Digital Native vs Testing

I have been rethinking the idea of digital native vs digital immigrant. We commonly think that students today, having grown up with digital technology at their side, are better attuned, and so more comfortable, with technology. This has not necessarily been my experience.

Students are exceptionally good at sending text messages and looking at YouTube, but actual creative activity is really very low, and that which is created is no better than other generations have been able to muster. Students are fairly good at finding shortcuts to accomplish their work, and I am not completely against this, but the amount of knowledge that soaks in seems no greater than we have seen in the past, and often is less.

Finally, I think that game design is an excellent way to teach content, but generally speaking, the tools involved in game design have a steep learning curve, that only the most dedicated students are willing to climb.

I'm thinking about that Friedman piece, in the Times last week, where a researcher said that a major problem is student motivation. One response was to ask what if we made school engaging enough to generate that motivation? 

And that is true, as far as it goes, but schools have other problems that force them in this direction or that. I'm thinking of this nonsense that the LA Times has pushing regarding ranking teachers by the test scores of their students. They talk about "value added" to suggest that the tests ranking only look at progress from one year to the next. It is a fantasy.

I started teaching in a middle school in Pacoima, where the average sixth grader read at a third grade level, if I was lucky. Now let's suppose I'm a fantastic sixth grade teacher, and I can move them two years in the space of one year, arguably a great job. Now they are reading at a fifth grade level, but they have to take the sixth grade test, which they fail miserably. Now my pay and my reputation are at stake, even though i've done a great job.

The solution--don't take chances, and don't work in a low performing school. That means no games or projects in class, only content that is sure to get my kids to score better on the test. Nothing else matters. Every time they come out with new ideas for teaching, but fail to change the way they test, teachers look at it and say "no, thank you".

My own research has shown that increasing technology in middle class schools has only a marginal benefit, but introducing or expanding technology at low socio-economic schools has a significant effect on learning, but has nothing to do with the tests. So who is going to do that if their job is at risk?