Value, Rightness, and Truth

 

Today in my reading, I came across this quote from Trappist Monk Thomas Merton:

Do not depend on the hope of results...You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, and truth of the work itself.

This brought to mind immediately what happened at our school this week. I will begin with a conversation I had with a student named Charli.

 

Charli is in my intensive reading class and has been the hardest worker consistently all year. She put in tons of extra time on her iReady pathway, pushing herself to "low 8" status, which is great for a 7th grader. Right where she should be.

But Charli did not score proficient on the exam. She came in at a level 2 again. I could tell the promise of results had hurt her. She had been given false information: Do THIS and it will equal THAT.

To add insult to injury, there were other learners in that class who did score proficient, who did not do as well on assignments or put in the time on iReady. Yes, it can be puzzling. But only if you think standardized tests -- especially adaptive ones -- are true evidence. I have been savvy enough all along to know this is not necessarily true.

I explained to her that it could be, because the test is adaptive, she answered something wrong and it dipped her pathway. I don't actually KNOW, but I do know that is possible. Now I've heard there is a way for them to see exactly their ups and downs on the adaptation, but I haven't had a chance to talk to her about that yet, or figure out where to find it.

Since the kids are able to access their test scores very shortly after they are done testing, this has created a situation where the rest of the day they are asking each other about their test scores. This is fine for those who did well. But for those who didn't do as they hoped or expected, it is devastating.

This is doing nothing to help the mental health crisis we face, let me tell you.

What I want Charli to know is that her efforts were good for HER, even if it didn't result in the score she had hoped to attain. When I read the Merton quote, I thought about the value and the rightness and the truth in doing consistently good work with effort and persistence. It is devastating to think we are teaching these kids there is only one result that matters. The true results show up in the rest of their lives!

I recall when I taught Advanced Placement Literature. We would read books and poetry and discuss and present and write papers and try to improve those papers. There was a learning process involved. Students in the class could get an A and still not "pass" the AP exam [there is actually no pass score...just scores that can give you college credit and some that don't.]  Even if they didn't get but a 1 or 2 on the AP exam, they worked the process, they learned, they tried, they took risks. 

 

But at the time, someone out in the know-it-all world was screeching that their grade in the course should equal their score. I thought it was the most asinine thing I ever heard. How can the learning process equal the end score?As an educator, it makes no sense to me. What was the course for if not to learn how to read deeply and communicate ideas and write more fluently? If they already knew those things, why would they need the course? It's like saying athletes should excel perfectly in practice or they don't deserve to win the game. What?

 

In my reading I also noted this from Parker Palmer:

 

Once one has eyes to see it, wholeness can always be found, hidden beneath the broken surface of things.

 

So my message to Charli is to turn her focus to wholeness of learning. There are many things broken in our education system, and I've long felt standardized tests are part of that brokenness. Don't get stuck below the surface where the cracks are. Stay the course of the value of what you are learning, the rightness of what it can bring to the world, and the truth of who you are as a human. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things we must elevate. Those are the things we can trust.