Children are more than test scores: Try a little tenderness

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Try a little tenderness

Try a little tenderness!
Awarding plastic gold medals to children for reading chapter books is the only data that really matters here. It is November, and 28 out of 32 children have now read new chapter books. The other 4 are close to finishing their first chapter books.
We don't use rigor,

We don't even ask for SBAC data.
We could care less about the Common Core,
You won't find CC standards on our boards.
However on any given day you'll find children and teachers working hard.
On any given day you will find empathy, humanity, and hope in every teaching and learning moment.
We don't need a standardized test to tell us how our children are doing.
Kid Watching gives us all we really need to know.
We don't follow the data.
We follow the child.

There is the data that matters, and the data that really matters.
The data that matters to policy makers, politicians, and education deformers are test scores. That data does not inform us about the learning potential of our children. It does not drive learning, but it does drive the failing education policies only they love.
The data that really matters is the data gather while teaching. Every other piece of data is pretty much useless to children and teachers.
Plastic Gold medals are my smiles, and those smiles are my data.
Respectfully,
Dr. Jesse Patrick Turner
CCSU Literacy Center Director