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Originally published in the January 16th, 2008 issue of Education Week. By Paul Barnwell How often do you hear, read, or speak the words data, core content, depth of knowledge, grades, standards, comparisons, future, rigor, or test scores? If you are employed in a public school, your answer is probably somewhere between “often” and “a staggering amount.” Our current discourse is, regrettably, dominated by language relating to academic achievement. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for utilizing standards, test scores, and similar methods as a piece of measuring teaching and learning, but we are caught in an era when scholastic success is defined far too narrowly. Perhaps you comfortably relate to the aforementioned terms, but take a moment and think back to your initial motives for becoming a teacher. Does inspiring students, relationships, passion for learning, individual growth, and happiness come to mind? In your current workplace environment, do you feel enabled to ever use language that reflects your initial impulse or drive to work in the classroom? Do you ever ponder how hard it is to begin dialogue with your colleagues or administrators while using language other than the discourse of academic achievement? When I express to coworkers that I loathe the constant data collection and analysis because it depersonalizes education and pulls focus away from crucial challenges such as inspiring kids, creating authentic assignments, and building relationships, most of my arguments fall on deaf ears. This is partly because I’m often using a vastly different discourse. Discourse is institutional language that influences and reflects values and practices in organizations. Discourse can dictate what goes on and make it very difficult for those who oppose the dominant discourse to make their voices heard. Right now, there is no debate: academic achievement discourse—language I mentioned in the opening paragraph—rules the day. There are plenty of reasons to resist this current language, once we step back and examine the values and practices we are propagating within this framework. Thomas Armstrong’s The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice, outlines a language to provide a counterpunch: Human Development Discourse. Within Human Development Discourse (HDD), one focuses on methods of measuring individual student improvement, instead of collecting numerical data to compare schools, districts and states. HDD champions the process of learning, rather than disproportionately valuing the end product. HDD relies on “human” measures of assessment, such as authentic student projects, discussion, and anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, it seems that quantitative data is all that matters right now. HDD values grass-roots initiatives to challenge seemingly endless top-down mandates. Lastly, HDD values fostering the development of students who enjoy learning and become responsible citizens, when right now our current bottom line is high test scores and money. If you believe as I do, that developing passion for learning is the number one thing you can instill in your students, resist the deluge of academic achievement discourse and embrace Human Development Discourse. Talk to coworkers about exciting things you are doing in your classroom to inspire children, even if it isn’t a strategy that will positively affect test scores. Discuss with your principal ways in which your school can celebrate the process of learning, rather than solely the end product of testing indexes. Recognizing and thoughtfully challenging the current dominant discourse is one way we can positively affect our school cultures, moving them more towards places where state measures and NCLB are useful indicators of student achievement, but not the defining measure of what we value in schools.
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