"There has been an incident..."

I began my Sunday thinking of my wife's forthcoming chemotherapy treatment, her doctor's appointment and started thinking about my next post on my blog.  Several things came to mind but I wasn't satisfied until I went to You Tube for some inspiration...yes, You Tube.  There, I found one of my favorite movie scenes from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  I remembered the reference to the Klingon moon, Praxis.  From there, it all came to me.

The first scene of the massive explosion at the beginning of the movie made me jump out of my seat when I first saw it at the theater.  But there's a little hidden meaning here.  A "little" test exploded on the education scene in Virginia several years back, called the Praxis.  Whether it was Praxis I or II, it was referred to as the new benchmark of teacher testing and content knowledge.  So you have the explosion onto the educational scene and in my opinion, the educational system was "cruising home under impulse" when the shockwave of this "test" hit teachers and future teachers head on, not knowing what the end result would be.

The shockwave originated from Richmond, influenced by a multi-billion dollar company who claims to be non-profit and only serving the educational needs of school systems across the country.  In turn, Virginia used these tests to score teachers and set the highest standards in the United States for their teachers.  Has Virginia succeeded?  No, not by long shot.  In fact, it has further "muddied" up the education stream by its introduction and has broken the desire to teach in many individuals, some leaving the state to look for other venues of teaching.

But when individuals point out discrepancies in the system, the state is quick to respond, much like the Klingon Empire.  The Praxis testing for teachers has failed to address the issues that are at hand.  Memorization of test material does not make a quality teacher.  It is sort of like the line, "I can confirm the location of Praxis but I cannot confirm the existence of Praxis."  When we see the results, we see a system that is broken, capable of repair but no one wants to admit that it is broken.  Instead, we are told to obey "treaty" stipulations and remain outside "The Education Zone". 

Perfect scores are the dream of the Virginia Department of Education.  Exact scores are held in high esteem and drawn closely to the department's bosom.  But do perfect, exact scores make a great teacher?  I don't think so.  Education has sort of become like religion.  The old school of thought is to make it to Heaven, you have to be perfect.  Christians aren't perfect, neither are teachers or students.  I heard Karen Zacharias make reference the other day to the old way of Christianity as being "voodoo Christianity".  I agree with her description.  Education is becoming like "voodoo".  The education world promotes innovative teaching, innovative lesson planning in order to produce great minds and great thinkers that will change the world of tomorrow.  Planning for tomorrow's minds is great but it begins today.  Removing politics from education is step one.  Returning to the simple roots of education is step two.  How do we do that?  I need to think about that.  It's not as easy as it looks.