If you create the game, you create the rules. And if you are just do you, there’s no way you can lose!

–India Arie

I was excited this weekend when I found out (rather late) that India.Arie released a new album Songversation recently.  True to form, Arie uses true life to influence her music in an eloquently poetic way.  They lyrics that really stuck with me made me think about life and how there are many rules this game called life.

I just finished Catch-22 this weekend.  I was intrigued how these young men, who were somewhere around my age had no control over their lives and when they tried to there were rules that inhibited them from doing what they wanted.  Don’t get me wrong, they did this comically and interestingly, but it was a little sad.  The rules of their game was simple, do a certain amount of missions and you can go home.  The rules change when they up the amount of missions, it drives people to unexplainable extremes to get what they want.

So what does that mean for education?  My professor once told me how states tend to change the test, when they find that too many students are reaching the advanced or proficient mark. This was the explanation as to why 60 percent on most standardized tests is considered proficient.  I really like that the playing field is a bit leveled with new standardized tests and standards.  I thin the standards encourage teachers to push their students to the highest levels of critical thinking and creativity.  What I hope it doesn’t become, let’s figure out what’s on the test so that we can teach the content and then hope that our kids pass.   I think in order for this to work, the test should be used as a way to gauge gaps in college readiness, not only proficiency in the grade.  How will we (educators) use this data?  Will we use it to empower or punish?

The flip side is that the new standardized tests, require schools to also teach their students from a young age to be computer literate.  Now of course , this is necessary and most 3-year olds know how to use an iPad, however if teachers are just looking at the standards for their grades, they may neglect the fact that there are technology standards and that developmentally students should be proficient in using the mouse and the home keys on a keyboard by the end of second grade.  The new test, the PARCC  (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)will completely be on the computer, but what happens when schools are unable to satisfy the technological needs to take said test?  I ran across this in the blog section of Education Weekly this past week:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2013/07/tech_challenges_lead_oklahoma_.html

SO…everything happens for a reason.  It’s no coincidence that I finished reading Catch-22 listened to this awesome album, and finally paid attention to the alerts that crowd my inbox every week.  I think it is really important  that as we think through the changes that we make in our instruction.  I think that if we set the the bar high enough that our kids can be successful.  If we only aim for the bare minimum then we will only get the bare minimum.  MY hope is that when we look at the PARCC in the next two years, that schools will not look at the test and say “Man, we suck” but rather rejoice in knowing that their children are almost college and career ready.   There is a game: a game of ensuring that we get all children regardless of ability college and career ready.  As educators, we created the rules, now it’s time to face up to them.  In fact, if we were to do what we know to be the best, irrespective of the technologies or the income, all of our children will in fact succeed.

Marva Collins is one of America’s great educators, proving that with love and dedication and high stakes, that all students can succeed no matter what their background.  She  said in her book Marva Collins’ Way

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.

That is how we can change the world and make sure the rules work in our favor.

Be yourself!

–Say