Good teachers don’t mind being held accountable for things they can control, because they know they exceed whatever standards are set.

I certainly agree that the next generation would be better served if the current one would acknowledge the systemic problems and work together to “make it better.” That won’t happen without incentive, though - institutional inertia sees to that. So NCLB provides a push. Charter schools and virtual schools provide a push. The explosive growth in homeschooling pushes. As a parent, I have far more choices about how to educate my children than did my parents, or theirs.

Competition forces innovation, and innovation produces progress. It’s a Good Thing.

AJ, the commentary indicates that “violence” was used literally, not metaphorically. Hence the reaction.

In a sense, the education system lives in denial with respect to the role it plays in fostering violence, bullying and an increasing drop-out rate. Most of the commentary I find on these topics are aimed at trying to “fix” the student, with little or no reflection on how the system itself fosters negative energy in people. Instead we see “intervention” strategies designed to deal the symptoms while largely ignoring the potential cause.

Not only should educators strive to eliminate violence in the classroom, they should strive to eliminate the violence that the education system itself inspires. To believe that education does not inspire violence to some degree is, to my thinking, completely irresponsible.

There has been a significant failure for education to adapt and evolve. Instead, in my experience, it is largely reactionary and protective. The words “innovation” and “change” really mean variation on the same theme. The core assumptions that drive education via curriculum, instruction and evaluation remain largely in tact.

To what extent is any given educator an agent of violence? This is a key question and one that is probably an uncomfortable one for educators to consider. There is something that happens that is significantly larger in scope and effect than education - and that is learning. By probing this question with an open frame of mind it is not hard to see that in spite of all discussion about authentic learning, self-directed learning and so on there is another side - a darker more mercurial side. Sure enough authentic and self-directed learning are occurring, but it often has very little to do with the stated educational objectives. Learning is not always a safe warm-fuzzy phenomenon.

I agree with Freire: “Any situtation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence.” However, in some cases, even the process of inquiry has become an object of control.

In changing students into objects (I would add teachers to this for the system turns them into objects as well), we suppress their own unique identity. The chronic supression of identity can sow the seeds of psychopathology and violence.

Let’s say a teacher believes that students need to have a say in their own education. Fine. How are you going about offering them that? And is it working? Are they taking you up on it? I’ve had comments from Japanese people (students and others) which suggest that they may not either take kindly to this kind of participatory approach, or feel it necessary: some of the comments have been along the lines of “don’t assume that students are not autonomous or are completely submissive, just judging by their lak of participation in class”; “Japanese have/are capable of self-direction, they just may not show it in ways that Westerners can recognize”; or “just get on and teach what you have to teach, and let students decide for themselves if they want it or not.”

It might make an interesting experiment to try a participatory approach, along the lines of Auerbach or A.S.Neill but there are several aspects of Japanese group dynamics that would make such an approach highly problematic. And anyway, I think it would best be done in the students’ native language.

Great post BTW… show those techno-buggers

Why did you leave a manual trackback? Is there something I should have done with the WP settings that I haven’t?

“Aaron, this is simply nonsense. The entire point of NCLB is to ensure that ALL children are educated, and to stop the practice of social promotion. In one breath you label the mechanism for measuring student achievement “violence” and in the next you decry the very problem that it’s trying to solve!”

Well, yes, that’s partially because I didn’t think this through enough before writing it and partially because I don’t always express myself well enough in writing. Blogs are great that way, though, right?

But is NCLB really commited to educating? Or is it more of policy designed to award institutional compliance with “teaching” a standardized body of knowledge, the acquisition of which is demonstrated through standardized testing? To me, education involves the whole being: the emotions, the intellect, the physical body, the intuition, etc. We’re not educating if we just focus on the intellect and memory. That’s training, and in some cases brainwashing. Our children deserve better than that.

“But if we look at root causes, might entrenched teacher unions with political rather than educational agendas and lack of accountability at all levels be part of the problem?”

Yes, good point. As everything is interconnected, what happens in one area affects what happens elsewhere. While I think unions *can* be good, they aren’t always. What is needed is commitment to good communication and dialogue from all parties involved - from the students to teachers, to administrators, and parents - if truly beneficial transformation is to come about. We cannot take these combative stances. We’re all in this together and, thus, we need to work together and respect one another.

“But students don’t HAVE to go to university. Or are you talking about compulsory education?”

