I've come to learn one important thing about American culture...
It's not about what you know but, instead, about what you can sell.
It's upsetting for a future educator to learn that:
-schools are in severe danger regarding funding (millions and millions of dollars.)
-standardized tests are considered a legitimate form of evaluating a person (both students and teachers)
-HB 136 (in Ohio) is proposing an option for students to have a choice to attend a private or charter school (both unregulated by the government and, therefore, do not meet the same standards as schools in the public sector) on the public school's dime.
-HB 136 has the potential to collapse the public education system as a whole and create "poor" and "rich" schools thus eliminating the middle class.
-High schools are not reading important texts that help one understand American history and society. (Why do they read so much British Literature? Where's African American and Native American studies?)
Everything in America is a business, even public education.
What is a solution?
Well, how can you fight American culture? Americans don't want to fund education!Our society needs to care about its future in order to bring about social reform and a better quality of life for its people. Hard to do that when you only care about the dollar. Even harder to do it without the dollar.
Some options:
What if more assessments, that are processed by third parties for evaluating students (and teachers), were project or portfolio based?
What if standardized tests didn't serve as financial leverage but as a guide to help see where schools can improve?
It's been disappointing to learn the tangible, concrete side to education vs. the romanticized ideas I orchestrated in my mind. I thought teachers helped guide students to achieve critical literacy? How is this notion actually being modeled to educators?
Someday I believe I can start to close the gap between what American culture expects out of its people, or consumers, and water the real internal growth that is waiting to blossom within each student-- resulting in the beautiful, self-actualizing bloom of critical, creative thinkers.
at least in my own classroom.
Another thing I've learned-- teachers don't clock out.
