Cycle 5: What does a good school look like?

The more I think about it, and the more questions I ask myself, it becomes harder to answer the question of “What does a good school look like?  Is it a school with good test scores?  Is it a school that embraces fine arts?  Is it a small school? There are many lists posted of "what makes a good school."  Although there are some good points, it is not as simple as creating a list.  I find it almost easier to examine what a good school does not look like, rather that to define what it does look like.

I work in a small school, with a total of 22 staff members (this includes secretarial and custodian staff).  As suggested by experts, this is a good staff size for team building. (Meier, 2002, p.53)  six of the nine classrooms are under 20 students, with only 3-5/6 being under 25 students.  Although it is nice that we have built a close community, there are definitely negative factors.  There is only one grade-level for students 2^nd grade through 6^th grade.  Although there are many opportunities for staff to collaborate, many are not familiar with content for your grade-level.  Also, a large problem I have in my 5/6-split classroom is students have almost created a sense of “cabin fever.”  Many have been in the same classroom with the same students since for the seventh year in a row!  They know too much about each other, to the point they act like siblings, not peers.  They hold grudges about things that happened many years ago, even though many have changed and matured.  And with our school having an overwhelming majority of African American students, many parents have the view as Meier mentions.  That not only am I “a racist but [I am] out to injure children of color” (p.  58).

While reading the articles for this cycle, I found myself being more and more unsure than before of what a good school looks like.  One thing that really stood out to me was the take Noddings has on Plato’s views on organization by natures. “Children are to be watched and tested to identify their talents and interests and then they are to receive an education compatible with their demonstrated natures” (p.428) At first, this makes sense.  This could be comparable to knowing your students and then teaching to their learning styles.  But, through further analysis, I began to envision The Giver.  This is what their society is based on.  The elders spend years observing the children and then use their interactions and data to determine where they fit best, to then focus their education (after the ceremony of the 12’s) based on their “demonstrated natures.”  Although I find The Giver to be a fascinating book, is that how we actually want life to be?

Plato’s two aims, educating the three large classes and educating the soul, is something that many of today’s schools are lacking.  We are so focused on meeting state standards and performing on standardized tests, we forget that we are not creating robots, but we are educating children.  This goes along with teaching to students’ needs.  If we understand that not all students are at the same level, and we understand that they have different needs, then how can we say that they all need to perform (on standardized tests) at the same time with the same expectations?

When looking at teaching our students, we ask ourselves, “What is the big idea?  What is our objective?  What are we accomplishing? How do we know our students are there?”  But when looking at the purpose of our current education system, does everyone agree one what our purpose is?  How is it measurable?

One situation I ran into this year was during an IEP.  The sixth grade student came from another school, and had a learned helplessness behavior.  He did not have much of a drive and anytime he felt the least bit unsure, he would refuse to work and just put his head down.  Throughout the year, his self-esteem and self-efficacy grew.  But, due to the lack of attention at his previous school, his mother enlisted a special education advocate to make sure we were meeting his educational needs.  We were making accommodations and modifying learning to meet his needs, but he came to our school so far behind in reading and math, it was a struggle for him to learn grade-level content, even with support.  Although he was making significant progress, due to lack of work at the beginning of the year, he received a “C” on his report card.  Our report cards also have a 1-4 rating system: 1,needs improvement; 2, shows progress; 3, proficient; and 4, exceeds proficiency.  So, he received many 2’s because he was showing progress, but was not yet proficient.  The mother and special education advocate attacked me that if we were truly doing everything we could, he would not have received a “C,” and that we were setting him up for failure.  I truly felt like I was in the PTA meeting (Louie, 2010).  It didn’t matter that he was making progress.  This was sending a message that his progress was not enough, “what really matters in education is their test scores.”  Some administrators take this idea of raising test scores a little too far!