By DR ALISON WILLIS
Student against student, school against school, state against state, nation against nation, it seems the education hunger games has only just begun. And we’ve got data for everything – data for numeracy, literacy, cohort performance, school performance, state performance, national performance. But we don’t mention teacher performance because that, it seems, is too political.
Education, on the other hand, does not happen all the time. Education is more akin to intervention, and usually occurs when a more knowledgeable person shows a learner new information, ways of thinking, or skills. Both education and learning are inherently social in nature.
This is where education becomes complicated, because once we introduce data we introduce ranks and hierarchies. Having a background in educational research, I have a healthy respect for data, but it is so frequently misused in Australian schooling. When data is used to compare student against student, class against class, school against school, district against district – and dare I say teacher against teacher – we undermine the social fabric of education and learning.
Dr. Alison Willis is the author of Nurturing Intelligence, and works as a university lecturer and classroom teacher.
Top Comments
Yay! go Mrs Willis! we have a famous english teacher!
My son sat naplan this past week and I was unimpressed with his teacher's attitude.
He has concentration issues but can do all the work, given the right direction and incentive. He's quiet and non disruptive but does daydream and needs to be reminded to stay on task. I'm working with the teacher, dep principal and school psych on strategies to help him in the classroom. The teacher has bought up naplan with me more times than I've kept a count of - basically as he probably won't finish the whole test, his unanswered questions will be marked as 'wrong'. Even though his previous tests were say only 80% complete, but with 100% accuracy.
The week before naplan he had 3 days off school due to a terrible cold. I took 2 days off work, then my parents minded him for a day. We all caught the cold, my mother especially badly, but I thought it important for him to rest and get well, and keep it from the school.
Well, his teacher on the Monday when he returned? "Oh... And they have naplan tomorrow". With a look to me as if "oh well, your son is going to struggle as he's been away from school". I have seen that look from her before. What - should I have just sent him to school to infect 10 more kids who then might have missed the almighty naplan?? It made me very unhappy. At best, I like to think (hope) she might have been feeling sympathetic towards him as she wants him to feel he does well... but that's being as gracious as I can be.