This is a video of a spoken word poem by student Ryan Lotocki. It is genius. In fact, the poem is titled “This Is Genius,” and it shows all the different ways that students excel. Not just on a standardized test, but in living good lives that engage their interests and passions.
Can we show this to a joint meeting of Congress, or at least to the committees now rewriting No Child Left Behind? Or how about our state legislatures, who assume the power to decide that teachers by the test scores of their students?
Students have power. They are the primary victims of the disruption and distorted values that NCLB and Race to the Top and uninformed politicians have made of our education system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Those of us that taught for many years have met many students that didn’t excel in the traditional way, but they had talents and drive that enabled them to do well in the real world. I had a struggling reader that got his high school diploma, started working in a garage, and now he owns two garages and does very well for himself and his family. I once had a Haitian student that was classified. We had a dance troop visit our school. The lead dancer worked with the students and chose to give this young man a scholarship at her dance school. He went on to become a professional dancer. One young lady always bought in food for the class. She struggled in math, but went to culinary school, worked in a restaurant, and now owns a successful one. I know some people frown on Howard Gardner’s work, but I have seen multiple intelligences in action.
We are not the sum of reading and math test scores. An comprehensive education should allow students to explore and grow through exposure to a variety of disciplines. Our job is to nurture, guide and open as many doors for them as we can.
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“Learn by doing.” This has been and always be the way I teach.
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We need to be Educating for Human Greatness NOT CCSS and high-stakes testing. Each of is unique. Ah…that’s it. the yahoos WANT US to be UNDER their control, thus the tactics being used. It’s ALL smacks of COLONIALISM.
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I cried as I viewed the video of “This Is Genius,” Maybe, just maybe the arts can reach the people who will listen and bring the pending train wreck of reform to a halt. If the facts and statistics can’t be processed and the news media won’t report all the news then it’s incumbent upon the arts to communicate to the nation’s heart in hope to facilitate the changes that students really need to succeed.
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This is a good piece. Thanks to you (the poster) and to the one who created it.
On a slightly different, but related note:
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2015/03/american-fatalism.html
American Fatalism
The poor in India, suffering much, might say
that fate and fortune are the gods that rule
and when these make decisions and decrees,
the mortals then, who whimper, must accept.
But strangely, here, in these United States,
in New York City, I have found again,
among the teachers in the city schools,
the same acceptance, midst the murmuring.
“That’s how it is.” they say, and so accept
inequities and things so clearly wrong
for those they teach and also for themselves,
their foreheads should be tattooed with this phrase.
So each must earn the paycheck. This we know.
But so might soldiers say – and those, who brought
their prisoners to be gassed in Europe’s hells.
The same obedience – and the same excuse…
But soldiers suffer consequences worse
than teachers who, in open, disagree.
To tell their bosses, what is right and wrong,
they still decline. The sad results, we see.
It’s more than that. As wave on wave, sans sense,
are breaking down the fragments that remain
of reason and of decency, we hear
a mantra new. “That’s how it’s going to be.”
So snake-oils, by the priests of Mammon blessed,
by merchants marketed, are now purveyed.
And teachers make their students swallow it.
For we are workers, doing as we’re told…
Indeed, the factories that pass for schools,
that look like jails, in which we do our years,
as students do, were never built to be
the places where we learned to reason free.
But since they’re all that still is left of that
which humans had, when most had villages –
it’s time perhaps, to set the prisoners free –
so schools admit the light and hope again.
A simple thing – to say, to bosses, “No.
this isn’t right.” – to say it softly, then
to say it loudly, once again – and yes,
not just alone – but in that chorus free…
There’s still a choice – to walk upon the path
on which we’re set, avoiding present pain –
or else to pause and choose the path that’s right,
before we enter more in hell again.
So do not say, “That’s how it is.” But say,
“That’s how it shouldn’t be.” And do not say,
“That’s how it’s going to be.” But firmly say,
“That’s how we’re going to make it be.” instead.
We each can work until we’re worked to death
or find the many ways to seem to work,
while cutting corners. Or we each can say,
“We’ll do the work, but only what makes sense.”
No parent should be forced to do what’s wrong
for children that they’ve birthed and reared. So too,
no teacher should be forced to do what’s wrong
for students they’ve been trusted with to teach.
And if we lack the vision, ethics, guts,
to say this loud, to see, to judge for selves,
not things that others do, but we ourselves,
and then to act, what hope – and why complain?
When asked to dig the graves in which we’ll lie,
we either can comply or not. To say
that’s there’s a middle way is nonsense, yet
we see the teachers shrug as they obey.
Our paychecks and our pensions – surely these
are things we work for. Let’s admit that both
depend on what we all, in tandem, do
or not. Marauders long have breached the gates.
2015 March 28th, Sat., 6 am
Brooklyn, New York
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2015/03/american-fatalism.html
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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