The Cost of Standardization

What We Lose When Every Classroom is the Same

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

I got my first classroom unexpectedly. I had been substitute teaching in the district for a few months, leaving my resume and business card with office managers hoping to get a job interview for a permanent teaching assignment. It did not look promising. At the very least, I was hoping to get a long-term substitute job, so that I didn’t have to continue driving from school to school, picking up jobs from Kindergarten to high school. Substitute teaching wasn’t horrible, but it didn’t feel like I was actually teaching. Most days, I was left a set of instructions to play a movie, collect an assignment, or keep students at their desks with piles of busy work. I was happy for a paycheck, but what I really wanted was my own classroom. I wanted to start teaching.

A week before the Thanksgiving holiday, I received a phone call from an elementary school principal. I had been subbing in her building a few times, and she got my phone number from the office manager. A fourth-grade teacher had walked out of the classroom during the middle of the day, and the principal needed a substitute to take over until they could hire a full-time teacher.

When I arrived, the final bell had already rung, and most of the other teachers had already left for the day. The room was organized like a standard elementary classroom: desks in rows, instructional posters on the walls, cabinets with curriculum binders. Something felt strange, though, as I looked through the former teacher’s desk. There were a few piles scattered here and there, a basket overflowing with student assignments to grade, and a dying houseplant in the desk’s corner. I opened one of the drawers and found a purse with personal belongings: toiletries, makeup, and a few capless pens. I couldn’t imagine why someone would leave their purse behind. In it, she had left her wallet (minus driver’s license), checkbook, and more personal items.

I didn’t have time to solve this mystery. I gathered all of the things I felt belonged to this teacher, returned them to the front office, and began figuring out what I was going to teach the next day. I couldn’t find a planbook, so I relied on her teammates to help me gain my bearings. The next morning, as I greeted students, introducing myself as a substitute teacher, I mentally prepared for addressing the entire class. What would I tell them about where there teacher went? Luckily, the principal joined us shortly after the morning bell, addressing the elephant in the room. Mrs. J is on vacation. Mr. Neibauer will be your substitute teacher for the next few weeks.

Each day that week was a whirlwind. I felt like I had jumped into a swirling eddy, using all of my strength to keep my head just above the surface of the spinning water. After school, I brought home instructional guides to study in preparation for the next day’s lessons. Any spare moment I had at school, I spent mentally running through what I would say when the students returned to class. I started to learn each student’s name and gradually during the week, I began to find a clunky teaching rhythm. On Friday, the principal called me into her office. She sat me down and asked how I was enjoying teaching the fourth grade. We briefly talked about the challenges of subbing. She asked about my previous teaching experiences, where I went to school, where I’ve subbed, and what I wanted to teach full time. I remember it being an odd conversation, very genial, but more of a Q&A than a dialogue. With ten minutes before I had to pick up the students, the principal abruptly asked if I would be willing to teach this class for the rest of the school year. Mrs. J would not be coming back.

I needed a full-time job, and this long-term job might help me land a permanent teaching position in the building. My teammates seemed nice. The kids were friendly. I accepted.

I decided to tell the students after the Thanksgiving holiday. I planned to wrap up the short week, and after Thanksgiving, use the extended weekend to make the classroom my own. While I didn’t mind teaching in someone else’s space, if I was going to be these students’ teacher for the rest of the year, I wanted to personalize the room. At first, I was just going to add a few pictures to my new desk, and declutter a bit. However, I quickly realized that if I wanted this classroom to be mine, I needed to start completely over. So, after I stuffed myself with Thanksgiving turkey, I spent the next 72 hours gutting the room and redecorating it from scratch. I only had a few posters from college, so I hung those on the wall. Since I had been subbing for the past few months, I hadn’t really given my own pedagogy much thought. I returned to my practicum binders and old assignments. I read Harry Wong’s The First Days of School and made a “Give Me Five” poster for classroom management. By the time the students returned on Monday, I was ready for my first day of school with this class.

