The Invitation
This is the Initial Letter of Invitation that started the Stories of Learning Project
In a recent New York Times supplement on education, leading figures in education were asked about their ideas for improving education. Diane Ravitch, educational historian and former US Assistant Secretary of Education , responded, “The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why we educate. Faced with this lack of consensus, policy makers define good education as higher test scores. But higher test scores are not a definition of good education… Why do we educate? We educate because we want citizens who are capable of taking responsibility for their lives and for our democracy… But because of our narrow-minded utilitarianism, we have forgotten what good education is.” These remarks echo my own in Intellectual Character, where I asked the question, What are we teaching for? I argued that the way we answer this question directs our activity as teachers. My argument that the development of Intellectual Character should be our chief goal as educators.
I believe that the focus on test scores that Ravitch decries, which is not just an American obsession, is also a result of being unable to provide parents, students, and administrators with an adequate answer to another core question: Who are our students becoming as learners and thinkers as a result of their time with us? This is a question of assessment, but not the typical kind of assessment where we rank, score, codify, and enshrine marks of performance based on carefully circumscribed tasks designed specifically for the purpose. No, it is assessment in the ongoing, incremental, developing and emerging sense, which produces a portrait of the student immersed in the messiness and complexity of learning.
When I wrote Intellectual Character, I purposely did not include information on assessment of thinking dispositions (much to the consternation of some) for several reasons. First, this was not the purpose of the book. I wanted to layout the idea of IC and provide case studies of how teachers were making thinking integral to their teaching. Secondly, I felt that simplistic approaches to assessment would only serve to trivialize the development of dispositions through the promotion of artificial testing practices. My sense was that who our students become as thinkers and learners is such an ongoing and collective process, that teachers must make note of growth over time in the embedded context of the classroom. Furthermore, I felt that assessment is not at all the place where one starts in improving teaching and learning. I believe that one must start with clear goals and from those goals provide the opportunities through which students can grow. Without the provision of rich opportunities for thinking in the classroom, it makes no sense to even begin to talk about assessment.
Having spent the last five years working intensively to help teachers think about the development of cultures of thinking, I now believe there are numerous teachers around the world who are able to take up the assessment question of who our students are becoming as thinkers and learners in a substantive way. This means several things: 1) Identifying the key expectations that guide our teaching, such as the development of wonder, independence, creation of a community of learners, and so on. 2) Thinking about the kinds of opportunities we are providing for students to develop along the lines of those expectations and the accompanying questions, conflicts, and tensions that arise as we try to create those opportunities. 3) Paying attention to student growth and development in the moment as it is made visible through the discourse of the classroom and performance on authentic tasks. This involves asking: How do we become attuned to looking for the evidence of growth, where do we look, and how do we capture it?
Over the next four years, I’m looking to engage with groups of teachers as research partners and writers to document and tell the story of learning that is unfolding in their classrooms. This will be a collaborative inquiry unfolding both in individual classrooms and within a supportive research group. There will be much to learn and share. Evidence will need to be collected and discussed. Dilemmas will be identified and debated. Along the way, our collective and individual insights will need to be celebrated. While the chief goal of this process is to learn together in this process, I also think these stories of learning have the potential to be powerful models for other teachers. Toward that end, I’m interested in seeking out and developing forums where these stories can be shared. One of which will be a website that will connect educators working on this enterprise. Other avenues include presentations at conferences. It is possible a selection of writings might be published in an anthology similar to Going Public With Our Teaching by Tom Hatch (see also, www.goingpublicwithteaching.org).
In 2010, I convened a group of teachers from several independent schools in Victoria, Australia to begin this individual and collective inquiry through the writing and study of their practice, Individuals have looked at how their students have become truth seekers, more curious, or developed as listeners willing to consider other viewpoints and ideas, just to name a few. This isn’t a linear process and there are many bumps along the way, but it is an exciting way to learn more about ourselves, our teaching, and our students in a supportive environment. Through this group, I have been developing ways of supporting teacher inquiry and writing, though there is still much to learn. At this point, I’m trying to identify interested teachers and then develop with them a plan that will support their inquiry. There is no single way this will look in every setting or for every teacher. There are many stories to be told about who our students are becoming as thinkers and learners and many different ways of telling those stories.
Sincerely,
