Education free from the constraints of outcomes based thinking
I was in conversation with someone the other day about the purpose of schooling. I mentioned how talking about one’s identity as well as about power structures (directly influenced by Rochelle Gutierrez’s framework on Equity in Math education) was the foundation of a strong education program.
The person’s face turned to one of worry, and she asked, “but we all know the point of school is to academic achievement."
I responded that yes, of course identity and power do not have to be at the cost of access and achievement (again a direct reference to Rochelle Gutierrez’s framework).
I left it at that.
But internally, I continued to experience a longing to have more conversation. I experienced a feeling of discomfort with the concept of achievement, and what each of us might mean by the word, and the ways the focus on achievement can lead to limiting what’s possible in transforming education for the better.
Achievement prioritizes outcomes over process…
What do you think of when you see the word achievement? I think of high standardized test scores. I think of gold medals. I think of recognitions. I also think of a job well done, pride in having done something meaningful and challenging, and having an impact on others in my community.
In the context of US schools, achievement means high test scores, getting into that desirable college, outperforming others. I will call this market informed achievement, or MIA. Market informed meaning achievement is relative to doing better than others, being in that higher percentile, doing better than the rest of the “market”. This type of achievement is informed by a defining moment (e.g. getting into that college, getting that test score).
…but it doesn’t have to be that way
What if achievement was about consistently being able to engage in a process in community? It wouldn’t mean ignoring important moments or skills, it would mean a shift of emphasis to dispositions towards learning, ourselves, and each other, and learning skills within the context of those dispositions. What if assessment focused on evidence of one’s ability to sustain a project, perhaps with others, and celebrate all the skills acquired along the way, all fueled by a person’s creativity and curiosity.
What would this take?
It would take educators focusing on seeing opportunities and possibilities other’s learning. Seeing a budding interest and having the dispositions, content knowledge, and skills to extend the fundamental concepts under the interest. It means instead of a lesson on counting, seeing children building a house and asking how many blocks do we need to build them? It means the noticing the collaboration needed to make the block house, while paying attention to the skills that are being developed or have yet to be developed, and reflecting on how one could further extend these concepts, curiosities, and skills throughout the year.
There are tensions here - tensions around when someone “should” learn something and when they actually learn it. It does mean loosening our grips on the idea of learning as linear, and rather embrace the fact that learning is twisty, circular, and ideally spirals upwards.
