Peter Greene, a high school teacher in Pennsylvania and blogger extraordinaire, here reviews David Coleman’s approach to teaching literature and finds it wanting.
This matters because David Coleman is both the architect of the infamous Common Core standards and the CEO of the College Board, which administers the SAT for college admission.
Greene examines how Coleman would teach Hamlet, Huck Finn, the Gettysburg Address, and a few other well-known literary works and shows what Coleman does not understand about teaching.
I hope not to spoil your pleasure in reading Greene’s analysis by sharing his concluding thoughts:
Coleman repeatedly fails to distinguish between his own experience of the text and Universal Truth. This leads him both to believe apparently that if he just figured something out about Bernardo, he must be the first person ever to see it, that his own reaction to a line is the universal one, that his path into the text is the only one, and that things that do not matter to him should not matter to anybody. Of all the reformsters, he is the one least likely to ever acknowledge contributions of any other living human being. For someone who famously said that nobody gives a shot about your thoughts and feelings, Coleman is enormously fascinated by and has great fait on his own thoughts and feelings.
The frequent rap on Coleman’s reading approach is that it is test prep, a technique designed to prepare students to take standardized tests. But the more Coleman I read, the more I suspect it’s the other way around– that Coleman thinks a standardized test is really a great model of life, where there’s always just one correct answer, one correct path, one correct reading, and life is about showing that you have it (or telling other people to have it).
Sadly, it often seems that what David Coleman doesn’t know about literature is what David Coleman doesn’t know about being human in the world. Life is not a bubble test. There is a richness and variety in human experience that Coleman simply does not recognize nor allow for. His view of knowledge, learning, understanding, and experience is cramped and tiny. It’s unfortunate that circumstances have allowed him such unfettered power over the very idea of what an educated person should be. It’s like making a person who sees only black and white the High Minister of National Art.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What do Mao and Coleman have in common and what else might they have in common?
“Coleman thinks a standardized test is really a great model of life, where there’s always just one correct answer, one correct path, one correct reading, and life is about showing that you have it (or telling other people to have it).”
Under Mao, China thought like Coleman, but not today.
Over the last two decades, Shanghai has worked hard to improve teachers’ capacities, steadily raising the level of education required to teach in the schools. Many teachers now have master’s degrees. Every teacher is expected to get at least 240 hours of professional development every five years …
Under the slogan, “return class time to students,” teachers have been encouraged to lecture less and stimulate active student engagement more.
Another slogan states that “to every question there should be more than a single answer.”
Overall, the heart of the curriculum in China has moved from the acquisition of knowledge to the development of student capacity to acquire and effectively use knowledge over time.
http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/shanghai-china/
One day soon, millions crowded in Times Square in New York will be prompted to wave flags, cheer and chant for Chairman Bill Gates, who promises a chicken in every pot and riches for every homeless person. In the background, we will see David Coleman standing with the other ministers of the American oligarchy, while out of sight of the cameras, the crowd will surrounded by armored shock troops holding laser guns that make no noise when the fire and cost a lot less to use than firing noisy bullets and bombs.
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Basically Coleman is trying to program the reading of literature, so why doesn’t he write a computer program to do it? If a computer can grade literature, it can read it the way Coleman wants. What’s the point of training a human to do something a computer can? Human’s should read literature based on feeling and personal experience, and the traits that make them unique from simple computer based data harvesting.
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“The Colemanbot”
Designed in a lab at MIT
The Colemanbot for SAT
Unequaled for the standard test
Can beat Commander Data’s best
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If I may, I would like to riff off Peter Greene’s last sentence, to wit:
“It’s like making a person who sees only black and white the High Minister of National Art.”
Uh, if I may, with all apologies to a fine blogger, that may be the understatement of the year.
What do I mean?
Let me rephrase that, er, slightly:
“It’s like making a person who sees only black and white the director of, buyer for, and curator of the Museum of Vibrant Colorful Art For the Visually Acute and Discriminating.”
😜
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Nice touch. I think Peter might agree.
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As I’ve watched my three sons become readers, each by a different route but all because they were reading about things they were interested in, it just adds to my anger over the edicts — not “informational texts” — was the entry and continues to be so. On thing on my mind this morning, which Sharon and I talked about, was how American soldiers during the “necessary” wars we’ve had to fight (I list among those the Civil War and World War II) were readers and lovers of fiction. Both Grant and Sherman, who wrote two of the best “informational text” books of the 19th Century, were avid theater goers. Sherman particularly liked the variations on Shakespeare’s plays that were regularly produced in camp except when the armies were on the march or in battle. (During those long winters, it was culture or booze… often both. Had Grant not demurred on family business, he would have been sitting with President and Mrs. Lincoln the night Lincoln was shot. Lincoln, too, knew a lot about “informational text” — and so chose to enjoy the theater whenever he could. Only a historical moron part of a group of such (led by Arne Duncan and his corporate sponsors) could prattle forward about Common Core as it’s been applied to reading.
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Bravo!