The most important thing I learned during those months of subbing was to make teaching my own: my own classroom, my own values, my own pedagogy. Succeed or fail, I need to know who I am and how I want to teach. I can learn the curriculum and work to improve my craft, but most essential is doing it in my own way. Teaching is an act of generosity and love. To be the best teacher I could means understanding who I am and then fully sharing that with my students. Teaching is personal, and so I spent the next 20 years personalizing my pedagogical practice. Making it my own.

My first fifth-grade classroom.

I have been teaching now for 24 years. In that time, I have built catapults with students, integrated one-to-one technology in my classroom, piloted online Learning Management Systems (LMS), incorporated brain breaks and Project Based Learning, designed a makerspace with work benches and a 3D printer in my classroom, and used music to bring joy to my students. I have seen curricula and new initiatives come and go, and come back around again. And each time, I have done things my own way. My successes and failures have always been my own. I have never claimed to be a better teacher than anyone else, just the most authentic and genuine teacher.

Teaching and learning are messy. Sometimes the projects I do with students have failed, or how I run my classroom has created conflict. While I have always shared my methods (and madness) with others, my classroom learning experiences can never be standardized. When other classrooms are quietly following pacing guides and dutifully completing worksheets, my classroom has always been different. Some have argue that my learning environment is not optimal for maximum student learning. True, there are some days when I wished had been more structured, but I have never regretted being myself. My humanness (mistakes and all) offer more than just facts.

Faux Writing

In elementary school, students are taught to write using a Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) format. As early as the first grade, students are drilled in writing a claim statement using a sentence starter such as I think [CLAIM] because [REASON]. As students get older, they must make claims and support them with evidence using this CER template (or CERERER, depending on how much evidence the teacher requires). The prescribed format continues to grow in middle school (grades 6-8), where students are to write CLEAR (or CLEARLEAR) essays (adding a Lead-in and Analysis to their Evidence), eventually preparing students to write 5-paragraph essays in high school and college. This academic writing progression is designed to prepare students for the writing in the real world. This, however, is not real writing.

John Warner, in his book Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, explains the problem with conflating templates with real writing.

The 5-paragraph essay is indeed a genre, but one that is entirely uncoupled from anything resembling meaningful work when it comes to developing a fully mature writing process.

Warner is an outspoken advocate for helping students develop a mature, and authentic, writing process. His mantra, writing is thinking is one I have adopted in my pedagogy of writing. When student are filling out CER or CLEAR templates, they are not thinking for themselves; instead trying to reproduce a correct answer for the test.

Writing is simultaneously the expression and the exploration of an idea. As we write, we are trying to capture an idea on the page, but in the act of that attempted capture, it’s likely (and even desirable) that the idea will change.

John Warner, Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay

This means that writing instruction from kindergarten to college, is not designed for students to think, merely complete “writing-related simulations, utilizing prescriptive rules and templates, not prepar[ing] them for the demands of writing in college contexts.” Faux-writing may look academic, but it lacks the meaningful authenticity and real composition that professional writers do in the real world. Students cannot think for themselves when writing a CER. They cannot play with sentence structure or experiment with language; they are simply trying to complete the simulation.

Faux Teaching

Writing simulations that raise test scores, but do nothing to foster real student writers, are unfortunately, just the beginning. Since 2001, the rise of standardized curricula has steadily increased. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is responsible for our current overemphasis on standardized testing, basal readers, and standardized pedagogy. The prevailing idea is that if every student is drilled on the same standards in the same way, standardized test scores will rise. In reality, there is very little teaching occurring in these classrooms. Teachers guide students to read constructed texts and complete various worksheet exercises, finding the correct details for the correct main idea. These activities, when repeated daily, may have the appearance of learning, but in fact, are more simulations analogous to faux-writing. Teachers are not teaching, just showing students how to score well on standardized tests. Students are not thinking for themselves, just going through the motions finding correct answers.

