Barbara C. Goodman: An Open Letter to Education Reformers

Barbara C. Goodman, a teacher, writes that she wants her students to be prepared for life, not just the job market.

The following is an open letter to the education reform community by educator Barbara C. Goodman.

Dear Education Reformist,

We have been battling each other for a long time. You present clear ideas and data to support your reform agenda. I am not moved. It’s not because I am old, recalcitrant and averse to change. I balk because I know you are wrong. My heart tells me so.

In my family, being learned was second only to being healthy. My grandfather’s life mission was to make sure that his children and grandchildren got a good education. As a Russian immigrant he understood that schooling was the key to prosperity in the new world. He also believed that education was so much more than that.

I remember the summer of 1967, the year of the Montreal World’s Fair, the time my grandfather disappeared. As was his usual routine, he left the house early for work, but never arrived at the small family grocery store he owned with my two uncles. By noon we had contacted the police, by afternoon the hospitals, and then we waited. He arrived home just after dusk. He had spent the day at EXPO 67. He saw giant-sized models of microscopic molecules, a movie on how iron ore is turned into steel, and a demonstration of how the phones of the future could be used to play games and take pictures. He was tired but unremorseful. In response to “where the hell have you been?” he said, “I ate, I drank, and I learned.”

My grandfather taught me that learning in itself was a joy and urged me to enter the noblest of all professions – teaching.

So I became an educator not just to teach math, English or any other subject; not just to get students ready for the work force, for the 21st century, or for global citizenship.

My mission is to make sure that my students graduate from high school with a passion for learning so that they can pursue their own dreams and find joy and delight in their life’s work.

I want my students to grow up to be like my friend Scott, a nature biologist who lives in Jackman, Maine, a small town just 18 miles south of the Canadian border. When the temperature is minus 30 or 40 degrees F., he rides his snowmobile deep into the north woods so that he can track and chart the mating and migration patterns of the northern lynx. He has just built a special child seat on the back of his snowmobile, and he is eagerly waiting for winter, when he plans to take his 3-year-old son to work with him. Scott can hardly wait to share his passion of the outdoors and teach his son about the animals that live in the cold wilderness of northern Maine.

Scott has a very high level of academic competence. But his knowledge and skills are merely the tools that he uses to do the work that he loves. Education is about inspiring students to find their own passion, to follow their own dreams so that learning is not just a challenge but also a joy.

Yet, each day I am faced with the dilemma: Do I teach our children the skills someone else has determined that they need, or do I acknowledge and respect their passions and use these to guide their learning?

The stakes are high. In order to graduate, Silas must pass the 10th grade math MCAS. He has no interest in geometry and doesn’t care about congruent triangles. He loves skateboarding. So I have him designing a skateboard park. He has determined the area and perimeter of the field in order to find the cost of fencing and ground cover. To design the slides he will need to figure the areas of triangles. He is completely involved in this project. I know because Silas has ADHD and has never before focused on a task for over four and a half minutes. Right now he has worked for almost 10 minutes. I know I can use this project to teach him about congruence. But not yet; and I don’t know when. So, E.R., the stakes are high. Do I teach Silas the three criteria for congruence and perhaps lose his interest. or keep him fully involved and enjoying learning? Do I focus on what Silas needs or what you – the reformist – wants?

Ed Reformist, the problem with your reform agenda is that you have set the bar too low. I want my students not only to be academically proficient, but also to love learning; not only to be prepared for the work force, but also eager to pursue their own dreams, not to just get a good job, but to also love their life’s work.

Barbara C. Goodman

Comments

Dave Ziffer

October 10, 2011 at 9:34 am

Unfortunately all these noble aspirations do not address the question of why my daughter at the end of fourth grade, having attended a well-funded suburban public school for two years as of Spring 1995, could not write a coherent paragraph or tell me what country she lived in.

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Misty Toes

October 10, 2011 at 7:48 pm

I agree with Dave. Children attend school to learn to read, write and math. If you can’t teach the basics without gripping about it, find a new job.

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Barry Garelick

October 11, 2011 at 6:15 pm

Students learn to love learning when they’re taught actual content with which they can then do things, like write, do math, or think critically. Assuming that learning how to learn operates outside of actual content is one of those pipe dreams that make educationists rich and the rest of the nation dumb.

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Barbara C. Goodman

October 12, 2011 at 8:30 am

I agree with Barry. Where in my piece did I say that students should not be taught skills or content? For me, the issue is not skills vs. love of learning. My challenge is how to do both when high stakes tests loom around the corner.
Misty and Barry, how would you teach Silas about congruency?

BTW, I love my job. I am not whining and I am not rich. bg

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Richard Bowdon

October 14, 2011 at 8:25 pm

Barbara, you are well meaning and clearly you have the heart of a good teacher. But your missive is misdirected. Education reform is about freeing good teachers and their students from stultifying bureaucracies and gross inefficiencies, not “teaching to the test”. Actually you are one of us. You just don’t know it, yet.

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Barbara C. Goodman

October 15, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Richard,
I have been an advocate for public education, an activist and a reformer for 40 years. Glad, you decided to join me.

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SteveH

October 20, 2011 at 7:40 am

“Yet, each day I am faced with the dilemma: Do I teach our children the skills someone else has determined that they need, or do I acknowledge and respect their passions and use these to guide their learning?”

You get to decide that? Who put you in charge?

Besides, why can’t you do both? What, specifically, are those “someone else” skills that aren’t important or can’t be done? Does each teacher get to decide what those unnecessary skills are?

When I look at standardized tests, I see trivial skills.

“The stakes are high. In order to graduate, Silas must pass the 10th grade math MCAS. He has no interest in geometry and doesn’t care about congruent triangles.”

So you are talking only about kids who might struggle to graduate high school? The problems you face looking at the kids who walk into your classroom are not the problems of education. You are only looking at your problems. You can’t use that to make overall judgments about the educational process. There are systemic problems here. Does Silas have problems because of ADHD or because he had 9 years of really bad math curricula?

“Ed Reformist, the problem with your reform agenda is that you have set the bar too low. I want my students not only to be academically proficient, but also to love learning; not only to be prepared for the work force, but also eager to pursue their own dreams, not to just get a good job, but to also love their life’s work.”

“too low”? So there is something other than what’s on standardized tests that is more difficult? It doesn’t matter what colleges set for degree requirements? It doesn’t matter what SAT scores one receives? Apparently you know the answer and all of these other people are wrong. For many, getting a chance to do and love their “life’s work” requires passing rigorous math classes in college. Are you letting Silas know what the real world requires, not just what you think? So you keep Silas happy and moving along. When he hits the big filter later on (MCAS, college, or job), you will be long gone and left with your happy memories.

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