of instruction, teaching unit by unit to the end of the book. Remediation happens by putting kids into tiers and targeting specific skills in tracked classes and resource rooms with academic support teachers, hoping that the kids will get just a few more points in order to show growth on PVAAS. Math teachers, who would love kids to deeply study and master fewer concepts in a year, are forced by admin. to get in as much as possible, because “kids will be tested on all grade level material! They have to be exposed to everything!”
In my opinion, the whole system is driven by fear, and our kids are the ones who are suffering. After “A Nation at Risk,” accountability became a huge deal, and the finger pointing and blaming took center stage. It’s still present. I’m generalizing, of course, but the community blames the schools; the parents blame the teachers; teachers blame administration; and admin. blames the government. The government doesn’t need to blame anyone; they just take over schools and withhold money. Each believe someone else should be accountable, and all of the truly fabulous research in reports like The Partnership’s waits on the sidelines, making a brief cameo or two here and there in teachers’ classrooms throughout the country. I may be completely off base here, but maybe some of the constraints (state tests) go away, teachers are all let in on the great research and are freed to teach and inspire, and everyone wins? Crazy, I know.
John Dewey had it right all along, and I think his work needs to be re-studied and re-imagined for 21stC practitioners and learners but mostly shared with lawmakers and the people who make mandatory testing decisions. Learning by doing! Getting the minds, hands and hearts involved! Instead of being able to grasp on to theories and methods in this report, teachers spend their time trying to find ways around the system in order to furtively implement some of them. Quietly, in classrooms all over, teachers are teaching kids how to think, how to leverage their creativity, how to collaborate and innovate, and how to design their own learning. What a shame that it all flies out the window as PSSA season gets closer, anxiety rises, and the focus shifts to getting a few more correct answers on a multiple choice/open-ended test.
The government’s aim of education since its inception has been to safeguard the country’s economy and reputation. If this is still truly the goal, then perhaps the voices for educational reform need to get a wee bit louder. In my estimation, all constituents of education have created their own activity system theories without collaborating…perhaps a whole new one needs to be constructed.
Inspiration and Perspiration 
This is my favorite line: Quietly, in classrooms all over, teachers are teaching kids how to think, how to leverage their creativity, how to collaborate and innovate, and how to design their own learning. What a shame that it all flies out the window as PSSA season gets closer, anxiety rises, and the focus shifts to getting a few more correct answers on a multiple choice/open-ended test.
PSSAs and Keystone tests really have us scared in our boots. It’s a shame that teachers have to “quietly” be innovative in their classrooms in order to teach critical thinking skills and to personalize learning. It’s this kind of teaching that we know is best for students. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning report impacted me by offering hope that the education system can make some changes. That we don’t have to quietly teach in a way that is best for students. At the same time, you and I recognize that in many ways our hands are tied. PSSA tests and Keystone tests are killing the creativity and innovation that can and should be happening in our schools. What kind of noise do we have to make to shake the idea of testing accountability out of the government’s head? I wonder what teaching and learning will look like as more and more people submit to the idea that today’s world is just different that it was when we were all educated. I imagine tearing down the whole system and building it again would be a good place to start.
For many years I have tried to reconcile the standards movement with the things we know are best practice. Unfortunately, the bottom-line is that the standards movement was created for the industrial model of education and our personalized instruction efforts are not about that.
Who can make this change? Unfortunately, we need community, teachers and students alike to come together and agree that it is important to make a change so our students are ready for a very different world than the one that I entered 20 years ago when I began my work life.
I think we need to wonder what the payoff is of the current system. Someone must be benefiting from the present structure of education, but you can bet it is not us or the kids. What we can do internally is to change the focus from extrinsic rewards and the sole focus of individual achievement to something more noble and globally useful. Students aim for high marks, for themselves. They aim for accolades, for themselves. Rarely is learning happening for learning’s sake, and rarer still is learning in order to change the world.
Hi, great post! I truly do agree with standardized testing feeling like someone has put handcuffs on you-great metaphor! I also believe that the government does play a major role in the implementation of education and the decision making almost always is “political”– a game of influence and monetary gain– or how can I stay in office longer kind of scenario.I believe something must be done for the future, by creating much more awareness about what is not working and produced data that is in alignment with much more effective and efficient practices.
