The Rookery

This is a piece that Simon wrote for his newsletter but I found the it really captured a lot of what I've been thinking about.  I suppose that's not too surprising – we talk a lot as a staff and this is a topic we feel passionate about.

Simon writes:

Carol Ann Tomlinson teaches and writes about the art of teaching. In a recent article she wrote for Educational Leadership magazine, this quote caught my attention:    "…I believe teaching is about people first, and then ideas – and somewhere way, way down the line is a mandated test."

I suppose it is bound to be somewhat comforting when an esteemed educational expert like Tomlinson connects with your current mood and thinking.    This week has been "interesting" (Minnesota usage) as we've lived out the sharp contrast of fourth and fifth grade project week, while also battling with technology and schedule in preparation for next week's mandated MCA tests.    The former was inspiring, preparing for the latter, quite frankly, has made a few of us (well..me) rather grumpy.

Honoring week is inspiring because, as Tomlinson reminds us, teaching is most rewarding when it is focused on developing relationships and cultivating a passion and curiosity for ideas. The project process centers on what we truely believe to be important here at Prairie Creek:  children and their intrinsic motivation for learning.

Fourth and fifth grade teachers Michelle, Gabe and Cathy guide the honoring week quite beautifully. Three days of project presentations and learning fairs culminated last night with a celebration of the children's work, and an opportunity to thank the mentors who supported them.   We also had ice cream sundaes!    For those of you with younger children, who have not yet been to an honoring evening, this is something to really look forward to.

It was an evening that honored the child and the adult volunteers who supported them.   As each mentor spoke, common themes emerged.      Mentor after mentor spoke about the importance of the time spent with that child…planning, researching, discussing, taking research trips and just straight up having fun learning together.   Mentors and students had formed powerful relationships as they studied student-generated ideas and questions.  Each volunteer shared wonderful insights about each child's unique learning style and the way the student grew in confidence to adopt role of the expert and teacher.     The results of this collaboration were on display all week in the project presentations and, last night, all around us in the gym.    Deep learning had occurred and there was an implicit invitation to our fifth graders that they continue the journey of life-long learning beyond their time at our school.     I'm confident it is an invitation that each of them will gratefully accept.

This year our faculty has been exploring and reflecting on authentic assessment practices.  As progressive educators, we are obligated to highlight the limitations of standardized summative assessments.    Certainly we want our children to be comfortable with the tools and techniques for engaging with a summative state assessment and enter into that process without anxiety.   To that end we have had our children in grades 3 through 5 take sample questions and utilize the online tools that are at their disposal during the online assessments.    However, we stop short of engaging with the lengthy practice assessments that many traditional schools run their children through in fall and winter.    There is complete agreement among the faculty that the days and weeks it would take to do that (even though we acknowledge that extra familiarity with the test might lead to a slightly higher score on a spring assessment) is time we should dedicate to an active learning educational program for our children.

Tomlinson writes a lot about authentic assessment as a diagnostic process.   She likes to compare teachers to physicians in the sense that both engage with "diagnosis as a foundational element of practice."  Public school educators frustrations with mandated assessments in large part relate to our inability to engage with the test (security around assessments preclude teachers from looking at the questions or talking to students about their thinking in any way).   Imagine if the physician performing medical tests on you did not have access to the design and content of the examination they were performing!  Consequently, these summative assessments are a very limited tool for understanding a child's thinking and learning process or for setting growth goals.  The emphasis on creating data in order to compare or rank students, if over-emphasized, can negatively impact a student's natural inclination towards risk-taking and creative thinking.

To clear, at Prairie Creek we care deeply about knowing the whole child. We are committed to constantly reviewing and reflecting on the authentic and diagnostic ways we can know your child as a learner, and share that understanding with you.  

The fifth grade projects on display last night engaged the educator and child in a cycle of rich evaluation and reflection.  The children have been building up to this capstone event throughout their Prairie Creek experience – the know/wonder chart questioning and researching process begins in kindergarten!    Our fifth graders are watched and evaluated by peers, parents, mentors and teachers as they work through this learning experience.   The teachers use rubrics to guide expectations for quality and depth of content learning.    The children get constant feedback and are challenged to practice their skills as researchers, writers, presenters and teachers.    The presentation each student gives to an audience of peers and adults is evaluated by the critical eye of the teacher who is observing their capacity to present information, handle questions and perform an engaging "doing activity".      All the children receive comments from the audience immediately following their presentation.   They are critiqued by a fourth grader (in the form of an in-depth evaluation letter) and engage in a process of self-reflection.   To take back a word that I think has been probably been misapplied in educational circles recently, it is arigorous cycle of assessment that is geared towards developing a growth mindset in each child.   The assessment that accompanies the honors project answers Max van Manen's assertion that the most important big evaluation question is this: "How did the young person experience this particular situation, relationship or event?"

As a community of learners – teachers, children, parents and community members - we need perhaps to talk less about the limitations of mandated assessments, and more about authentic, differentiated measures that honor the complexity of the whole child.