Quality, not Quantity...

A colleague of mine ambushed me at lunch (mostly because she knew I would help her and then some) concerning an inquiry question she had to develop for that evening’s class. She had some up with one, but her instructor had told her (very last minute) that it wasn’t specific enough. So she was stressing over how to revamp her question, as to make it more specific, more measurable, more number-y...

Now, I am fully in support of quality educational change, and am at the forefront of data collection and analysis at my school (currently charting our school wide math data). Yet, I always have bucked at this data-eagerness, because I truly believe anything that is truly worth something within our schools, is not quantify-able (that’s a word, isn’t it?). I believe that we need to set goals within our schools, where everyone is working towards the overall student achievement. I believe we all need to work towards improving our own practices, thereby increasing student success (I even sound number-crazy!). Yet, not everything can be reduced to a percent, nor should it be.

Case in point: As part of our math committee’s initiative, I wanted to put problem solving as an INSTRUCTIONAL method at the forefront of our school’s math thinking. Research has shown that this instructional method works, and the benefits far out-weigh the traditional lecture methods. So, in my manipulating way, I demanded that all the teacher’s collect data on their students’ ability to problem solve. Tests were drawn up (by my committee), administered, data collected and returned to me. I then graphed the abysmal results which I will then present at our next meeting (Monday). However, the crucial step has not been made yet - the translation of our efforts towards ensuring that problem solving is truly ingrained within our daily instruction, not as some add-on at the end of our lesson.

The numbers are not what is important here - yet it is what will get all the attention. "Oh my!" they will say, "Only 17% of this class can problem solve at grade level! Whatever shall we do?" I do not anticipate the conversations to lean towards deep change in our instructional approach, but in remedial support to those poor, affected students. No one will say how unnatural it is to apply a quantity (number) to a judgement call like assessment. No one will say that perhaps my idea of grade level-appropriateness isn’t the same as yours. No one will deeply question this "data", because as we all know: numbers don’t lie (he says foolishly).

I do this because I see it as a way to enact change. I do this because I think it is important that we teach in better ways, and I’ll be damned if everyone else doesn’t see that. I’ve seen the research - and the way we do things isn’t working. Change needs to come quickly, in an institution notoriously slow to change. We need to understand that all that we do is a quality judgement call, and that nothing worth anything can be merely reduced to numbers.

We’ll see on Monday.