Uzonna
Standardized testing…it’s always comes back to THAT elephant in the room. What if law makers were judged by the way people obeyed the law? These lawmakers could meet once a week with the president to discuss ways to make more people obey the law. If the people don’t start obeying the law, then they can come up with even better ways to help people obey the law. When that doesn’t work, they can have MORE meetings about planning meetings to figure out ways to make people obey the law. That’s what we are essentially doing. Teachers and students are judged by the way they perform on ONE test. Meeting after meeting after meeting…How can we get more kids to do a better job on these tests? Maybe there is no mention of “PSSA” or “standardized testing,” but we all know what it comes down to.
Remember the days when we were in elementary school and standardized testing was just something we did once a year, but forgot about for the rest of the year? Remember the things that teachers could do with us? I remember reading Charlotte’s Web and discussing it as a class. We did art projects focusing on the discussions we had about the book. In another project, we got to pick a country and research the country. We would write papers about our country, sign books out of the library on our country, do an oral report, make a poster, and bring in a sampling of that country’s food for our presentation. Now the kids come home with a weekly PSSA sampler instead of stories about how they learned two Chinese words in class and ate a fortune cookie.
I think we need to continue to trudge through the mess of standardized testing and continue to find ways to bring the focus back to the students. We have to always remember that the STUDENT is the focus of our lessons. What is best for the student? Which activity would best suit the students’ current technology needs? Which activity will prepare students for something that they will face in real life?
I say we let the lawmakers play around with and figure out the data from standardized testing while we focus on getting the kids ready for a life of learning.
I do remember taking standardized tests in elementary school. I never minded them – because they were no big deal to me, my teachers or my parents. Now, we have tests that everyone seems to care about but they have no impact on the student’s school experience. It is so frustrating to think that our teachers are not teaching to personalize instruction and in its place teaching to the standards. The worst part of it is watching the children’s anxiety level on the day of the test.
Laurie, I remember those “not so bad” tests too, and I have no recollection of them making any kind of real impact overall. I went to Saint Joan of Arc and then Hershey High from ’88-’91, and the only test stress I felt was SAT’s, but that was a self-imposed stress that Doc Summers helped me conceptualize. (love that man) I don’t even recall seeing results from any other tests, nor do I know how they were used. Hey, I turned out ok! I went to PSU not knowing if the state thought I was below basic or advanced, and never was I made to feel like I had to catch up to everyone else or fear that my test scores would close my school or get my teachers in trouble. What in holy hell are we doing to these kids, seriously??
Jenn Burke, I totally agree, but now we have this PVAAS teacher specific reporting (a.k.a. teacher effectiveness report) that, when available, is going to make teachers everywhere lose their collective minds. From PDE:
Fall 2016 Release of
1st PVAAS 3-Year Rolling
Average to be
Used on PA Educator
Effectiveness System
Rating Form for SY15-16
(Based on SY13-14,
SY14-15, SY15-16)
I hope and pray that the results do not force all of the excellent and talented teachers second guess their occupations or make them leave in droves. School admins will have the leverage and power they need to make some changes with the data (and this isn’t a bad thing in some cases), but when the data is derived from unreliable sources (PSSA/Keystones), it puts everyone in a precarious situation. Fear should not be the driving force of education.
I so agree and really enjoyed this particular article as well. I long sometimes for the chance to just take a breath with my students and just dig into something that they want to dig into and then I am looking at the clock and checking the calendar and thinking that I don’t have a lesson for them to “mark off” for today! I flat out have to tell my parents that there will be days that we are working on something, but there may not be a lesson that they get to account it for exactly, but it will be worth it! The thematic approach to things is something that I miss and the compartmentalized version of education and going from comp, to lit, to math, to history and then to science and boom, boom boom let’s get it done, is tough! Sometimes I wish we could just focus on one subject a day!!! 🙂
And the whole idea of common core was supposed to be that it was fewer topics and delving more deeply, and I was going to be all for that – when honestly PSSA tests have angered me to no end as they are not just delving deeper, there is still more – more of this, more of that, and oh by the way, you forgot this! We could create our own school and have a way better time and student would learn a lot and not for the sake of content coverage!!!!!!!! Good gravy!