Most teachers are curious about what school is like for a student. Meet a kindergarten tyke encountering the classroom for the first time; a middle schooler trying to balance body chemistry, a developing mind and new ways of learning; a high school teenager looking beyond the classroom into the world and most teachers want to hear how he or she is experiencing one of the most important parts of their lives.
So when I saw my 11-year-old niece recently I asked her how school was going. I was prepared for the standard kid response -- "fine." What I wasn't prepared for was the sudden sound of defeat in her answer.
Kim's a pretty bouncy young girl. Just before I asked my question she had given me a tour of her newly decorated room. No more pink princess motif. Now it was retro 60s décor -- lava lamp, peace symbol shades, shiny bead curtain across the closet door. She proudly twirled a baton as she announced, "I'm on the cheerleader squad." She showed me her laptop, her school books, the age old array of glittery pens.
"So, how's school, fifth grade this year, right?" I asked. Kim's face fell, all the bounce -- and light -- went out of her. "I'm not an A student," she whispered and looked down at the floor. If you knew Kim, her evident shame and embarrassment would surprise you as much as it did me. It took a lot to extinguish her usual enthusiasm about life, including school.
I couldn't let that stand. "Yeah, well that's just grades. What about the rest of it? Do you like your school? How about your teacher?" It didn't take much to turn the light back on. She loved her teacher, the school, the interesting projects they had been doing.
"It's that damn Common Core Curriculum," her mother told me after Kim went off to play. "It's killing her. It's killing a lot of the other kids too. She's working hard and I'm getting her extra help but she's so down on herself." We talked about the frustration she and other parents were having with the new imposed standards, standards that baffled them. I told her that they weren't the only ones angry and mystified about what was happening in their children's schools. Many teachers shared the same frustration with the curriculum changes imposed on schools by Federal standards, including the lack of implementation funds and clear direction on how to make it all work -- and not hurt kids in the process.
I left that family gathering not feeling very exuberant myself. As much as I could sympathize with Kim's mother and the other parents, I was haunted, disturbed and saddened by that young girl's answer, "I'm not an A student."
It was painful enough to see the shame on Kim's face. But when I thought about it further I realized that her experience wasn't an isolated one. Kids across the country are faced with that same sense of personal failure. They know the stakes are high these days. They learn in an environment that aims to "Race to the Top." They live at a time when education pundits claim that "data is the great equalizer," and schools, instead of having "walls of fame" celebrating student achievement in all walks of life, now have "data walls" displaying each student's rank based on test performance. Today's kids know that their personal academic performance affects not only themselves but also their teachers, their principals and ultimately the fate of their schools. What other generation has grown up with that kind of pressure, that kind of fear?
A growing of number of parents and school districts are raising objections to the Common Core curriculum. Some parents are actively resisting high stakes testing, refusing to have their children participate in standardized tests. In response to these "opt out" decisions some districts have taken punitive measures and penalized the students for their parents' actions by denying them the right to participate in team sports and after school activities; while others have implemented "sit and stare" policies in which the students not taking the test must sit in the testing room and do nothing for hours.
While parents and school boards fight these battles at the local, state and Federal levels, I'm afraid that we are losing kids by the day. Kids are giving up, are being made to feel like failures because they can't jump through the shape-shifting hoops of the latest educational reform. If we don't do something soon we are allowing the love of learning with which children are born and which will flourish with proper nurturing to be trampled as America races to the top -- of what?