But I can’t stop thinking.

I sat in a room proctoring a PSAT for sophomores–SOPHOMORES–for which the school shelled out a bundle of money. Sophomores. PSATs are vaguely useful to the tiny percentage of kids who do extraordinarily well on them and might be National Merit Scholars. But the College Board only counts the scores of juniors.

Our school doesn’t pay for every junior to take the exam. (However, there is money available for juniors whose families can’t afford it.) We’re a highly affluent district, but we face budget cuts like every other district. The key is to spend money intelligently and efficiently while maintaining our reputation as a town with excellent public schools.

So the students spent three hours this morning taking an exam that doesn’t count for anything, and for which the school paid around $20/head. I can almost understand if it were a practice CAPT test–the district’s pretty psyched about getting more students to get better scores on that puppy–but a PSAT? Why? Who are we enriching aside from the College Board? Maybe the PSAT/SAT tutoring companies, because you better believe that there’s a lot of talk about that in my sophomore classes when the scores come back in December. Scores for an exam for which these students aren’t prepared (they haven’t had enough math yet).

And it started me thinking about priorities, and what’s important, and what I’d do if I were the boss of everything in a school district.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my job. It’s now the job at which I’ve worked longest in my life (I’m in my fourth year in the same school). There is rarely a day when I wake up and dread going to work. Oddly enough, those are usually days on which no students are in the building and we’ve got all-day Staff Development. I like reading with kids and helping them write authentically. I adore my colleagues. I’m grateful for the paycheck and the support.

I think we can be a great school. We can be the high school that we say we are, but aren’t yet. But we need to think a little differently.

The obvious issue is the whole state testing/NCLB thing. Let’s ignore the fact that I think NCLB is a racist, classist, antifederalist attempt to bleed our public schools until they’re abolished and every school is either profoundly expensive or is basically an American madrassah. The reality is that we’re stuck with it, which means that as a Connecticut high school, our students have to pass the 10th grade CAPT test in order to graduate.

Fine. But that can’t be everything. And if is everything, we need to keep a couple of things in mind:

1) CAPT’s reading section is a constructivist exam. It asks the students to read a short story and write four journal entries meant to illuminate the reading process. The questions are usually something along the lines of

What questions do you have about the story?

What is the significance of [a quote]?

Does this story remind you of anyone you know in real life, from other stories, etc?

Is this story a good piece of literature?

According to Wikipedia’s entry on constructivist teaching methods,

In the constructivist classroom, the teacher’s role is to prompt and facilitate discussion. Thus, the teacher’s main focus should be on guiding students by asking questions that will lead them to develop their own conclusions on the subject.

2) CAPT’s Writing Across the Disciplines section doesn’t say anywhere, in its instructions, that it requires a tradition five-paragraph essay structure, a thesis at the end of its first paragraph, etc. In fact, the task is usually to read a couple of articles with opposing viewpoints on the same issue and write a letter about your position on it. This is persuasive writing, but it’s not nearly as formalized as a lot of teachers would have their students believe.

Constructivism fits in nicely with Christian Long’s Future of Learning Manifesto. I know this isn’t a new document, but I’ve found myself reading it more and more often recently. I especially love #4:

4. Got Passion? If Not, I’ll Tell You What To Care About.

I have a right to bitch about this class only if I have a dream I can articulate and am willing to put my life on the line for it. Otherwise, I might as well color between the lines, sit up straight, and take great notes.

And get out to recess on time.

Keep in mind, I may be young so I may have a hard time with that “r-tickle-a-shun” thing. That’s your job. Give me the words. Give me the tools. Give me the examples. And then get out of my way.

But the second you see my passion start to go from curious lit match to smoke-jumper forest fire, stop giving me handouts and worksheets and become my Jerry McGuire.

And here’s where I really start thinking about what my ideal school will look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, feel like. It’s not going to be relentlessly high-tech and obsessed with the Newest & Shiniest. But it’s going to have computer access for every student who needs it, whenever those students need it. So maybe one computer per student is in order. And where will that money come from? From not spending it on silly things like the PSAT, fancy consultants that nobody’s going to listen to, computer programs nobody can access, wasting teacher resources in manning a desk to enforce an attendance policy that doesn’t exist, or countless other things.

But even if there were no computers available in the school, Christian’s vision is spot-on. I taught my sophomores a new word today, “self-sufficient.” When they asked what I meant, I advised them to use the resources they had to find out for themselves. The three or four of them in each class who got the joke lost it; the rest got that deer-in-headlights look I usually associate with politicians who accidentally stray off their scripts.

“But how do you teach self-sufficiency and passion?” I hear you asking.

“Through experience,” I reply. “By taking away the ‘training wheels’ that don’t turn. By not dictating how students have to structure their essays. By not standing for excuses for anything.”

“Sweet,” you reply, in the tone usually reserved for trying to extricate yourself from a conversation with the foaming man on the bus.

“Also, by example. By encouraging teachers to take some responsibility for themselves. By encouraging them to pursue their academic interests, participate in meaningful staff development, giving them a say in how the school is run. Top-down leadership results in a stagnant staff and passive students.”

You would reply, but you’ve already run away.

My ideal school would have a completely integrated curriculum–reading, writing, math, geography, history, science, art, music, etc would be crucial to EVERY class.  We don’t separate these skills in real life.  Why do we ask our students to do that?

My ideal school wouldn’t be afraid of the power of social networking.  Here’s Christian again (point #8):

Instead of shutting off every virtual connection I have with the world once I step onto campus, why don’t you teach me how to ‘blog smart’?  Why don’t you bring in some CEO’s into the classroom to talk about the really ‘great’ kid they almost hired, until they Googled her and found those clever spring break shots from Padre Island?  Why don’t you get a MySpace account and come see what I’m writing, even if it p***es me off at the moment?  Why don’t you make me agile, rather than weak?

Oh, and why are you asking my teachers to deliver a world class education for the 21st century knowledge economy but you’ve censored every virtual tool they have at their disposal?  Frankly, I’m not sure why they give a damn.  I wouldn’t if I were them.

But then I’d be blogging my brains out at home after I punched out at the end of the school day. And then become a consultant and get 10x the pay from the same superintendent who hired me to come in and do a professional development day when “blogging” was trendy for 5 minutes.

I plan to write a lot more about this, but I want to let it marinate a little.  I also really need to get to those essays, which I’m looking forward to reading.  My sophomores were asked to write something somehow connecting the “Buddha Boy” of Nepal to The Scottish Play.  Should be quite an evening…