LODGED in K-12 Education

LODGED in K-12 Education

With our state's standardized testing season again upon us (and probably yours as well), please take respite in this popular read from November of 2011, and share it with someone feeling lodged, as well.

Lodged

By Robert Frost, 1928

The rain to the wind said,

“You push and I’ll pelt.”

They so smote the garden bed

That the flowers actually knelt,

And lay lodged – though not dead.

I know how the flowers felt.

(In Latham & Thompson, 1972)

… So says today’s K-12 educator.

           

            In this national race toward psychometric measurability of everything “education,” are we considering how the educators are feeling? You know … the “good folks.”

I’m not speaking on behalf of the small number of those in our profession who have placed their own agendas in front of quality education or those who are ambivalent to such a degree that they have neglected to be mindful of a need for continuous improvement.  Those are the ones, in part, who have given rise to the pushing and pelting.

I’m advocating for good folks, the educational superheroes who are the best possible role models for our nation’s children - those who are now under such extreme pressure to follow a mandated scope and sequence of test-centered curricula that their children can no longer enjoy playtime in elementary schools.  I’m advocating for folks who are no longer in charge of the “how” of what they used to do in their classrooms, and they need to be.

            It used to be that educators had as the final line of their job descriptions, “All other duties as assigned.” That was ok; the good folks accepted that. Today’s replacement: “All other duties that society abrogates,” goes a bit too far.

That, coupled with the fact that children’s potential for educational success is powerfully influenced before they ever reach our nation’s classrooms, makes careers in K-12 education ones in which only miracle workers should apply – ones through which only superheroes should aspire to leadership. 

Please be a miracle worker or superhero, in spite of the rain and the wind.

Consider what some refer to as the Stanford University Marshmallow Study (Prairie View, 2008).  Researchers placed hungry 4-year-olds alone in a room with a single marshmallow each. They mentioned to the children that if they did not eat their marshmallows before the researchers returned, they could each have two marshmallows.  Those who maintained the ability to control their impulses were seen during a follow-up study to have notably higher SAT scores than the children unable to control their impulses (Prairie View, 2008, citing Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990).

Through such studies, one could surmise that a certain degree of emotional intelligence, or even school aptitude, is already present in children before they enroll in school.  Yet, even though parents and guardians are logically implicated as “responsible” for at least some of the disparities in aptitude and efficacy that exist in children upon enrollment in school, educators are still held 100% responsible for student achievement.  Where is parental accountability?  Why not shared accountability?

If politicians wish to sharpen their efforts on true and lasting student achievement, I would like to suggest a few areas through which they can concentrate that would assist in accountability for student achievement.

Legislation declaring that children’s playpens should not be strategically placed in front of televisions as de-facto babysitters for infants and toddlers from birth to age 3 would be a good start. How about local ordinances requiring that all parents, from neglectful deadbeats to two-parent career-aholics, “step-up” and spend more time with their children, so as to provide for the basic needs and language development? What about tighter regulations prohibiting the exposure of our youngest children to indelible messages of easy money without hard work or personal investment; as well as suggestions that parents turn away from their social networking sites in order to spend each evening reading to their children?  Sounds far-fetched and a bit too “big brother-like,” I realize, yet at minimum, encouraging public conversation of such would at least raise awareness of key variables impacting learning that school officials can’t control.

 A more politically feasible suggestion, perhaps: Through a reallocation of state budgets, consideration could be given to a statewide early education initiative that would allow all children, from birth to Kindergarten, to receive a free book in the mail each month, mailed to them personally, an idea now championed in certain local communities through philanthropic support and trusted partnerships.  One such champion of these efforts with a deep love for children is Mike Dewey, an educational leader and friend of mine – a true superhero – who has advocated that all children have reading materials at home (Bay-Arenac, 2012).  I would encourage those criticizing good educators to think “more like Mike.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if those currently pushing and pelting would exercise their leadership to un-lodge our heroes in K-12?  The “good folks” need to feel a little less like the flowers in Frost’s poem, and others more responsible for the plight of our nation’s achievement need to feel a bit more of the wind and the rain.

References

Bay-Arenac ISD Imagination Library, a Dolly Parton-Inspired Program. Retrieved from http://www.baisd.net/earlychildhood/programs/imaginationlibrary/

Latham, E., & Thompson, L. (Eds.). (1972). The Robert Frost reader: Poetry and prose. New York, NY: Owl Books.

Prairie View Process Solutions Group (2008), July. The Capabilities Awareness Profile Informational Guide. Training conducted at Prairie View Process Solutions in Newton, Kansas.

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Please contact Dr. Ryan Donlan anytime with thoughts or comments on the Leadershop's articles, as he can be reached at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or at (812) 237-8624.