District Administration - April 2008 - (Page 54)

SPEAKING OUT • Gary Stager The Games Teachers Play We are cheating our students by turning reading into a game of dodgeball. THERE IS LOTS OF TALK ABOUT games and education these days. Educators mystiﬁed by students’ indiﬀerence to schooling are all too easily taken in by slick talkers drawing grandiose conclusions from some kids’ love aﬀairs with video games. Rather than take the steps necessary to make school more social, teachers more engaging, and curriculum more relevant, we either shift blame to parents, TV and hip hop, or seek salvation in the lessons of Grand Theft Auto. Kids have always spent long periods of time engaged in activities diﬀerent from those valued by school. Most display a talent for developing an encyclopedic knowledge of topics from dinosaurs to sports statistics to gossip. Children whose passion or aptitudes happen to match the tested curriculum are declared “good students.” While we marvel at the intensity and focus required for children to achieve video game success, we are quick to label the same children as having attention deﬁcits while in class. The capacity of children for intensity is squandered by mountains of worksheets, timed tests and other curricular contradictions. Students as Workers While we obviously recognize the value of play in video games, we cancel recess and build schools without playgrounds, referring to students “as workers.” As fewer children enjoy the sportsmanship and healthy competition learned from a friendly game of kickball with classmates, they have been transformed into soldiers in a high-stakes political game of international economic competitiveness. Perhaps there are many more distractions facing children today, but great teach54 April 2008 We rush, test, score, fail and recover them. ers continue to create environments where their students want to be and to learn. The answer to bad teaching is better teaching, not another worksheet, get tough movement or quick ﬁx. The sad truth is that schools may be better at destroying interest in a subject than inspiring it. A friend used to require his students to write a weekly television show review. This satisﬁed a variety of language arts objectives and shared the unintended consequence of the traditional book report: Students’ interest in TV would decrease with each report required. Illiteracy is not a problem among preschoolers. Every toddler enjoys books. It isn’t until children attend school that they begin to feel self-conscious or failures as readers. We tell kids what to read. We interrupt their reading with comprehension quizzes. We rush, test, score, fail and recover them. We reduce the world of literature to “Fawn at Dawn.” In way too many cases, school has a highly eﬀective prophylactic aﬀect on reading. An alarming number of learning disabilities result. Winning Points Too often, schools respond to the literacy crises they create by turning reading into a game. I remember being told that I read 750 words per minute, a feat unmatched by TV’s Steve Austin. The secret behind my bionic ability was a talent for guessing answers to multiple-choice questions, not superhuman comprehension. Many classrooms today use a popular software program to test student reading. No longer do students read for pleasure or information. They read to win points in a misguided eﬀort to mechanize teaching and learning. This perverse notion of motivation turns reading into a contest with winners and losers. Strong readers choose simpler books to rack up points quickly, while struggling readers are humiliated by the public nature of their scores. Guess what? Teachers tend to become dependent on teacher-proof systems and stop exercising professional judgment. While the company behind this system has been very nimble and creates tests for new books, teachers are unlikely to value the reading of a book not in the system. Reading for fun wastes time you could spend crushing your classmates. With score tables automatically generated and parents alerted to their child’s pole position, teachers will invariably use the points in grading students regardless of the program’s intent. Turning reading into a game is neither eﬀective nor very good for inspiring lifelong readers. DA Gary S. Stager, gary@stager.org, is senior editor of District Administration and editor of The Pulse: Education’s Place for Debate (www.districtadministration.com/pulse). District Administration http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2008

District Administration - April 2008
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Technology
Facilities & Construction
Curriculum
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Profit and Loss in School-Business Partnerships
The Broad Way
Big Macs for Big Grades
Hometown Success
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Speaking Out
Crisis Response
New Products
Problem/Solution
Computer Literature
Research Center
Calendar of Events
Products Showcase
Understanding the Times

District Administration - April 2008