The Emperor Has No Clothes I can still remember the childhood feelings of delight, amusement, and even that slight degree of chagrin at those who fell for the charade, that I experienced when I first read the children’s fable, The Emperor Has No Clothes. Today, with perhaps a lesser sense of delight and amusement, and a greater degree of chagrin, I feel I must at least whisper to those around me the equivalent of, “The emperor has no clothes.” I wonder, doesn’t everyone else see this? Are they afraid to speak out? Who is this emperor of whom I speak? It is not a who, but a what. It is the current ruling culture of education in America. We are being bombarded with the belief that if we can test, score, and quantify every child in America into a myriad of numbers and data then we can provide them with instruction that improves their scores and thereby makes them and their educators successful. Educational institutions are being overwhelmed with pressure from within and without by multitudes of acronyms such as CC, RTI, PBIS, testing of all sorts, and data which is collected, collated, and compared. Politicians and administrators often compete to find their favorite ways to evaluate and judge “by the numbers.” In the quest to turn education into pure science they have turned away from understanding that the sharing of learning is a passion of the heart. Have we forgotten the simple, homespun garment which has clothed education since at least the time of Socrates? That which best evokes learning can be boiled down to two simple items cut from the same cloth. The cloth of love. A teacher must love their subject, and they must love their students. I know it has been the case for me, and I suspect it is for most who read this, that most of what I have learned from others in life I have learned from those who loved me and who loved what they were doing. These people were my school teachers and my teachers in other arenas of life. Certainly people can learn some things without this, but if we want to provide the best for our students we must start by doing better for the teachers who do so much for them. We need to be able support them as they help our children learn. The last couple of decades have seen the respect we bear our teachers gradually erode until today they are often considered to be the problem in education we have to fix. In this attempt to fix them we have allowed education to become clothed with the emperor’s clothes. Teachers are required to prepare their students for standardized tests, evaluated on their students’ achievements, micro-managed to frustration, critiqued and criticized at every turn. Learning becomes secondary to following the rules, filling out the forms, and getting the highest scores. Rather than demonizing and tying the hands of our teachers I suggest we give our trust and respect to teachers. Their lives are driven by a passion for what they teach and by their genuine care for our young people. They work every day with our children because they care. They know better than anyone what learning is about. That is why they are teaching. Teachers teach, not because they are incapable of doing other work, but because they can do what precious few people can do - teach - and they have a passion for doing it! We can encourage and embrace their creativity in the classroom. We can give them the freedom to do what they are good at. There are problems in every educational system, but is the solution to enter the land of illusion fostered by data-driven decisions and turn away from trusting teachers filled with caring hearts and with a passion for learning? You may be seeing things differently than I do, and I may only be one voice, but I know what I see, and so I say it, “The emperor has no clothes.”
2 Comments
Rachel
6/9/2014 01:16:27 am
Well said.
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Nancy Morkert
7/29/2014 07:53:59 am
Joel,
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AuthorJoel Kreger is a writer who grew up in Minnesota, spent many years of his life in Iowa and Wisconsin, and now lives in Minnesota. His life experience includes careers of serving 17 years as a Lutheran parish pastor, working 18 years as a public school teacher, and now writing as a novelist and blogger. Archives
April 2019
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