It happened very early in my career, but I’ll never forget the impact it had it had on my perspective from then on! It was late 70’s and I couldn’t have been more than 2 or 3 years into my first position at (then) School of the Ozarks.
The entire faculty was at a Faculty Retreat at a spot removed from the Point Lookout campus. Our particular exercise that morning was a good one: we were to come up with a List of the Top Ten Things we wanted of and for our S of O graduates after they graduated.
Naturally, the task generated excellent discussion, and we managed to whittle our list down to ten (with several differing opinions of course –as there should be!)
The list included wonderful attributes like [these are NOT verbatim] ‘ability to think critically’, ‘ability to effectively articulate points of view while listening to and honoring others’ views’, ‘ability to be good, informed citizens, while exploring and understanding issues’, ‘willingness to serve society and our neighbors,’ and on and on. It was a GREAT list!
[I sadly add that this occurred in what I consider our ‘early Golden Years’ at S/C of O, back when such things were not only valued, but encouraged – and taught – on that campus.]
It was then that the INSIGHT hit us between the eyes with the force of a moving train! In looking at our list of Top Ten Attributes, it became clear to us that none of them could reliably be precisely evaluated!! How could we reliably measure that our graduates became ‘good citizens’ or ‘critical thinkers’, or ‘good communicators’, or . . . ?
I’m going to deliberately go WAY out on a limb here: Is it possible that almost nothing that’s valuable (to a discipline or to society) can be measured effectively? And conversely (do I dare?), is it possible that almost nothing that can be evaluated with paper/pencil or standardized tests is actually valuable in the long run?!
The implication here may be over-stepping even my own beliefs, but perhaps we need the extreme position articulated to jar us into looking realistically and thoughtfully at the situation.
This perspective has huge implications for education in general, especially as it relates to the way Washington attempts to handle education ‘reform’ (and both sides of the aisle are guilty).
Personally, I consider this insight – to the extent that it’s true – to be good news. I’m a progressive, but let’s fact it: American education has lived with this particular brand of ‘fuzziness’ ever since the time of Jefferson. It’s only been relatively recently that we’ve been hit with standardization, specialization, nation-(or world-)wide test results, teacher ‘accountability’, etc. Clearly, NONE of these things are bad in/of themselves, all of them can be helpful, and all are as well-intentioned as they can be! But . . . in the aggregate, they may be producing the long-range opposite of their intentions. And we MUST recognize it.
I won’t advance ‘fix it’ opinions here and now – another blog, perhaps. There are no ‘silver bullets’. But, as a society that values education, we must ALL take a huge perspective leap outward and ask ourselves some tough questions. Is it worth sacrificing meaningful to get measurable? Where is the balance between the two? And what kinds of non-traditional creativity will it take to achieve it?
* Quote source: Shirley Hill, former UMKC professor; former President, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Circa 1991
