PHOTO: Pagosa consultant Ashley Wilson documents a white board from the April 19 ‘SWOT analysis’ work session at Pagosa Peak Open School.
A thriving community is a living, breathing construct, built by people, for people. Typically a team of caring individuals form their community around an activity or purpose greater than themselves, then work to nurture it with help from its members.
Anyone who has become engaged in community buildings knows, the work is hard and never-ending. When we get too distracted by the whirlwind — by things that matter less — we can forget to attend to the community’s foundation. Neglecting the foundation for too long might can losing what we have built.
This editorial series has been considering things that matter less, and things that matter more.
In Part Two, I complained that data is not always closely related to reality, even when the people in charge of the data collection assure us that we are being provided important, and accurate, information. So that’s one big problem: collecting data that ends up being misleading.
But what about the things that cannot be converted into data? Are those things actually the most important things?
Here we have a tricky question, because we may not agree about what is “important”. I might suggest a few things that are important. Not that we have these things, currently, but… are these good things to strive for?
1. A global environment that sustains humankind and a world full of various other life forms.
2. A global culture that encourages people with different backgrounds and beliefs to live together in relative peace.
3. A sense of community and brotherhood, where those who are most fortunate gladly share with those who are less fortunate.
Maybe we don’t all agree on those values? But let’s pretend, for the moment, that we do.
Disclosure: Although I serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School board of directors, this editorial reflects only my own personal opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of other PPOS board members, nor of the PPOS staff and community.
During a ‘SWOT’ (“Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats”) work session process at PPOS on April 19, we started off with a discussion about how, and why, the charter school was created.
Let’s be very clear. The reasons for its creation had nothing to do with generating data. The goal was to create a community of parents, kids, and educators who could engage in, and support each other in, a process of lifelong learning and citizen involvement.
Nevertheless, data is being generated at PPOS. Lots of data. On a regular basis.
It turns out that ‘data’ is fairly easy to generate, these days. While ‘a sense of community’ is much harder to generate.
Is there a connection? I mean — between our obsession with data, and a lack of ‘community’?
In my humble opinion, one of the situations where excessive data collection is a questionable practice concerns the computerized testing requirements in our public schools.
Apparently, Colorado State Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Democrat and retired teacher, is of the same opinion.
From a recent Chalkbeat Colorado article by Erica Metzler, titled “CMAS, PSAT, and SAT sticking around: Colorado won’t reduce testing requirements”:
The sponsors of a bill that aimed to reduce the burden of standardized testing and encourage school districts to experiment with new ways to measure student achievement withdrew the legislation this week…
…State Rep. Eliza Hamrick, an Arapahoe County Democrat and retired teacher, said she brought the legislation because she’s seen pressures around testing have a negative impact on education. She’s also been impressed with the work of Colorado school districts that have participated in a pilot around innovative local accountability systems. She wanted to secure federal funding to continue that work and expand it to new districts.
The state system rates schools mostly based on test scores, as well as factors like graduation rates and college enrollment. The experimental local programs have incorporated other measures, such as school climate, the quality of instruction, and student engagement…
Colorado measures school performance mainly by computerized tests. I’m not sure who came up with this brilliant idea. The testing of American students, using written and oral examinations, dates back to about 1840, and by 1922, educator John Dewey was pointing out where this testing mindset was taking us:
“Our mechanical, industrialized civilization is concerned with averages, with percents. The mental habit which reflects this social scene subordinates education and social arrangements based on averaged gross inferiorities and superiorities…”
“In the first place, the school must itself be a community life in all which that implies. Social perceptions and interests can be developed only in a genuinely social medium — one where there is give and take in the building up of a common experience… That involves a context of work and play in association with others…”
Work and play in association with others. Aye, there’s the rub.
We now live in a so-called ‘post-industrial’ society, but the obsession with averages and percentages — data — has only become more ubiquitous in public education, and more damaging to what is important in building community.
Standardized testing focuses mainly on measuring individual student performance in reading and math. So, what is the message here?
“You, the individual student, will be compared to other individual students and found to be either failing or succeeding. The institution in which you are enrolled does not much care about building community; the only kind of achievement that really matters to your state government — the only kind that gets obsessively measured as data — is how well each of you, in isolation, can perform on a computerized test…
“If you fail the test, you will not be expected to seek help from your fellow students. Instead, you will be pulled out of class for remedial lessons with other failing students…
“Remember, you are not part of a cooperative community. You are a lone individual, who fails or succeeds based on your own individual personality, background, and effort. Good luck, kid.”
Is this really a message aimed at producing a viable future for the human race?
Or is it — intentionally or unintentionally — creating a society of depressed drones?
From, “What Can Destroy a Community” by Eric Petersen:
A community lives and breathes. People like you can create opportunities for individuals to connect and lead richer lives. Recognize that there are destroyers of a community, positioned to resist you. Be on your guard, take action, and you can preserve your community and see your people thrive.