When I first started teaching, I had the ability to take whichever curriculum was presented to me, and make it my own. I could choose how I wanted students to engage with the required content standards. Instead of reading an excerpt from a basal reader, looking for the main idea, I could have students read novels and discuss themes, character development, and other literary elements. In the past, I had more professional agency to determine how I wanted to engage my students in the content. I could design transdisciplinary units, addressing multiple standards simultaneously. Unfortunately, this is no longer an option. Our district is doubling-down on using standardized curricular resources and standardized pedagogy to create standardized learning cycles. This means teaching a single content standard to all students using identical Tier 1 instruction, using standardized, formative assessments to determine which students are meeting (or not) that standard. Then, regrouping students for standardized Tier 2 interventions and extension support. All teachers are now required to teach the same thing on the same day in the same way repeatedly for 15-day learning cycles until everyone has mastered that discrete standard.

This Same Way Same Day doesn’t feel like teaching because it is not teaching. I am not engaging my students’ creativity or critical thinking skills. I am not tapping into their schema and connecting the content with their personal identities. I am not encouraging them to think for themselves or wrestle with complex ideas. I am merely managing academic tasks. Students are not reading well-written stories or having meaningful, student-centered discussions. They are not building on each other’s ideas, supporting their views with evidence, or engaging in dialogue with their peers. Students are reading AI-generated texts, locating details, selecting main ideas, and writing CERs. What’s worse is that these 15-Day Challenge cycles are set to repeat continuously throughout the year. One 15-Day Challenge after another until teachers have “taught” every academic standard required by the state, all to increase test scores.

What We Lose

My students will be able to “quote accurately from a text” or “draw inferences from the text.” They will be able to “analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic noting important similarities and differences.” They will be able to “determine two or more main ideas of a text, explain how they are supported by key details.” Most importantly, they will be able to “summarize the text.” Students will have been drilled in specific reading standards deemed the most essential. But at what cost? My fifth-graders will not have read an entire novel and discussed it with anyone. They will have no experiencing analyzing complex ideas, considering diverse perspectives, and building community by encouraging thoughtful dialogue. Instead of boisterous classrooms with students asking questions, classrooms are quiet and dull. Students are highlighting the same sentences in the same passages and writing down the same main ideas and details, producing identical written responses. Instead of classrooms filled with active, meaningful, and dynamic learning, teachers and students are suffering through over 1100 hours of standardized instruction. In the push to desperately raise test scores by making every classroom the exact same, schools have lost the very essence of public education: meaningful connection through authentic teaching and learning experiences. Efficiency is replacing humanity, valuing compliance over agency.

What I find most frustrating is how this result comes as a surprise for many educators. I recently had a meeting with my administrator and she complimented me on my most recent Socratic Seminar. I shared my sadness at how that experience was probably going to be the last of its kind this school year. Confused, she asked me to clarify. I earnestly explained how there is no room for discussions in 15-Day Challenges. When we are drilling a specific standard, there is no space for creativity and critical thinking.¹ Teaching and reteaching discrete reading skills so that students can score well on the state test leaves no time for Socratic Seminars, book reports, or creative writing. Although a learning experience like a Socratic Seminar allows students to ability to showcase many important reading, writing, and speaking standards², I am now required trudge students through short articles, identifying main ideas, supporting details, and overall text structures because that is what is measured on the standardized test. I am no longer allowed to make teaching my own.

