Apr 23 2008
WASL
The teacher next door was suspended last week for refusing to proctor the WASL. He argues that it is damaging to students, teachers, schools and families. (You can read his thoughts here.) His actions grow out of personal frustration with his own articulation of problems with WASL yet his complicity in the very problem he sees.
This raises a very interesting issue for me. I find that the system I teach in explicitly and implicitly asks me to do things in my teaching that I personally have problems with. WASL is but one of these things. I teach in a system that is dominated by a simple behaviorist model. Do the right thing and get a reward, do the wrong thing and get a consequence (punishment). There is little room to take joy in learning and even less time to follow tangents. Our system seems designed to train good workers and to frustrate original thinkers. What keeps me in, and leads to my dilemma, is that every so often there are moments of profound learning.
These times are far and few between and seem to come at the least expected moments. As a rule they happen when I am teaching things that fall farthest outside the traditional (standards mandated) scope and sequence of curriculum. These moments keep me teaching. I struggle figure out what lead to them and how I can make them happen again.
Is this right? Should I continue to help to prop up a system that is successful only at things I care little for or should I get out and find a place where my values extend beyond my own classroom?
The example of Mr. Chew is powerful. I feel more and more that I have to take some action or find a new place. Fitting in does not seem like the right thing to do.