John Merrow is retired from his work as one of the nation’s top education reporters, but he still blogs about education, and he recently suggested a first day speech for teachers.
(It’s my hope that my grandchildren’s teachers, and lots of other teachers as well, will say something like this on the first day of school.)
“Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to school. I hope every one of us will have the best year yet. And I want this classroom to be a warm and welcoming space for everyone.
During the year I will occasionally ask you “How are you feeling today?” And, while I do care about your answers, let me tell you now, on Day One, that I’m going to ask only one vitally important question about each of you.
But before I ask my question, let’s think about how schools operate. Basically, today’s schools want to know one thing about every one of their students. About every one of you! Directly and indirectly, they look at you and ask How Smart Are You? Then they make you take all sorts of tests. When the machine sends back the results, the system relies heavily on those test scores for their answer. They rank you. In short, you’re a number.
But never forget that a test score is just a number, and you are much more than a number. That number reveals how you did on that test on that particular day, but not much more. That number doesn’t make allowances for headaches or hunger pains, or for difficulties at home, or for the argument you might have that morning with a best friend or a girl or boy friend.
The question that I am going to ask you changes the order of the words, just slightly but in a way that makes a world of difference. My question is not ‘How Smart Are You?’ but HOW ARE YOU SMART? Not ‘whether’ you are smart, because you are. I want to know–and it’s even more important that you know–the different ways that you are smart.
