Stuart Egan, a teacher of English at West Forsyth High School, wrote an article in the Winston-Salem, N.C., Journal explaining to readers why the reformster narrative about “failing schools” and “bad teachers” is wrong. He did it North Carolina-style, by comparing teaching to farming.
He wrote:
Last August, Business Insider published a report from the Brookings Institute highlighting the 15 cities where poverty is growing fastest in the nation. Greensboro-High Point tied for 10th, Winston-Salem tied for 8th, and Raleigh tied for 3rd with Charlotte.
Earlier this year, The Washington Post published a study by the Southern Education Foundation that found an incredibly high number of students in public schools live in poverty. And in April, the journal Nature Neuroscience published a study that linked poverty to brain structure. All three publications confirm what educators have known for years: Poverty is the biggest obstacle in public education….
North Carolinians know agriculture. We understand that any crop requires an optimum environment to produce the best harvest. Farmers must consider weather, resources, and time to work with the land. Since many factors which affect the harvest are beyond their control, farmers make the best of what they have; they must marry discipline with a craft. Teachers do the same.
But if the environment suffers and resources are limited, then agriculture suffers. Is that the fault of farmers? If variables surrounding the environment of public education are constantly being changed by governing bodies, then are teachers at fault?
Another fallacy with the rotten apple analogy is that the end product (singular test scores) is a total reflection of the teacher. Just like with farming, much is out of the hands of the education system. One in five children in North Carolina lives in poverty and many more have other pressing needs that affect the ability to learn. Some students come to school just to be safe and have a meal. But imagine if students came to school physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared to learn.
In some instances, resources vital to public education are siphoned off to other “factory farms” and for-profit entities. Just this past December, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that Rockingham County schools did not have enough money and were having to rob “Peter to pay Paul” just to keep public schools open and equipped with the basic supplies, even toilet paper. But at the same time, Sen. Phil Berger’s own son was slated to open up Providence Charter High School with taxpayer money in Rockingham County. Luckily, that endeavor never materialized, but the state’s Charter School Advisory Board just recommended that 16-18 new charter schools be financed by taxpayers.
The soil in which the public school system is rooted has been altered so much in the past decade that the orchard where teachers “grow” their crops has been stripped of much of its vitality. Look at the number of standardized tests, curriculum models and teacher evaluation protocols thrown at public schools. And those will change again with Race to the Top money running out.
We are treating the symptoms, not the malady. We are trying to put a shine on the apples by “raising” graduation rates with new grading scales. It is analogous to constructing a new white picket fence around an orchard and thinking that the crop will automatically improve.
But our elected officials can help or at least remove the obstacles for those who can.
The General Assembly can invest more in pre-K programs. They can stop funding for-profit charter and corporate-run virtual schools. They can expand Medicaid so more kids come to school healthy. They can reinstitute the Teaching Fellows program to keep our bright future teachers here in North Carolina. Then they can give decent raises to veteran teachers so they finish their careers here.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Reblogged this on LiterateOwl.
Diane
You need to blog about the Randi & Lily sell out
They were BOUGHT by Bill Gates
“Reformers” could NEVER have gotten away with their harmful agenda without union leaders’ help
“Teaching is Like farming”
If teaching is like farming
Reformer is the pest
The latter is alarming,
A crop-infesting guest
love the analogy and how thoughtfully it was developed. Thanks very much.
Results not excuses, “outcomes only, ” test scores are objective and matter the most, documented cuts in education not restored since 2008. The list goes on.
This is not an accountability system.
It absolutely rules out of any consideration of the “inputs,” the resources for learning students bring to school (or not) and the support with resources that teachers must have to nurture learning, including a work environment that is free of angst about test scores.
For a really screwed up notion of farming… from economists hooked on VAM…. see the “growth” measures explained by the Absurd Oak Tree analogy, designed for professional development by the Wisconsin’s Value-Added Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison. varc.wceruw.org/…/Oak%20Tree%20Analogy%20with%20notes%20- %20Bush.pptx
The late Stephen Covey similarly compared school to the farm. “You can’t fake it,” said Covey.
Then, to make our poorest students be more food insecure than ever before, our humane government enacted cuts to the food stamps program. We all know that hungry children learn best.http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/6/report-one-millionpeoplecouldlosefoodstampbenefitsinnextyear.html
Well, you have to keep the rats underfed so they respond to the food pellet rewards.
Teaching is so much like farming in many ways. In addition farming is a great way of teaching as exemplified by my friend Will Allen http://www.growingpower.com. It’s time to take the kids to the farm, not just for one trip but for a learning experience. My students, back ion the day, partnered with Will and not only went to the farm but brought the farm to the city to allow real learning to exist.
Yes we need the resources and that goes without saying. However, we must take the resources available to us, the expertise of the farmer as we build in all the academics to the learning process.
With more resources we will make it real!
Can any ed reform lawmaker deny this?
“We’ve written letters to legislators for years, until we were blue in the face, and they didn’t listen,” said Eric Mihelbergel, a founding member of New York State Allies for Public Education, a test-refusal group. “But they’re listening now, now that we’re opting our kids out.”
It’s absolutely true. They were completely ignored until they withheld the testing data.
Which leads me to believe the one and only reason these schools were valuable and important to lawmakers was to produce test data.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/nyregion/opt-out-movement-against-common-core-testing-grows-in-new-york-state.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0
I like the analogy. It would seem to apply to most ‘endeavors’. Although a farmer would prefer environmental factors like rainfall, soil condition and pests would stay the same each year, they don’t! Although he won’t be blamed if a draught results in a total crop failure, he has to take some heat if he failed to use an irrigation system if it was available.
