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Honoring Intent
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5 thoughts on “Honoring Intent”
I finally figured out who I am as a teacher, four decades too late. I want to just hang out with my kids and get to know them and not worry about teaching so much, but just having fun. If it takes well over 10,000 hours to even learn a language, then why was I sweating it so much?
I was sprinting in a marathon. Not good. It was a lot more important to me than it was to them. Now we’re talking health issues.
I have always let the testing drive the curriculum. There was always some concept to teach, something seemingly very important. I know we say it a lot here, so much that it has become just a phrase, but it is nevertheless 100% true: We teach kids first and the language second. It is such a true thing to say.
How can we flip what we are doing around in the face of all the degrading grading? I don’t know. I guess we have to be brave to do that. How many of us are brave?
“I have always let the testing drive the curriculum. There was always some concept to teach”
Assessment and instruction go hand in hand. Assessments are wonderful for guiding us to go slower or faster, giving good feedback for us and our students. But “tests” are not assessments, not valid ones anyways. They are false measures for evaluating language. Instead of observing language used in meaningful contexts, they test by proxies of items that seem to related to instruction. Tests are not valid measure of how kids respond verbally and nonverbally in class because they demand “mastery” without honoring intent (best post title ever). It doesn’t honor that kid who is so excited and following along and wants to interact, but all he can do is blurt a suggestion in L1. It doesn’t honor a kid in a silent period who can still draw and label to retell, showing they actually understood the story.
Tests determine the “wrong” and “right”…”haves” and “have nots.” Not the shades of grey comprehension really looks like in real conversational speech.
Textbook creators claim their photocopiable tests have a high reliability. They are right. Tests are more “reliable”: they are reliably garbage in, garbage out. Each kid (except those 4%ers) who takes this test will likely be able to reproduce a small portion of words they’ve memorized from grammar drills. The problem is validity. Tests are not valid measures of students’ abilities to use language in a functional way.
The only valid assessment of what communicative language students can listened to, read, and understand is by observing (and capturing with rubrics) text and speech in real classroom settings. I love the title of this post: honoring intent. Students’ lightbulbs turning on are worthy of honoring.
Oops, I didn’t relate Ben’s quote at the beginning, but I was going to say:
“I have always let the testing drive the curriculum. There was always some concept to teachâ
That’s bravery right there, Ben.
Bravery is looking honestly at what we are doing and attempting to make it better. Bravery is acknowledging that testing is this toxic thing that kills off the little trees, even if it means admitting being wrong. Even if it means an overhaul of our curriculum and assessment practices.
If everyone were as brave as you, Ben, no one would give tests.
I’m getting braver as I get older (and closer to retirement)!
I think part of it has to do with being happy. If we put all those extras aside: making money, getting a job etc… then we reveal what are passions are. The teachers here on this PLC are passionate. So part of that is not having to worry about WHERE we will be. Along as we align with our own ethics and passions then we do not have to worry.
Sometimes I think that I am here by luck but that would be downplaying my efforts. Somehow, I feel that it will all work out. It usually does. If it doesn’t, then I’ll change schools, districts, states, countries etc…