How to Amputate a Student's Love for Learning

Teachers say they want willing students. We say we want students who love learning. We say that we want to develop life-long learners. But we might be perpetuating the very culture we seek to oppose. Even worse, we are possibly conditioning parents to do the same.

In one of my discussion forums, a parent shared what had recently occurred at his daughter’s school.

          I am a 10-years-old girl's dad. Let me tell a story about my daughter.

          One day, when my daughter came back home from school, I found she was sad. She told me that she
          got 87 (of 100) score in her mathematics test. I tried to comfort her and said that her score was 
          pretty good. She just needed to learn how to double-check her answers. But my words didn't make
          her happy. The reason was that the average score of her classmates' was 95. After my daughter told
          me that reason, I could say nothing.

          At that moment, I was angry about her teacher telling her the average score of the class.

          But on the other hand, I also knew that her teacher just wanted my daughter to feel pressure, in order
          to make her study harder.


The reliability of such a test was the first thing that caught my attention.  A class of 10 year-olds with an average score of 95 on a test suggests there is (potentially) an issue with the test. Statistically, things don't usually work that way.

Cohen and Spenciner (2007) concur:  “When there is little variability among test scores, the reliability will be low. Thus, reliability will be low if a test is so easy that every student gets most or all of the items correct or so difficult that every student gets most or all of the items wrong” (p. 43). Thus, the reliability is suspect, which is issue enough, but why would a teacher make the statement to the class?


What is our motivation for sharing a class average score with the class? Whom does it serve?


I’m not one of those individuals who thinks that everyone should get a ribbon just for participating—I believe those who excel should be praised. However, in this instance, the statement seems superfluous, purposefully used as a means of criticism for those students who did not make the average. More to the point, it over-emphasizes grades and puts the score over the individual student.

A class average on a test is information to drive further instruction. It is not a point of comparison for an individual student in a fourth grade class. That’s too young, too early, too cold, too sterile—pedagogical stainless steel forceps when what is called for is dialogic stained glass.

The parent continued:
                I was also astonished when I saw the statistic of [the] students’ scores.

                I agree with my daughter's teacher's words: What is important to my daughter is to learn how to
                be self-motivated when she is studying something. 

This is a serious misconstruction of the concept of self-motivation on both parts. If the goal for this student’s studying is to “get a good grade,” then congratulations. At the tender age of 10, we have successfully amputated her love for learning. We've also applied a tourniquet of extrinsic motivation, sopped with an elixir of entitlement.

Most likely, the parent and the teacher were themselves part of a culture that perceived “good” grades as the primary objective of school. As a product of a 70s/80s public school education, I had a little experience with that. Unless we move past this outmoded thinking, we will not create the dynamic leap in thinking that we seek, and I put the onus on teachers.

Grades exist, for better or worse. But we do not have to put them on a pedestal.  Rather, let us use them for our purposes of reteaching, redirecting, or determining authentically challenging next steps, designed to build upon the mastery demonstrated.

We must actively strive to ensure that we cultivate learning environments, not grading venues. If we truly desire students who are intrinsically motivated to learn, then we cannot use grades as motivation.  


Cohen, L.G., & Spenciner, L. J. (2007) Assessment of children and youth with special needs. New Jersey: Pearson Education.

Paved with Unintention: One Way We can Stop Perpetuating a Test Culture

I recently came across this strategy on Pinterest, and at first glance, I really liked it. I liked the template wording, particularly for the age group targeted (3^rd-8^th graders). I also liked the visual appeal.  The strategy is great! However, check out what the teacher wrote under the purpose for learning and the metacognitive indicator. I’m also dubious about the lesson itself. 

The purpose for learning that day –identified by “So that I can”--is, basically, to do well on the Connecticut Mastery Test.

 

The metacognitive indicator-- indicated by “I’ll know I’ve got it when”-- is the score she receives on this practice exercise.

Finally, while practicing a strategy is certainly laudable, should it be the objective of the lesson? DRP strategies, by the way, are pretty awesome reading strategies. But that’s just it. They are strategies for doing the learning…not the learning itself. 

This is no way to integrate creativity and curiosity, nor is it a way to instill a love for learning.  Nor is it the ONLY way to help students acquire these skills.

One of the biggest arguments I get into with teachers is how to design curriculum that addresses what the students need to know how to do, but does it in a way that instills a greater purpose for the learning.   

The teacher, who created this objective, would probably tell me, “Students need to know  how to use these strategies on the reading passages of the test.” 

Absolutely they need to know these strategies! However, does the use of the strategies have to be the emphasized objective of the lesson for the student? Why? Why can’t it be the means of obtaining a more creative objective? Why can’t the use of strategies be an objective that the teacher has under her belt, but is NOT the focus for the student? 

