Matilda

In Matilda, the outstanding new Broadway musical, Matilda’s parents are horrified that she is into reading. The mom, who didn’t want this child, is into her looks and her dancing while the dad, who didn’t want a girl, is into scheming to sell his used cars at new car prices. Even with these revolting parents and an even more revolting school director, Matilda perseveres over all evils with her love for learning and reading completely intact and hopefully a Tony on the way as well.

My kids are bright and good readers and hopefully have a home life and school environment absent the stress that Matilda encounters. But this week hasn’t been a good week for my younger daughter who has spent three days and 4.5 hours taking a reading assessment. These tests will be followed up this coming week with math exams. Now some background on the reading exam will be helpful to the reader. First, the exam is based in part on the new common core curriculum; however, the students are just being exposed to that curriculum now. Second, the exam is being scored much harder than the exam in previous years so that the expectation is that failures will be up by at least a third. And third, the exam is not so much a method for grading the students as it is aimed at grading the teachers.

What is New York State thinking? I have written before on using student test results to judge teachers. I know from firsthand experience that excellent teaching makes an important difference but the home environment is nevertheless crucial. Household conditions and the support mechanisms at home make an enormous difference and there is a strong correlation between these conditions and test results. Why then do teachers shoulder so much of the responsibility with only a limited opportunity to make the difference? Every child is not a Matilda, able to overcome tremendous odds against succeeding in school.

The jury on the common core curriculum is still out but there is no doubt that most of the students being tested have had limited exposure. How then can you justify that tests are oriented around the common core? Do we want kids to fail? Once again, not every kid has the resilience of a Matilda. Which, of course, leads to the most critical point which is that an increasing number of kids will not pass this exam. How do we explain to them that we are really not judging them via the exam? Or how do we explain that the material is oriented to a curriculum design that is not yet fully implemented? The reality is we will not be able to successfully convince our children that it really isn’t a reflection on them if they don’t pass. There is no question that self respect will suffer and that some children will feel inferior as a result.

But as I have indicated before, what will suffer the most is the love of learning. Too much of an emphasis on tests and tests which are too flawed will impact our children negatively. And while the story for Matilda ends happily ever after, I am not at all convinced that this will be the result for a significant number of children in New York.

Back to School

Earlier this week, I sat through an excellent presentation on social media.  And in terms of my skill set in this area, I consider myself to be an effective communicator.  I was a very early adopter of email.  I enjoy using PowerPoint.  I blog on a regular basis.  In addition, I text message regularly;  I Google often; and I  Iook at various YouTube postings relatively often.  I also have a Facebook page that I hardly ever look at and a LinkedIn page that I look at occasionally.  After the presentation, I have come to the conclusion that this is not good enough and that I need to upgrade my social media skills.  No, I am not about to share my  life story on social media nor am I interested in commenting on every place I’ve been to or everyone I’ve met, or everything I’ve eaten.  I am not even interested in using social media to brag about my kids or our new family dog (and she is incredibly cute).  Instead, I think that any provost or dean or other higher education administrator as well as faculty member should be as up-to-date as possible on the key tools of communication.  We all need to know the different ways we can engage in a conversation.  And we all need to be part of the conversation on social media.

I have only a limited knowledge regarding Twitter.  I don’t “Tweet.”  I don’t  use “hashtags” and I have seen only one Tweet deck in my life.  But I am convinced that Twitter is, within the constraints of 140 characters, a very effective way to communicate quickly.  For example, I have heard about an occupant of an elevator that was stuck, Tweeting for help and through that Tweet receiving help very quickly.  We have sent Tweets to various groups of students in various situations and the results have been good.  I should know more and I should have more Twitter experience.

My knowledge of Zinch, Foursquare, Google +, Pinterest and other forms of social media is extremely limited.  Up to this week, I am not sure I have even come across some of these terms previously.  My interest in knowing more is to fully understand how to best reach whatever audience I need to reach. My interest in knowing is to help determine how we can best reach out to the vastly increasing number of social media users that almost solely rely on mobile access to the internet.

In summary I need to go back to school (and I’m sure I’m not alone in that regard) so that I am aware of all the best practices in  effectively communicating with students and, through effective communicating, enhancing the educational experience and learning of our students and the interest of our potential students.  As noted above, I want to be a knowledgeable part of the conversation.   So let the conversation continue and my learning continue … but for the immediate future, please send me your comments only via email, a text message, snail mail, or through Inside Higher Education.