Intense Emphasis of Curriculum and Testing

 January 2003

The emphasis on testing is obviously meant to create an atmosphere of accountability and to highlight what is and is not working, presumably to help determine what is needed for improvement. The idea is commendable. Results are important. Throughout the business industry there is also more emphasis on documented results than ever before. The problem is that in the education system, as well as business and industry, so much emphasis is being placed on being able to document good results via more and more testing that little attention is being given to person to person interactions. Teachers are no longer teaching students they are teaching potential test scores.

The truth is that the human connection between teacher and student is perhaps the most critical component of highly effective teaching. Positive personal interaction is necessary to the process of motivating people (young and old) to achieve at optimal levels. These key components of human behavior and effective communication dynamics are being overlooked and even abandoned in the push for improved results and test scores.

In the business world, some employers completely disregard employee satisfaction or morale, adopting instead the “like or leave it” attitude about employees that are not happy or highly productive. I am certain that many of you have friends or family members that report the changing emphasis in their work places. I do not believe this approach to people management is getting the desired results and our current economy seems to support my belief.

Even if this tactic was viable in the business world, it will not work in the education setting for a couple of obvious reasons. First, it is not possible to tell underachieving students to just leave if they aren’t happy. In education they are yours to keep at least until the 9th or 10th grade. Secondly, learning and retention is very dependent on the interpersonal interactions of students and teachers. The human connection which means positive interpersonal interactions between teachers and students is essential for achieving desired results--- improved test scores.

Yet, with so much pressure to “get the material covered”, I have noticed teachers intensely working their way through lessons or modules that will appear on the test, while their students remain disinterested or disengaged. As an observer, I have seen teachers become so focused on the day’s agenda they do not even notice that their students are not interacting with them or the material. Often when children disengage from the learning process they will act out, just to break the monotony. Then the teacher notices. Other times I have seen many students in the class disengage simply by putting their head down or reading---something of interest to them or just plain old daydreaming.

More and more educators are finding themselves frustrated and mystified about how they could have put so much effort into their teaching and still see poor results on tests. The truth is they did teach, but the students weren’t with them. It is essential to remember that covering the material is only one part of the equation when it comes to getting good results on tests. The most important part of any learning equation is “is this student actively engaged in the learning process?” It does not matter how stimulating the curriculum is or even the teacher’s style of delivery if the students are detached from the process.

I have witness so many detached students at every grade level in my travels. Sometimes educators refer to theses students as “unmotivated” which they indeed appear to be. I believe that many are not at “unmotivated” as they are disengaged. They do not seem to experience a sense of involvement with the teacher. From my perspective as a human behavior specialist, and psychotherapist, these children do not experience themselves as individuals of great importance to the teacher as much as they experience a sense of themselves as simply being a computer that is being programmed so that it can spit out the correct data at the proper time.

Few, if any, teachers I have observed seem to me to actually feel that way about their students. I think it is the weight of the expectations being placed on teachers that is creating a classroom atmosphere that has lost some of its emphasis on caring and nurturing students in the process of educating them.