Missed Connections

Read this blog post (and watch the companion video) from John Merrow for a poignant discussion of why tests don’t tell us all we need to know about how kids learn. Merrow brings up a lot of interesting questions about the validity of testing the way it is currently done. This quote about reading tests especially got me thinking: “We looked over past tests, and, sure enough, the passages were about subjects that poor kids in the south Bronx may not be familiar with (cicadas or dragonflies were two of the subjects, for example).”

Test content is often divorced completely from the realities of the test-takers. Learning anything—especially abstract concepts—is made more difficult the more removed from the topic the child feels. This is a deceptively simple conclusion. On the one hand it seems utterly obvious. Yet, on the other hand it seems to have been largely forgotten or ignored in school. Certainly, there are many individual educators who make their lessons relevant for their students; but the system at large, and tests are the lynchpin of this system, does not seem to make a lot of content particularly relatable. This speaks to a larger issue: generally speaking, most curricula in this country slices and dices different disciplines into seemingly mutually exclusive chunks of “things kids have to know.”

Here in DC, we talk about “silos” in politics and government all the time. What about silos in the curriculum? Why do we teach math as totally separate from science—as if the skill of graphing had no place in the science lab? Why aren’t we formally encouraging our students to examine how literature—from the ancients to today—both informs culture and reflects it? This kind of curriculum demands a different kind of teaching, a new arrangement of the labor force in our schools. No longer could the math teacher work without consulting the science teacher; the history teacher couldn’t work without the input of the English teacher. Interdisciplinary teaching requires a new arrangement of time and focus, but if done well and bolstered by institutional support, it could facilitate just the kind of interdisciplinary learning that would empower students to draw their own connections to the curriculum, a prerequisite for success in college and careers.

Visit www.nctaf.org to learn about NCTAF’s STEM Learning Studios Initiative that teams up educators and STEM professionals in an effort to institutionalize collaboration across disciplines for both teachers and students.