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I guess Coleman must read a piece of literature and amass everything the first time he reads it – how unreal! Great literature has nuances that often are not seen until the piece is read many times – that’s one reason why great literature transcends time & people want to read it more than one time (unlike a contemporary best seller)
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All I can say is thank God I had some exceptional, great, and not so great teachers as a school lad in Washington, DC. They taught me well. They taught me how to think, read and analyze. Heck, I even modeled some of my teaching practices and strategies on what they did 40-50 years ago in the classroom. The only thing Coleman has contributed to education and my practices, is the retirement of one of my favorite rejoinders: guys life isn’t a multiple-choice test.
I just want to thank Dave for helping to dumb down America. The rest of the world I’m sure thanks you!
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Masterful, Peter. Thank you.
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YES I AGREE…
Dear Governor Cuomo and fellow like-minded minions,
Your hyperbolic statement of public schools being the last monopoly is incorrect. A better analogy is that you and others like you who are making demands of teachers teaching children in public education is analogous to a slave owner demanding his slaves pick more cotton faster than is humanly possible or face punishment for no wrong doing of their own but rather inhumane demands and treatment. The technology of the cotton gin didn’t reduce or eliminate slavery as it was hoped by the inventor but rather ramped up the desire for more profit. The dehumanization of the system was increased as inappropriate, inhumane demands and treatment were thrust upon the captive labor force of enslaved humans in the name of greed and excessive profit. This profit in no way benefitted the enslaved population who were insanely considered property not people in the eyes of the law.
We the Citizens of the United States who teach children in the public school system are not some outsourced industry to some newly industrialized nation where the citizen workers are being exploited because the workforce is abundant and workers are easily replaced once any exploited worker is injured or dies trying to keep up the inhumane pace. That is what Cuomo and his kind want to do. They want to dehumanize the process of teaching and reduce it to a form that is easily replaced by minimally trained individuals. OK so we current teachers with Master’s degrees conferred upon us by New York State are now the wretched refuse because we are doing the job you trained us to do. Your system trained us. If your system was so flawed in our training at that time why would we think you and your kind are an appropriate dictator of the improvement?
Yes there is a breakdown in the system…we realize this as the teachers of children. This is after all the GREAT EXPERIMENT WE CALL THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We the Amazing citizens of the Amazing United States of America are aware of the authentic improvements that will transform the United States educational system. You Mr. Tammany Boss have misdirected the energy of the educational system in order to kill it and rebuild an outsourced cheaper and inferior product not improve the product so stop espousing that you are improving the system. You are a robber baron of the worst kind. You hide your sincere motives and pretend with your forked tongue to be promoting a reform that will improve the quality of education when the words you really mean to say is a cheaper form of education will prepare the 21st century workforce to be drones that will feel their inferiority and never rise up to speak truth to power.
Today’s educational system isn’t about educating faster and cheaper like exploited labor sewing in a sweatshop. This is about educating human children better not faster and cheaper. Time has come to reallocate resources for new models of public education that value the human capital of teachers who pay to educate themselves as instructed by the rule book with Master’s degrees and seeking continual opportunities to learn, grow, and improve as educators.
We began with a public education model that was noble and valiant to educate all in the 1800’s, and now we want that to evolve into a 21st Century educational model that isn’t about cheaper and faster, or one that lays waste to those students who need more and deserve more. From the accelerated student to the challenged student, and the students from one end of the spectrum to the other who have their own unique leaning needs regardless of scoring the highest or lowest on a test because they all have learning challenges and needs…all students deserve more than the system is allowing these children, yet powerful, ignorant, politicians expect the same accomplishment at the same time from all of these children. We know, you know, and even parent knows each child begins with different physical needs, emotional needs, and educational needs even when born to the same two parents.
The system created by No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top has attempted to create a future workforce that feels it is not enough as a human and deserves less as a person, worker and so he, she, they, don’t ask or expect protections in the workplace and society as a consumer. That is who you Governor Cuomo and others like you are training and what you are training into existence with the laws you have adopted.
We are the amazing citizens of the amazing United States of America, our amazing children are citizens and they deserve smaller class sizes, appropriate models of comparison to the schools that people pay $40,000 dollars a year or more to send their children to as examples of the best ways to educate children. Is my tuition waiver to a charter school going to cover the cost of $40,000? No but your child will get that education and you want to make mine cheaper now by paying the human capital less in order to provide profits to investors. Who will win out in a decision between education improvements and shareholder profits? You can’t be beholden to two gods Andrew and you have demonstrated that your god is the golden idol of greed wrapped in green backs. We the public school products do most of the living, breathing, buying and dying that make the economy move. So we deserve our due, a top of the line educational system.
We aren’t going to be treated like exploited laborers working with a piece of metal…slow down the assembly line Henry Ford…We are teachers working with children and in both cases our work deserves to be valued and justly compensated. Technology is used to improve the process not dehumanize the process, not cheapen the process but rather enrich the process. Fast isn’t fast enough for you Andrew. Where are you racing to because it is the space between birth and death that the race takes place and some of us want it to be more than what you have planned for us? Oh that’s right your race is to the White House so who cares if you step on some children’s bodies in the process. That is your race to the top. Just like Rockefeller you have to tear down a few Italian immigrant grocery stores to make room for progress. Well we citizens, teacher, parents, and students are here to stay to insure a better future for all children in our care because we made and will continue to make a difference in the future of a child.
