Elevating Equity and Joy in Education

Welcome to another thought-provoking episode of "The Equity Hour" with your host, Dr. Tami Dean. Today, we delve into the pervasive impact of standardized testing on education, exploring how it intersects with equity, and discussing alternative practices that can enhance the joy and effectiveness of learning.

In This Episode:

• The Testing Dilemma: Dr. Dean questions the necessity and effectiveness of 'testing season' and its impact on students and educators alike.
• Beyond the Test: Insights into how continuous assessments may hinder rather than help student learning, and the potential pitfalls of prioritizing test scores over genuine learning experiences.
• Equity in Education: A critical look at how current educational practices may disproportionately affect students of color and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
• Literacy and Learning: Dr. Dean emphasizes the importance of engaging with texts deeply rather than just preparing for tests, advocating for a return to authentic reading experiences.
• Call to Action: Tips for educators on how to use their voices to challenge and change the prevailing norms around testing and curriculum design.
• Engage with Us: Dr. Dean invites listeners to continue the conversation through Instagram live sessions and direct messages to share thoughts and experiences.

Join us for a candid discussion that challenges the status quo and provides educators with actionable insights on integrating more equitable practices in their teaching. Subscribe to stay updated with new episodes and visit our website for additional resources.

Remember, sharing your experiences and changes you’re making in the classroom can inspire others, so we encourage you to reach out if you have stories to tell. If you’re looking for direct support, Dr. Dean is available for free consultation calls to help integrate new ideas into your educational practices.

Don't miss out on our upcoming virtual course workshops—stay tuned for announcements!