Up through the undergraduate years, it’s mostly all compulsory. I bet there are a large number of Japanese students who go to the university because that’s what their parents expect and that’s where their junior and senior high school experiences push and condition them to be. What other choices do they realistically have? Travel for a year? Work for a year? I don’t think so - not in this society.

“And what is wrong with institutions defining learning objectives? What kind of place would it be that didn’t set any?”

Nothing is wrong with defining learning objectives. What is wrong is not giving students a choice in the matter. As a student, if I know I learn better by submitting myself to a rigid curriculum with heavy testing, then I will choose that route and be rewarded for hard effort. But if I feel I learn better by choosing my own goals, setting my own pace, and working one-on-one occasionally with an advisor or tutor, then I’m screwed because the institution doesn’t allow it. So my only choice is to play the good student or drop out.

Either way I’m dissatisfied. I want society to recognize my achievements in learning, but in order to earn that stamp of approval, I must jump through someone else’s hoops, many of which may be of little interest or relevance to me. What a drag! It’s no wonder students complain about their classes. I’ve walked and looked into pleny of classes where some professor is standing on a stage at a podium talking for 90 min straight and almost half the class is either sleeping, reading the newspaper, or using text messaging on their cell phones. That kind of learning environment only benefits a minority.

So as you say, there are very few Japanese students with the autonomy to even be capable of being in such a predicament. To “pick up the reins” and take control and direction over their learning is something that makes many of them either confused, bored, or resentful. They are likely to view a teacher who makes attempts in the classroom at giving them more control as a lazy, ineffective teacher.

I have found that my students respond nicely to authoritative methods, which is not a problem whatsoever if we see complete lack of autonomy and self-direction as unproblematic. I, however, see it as most problematic, because it makes a society suseptable to tyranny, manipulation, and control by dominant policical and economic forces.

Is some kind of gimmick in order? Do we need to trick people into being autonomous, much like the Zen master tricks people into seeing their true nature through pointless koan? Is there such a method? What form would it take? Can we not start with some kind of rigid structure and then slowly, systematically, pull away the supports for students who want it? Should we not start training students to take more responsibility for their learning at a much earlier age?

That greed, fear, and ignorance is called radical Islamism - a worldview that insists that the entire world be subject to Taliban-style sharia law, or die. Don’t take my word for it - read what people like al-Zarkawi and bin Laden say themselves. Their goal is nothing less than a global Caliphate. You and I and our students can convert, submit, or die.

Our schools - no matter how enlightened - are not likely to be able to make much of a dent in that mindset.

“…our institutions are actually promoting ignorance through awarding non-critical compliance and implementing a standardized curriculum that benfits the few (mostly white males in the USA)…”

Aaron, this is simply nonsense. The entire point of NCLB is to ensure that ALL children are educated, and to stop the practice of social promotion. In one breath you label the mechanism for measuring student achievement “violence” and in the next you decry the very problem that it’s trying to solve!

Yes, it’s a shame that teachers spend so much time on test prep. I’m no fan of standardized tests, but they are the best thing available to reliably measure (even if it’s an artificial measure) the achievement of very large numbers of students. If someone can come up with a bulletproof rubric with 100% - heck, I’ll settle for 80% - inter-rater reliability for assessing student portfolios by the millions, sign me up.

But if we look at root causes, might entrenched teacher unions with political rather than educational agendas and lack of accountability at all levels be part of the problem?

Assessment on Trial

Aaron Campbell got me thinking on the topic of testing and assessment again today: specifically the role of testing and [...]

If students are being put through standardized testing and being forced to submit to institutionally defined learning objectives without their informed consent, that is violence But students don’t HAVE to go to university. Or are you talking about compulsory education? And what is wrong with institutions defining learning objectives? What kind of place would it be that didn’t set any? I sympathize, and I’m not gone over completely to the dark side, but I see many of my own students are confused by my attempts to make them responsible for their own learning; they don’t want to and/or are incapable of setting their own (language-)learning objectives (and this may partly be a result of their low level of English ability; more advanced students DO show interest in picking up the reins, and are able to act responsibly). I soon developed an antipathy to “learner training”, a form of autonomy that developed in the US particularly, and pioneered by such as Anita Wenden et al. It smacked of teacher-control masquerading as autonomy. But I’m now moving in that direction myself, as I think the kind of freedom and choices I’ve offered my students have left many simply confused and bored: unable to understand what I’m on about, and having nowhere near enough either English ability or confidence or maturity to make their own choices regarding materials or even objectives, they simply putter about aimlessly, and quite a few give up and just go through the motions, hoping to convince me that they are actually working when in fact they’re doing nothing of the sort. Not working (neither studying nor practising), they don’t achieve anything, which feeds into a vicious cycle of apathydisrespect (towards both me and themselves) and irresponsible behaviour. I’m now experimenting with some form of training - very teacher-controlled - and I’m embarrassed and disgusted to see that it seems to be working. Damn! See my blog for more boring, long-winded ramblings on this theme.

