11-20-2010

I want to warn you before you begin; this post will cover subject matter that is considered boring by regular folk.  Those who do find this interesting, please put down the sharp object you are holding and move away from the children. 

In our district, we don’t give out grades and we don’t promote students to the next grade at the end of the school year the same way traditional schools do.  We are on a standards based system, where each subject has a set of standards that a student has to master before moving to that subject’s next level.  In the traditional system, a student would move to the next grade at the end of the school year, assuming he passed, moving up in all subjects (math, science, reading).  In our system, the subjects are not tied to each other for movement.  The student advances a level when that particular subject level has been mastered.  Mastering includes presentations, tests, and other work.  When all of the standards in a particular subject have been mastered, the student must pass an end of level assessment in order to move up to the next level in that subject.  This would work great if all students advanced at the same pace. They don’t.  A student could be in the 4^th grade, but be in level 3 in math and level 5 in reading.  Some 4^th graders are almost done with their science standards in level 4, but others have just started, making it difficult to teach to each student at their current standard level. Excuse me; I just gave myself a nosebleed typing this.  It’s really much more complicated than it sounds. 

I think this approach to education can work, but it will need some tweaking to get it right.  If I could convince the students that it is some sort of Pac-Man game, eating his way to each level, this could be a motivator for them.  (I realize I’m dating myself when I reference a video game and Pac-Man is what comes to mind.)  I am aware of the arguments against the standards based system, and have made many myself.  But by trying new approaches like this, we can improve how we educate our children. Learning how to differentiate teaching to each student is the difficult part. (I told you it was going to be boring.)

I now wish one of my superhuman abilities would be to teach to each student at an individual level.  Since we can only choose three abilities (don’t be greedy), I would have to give one up I’ve already wished for.  I think I want to keep the invisibility power. It would come in handy during those awkward moments at a dinner party, when it is my turn to contribute something intelligent to the conversation.  Instead of sharing the time I got my head stuck in the staircase banister, I could quietly disappear and go back to the bar for another drink.  To be honest, I’ve never been to a dinner party and nobody has ever turned to me with expectations of something intelligent coming out of my mouth.  But I’m keeping it just in case.  I’d probably trade my ability to walk fast.  I know that isn’t really superhumany, but I think I would use it more than some sort of fast running ability.  I really don’t have anywhere to be that quickly. So my ability to walk fast will be traded for the ability to teach my students at an individual level.  The other superhuman ability I will keep will be my power to pretend to care about other people’s problems. 

This is the kind of blog you get when nothing exciting happens here during the week. Tying together a standards based system with superhuman powers in one post is not easy.  Or as you have just witnessed, not possible.  Last week, I had the great fortune of watching a dog take a crap on a frozen lake.  No such luck this week.  I have not seen a cat in the village yet, but they’re not that funny anyway. They are more discrete about where they crap.