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Authentic Assessment – Ben – 15
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18 thoughts on “Authentic Assessment – Ben – 15”
I just got an invite to do the same thing with the teachers at my feeder high school sometime soon. It was sent out from the teacher who gives the big scary test the first week of school, to see who is “ready” for the grammar class that is second-year French. I foresee it being a weird day for me too.
What that curriculum director said to you, that was so cutting. I would not have been able to respond in the moment either. Thanks for sharing your esprit d’escalier because maybe it will help someone else (like me!) go into these meetings with a little more armor on.
Gosh, I liked what you said about physics too. Stephen is studying physics now and it is gobbledegook to me. I am just grateful that I don’t have to try to get people to learn THAT. (Well, especially because that means I would actually have to understand it myself first which has about as much chance of happening as a pig going first class on Delta.)
Languages are special. They are ancient, they are human nature, hardwired into the brain like our human thirst for Meaning. Physics and math and science…those are newcomers to the human scene. Except maybe not science if you conceptualize it as part of our search for Meaning–making hypotheses and looking for evidence for or against, I would say that part of science is a deep human trait that we are drawn to because of our natural curiosity which is part of our humanity. But not the formulae and Greek letters and the gobbledegook Stephen is heroically plowing through. Those are like the rules and charts and sentence diagramming…they are not part of our fundamental divine human nature.
But still interesting and useful, people. I am no physics hater, OK? Well, unless it involves me actually DOING physics. That is where I draw the LINE. 🙂
“Languages are special. They are ancient, they are human nature, hardwired into the brain like our human thirst for Meaning. Physics and math and science…those are newcomers to the human scene.”
Awesome Tina.
Yes, let’s take a moment and think about we all would do when it happens to us…
“Lance, it sounds as if you neither care nor want to know where your students are in terms of what they are learning.”
Me: Correct .
I’m kidding, but really how about this one; “Correct, and that is because according to everything we know about Second Language Acquisition (SLA), we have very little control. All the planning and measuring in the world won’t make a difference. We cannot predict how students will use the target language, so a detailed curriculum will have been created in vain.”
damnit. It deleted my action. It should’ve read:
Me: Correct (rage quit).
That’s bad-ass, Lance. I wish I were a fly on the wall that went down.
“let’s take a moment and think about we all would do when it happens to us…”
I’m glad we’re talking more about this and defending where we stand.
Ben, that guy has no idea.
“Ben, it sounds as if you neither care nor want to know where your students are in terms of what they are learning.”” — Can I beat him up for you? I’m flying to India right now.
What he said was so ugly, but sadly, it doesn’t surprise me. The “assessment” game can get so intense- you think Foreign Language is bad, but you don’t even have a single high-stakes test. (My kids are tested for English Language Arts and for English as a Second Language and their scores count again toward “gap-closure.”)
They are like wolves: they snarl and circle and try to size-you-up. If you’re not going to submit to their “rigor” game, you have to make yourself bigger and tougher with some seriously thick binders and big assessment talk…I shouldn’t have to, but I can talk “assessment” -fluently.
So many times, I would have been steam-rolled if it weren’t for the documentation I could provide in student portfolios. I collect assessments and show growth throughout the year, and it even builds from year to year to prove growth.
Writing portfolios are particularly persuasive, because as you turn the pages you can see the amount and quality of text grow, and administrators start to think “Wow, it guess it is an involved process. Maybe it’s not as simple as memorizing a grammar chart.”
Then, they back off.
And the next time they try to put one of my ESL students in Special Ed. for no reason, I just pull out my big scary portfolios and they run away with their tails between their legs.
Awesome writing portfolios. I just had my back to school night. and showed off my students freewrites! Only one parent complaint but more complaining about their own kid. Damn it can be harsh going to an honors school!
I feel that silence in these meetings can seem like: 1) I don’t care 2) You agree.
To often do people misinterpret my behavior. Like when I attend those Personal Development conferences on Saturdays for units. A bunch of nauseating info. Not research.
Yet, I have to speak up. The old me was silence. I ask questions like “So what you are saying is this _____? So I try to build relationships then I talk SLA talk to my fellow teachers NEVER the presenters. I then show them my students freewrites. They say, “wow” “That’s level 1?” etc….
I tell them that we need to teach how the brain learns. BUT I only tell them AFTER I have developed a relationship. Only then can we have subscribers to the work we do.
I tell my colleagues, you don’t need to prep. I prep by only having my procedures/rules on my Powerpoint not much content.
Empty canned activities and dialogues are too much work and too little gain.
Steve you’re my favorite first year teacher ever. I love it!! I need to just have some writing to show people. Like in my bag at all times.