I see a ‘test a farmer could benefit from would be sampling the soil around the roots of a tree in his orchard. Just as in education, the test isn’t the ‘end’, it’s the measure to tell the farmer whether his trees are getting enough water and tell the teacher which parts of a lesson or course the student has ‘mastered’ and which parts he or she needs more help to master (at grade level) realizing achieving proficiency doesnt mean the student got a perfect score, it means she scored well enough to move on to the next “grade” or course.
Farmers must respond to conditions out of their control or they will go out of business. Teachers must find ways to respond to inattentive, hungry kids from homes that show little respect for learning or they should choose a new profession. Things like poverty and unsupportive parents aren’t going to change much before a teachers next batch of kids arrive next fall! Just as a farmer might have to change his crop from apples to goats milk if he lives in a desert, a teacher must lower their expectations by spending 6 hours a day on the most critical basic of reading and writing……the skills every kid needs in order to have a chance of success in school and in life. Adapt or ………!
Yes. You’re exactly right. It’s an analogy.
Teaching controlled by testing machine that 1) creates bunch of data that will appear and disappear in the illumination of VAMpire castle; 2) eats up plenty of meaningful time in classroom for test preparation; 3) forces kids to spend +10 hrs in front of computer–not classroom; 4) takes too much time–over 6 months–to get processed for score report… is analogous to ‘defective factory farming. It’s kind of building nuclear reactors right in the middle of active default line elsewhere in the world.
Giant testing machine and its patrons won’t be held accountable for their poor business decisions–even in the wake of tsunami and earthquake that wreck nuclear facilities nearby the local farms. Like farmers in Fukushima who have no choice but to abandon land–thanks to high radiation poisoning that ruins their assets.
Help me understand. Are the tests too difficult or too frequent?
It’s both.
Kent
It doesn’t matter if the tests are too difficult and/or too frequent because any results are COMPLETELY INVALID-they are MMoOOT*.. Since the results are completely invalid why even waste the time, energy and resources (monies) to do them???
*Mental Masturbation or Obligatory Onanistic Trash.
Duane, I’ve come to distrust statements using words like “completely invalid”.
There must be something measured that describes a child’s readiness for learning ‘at the next level’. Even if it’s only how far behind his peers a student might be in one subject or another. No matter how much a subject might have been dumbed down, it seems a child will quickly ‘give up’ if he’s “passed on” and forced to sit in a class where he feels incompetent.
The metaphor of using agriculture or plants for teaching is as old as the Greeks (see Protagoras). There is no question that education is very developmental and often a slow growth. I recall the old metaphor of the wild plant or tree that grows on its own (and so often is twisted or gives little fruit) and the fruit tree or crop that is cultivated by a master arborist or farmer. They cultivate a tree or the hybird plant that may be more productive and give more fruit.
The ultimate test for any culture and any educational plan is the result. “We shall know them by their fruit.”
By that standard many schools and families are failing. What are we to do? The answer is very difficult but I am certain reform will not be achieved by spending money.
There is an old saying, “A soldier will die for the Colours but not for an extra two bob a day.” Similarly, a student must be willing as well as able to learn. The teacher must believe in his or her subject as a doctor believes in health. A student must believe that education is a very special activity -even something sacred. The student who comes into class late, with his pants falling and hat on backward is showing his indifference even his hostility to education. If a student does not have this respect for the educational process and for his teacher and for his school if the student does not display gratitude for the opportunity to learn and improve then the student (and the school) are doomed. The only possible solution is to change the enviornment and reorganize educational paths for at risk students so that they can begin to have good habits and basic “soft” skills so they can gradually recieve instruction and become independent learners and readers.
“By that standard many schools and families are failing.”
That “standard” isn’t a standard, it is an aphorism. Please cite valid research that demonstrate “many schools and families are failing”.
“A student must believe that education is a very special activity -even something sacred. The student who comes into class late, with his pants falling and hat on backward is showing his indifference even his hostility to education.”
I’ve never considered education to be sacred but then again I’m not religious at all. That student that you describe more likely than not just happens to be black, eh?!?!?! Says it all doesn’t it??? (turn off sarcasmometer)
The word sacred means “worthy of respect, venerable. It does not have to mean anything to do with organized religion or any specific religious faith at all. A doctor considers his responsiblity to his patience a sacred responsiblity and I would say a good teacher also feels a sacred responsibilty to do no harm and to do the best he or she can for the school, the youth and for society.
I did not mention race; I know many students of many colors and ethnic backgrounds who dress and behave that way.
I don’t know why you found it necessary to introduce race into the discussion. The discussion at hand is the educational problems of American youth -all American youth.
I don’t make up aphorism or comments without the experience of a lifetime of reading and classroom teaching experience. Thus, my opinion is an informed opinion. If you do not believe classroom behavior and student attitudes towards education are not an important factor in the success and in the failure of a school then you cannot have had much experience in education.
The “valid research” showing the breakdown in the American family is found in the Census. http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/
The “valid research” showing that many schools are failing in their education purposes are found in
“Reams of statistics reveal that far too many American public schools are failing our students, teachers and parents, particularly in urban areas.”
http://broadeducation.org/about/crisis_stats.html
Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
Nearly three out of four eighth- and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
SOURCE: JOHN ADAMS “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials” (December 1770)