Sham Standards: Governor Kasich and the Standardized Testing Fetish

I thought updating this post might still make a bit of sense and interest teachers. At my old school we organized a visit of veterans every year, starting in 2002. These visits continue, sixteen years later, with almost two dozen men (we’re still having trouble finding women) talking in small group sessions to hundreds of students last May.

Originally, I described the visits as a counterpoint to what I thought was a weird fetish for standardized tests.

A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE and a very fine math teacher, Steve Ball (twice “Educator of the Year” at Loveland Middle School after the award was instituted in 1990), is retiring soon. Last night a few of us got together to talk about where U.S. education is headed.

Steve laughed and admitted he had “survivor’s guilt” about getting out of the profession just in time. 

No one at the table, including two other winners of “Educator of the Year,” and none of the teachers I talk to these days, thinks education is headed in the right direction. 

It’s too bad many “experts” have convinced themselves and a lot of obtuse politicians that standardized testing is going to save us. And for anyone that believes this is the way to go in Ohio, I have one word: mercantilism.

FOURTEEN VETERANS TALK TO OUR SCHOOL (OF ALL PEOPLE, ACE GILBERT IS MISSING IN THE PICTURE).  IS THIS GOOD FOR STANDARDIZED TESTING?

CAN YOU DEFINE MERCANTILISM? Probably not. But when the State of Ohio put its bureaucrats to work a few years ago and came up with a list of social studies standards, some knucklehead decided eighth graders needed to know about this seventeenth century economic theory.

I doubt anyone has cared about mercantilism since the seventeenth century. I don’t and I loved teaching.  

Unfortunately, most teachers I know, and I speak only for the good ones, believe the fetish for standardized testing is slowly killing what is best in our schools. For me, the last few years I taught, “teaching to the test” seemed almost unethical. 

I found it sickening. 

Here’s my favorite example. I served in the Marines from 1968-70, but sat at a desk in Camp Pendleton, California. So I don’t pretend to be a hero. Still, I know something about learning in its truest forms and I have a lot of connections with veterans. After the 9/11 attacks I started bringing in combat veterans to talk to my classes. I reasoned that if we were going to war, my students should know what war truly entailed.

The program grew each year, until in May 2008, I was able to line up fourteen men, representing five different wars, and divide them up so that our 700 students heard three different speakers or groups of speakers. Joe Whitt was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Mark Adams dodged missiles in an F-16 over Baghdad in 1991. Seth Judy was badly wounded in Iraq in 2003. That gives you some idea of the quality of the visitors. 

Now consider this a moment: nothing these veterans would say about their experiences could possibly show up on a standardized test.

Technically, the entire day was wasted. 

Dave Fletcher, a friend of mine at Loveland Middle School, continues the program today. Recently, I went out to speak to students myself, along with a group of real heroes. That would include a gentleman who served in bloody combat in Vietnam in 1969-70 (while I sat safely at my desk). Here’s a capsule version of what Ace Gilbert said and if this isn’t learning in the most important sense, I’ll eat the next standardized test I see and won’t ask for ketchup. 

ACE FREELY ADMITS, when he speaks to teens, that he has a hard time dealing with some of what he saw decades ago. He’s not alone in that. In 2008 our program should have included fifteen speakers, but the morning of the day presentations were scheduled a young Iraq veteran started having flashbacks and his mother had to call and apologize and say her son wasn’t going to make it. I begged her not to feel a need to explain and asked her to tell the young man I appreciated his service. Three years before, I had an old marine who fought at Iwo Jima come out to school. Marvin Burdine had been shot in the back by a Japanese sniper and spent ten months in the hospital; but when he talked to classes sixty years later he said he had nightmares for a month afterward. 

So Ace isn’t alone—and he wants students to know there isn’t much glory in combat. He tells them the Marine Corps trains you to take orders, to kill, but you “never train for the fact that your best friend could die in your arms.” On November 11, 1969, his unit launched an assault against dug-in North Vietnamese troops holding a hill that the Marines wanted. Sometime during the day, Bobby Hamel, his buddy, was wounded, and fell into a deep shell crater in a position too exposed to reach. 

That night, Ace finally helped carry Bobby back down the hill, but it was clear the young marine might not make it. Ace told him to hang on, that medevac helicopters were coming. His friend grimaced and said, “If you really like me, get some help.” Around 6:30 a.m. on the next day the sound of choppers gave them a few moments of hope. Bobby turned his head to see “and his soul left his body.”

That’s how Ace tells the story and his teen audience is silent. And now they know something about war and the sacrifices that patriotism may require. 

I’ve seen Ace talk to hundreds of students over the years and he never loses an audience. Never. He’s funny at times, sad at times, even angry. He uses a little strong wording; but when he’s done the kids can sense what it really means to fight for your country. Ace talks about nights spent in the jungle, posted for ambushes, senses so attuned to noise “you could hear a mosquito fart.”

Naturally, 13- and 14-year-olds appreciate such lines. 

Mr. Gilbert was a machine gunner. On his first nighttime ambush he cut down nine enemy soldiers at close range with one burst of fire. So he knows what it’s like to see men die and thinks about some of the enemy soldiers he killed even today. He speaks of dead friends as “forever nineteen” in his mind and you know talking about it isn’t easy. Again, teens relate. Ace has to be prodded to admit he won two Purple Hearts. One came when he stepped on a land mine. “It felt like I got kicked in the ass by a supersonic mule,” is how he puts it. Again he has the rapt attention of students. 

IT’S JUST TOO DAMN BAD he doesn’t talk about mercantilism. In a world where Governor Kasich wants more testing in more subjects and teachers’ pay based on test results, Ace is just moving his lips for no official, educational reason. 

He’s a fantastic speaker and makes students laugh and cry and sometimes wince. He helps them understand what it means to be patriotic. 

Unfortunately, you can’t put that on a standardized test. 

If you’re a teacher who cares about real learning, like Mr. Ball and Mr. Fletcher, and me, you think, “This is nuts.”

***

Dave Fletcher retired recently, himself, and Greg Crosky, a young Loveland Middle School teacher, took over.

By now, Ace Gilbert—who never misses the day—has visited my old school fifteen years in a row. Joe Whitt, the old Pearl Harbor survivor came for a decade but has since passed away. Mark Adams, the F-16 pilot often shows up, misses now and then, and apologizes if he’s unable to come. Younger veterans, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, now take on the roles of some of the older men. This year, Mr. Fletcher’s son finally finished his college classes, having enrolled after he served in the U.S. Army, had a schedule that worked, and joined the speakers. He served in Iraq. Three of my former students, Chuck Garrett, Chris Tobias and Mark Jaquez, have all been good enough to come out and speak with the kids. I asked Kelly, another former student, several times if she’d like to come. She finally said she didn’t think she’d ever be able to talk about what she had seen as an Army nurse during her bloody tour in Iraq.

Chuck, Chris and Mark were all kids, themselves, a decade or so ago, when they sat rapt listening to other veterans of other wars speak.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, DROP ME AN EMAIL AND I CAN EXPLAIN HOW WE SET THIS UP. I THOUGHT IT WAS FAIRLY EASY TO WORK OUT A SCHEDULE, SO ALL OUR KIDS HEARD THREE SPEAKERS EVERY YEAR.

VILEJJV@YAHOO.COM