Ben, it sounds as if you neither care nor want to know where your students are in terms of what they are learning.
Then what you are hearing is not what I mean to say. I care deeply and definitely want to know where my students are in terms of learning: learning to be human and humane, learning to connect and communicate with other humans, learning accept others and their differences, learning to love even the medium of communication as well as the results, learning to respect themselves and others, and learning a myriad of other things that no test – whether on a computer or paper – can possibly measure. Besides, I don’t need “data” to know where my students are in terms of learning those things; I need only interact with them on a daily basis.
“Data is not information; information is not knowledge; knowledge is not understanding; understanding is not wisdom.” – Clifford Stoll, American astronomer, teacher, author
“Life in the real world is far more interesting, far more important, far richer, than anything you’ll ever find on a computer screen.” – Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, page 13. Clifford Stoll
“I don’t need “data” to know where my students are in terms of learning those things; I need only interact with them on a daily basis.”
I wonder how much better I’ll be at this work when I have barely a smidgeon of concern left for the data, where the focus of my attention is on the quality of their interactions on a daily basis. How you said it above I believe is so right on, and I just need to hear it two hundred/thousand more times.
Yes.
You foreign language teachers don’t need data, and it’s a waste of your time to collect it. If you can get away with not collecting data, don’t. If you can fly under the radar, do so. Your kids “lightbulbs” turning on is all the data you need.
But your administrators might need data. I don’t think it’s altogether unreasonable for them to ask for data. If I were an administrator, I would be skeptical of the whole “I see it in their eyes thing.”
Plus, since NCLB, they eat, sleep, and breathe data. If they weren’t obsessed with data, they would be replaced by someone else who is. They’ve been bitten by the data zombies out there roaming the educational streets. But we have the antidote, we just have to be brave enough to confront those monsters!
The only cure is to do what Ben does and insist they come see the TPRS magic in action.
Ben just emailed out a blanket invite for anyone to drop in and observe. I hate to be all Pollyanna. You may or may not be successful in convincing others, but if you can just get one principal on board-or even convince them that you have a strong point-of-view and you’re not going away.
Didn’t Tina say the other day “If not us, than who?” People in this PLC are brave and they inspire me to more courageous -as a teacher and a person.
“I wonder how much better I’ll be at this work when I have barely a smidgeon of concern left for the data, where the focus of my attention is on the quality of their interactions on a daily basis.”
Jim this is pure gold. I want this tattooed backwards on my face so I read it whenever I look at myself in the mirror. I love this. This is my new motto.
Thank you Robert. This is very Robert. A perfect thing to say.
My own esprit d’escalier on this comment was “Dang dude thanks for pointing that out. I was wondering why my kids don’t like my class very much. They need more testing so that they can be happier in class – why take all those instructional minutes just on speaking French, right? I love how you dudes in the Office Learning always bring it back to the learning piece. Your office aptly named! Thanks!”
Robert I just had another esprit d’escalier. It’ the way the hula dancers in this video dance wordless words. I want to learn how to dance words in my language class. Those dancers are as close to the way I want to teach as I have ever seen.
So this person that fears that I don’t care to gauge where my kids are – maybe he is right. I don’t really want to do that. I just want to channel those hula dancers, the story they are sharing there, into my classroom and teach like that, dance the French language out in my classes like that. I want to be able to put their smiles on my own face in class and I want my arms to do Point and Pause with arms like that. Then I will reach my kids.
I’m going to say that again – it feels core for me. If I can metaphorically dance like these hula dancers when teaching French, especially with that Hawaiian smile on my own face, then I can say I’m doing what I want to in my classes. Those dancers are inviting human dignity in. That’s what I want to do. I’ll worry about the thematic units later.
Does that make me a bad person?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryF9p-nqsWw&ebc=ANyPxKoSvYIjz51BOCCAkxOZv8s3KXARtMw0nzDap7N4eOlWinPbp8u-ms1_gUDSG-_N04jMlEl-SvMQP7RKJRESbfz5Uf9o7g
In a way, Ben, I’m relieved to know that you still have to face some of this harsh criticism on the CI approach at your new school. It makes your thoughts and your writing ever more credible.
It’s a tricky balance for me when I face such criticism. How much do I let go emotionally… trying to let that negativity dissolve into airy nothingness, and how much do I need to respond to defend my practice. As Claire says, we are courageous people here, but we also run the risk of alienating our selves if we don’t build those relationships, like Steven said. I strive to have the presence of thought to be able to respond to those kind of comments like Robert exemplifies here. I’ll get there, some day.