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In many ways, following these continuous 15-Day Challenges feels like I am back to being a substitute teacher. This time, however, our grade-level team has created the plan to follow. Each day is much the same as the day before. For the most part, there are no surprises. I know what to make students do, and my students know what to do. After 24 years of perfecting and personalizing my pedagogical practice, I’ve resigned myself to this current state of affairs. This doesn’t mean, however, that I am giving up. I am still fighting to keep my classroom my own, even if I have to teach the same thing using the same materials as everyone else. I’m embedding small acts of resistance: providing time for my students to read independently and conferencing with them about what they are reading, sneaking in authentic writing experience in between the CERs, listening to music, and meditating every afternoon. I’m still advocating for book clubs instead of more 15-Day Challenges, and every day, I provide opportunities for my students to reflect on their learning process instead of the final grade. I continue to acknowledge my students’ humanity while pushing them to think. We still have our daily Family Meetings and our mathematics thinking classroom.

Some nights, I lie awake wondering what my students will be like after high school or college, having spent their entire academic careers filling in prescribed boxes. How will they succeed in the world with no practice in asking questions or thinking for themselves? Will these high reading scores gain them easy entry into college? Once admitted, how can they be expected to evaluate information, question assumptions, and form independent conclusions rather than simply memorize facts?

I don’t have any solutions or a call to action, and I may be stuck in forever 15-Day Challenges for the remaining of the school year. Even if I have to concede, I will keep advocating for my students. I don’t know how this year will unfold, or how I might subvert these current expectations. My plan is to use Fall Break to rest, regroup, and figure out how I can keep my classroom uniquely my own despite intense pressure to standardize my pedagogy. One thing is certain, no matter if this investment in standardization increases scores, it comes at a huge cost to the humanity of teachers and students. When every classroom is the same, no one wants to go to school.

The days before same day, same way initiatives, when students collaborated.

Have a great week!

— Adrian

Resources

Standardized Tests Aren’t Going Anywhere. So What Do We Do?

• This Cult of Pedagogy article, written by Jennifer Borgioli Binis, has some great teacher moves to reduce the harm caused by standardized testing and its culture.

• I’m sure that I’ve recommended this video before. I first watched it after reading Todd Rose’s book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness. I highly recommend it! It is a wonderful book about why our individuality is more important than conformity, especially in education.

Reframing ‘Drill and Kill’: Why Repetition is Essential for Mastery | George Couros

• I’ve long admired Couros’ work around creativity and education. This recent article is helping me reframe the idea of repetitive learning as a negative. Practice and repetition are needed to improve one’s abilities, especially when the long-term value in what you are doing is meaningful and clear.

Project-Based Learning vs. 'Drill-and-Kill'? Just Say Yes.

• This post by The Future of Education is also helpful in separating the dichotomy of repeated practice from project-based learning. Horn makes an excellent argument for having a both/and mindset instead of an either/or one.

Teachers Are Barely Hanging On. Here’s What They Need. | Cult of Pedagogy

• Jennifer Gonzalez, from Cult of Pedagogy, always has a way of framing issues in education so that I see them more clearly. I’ve always considered myself a conscientious objector, even if that is becoming increasingly more challenging. These 15-Day Challenges may be the hill I’m dying on this school year!

• In this TED Talk, Azul Terronez, discusses the multiple answers to a very important question in public education: What makes a good teacher great?

• This video may be over ten years old, but I find myself rewatching it whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed and uninspired. If you are looking for a good pick-me-up, there is no one better that Dr. Christopher Emdin.

1. I realize that the word drilling has a negative connotation in classrooms. I differentiate this from practice. Practice is important for learning. In fact, my students have been practicing analytical reading using the TQE Method, annotating texts, and preparing for discussions since the beginning of the school year. Close reading takes practice. This is not drilling.

2. Including, but not limited to:

• Using text-based evidence to support their ideas

• Identifying and evaluate claims and counterclaims

• Summarizing points of agreement

• Drawing inferences from texts

• Participating effectively in a discussion

• Posing and responding to questions that relate to the discussion

• Preparing for a discussion or dialogue on a particular topic

• Gaining practice in using the conventions of standard English grammar and general academic and domain-specific vocabulary when speaking

• Developing listening skills

• Gaining understanding of other perspectives