Our classes are based on a creative community that we lead. In all communities, the members play different roles, and bring different strengths to the group. We create stories together, but some kids are stronger co-creators. We laugh, but some kids get more of the humor. We have strong eye contact, but some have stronger eye contact than others. They all do their jobs, but some better than others.
So how do we evaluate that dynamic? Who gets to judge? How can we build trust in our classrooms within a nationwide school culture in which, every day, kids are made to feel that they can be wrong, that somehow they don’t quite measure up to others?
And how can we live with ourselves if we do communicate that message – that somehow they don’t measure up – despite the knowledge that everyone can learn a language and that it is an unconscious process over which we have no control? Our assessment must align with that reality.
May God, in His own time and in His own way, bless and guide all of us language teachers as we try to negotiate our way through this hypocrisy. Amen.
As Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) said about children in The Night of the Hunter:
…Lord, save little children. You’d think the world would be ashamed to name such a day as Christmas for one of them and then go on in the same old way. My soul is humble when I see the way little ones accept their lot. Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain’s a-cold. Yet they abide…They abide and they endure….