#ncte12: when they came for us, they came with standards « Cooperative Catalyst

#ncte12: when they came for us, they came with standards « Cooperative Catalyst:

#ncte12: when they came for us, they came with standards

by Chad Sansing

Maker Faire Bay Area 2011: Learning With The Exlporatorium

There’s really no better way to silence us teachers (apart from the crippling, self-imposed professional norm of not admitting to our students and parents that have an opinion on anything) than to give us thousands of standards.
When a teacher is busy delivering content and designing lessons to appease political appointees, there is precious little time to reflect either on personal practice or the state of the profession.
Whereas other professional bodies use standards to create an open space for divergent, but successful practices in identifying and solving problems by working from ambiguity to certainty, education uses standards to close and delimit possible teacher and student behaviors in learning spaces so that we begin with a routinely