Why do we teach?  A simple yet profound question.  I have been an administrator for about 3 years now, so I distinctly remember leading my own class.  I taught American History to juniors in high school.  Amazingly, this was before there was so much pressure to nail the standards.

When I was a high school student, I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I knew a teacher was out of the question.  History?  It was o.k., but it did not spark any love for learning.  This all changed my junior year of high school.  I had a wonderful teach, Ms. Hearn, who changed everything.

She created a love for history in me.  I am not sure I remember all of the details she taught us, but she taught me to love history.  I pursued this as an undergraduate.  To this day, I still love history.  My book shelves are split between history books and educational practice/leadership books.

When I was teaching American History, my goal was to spark this same kind of interest in history.  I knew my students would probably not remember much of the details as well.  I just wanted them to find it interesting, which would hopefully lead to a love of history.  I knew the standards and for the most part stuck to them.  I am not so sure this would fly today.  If this took place in a state tested subject, I KNOW it would not fly.  But I truly felt if I could create the interest it would lead to authentic learning.  Looking back, if I had to do it over again, I would focus more on the standards, as it IS the right thing to do.  However, I know I would find a way to create the same atmosphere of history is exciting, riveting, happy, sad, personal, etc…

I am not really sure where the focus of this post is going.  I guess I just want to shed light on one of the most crucial jobs of educators.  Focusing on the standards while making your class enjoyable.  Looking back, I never had many discipline problems in my class.  I was never really sure why.  I never yelled at the students and I was not always the “authority” of the room.  I also made a concerted effort each and every day to keep my class exciting.  We did all sorts of things–mock talk shows, living history demonstrations, you be the leader simulations, anything to keep the kids from dreading history class.

This can be translated to all subject areas.  If the kids are excited and interested, they will learn more.  The discipline issues will decrease dramatically.  You will not spend the hour forcing kids to wake up and pay attention.  Your focus on the standards will be much more authentic and real for the kids.  Isn’t that what it is all about?

I came across this great article via the ASCD express.  It was written by Jennifer Booher-Jennings.  The article does a great job comparing how hospitals and schools are graded.

“Only 41 hospitals—less than 1 percent of all hospitals nationwide—were identified as high-mortality. Yet in the 2004-05 school year, 26 percent of American schools landed on education’s comparable list—those that did not make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.” 

The article does not proceed to criticize American public schools.  Instead, the author compares how hospitals are graded and how schools are graded.  Most people in education realize schools are not equal.  It would be great if we could compare all schools as apples to apples.  We know we must teach all of the kids who walk through our doors.  However, I think we all also realize each child comes with their own circumstances and backgrounds.  Apparently, hospitals realize their patients arrive at their doors in varying states of health.  If we graded hospitals as we do schools, none of that would matter.  If a patient arrived at a hospital, the institution had two options-restore their health or receive a failing grade.

States us a “risk adjustment” when calculating the “grades” of their hospitals that perform cardiac surgeries.  The article provides a lot of the details but essentially it takes dozens of patient characteristics into account.  The thinking is that hospitals should not be penalized for patients who are sicker upon arrival than others.  Here is how the Health and Human Services Department explains it:

“The characteristics that Medicare patients bring with them when they arrive at a hospital with a heart attack or heart failure are not under the control of the hospital. However, some patient characteristics may make death more likely (increase the ‘risk’ of death), no matter where the patient is treated or how good the care is. … Therefore, when mortality rates are calculated for each hospital for a 12-month period, they are adjusted based on the unique mix of patients that hospital treated.”

Following this line of thinking, educators could produce a similar laundry list of factors beyond their control that effect student learning: socio-economic status, parental involvement, student health and the list goes on and on.

I think when educators point things like this out, we are perceived as shielding ourselves from criticism.  The article makes another great point about this notion.  If we were able to compare schools using some sort of “risk adjustment” we would get a much clearer picture of how individual schools are performing.  We would not be able to say that one school is performing better than the other due to factor X.  If schools are graded in a more equitable format, we would know which schools are truly failing.  I have seen schools who do great on state assessments and schools that do not perform nearly as well.  Does this automatically mean school A is better?  What if school A is located among multi-million dollar homes whose children attend school daily and have private tutors to boot?  What if school B serves a section of an inner city filled with crime and poverty?   What if school B serves children who do not speak English?  Do the test scores of each school automatically determine which school is better?  Which teachers are better?