Let's talk about education

On my first day at work as a teacher I was pleasantly greeted by the picture of a group of diverse animals in front of a tree, below which the famous quote “If you judge a fish on it’s ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s whole life believing it’s stupid”. Written by the famous Anonymous, it is one of my favorite quotes on education, and I live by it. But an hour into my second meeting of my employment, I suddenly feel overcome by annoyance. It’s flushing over me like a tsunami coming from nowhere, and leaves only shreds of my patience and firm logical ground on which to stand on. They’re discussing how to provide test options for the students with “special needs” for the national tests - nationwide tests in Sweden in which subjects the education system considers core subjects are tested. It’s quite the operation, and two months ahead of time, the much needed time of the teachers weekly pedagogic meeting is consumed by elaborating on a plan to make sure that the tests “run smoothly”, and that no students feel they haven’t been given a fair shot, rather than being spent on true pedagogic development. All possible needs and solutions are discussed and evaluated, and the stress is on making sure that no student feel they have been treated unfairly.

“I’m not sure if I’m thinking backwards now” I say. It is a response to the lack of patience I am experiencing to the current discussion on how to provide smaller groups for all students who feel they need or want it. “Wouldn’t offering smaller groups for those who aren’t in explicit need of one be making those students a disfavor? What is going to happen if they start studying at the university where 500 people are tested at once, and they have never tried taking an important test with 30 other students? They should gain experience in this too”. I knew even before I asked the question that it wouldn’t be well received. “I honestly don’t think any of these students are considering going to any university. We just want to make sure they can do well on these tests so they can get good grades”. And bam, there it was. There was the reason so clearly stated as to why I lost my patience to begin with. My brain does that sometimes, responding to illogical reasoning through frustration without letting me know why, but with my colleague’s matter-of-factly statement it became so obvious what my brain was parading against:

The facade of caring for education and knowledge development at what should be educational institutions, but in reality are places where creative thinking only is encouraged if it fits the mold of what the teacher wants. The purpose of national tests, from my understanding, is only to check the quality of the students’ knowledge as well as reassuring the quality of the nation’s educational institutions. There is nothing educational about it. Not even learning to cope with the stress of being tested. There is a major focus on the execution and preparation for these tests, not because the students benefit from them, but because they in reality represent a quality check of the teachers, and a receipt to the students so they know just how good they are compared to the rest of the teenagers in the country. You can adapt the test to fit different people and their needs, but if it’s still a tree you expect the fish to climb, no matter how you cut it, it’s still not testing the knowledge of the fish, just the competence of the teacher.

My job for the two months as a teacher is explicitly to prep my classes for the national tests in English. I guess I should teach them some English too, but only so that they can do well on the tests. Luckily for me, English can be taught in whatever manner I choose, and I am determined to make those students who can identify themselves as fish having to climb trees realize that their value is not dependent on the frame work forced upon them by the educational system. Learning and knowledge is not for getting grades and degrees – it is for living kickass lives. A couple of hours have passed since the meeting, and I am still frustrated, but I am excited to show them that there are different ways of learning, and different definitions of knowledge value and quality…