I agree with you that more tact is necessary if we are to achieve the kind of changes necessary to help liberate ourselves and our students from the institutional oppression we face. Had I been in a different mood, I could have stated just how lucky my EFL students are to have the kind of opportunities they do. I see how the use of the word ‘violence’ was too extreme and if perpetuated in the discourse on these issues, could prove counterproductive. Thank you for pointing that out.

On the moral equivalence issue, I still feel that we, as a society, aren’t focusing nearly enough on the root causes of the kind of violence that we are witnessing in places like the Middle East and Besian. Citizens, governments, corportations, NGOs, the media, and private citizens can point their fingers all they want at who is to blame, but the fact is that greed, fear, and ignorance on a large scale simply comes from greed, fear, and ignorance at the level of the individual mind. And if our educational practices aren’t dealing with the mind at this individual level, then we are just perpetuating the social injustices from which violent action springs. If we are not doing anything to help free people, and ourselves, from these mental shackles, then isn’t that neglectful? And if our institutions are actually promoting ignorance through awarding non-critical compliance and implementing a standardized curriculum that benfits the few (mostly white males in the USA), then is that not violent? Would the kind of violence we see in the Middle East even exist if love, sharing, compassion, and the commitment to cross-cultural dialogue and understanding were at the foundation of our educational endeavors in the West? What I see as the foundation now is performance, accountability, and competition, which breeds winners and losers. Well, what else can we expect but all sorts of violence to erupt on a national and global scale when people are desperate and see being a winner as the way out?

Your second concern isn’t pedantic squibbling at all. Your point on contrasting performance and control with love and respect was right on. Helping someone perform to their potential is indeed an act of love and respect. My comments were off the cuff and obviously weren’t well thought out. What prompted me to write that was a feeling of disgust at the constant talk I hear of performance measures and achievement when it comes to learning, but rarely any talk of what the students want, what they feel, and what they need. The communicative flow is so one-way: from the top down. They are fed an “education” rather than being encouraged to create one. It tires me. But I do agree with you: performance isn’t the enemy here.

Thank you so much for your comments here, Cleve. I hope we can continue this, and more discussions like these.

Let me say right off that I’m 110% in agreement with the need to change the way education has been institutionalized, and the ways we’re all trying to do that, each in our own context (mine is business English for adults). But you know that.

That said, I have two concerns with this post. First, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with using the word “violence” in this context. Two reasons:

+ Tactical: we have a huge challenge in changing the way people think, and they will protect their investment in the institutionalization that we’re working towards changing (sorry for the “we’ and “they” thing but you know what I mean). “They” will latch on to using this word in this context as an example of unreasonableness on our part. So I’m worried that using the word “violence” in this way will hurt our effectiveness as change agents.
+ Moral equivalence: without jumping into the hotseat that arguing about moral equivalence entails, I feel that using the word “violence” in this way depreciates the suffering of those in, say, Beslan, or the Middle East, or at home with abusive parents, who truly suffer from physical insecurity. I think there is a big difference between physical abuse and emotional abuse, and I know that you’re intentions are to point out that modern education is in way inflicting the latter, and that it must stop. I agree wholeheartedly. But I’m not sure this is the best way to frame the debate.

My second concern is associating “performace” with “control” and contrasting performance with “love and respect”. I think another way to look at it is that helping learners perform at their individual potential is an expression of love and that allowing learners to founder is a lack of respect. How to measure performance is another question, and I think your point is that current assessment practices are pathetic. I agree. But the worst result of current assessment is that it doesn’t promote high performance. Sorry if this seems like pedantic semantic quibbling but I think we’ll be better able to start to change things if we’re clear on what exactly we’re against, and performance isn’t it. (And maybe it’s just that I’m more rinzai to your soto.)

Aaron, all this is said in a spirit of comradery, and as an example of the conversation that blogs are so wonderful at promoting. I’m with you all the way, and am only interested in fine tuning our methods a bit.