Transcript

0:32

Hello. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the equity hour with me. Your host, Dr. Tami Dean. I am so excited to, again, becoming. To you over the airwaves to chat about. All things, diversity, equity and inclusion and social justice and education. And today I just really wanted to talk about a few things that just keep coming up over and over in various spaces. In my worlds and just throwing out some things that are on my mind today. So apologies if I end up rambling or going on a tangent, but actually. Um, those bird walks and usually being some of the most moments of insight, best moments of insight. As humans, right. So we'll see what, where this takes us. So I want to talk today because I was recently on LinkedIn and. Well, I've been on a lot of spaces, but there's so much talk around the science of reading. Around reading comprehension, fluency of reading. Um, a few episodes back. I had Dr. Katrina Leinger, on, and we talked about the challenges that teacher ed programs are facing. Because we've swung the pendulum. So far in one direction. And I say all this amongst and in the midst of quote-unquote testing season. And. I want to talk about. Testing season, first of all. Like, why is this even a thing? Is what just burns in my mind. All the time. Because. I really in my core, just think. It is not what is best for students. It is not what is best for educators. And. Does this really provide us with the information that we need. Now. I want to be clear. I'm not saying that assessment is bad. Assessment is a tool to inform us. Around learning that it's taken place. Right. So there's learning there's assessment of learning there's assessment for learning and there's assessment as learning. Right. So there are three different components of assessment. But what has happened? Over the trajectory of my career is this huge. Shift. Towards assessment and testing. Meaning only one thing. And really it's that quantitative measure. In this one day, one snapshot of one moment. And I don't know about y'all, but. If I'm having a bad day, that's probably not. The best. Day for me to take this assessment. And is it really an accurate portrayal of what I know and I'm able to do because these assessments are really only assessing. One type of learning. Right. And. In order to try to quote unquote, do well on these assessments. We've created these systems where there's almost more assessment. Then there is instruction. Because if you're always assessing. When is the actual learning, taking place. And it's closed the doors for so many students on opportunities to engage and think critically and have. Meaningful and engaging learning opportunities. And for me, the irony. This is. These. Engaging learning opportunities actually better prepare you to do lower level thinking like in the assessment. And. I can tell you as a former professor, I could tell. Students that when they started to come into my college classes, that had been a part of the no child left behind era. And when that started. Um, and I remember it distinctly as a teacher. Right. We would have like a test prep Wednesday, which I always thought was the most asinine idea ever, because if I'm. Teaching well, and providing students opportunities to learn. They are by the very nature preparing for engaging in thinking critically around the techs. But what we've done is. Like built this. Almost scripted way of looking at and thinking about a piece of text. And, or a problem or how to write. Right. And, you know, If you've ever read or. Listen to Kelly Gallagher. Talk about writing. Write the five paragraph essay just really doesn't exist naturally out in the world. And he talks about this and it's true because it doesn't because writing takes all these different forms. And so I want to focus a little bit on reading. Because. There's just this. Misunderstanding. Around. Reading and. Students potential challenges to become a proficient fluid reader. And one of the things. That I've seen. Um, Shift is we've moved away. From. Actual reading. Right. And where students are spending maybe five minutes or they're only looking at a short passage. Or an excerpt because that's what they see on the test. And, or we're breaking down. Words or the writing process so much that we interrupt the flow of ideas. And so if we go back to the, what is it, the heart. Right. What is it? The heart of reading and writing it's communication. So reading is about receiving and understanding communication and writing is about communicating with others. Right. It is not about the perfection of that process. And I'm not saying students don't need to learn those things, but what I'm saying is we're getting in the way of the creativity and the interest and the joy and the reciprocity of reading and writing. Because if I'm only ever looking at a short passage, I never get into the flow of reading. I never get to decide what is joyful about reading. If I'm always taking the teacher's tool, which is a text level. And I'm always asking or forcing students to choose books around a text level versus just choosing texts for the sake of wanting to look at a text, then I'm interrupting the joy. And autonomy. And even their ability to feel confident in choosing a text, because I can tell you what most of you probably, if you picked up, I don't even know, pick, pick something that you're not great at. Right. And you picked up a book. Uh, to look at it. So like if I picked up an inorganic chemistry book and try to read about it, or even honestly, my son is studying aerospace engineering, some of the things he talks about, I have no idea what he's talking about. I am a very smart person. I ha you know, I, I read, I study, I have multiple degrees. I don't know what he's talking about because I have not spent time in that area. But I know that I need to use a different skillset when I'm grabbing a text that is more challenging for me. Or I grab a book. That. Uh, is not something that's interesting to me. So. I know what genre I like, I'm just curious how many students are really getting the opportunity to know what they might actually like to read. Because are we actually giving them the opportunity to read. Like read, read, not a passage, not a short book, not a print of an excerpt. Right. But actually dive into reading and engaging with tax. And. I was just in a little LinkedIn chat. Um, today, actually about this, because. I think this is where. We're doing students a disservice. And this post was talking about. Students that. May have appeared to have some challenges with reading comprehension or fluency. And people were like, oh, it's background knowledge. And this particular conversation was around curricular materials that are going to bring in that background knowledge. Okay. So yes, background knowledge is important, but part of how you