The detailed survey form for the next U. S. Census would benefit from including the question “Are you now or have you ever been a public elementary or secondary school teacher?” It’s one of my regrets as a journalist not doing much reporting any more that I never got around to putting together a story featuring people who had decided to leave the teaching profession. I suspect the number is higher than anyone realizes, and that their accounts could be an important contribution to the ongoing debate over how to rescue American education from mediocrity.
Their tales might be of particular value in deciding how and where and why teachers should be rated. The current consensus seems to be that if we devise good tests of what students were supposed to learn, and measure how many members of a particular teacher’s students got the right answers on those tests, we would be able to reward superior teachers and know which ones should be encouraged to try some other line of work.
But there’s a flaw in this thinking, a fundamental flaw comparable to devising a scientific study in which the scientist’s actions influence the outcomes. The strategy assumes that the students will do their best to answer the questions on the test, and will not see their actions as a way to influence the careers of their teachers.
Particularly when the most capable students are involved, this may not be the case. In support of at least considering this possibility, I would like to tell you a story about what happened to a young, enthusiastic, talented teacher at Otter Valley Union High School. No actual names will be used, and anyone looking for current references is advised that the incidents occurred about 30 years ago. Nevertheless, I think they illustrate an important dynamic.
Mr. Budd was a chemistry teacher who taught with a flair for the dramatic that kept the attention of his classes. He got along especially well with the struggling students, the ones who were often from poor families and arrived at school under the influence of family traditions that said teachers were enemies, members of yet another of the professions that were paid much more they were, and out of their taxes, too. Budd said he never had trouble with this group, though in many quarters they were regarded as the school’s troublemakers.
On the other hand, he was having a terrible time with the kids who were getting good grades and expected to go on to college, especially the ones who might be called upper middle class. The problem was, when he assigned reports, he gave two grades, one for the knowledge of chemistry and one for the adequacy of their use of English in conveying what they knew. The students and their parents were furious. What right did this CHEMISTRY teacher have to give a poor grade that might hurt the child’s chances of getting into a good college?
So the students in those “good” classes, or at least the majority of them, openly revolted. They disregarded his orders for maintaining discipline and generally did all they could to make his life a living hell.
Finally the day came when one girl was laughing in his face and telling him how they were going to get him and he lost it and slapped her in the face. This was of course a dire violation of the school manual, and the students got what they wanted: Budd was fired.
Weep not for Budd. The last I knew he was managing a factory in upper New York State. But public education, not just one insolent girl, took a hit. Energy and creativity and knowledge that could have helped lead promising students toward scientific careers switched to a different track, pursuing a career rather than a calling.
Earlier this year, a research team at Stanford found a way for a solar cell to absorb 12 times more energy, far exceeding what was supposedly the theoretical limit. They decided to try working with materials smaller than the wavelengths of light—nanoscale—and found that a sandwich of such materials trapped photons with unexpected effectiveness. The discovery won’t immediately revolutionize the production and use of solar collectors—there are a lot of steps to making something commercially practical and affordable—but it was an important step toward saving us all from global overheating caused by excessive fossil fuel use.
But before you start cheering for American creativity and the superiority of its institutions of higher learning, consider that the work was done by associate professor of electrical engineering Shanhui Fen and postdoctoral researcher Zongfu Yu.
Remember “Chinese finger traps”? American education is in one, and simply pulling hard one way with standard tests and another way with teacher evaluation based on them isn’t going to get us out.
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