Most likely, given the reference to an answer sheet, the students are reading a series of passages, probably from a workbook of some sort. The passages will have no rhyme or reason other than to exist for the student to use DRP strategies on. Why not locate and provide several short articles that are based on the current unit of study, whether that’s Sarah, Plain and Tall or Mammals of the Sea? Students can decide which ones they want to read and use the strategies to read them.

The misuse of metacognitive activities, here, is particularly painful. These students begin to perpetuate themselves as data or scores, and they have no idea how they know what they know. Why not find a more simple, authentic way to incorporate metacognition? 

I humbly suggest that teachers can instill a love of learning, while still teaching crucial skills. We need to do everything we can to stop paving the test-culture road. 

REVISED 

OBJECTIVE:

Today, I am:  reading and deciding on two articles that will help me with my final project on [whales, the turn of the century lifestyle].

So that I can:  understand more about why [whales, dolphins, the Pioneers] do what they do and figure out why we don’t do the same thing.

I'll know that I've got it when:   I can explain what the article is about to a friend who has read a different article.

 

 

 Mindy, together with some of her former students, recently published Transparent Teaching of Adolescents, a discussion of effective teaching strategies for high school. Join the conversation!

Myth Buster: "Teachers must work tirelessly to be effective."

In his blog post on The Qualities of an Effective Teacher: No. 4—An EffectiveTeacher is Tireless, Jake Hollingsworth argues that “good” teachers must understand that they will work long hours and must have no care for the fact that students neither realize or appreciate the number of those hours. 

I respectfully disagree. 

First, there is a distinction to be made between “good” and “effective.” Good implies a quality that is desirable by another whereas effective implies a quality of successful implementation. One of the worst adjectives that can be attributed to a teacher is good because it perpetuates this strange morality of martyrdom in teacher identity: that he/she can only be good if he/she works tirelessly, the unappreciated, selfless educator.

The image conveyed by Mr. Hollingsworth is that of a teacher sitting at a desk (at home and/or at work), with a computer and stacks of papers. It is a tiring image, and one becomes weary in just looking at it.  Why set this image up in front of new teachers? They will think that this is the way it should be, and that unless they are doing so, then they are not “good.” 

It’s simply not true. 

Effective teachers spend their planning time wisely and purposefully, and they DO care what their students think about the presentation of lessons and assessments. We can spin our wheels for days on a particular unit, and it will fall flat in presentation. It just won’t “jive.” On the other hand, an afterthought of a lesson, which took moments to plan, will garner an enthusiastic response. 

The difference really lies in how the teacher spends his or her planning time in reaction to what has occurred in the class.  Ascribing to the definition above, the “good” teacher will simply pick up and do the same thing again, using the same approach on the next unit, spending the same amount of ineffectual time.  However, effective teachers will not spend the next number of hours planning in the same way. He or she will reflect, first, so that the same problem/issue won’t happen again in another unit. 

The effective teacher also asks students what they think, and by doing so, will find the first of many time-savers. For example, as opposed to agonizing for hours over a rubric for a project, effective teachers will work alongside students in determining a rubric of expectations. Generally, what they’ll find is that a student-created rubric is far more rigorous than what they would have created. Further, students who have created it will strive more diligently to meet those expectations. 

Thus, a good deal of an effective teacher's time is in thought, not in doing something tirelessly.

I will concede that the motivation for preparation should NOT be to gain appreciation from students. (I write about teaching as a thankless job at length in a previous blog post.) However, effective teachers will “see” appreciation of students in the form of engaged interest, interactive discussion, and the dawning of understanding. If we do not see any of those, then we cannot say we are effective. 

Truly effective teachers might spend a large chunk of time planning a large unit, the first time. However, following their reflection on the reception of the lesson and garnering student feedback, the next time will be much more fluid and purposeful, lessening the time but increasing the impact. Additionally, effective teachers do not always start from scratch; they collaborate with others to save time  and share with others to improve practice.

Truly effective teachers are not hinged to any desk for a ridiculous number of hours every day. If you’re doing that, stop. If you find yourself grading papers endlessly, STOP. Talk to your mentor or talk to someone who just seems to “have it all together.” That person will have valuable information as to how to work not only effectively, but realistically.

Effective teachers do not seek to reach an idealized "tirelessness." Rather, they seek and find efficiency. Effectiveness does not lie in a number of hours spent, but in the quality of the time spent.

Mindy and some of her former students recently published Transparent Teaching of Adolescents, a discussion of effective teaching strategies for high school. Join the conversation!