A sad thought to reflect upon is this following stark inequality, that if you have power and influence nothing in this process matters because you can buy your way through it with expensive private schools or buy influence over the system itself, BUT for the vast majority of us we can’t buy our way into that club of influence. We need a real education that provides real opportunity and not admittance to exclusivity. We are working towards inclusivity. ALL CHILDREN CAN LEARN AND WANT TO LEARN AND LEARN DEEPLY, INTENSELY, PASSIONATELY, AND AT A HIGH DEGREE OF MASTERY AND SOPHISTICATION.
To those of you who think this is a poor hyperbolic analogy let us recall that THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES from the streets of Boston to the House of Burgesses who compared their plight as colonists of England to slavery and that was for paying taxes that were less than those paid by the British in mother England without representation in Parliament. Well who is representing our voices when the lines are gerrymandered Andrew.
Sam Adams was a hypocrite after the American Revolution because he condemned those Revolutionary War Veterans in Shays Rebellion for protesting the same way the Sons of Liberty did leading up to the American Revolution. Veterans were mistreated in 1786 too. So Governor Andrew Cuomo you have reached the pinnacle of power like the early revolutionaries and now you want to deny the pathway to others. Your ancestors and mine hailed from Italy on a boat to make something more of themselves with the opportunities in America. Some of those same ancestors like my grandfather and grandmother grew up here in America during the Great Depression and some like my grandfather, gave his last full measure as a patriotic American and died in WWII to preserve the opportunities for future generations like his daughter and grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He didn’t lose his life so those who came after him would have the same struggle he had being exploited and pushing a vegtable cart by age 8. Hard work yes, but not the extinguishing of hard won opportunities.
All children deserve more and to learn how they learn best. Testing that screens learners for how the learner learns best in order to create a well educated, involved, citizenry of excellence is the goal. Stop the smoke and mirrors version of testing that doesn’t improve students and education but rather relegates students to the sidelines sooner because the testing forces them out of the game before they’ve even learned to swing the bat. The tests tell the children they aren’t enough even though the tests aren’t appropriate. You remember this testing you support well the outcome is much like the communist testing of the COLD WAR ERA. All of us who grew up during the 1970’s and 1980’s were appalled by the educational testing that we learned about in history class or while listening to a spotlight biography of an athlete from the SOVIET UNION or another WARAW PACT country during the Olympics. The testing that eliminated opportunities rather than opening opportunities for all.
We teachers are creating leaders with skills to lead themselves and others around them.
We teachers are creating leaders with skills to make the world humane, with skill to be effective problem solvers, and creators of a world where problems are engineered out or minimized before the creation is manifested. We are creating our world…
It isn’t about profit or perfection it is about the journey of excellence.
My words are to inspire the next leg of this journey if you are reading this what can you do to help create a manifestation of this public school of excellence into existence.
Famous people are quoted to inspire us daily and one such quote is
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston Churchill . Students and teachers are experiencing the antithesis of this quote when they should be trying and failing and learning and growing in order to bring the best into the present.
Cuomo has teachers chasing their tails like the private sector has employees running a race that sucks the life out of humans. All this exhaustion and defending to prove we are worthy of humane treatment as employees and consumers, who are trying to do our best to maintain our families and communities. OHH Master Andrew don’t sell us away from our family our way of life our opportunity for happiness amidst the labor of slavery. I’ll be good, I promise to be good and behave. Well guess what Andrew we already are good we are amazing. We include all children in our country in the public educational system.
Many maybe even most feel unable to put forth energy to protect what generations before us fought for and what our generation should be rebuilding and expanding to include ever more humans, a decent way of life where we are respected along with the ideals espoused in our pledge to the flag, the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
And Andrew if public schools are a monopoly, then what are The College Board and Pearson Publishers? Perhaps part of Boss Cuomo’s New Tammany Regime.
Best Regards,
Christine M. Arnold
“In life, surround yourself with those who light your path.”
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Close reading within the confines of the text is insufficient for mere explanation of the text. And beyond that, mere explanation of the text falls far short of understanding, such requires internalization of the text as experience.
Psychopaths can explain. But they cannot understand in the sense just described.
If it has seemed to you that there is something pathological in the New Criticism Lite approach to literature instantiated in the Common Core, that’s why. But I suspect that most readers of this blog already knew that.
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A couple slight corrections of that:
Close reading within the confines of the text is insufficient even for simple explanation of the text.
But even if close reading within the confines of the text could achieve that goal, simple explanation of the text falls far short, itself, of the goal of understanding the text, which requires internalization of the experience of the text and processing of the significance of that experience.
Psychopaths can explain, within certain extreme limitations. Often they are quite good at that. But they cannot understand in the sense just described.
If it has seemed to you that there is something pathological in the New Criticism Lite approach to literature instantiated in the Common Core, that’s why. But I suspect that most readers of this blog already knew that.
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