also learn about the world is being able to engage with the world. So again, I go back to test prep tends to take us away from those authentic opportunities and learning moments. To think critically, to dive deeper, to do projects, to do inquiry, right. And we miss out on those opportunities. And if you're thinking like, what does this have to do with equity? This is all about equity because the students that have this happens to the most are disproportionately students of color students in low SES environments. And, um, Just students that we perceive and they put that in quotes. And if you want to hear more about this, go listen to my previous two episodes, right. That we perceive to be low level learners that we interrupt all the time. So, what we ended up doing is. Doing some more skill and drill and kill, and they don't ever get to read. Right. Lake. And that just makes me sad. Because the only way. In life. To get better at something. Is to do it over and over and over and over. And with longevity and repetition. And if I'm not getting to have the opportunity to delve in and build stamina and try out different genres. How am I ever going to do that? That's like expecting. Someone who never practices basketball to be picked in the draft. Like, that's just not going to happen. In order to build that skillset, there are hours and hours of practice and engaging in learning like, oh, And correction and redirection and coaching. There is coaching. And I think this is one of the important pieces, right? If you rethink. In your mind, or you don't even have to rethink. I want you to reflect. When you think about the purpose of learning? Is it to deposit information into students to then regurgitate. On an exam. Or is the purpose of teaching? To facilitate. Questioning and engaging and then learning and exploring information and materials and building connections. Across those learnings. It's something to think about. Because if it's the latter. How are those practices engaged and reflected in the classroom? And you may be thinking, well, you know, Dr. Tammy. I don't really have a lot of choice in that because I'm told. That I have to teach in this way, or I have to read this script or, you know, my admin is saying this or my district. And I think that takes us back to this bigger question. Of. How do we interrupt? And interrogate systems of inequity because that's exactly what this is. And I wanted to just talk about this because I think people always think. Equity or assistance of an equity. R. Again, like racially motivated. I've talked about this in previous episodes. And while there are underpinnings of. Bias around. Race and social economic standing with some of these practices and policies and where you see them and where you don't. It's a bigger crisis. In education right now. Like. The fact that we call it testing season. And we have like, it's a season. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I really, I really want to talk more about this. If you are interested in talking more about this, I want you to head on over to Instagram. Shoot me a message. Send me a DM. Hit me up with a comment. Maybe we need to do like an Instagram live. I really just want to hear from educators thinking around this whole testing season. Component because it. We have. We are stressing students out. Over a day or two. We are stressing educators out. Over this late. And the lack of trust, like you can't, they can't do anything else. The, you know, if you just go to Tik TOK, just go to Instagram. You can see all of these. Videos, which are hilarious and sad all at the same time, talking about. What they do or don't get to do. Or I have to walk constantly around the room. Well, that's an equity issue too, because you know how distracting that is to have someone walking constantly like that's nerve wracking. I don't even, I'm not even an anxious person typically. That would make me anxious. Like, I can't even tell you how grateful I am that I went to school before this testing mayhem. And yes, we did have standardized test and norm reference tests. Um, but it, it wasn't to the degree that it is now and it wasn't constant. Like benchmarks and then looking at the benchmarks and then adjusting the data. And I am not saying data is bad. Data is great, but what kind of data and why are we collecting the data and what are we doing with the data? That's my question. So I just, I just really needed to talk. About this whole test prep season and how it then correlates to skill and drill and how that I think just feeds the monster. Of. Not really getting the opportunity to read. And enjoy reading. And. You know, And this is an unpopular opinion probably, but I don't think everyone has to learn. To love to read, not everyone's going to love to read just to like, not everyone loves basketball or everyone loves golf or everyone loves science or history or any of those things. But. I should be given the opportunity to discover that for myself in a way that engages authentically with. Real books. And experiment with them. Um, So. That's just kinda my 2 cents. I am feeling. All the feels for the students and educators as we move into this. Part of the school year. I mean, if we're having to share. Mental health resources and with students and educators to quote unquote, get through this time. Um, I don't know what that says about, about it. Like, what do you think that says about it? I would love to hear. More about that from you. So if you're interested, let me know, hit me up. I'm gonna probably do a little. Video on Instagram, too, about this, just because it's sitting on my mind, maybe we need to do an Instagram live and you can pop in and chat. So I'd love to hear from you. Good luck to all my educators. I am thinking of you. I would love us to think about, you know, how do we pull and use our voice to shift. This current climate around. Testing and. Well, we define as reading. Versus not reading. So that's my 2 cents for this week. Just on my mind. I'm thinking of you all would love to hear from you. And again, if you are interested in support with how to integrate some of the changes or ideas that I talk about on the podcast or share. On my Instagram, please. Hit me up. I would love to take a few minutes and have a free consultation call with you. Uh, to discuss how I can support you. And be on the lookout. I'm going to be having a virtual course option workshop coming up. So be on the lookout for that announcement. And so thank you so much again for joining me today for another episode of the equity hour. Again, if you're enjoying this podcast, please like share and subscribe. And let your educator friends know about it. And if you are doing something in your classroom that you would like to share with others hit me up. I'm always looking for guests. Until next time. Remember, use your voice.