It is important to follow the data. However, there is the data that matters, and there is the data that really matters. The data that policymakers, administrators, and the media consider important is important. However, the data that really matters comes from teachers who spend 5 days a week in the presence of the children they teach. There are only so many hours in a school day. So much is demanded of teachers that does not fit within the school day. This is one of the reasons we are losing young teachers. Too much to do with not enough time to do it.
Policymakers and education reformers have our teachers using expensive and time-consuming online data collecting tools. Our teachers are chasing data, they already know. When people ask me who knows a child best. I always say the people closest to them, their parents, and teachers.
Rather than have our teachers following their authentic real time observational data and intuitive understandings of the children they teach. We force them to engage in time consuming repetitious data, that has them second guessing what they already know.
From my work with classroom teachers, this online data consumes 10 to 15 hours a week. 10 to 15 hours that use to be spent on finding ways to motivate learners. and with the demands of teaching today. We are losing experienced and new teachers because they are not given the time to act on the data that really matters.
Teachers not only see the numbers, but they also see the child, they have essential knowledge about what motivates the children they teach. What teachers know often takes a back seat to the data policymakers value. I say the data that matters most is the real time observational data teachers have. The data the system often causing them to doubt. Or, feeling as if their voice does not matter. This feeling of doubt and being voiceless is in my opinion the number one reason we are losing experienced teachers today.
Those 10-15 hours of online data chasing prevents teachers from acting in real time on that rich Kid Watching Data that Dr. Yetta Goodman told me 30 years is a learning goldmine.
Teachers know where the gold is, Dr. Jesse P. Turner CCSU Literacy Center Director
If you like to see what inspired my blog today...its Barry Lane's What's Happening in our schools > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZLqsZzzzo <
In case you want more Chuck Barry's "School Days" reminds me of > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHG5-GxI_Es <
No comments:
Post a Comment