An Open Letter to My Students: I Am Sorry For What I Am About To Do To You
47
To all of my precious students,
I am sorry for what I am about to do to you.
This week, I am going to have to give you a new test. It’s called PARCC. There will be five separate tests, on four separate days, and my guess is that most of you will hate them. My guess is that one or two of you will be brought to tears because they will make you feel like you are not smart enough. My guess is that several of you will give up part way through the test and just start clicking around on the screen. My guess is that some of you will look around at the students sitting next to you to try and figure out if they are also as confused as you are in the hopes of knowing that you are not the only way feeling this way. My guess is that more than a handful of you will, at some time during the test, ask me to come over and help you with something and I will not be able to. My guess is that almost all of you will wonder what these tests have to do with the learning and growing that we are doing every day in our classroom because you know that our learning has meaning and purpose in this world and you cannot figure out how these tests could possibly do that. My guess is that all of you will wonder why I am making you take these tests.
And the answer is simple. I have to. Our state and federal government say that I have to give these tests to you. That you must take them. And I need you to know how very sorry I am about that.
I have no control over this. I have no control over whether or not I give you this test. But, like I always tell you, I do have complete control over my own thoughts and my own words. So here is what I need to say to you.
I do not agree that these tests will tell me what I really need to know about you as a learner or as a human being. I do not agree that these tests will make me a better teacher. I do not agree that these tests will improve our schools. I do not agree that you need to sit in front of a computer for over five hours in order for the government to find out what you know and what you can do. I do not agree that you should not have a choice in how you are able to show all of the things that you are capable of doing. I do not agree that in order for the state to know that I am doing my job that you have to suffer through tests that could quite possibly ruin much of the hard work that we have done together in building your confidence this year and in helping you to see yourselves as readers and writers. I do not agree with these tests.
And even more than I want you to know all of that, I want you to know that these tests will never tell you who you are. They will never be able to show all of your various, beautiful and wondrous strengths. They will never be able to show all of the things that you have learned this year. They will never be able to show some of the most important things about who you all are. Because these tests will not show your humanity.
They will not show how you have learned to see this world through empathetic eyes. They will not show how you have learned to choose ways to present your knowledge so that you can use your individual strengths. They will not show how you have learned to collaborate with your classmates and with students around the world. They will not show how you have learned to listen first and then speak. They will not show how you have learned to do good things for this world. They will not show how you have grown as people. These tests will never be able to show those things and please believe me when I tell you that those are the things that truly matter in this world.
So if, and when, you struggle with these tests. If, and when, you start to think that these tests are telling you that you are not smart. If, and when, you start to believe that maybe you aren’t really good enough. If, and Crawling Out of the Classroom | As I begin a year of transformation as a teacher, I am attempting to break down the four walls of my classroom to reach out to others and connect about the incredible world of education.:
