Let’s Listen to Our Students

I was a compliant student  I listened to my teachers, did my work, studied hard, and got decent grades. When I went to the university, I learned about this yellow book with black letters called "Cliff's Notes"  that some students purchased. I was appalled! Instead of reading the assigned literature, they were reading summaries, a very shortened version of what was required for the course. I was too much of a rules-follower to ever consider purchasing one of those books. Instead, I labored and struggled to understand some of the readings we were assigned because I didn't want to "cheat."

I remember getting home from work about twenty years ago, and our son and some of his high school friends were huddled around our computer, reading something and then writing in their notebooks. "What are you doing?" I asked them. They were at a website for a book they were supposed to be reading for their high school English class. There was no way they were going to read the whole book - “it’s so long and boring!” - so they were reading the summary of the chapters and completing the questions. "Don't worry," one of them assured me. "We'll still get an 'A' in the class; the tests are easy." I was flabbergasted and also concerned that these kids, taking a college prep English class, were not being challenged with rich discussions or assignments. 

Today, kids are able to Google anything and with the emergence of AI,  times are certainly different. I read this op-ed by a high school junior Benjamin Weiss,  "Student Voice: Teachers Assign Us Work that Relies on Rote Memorization then Tell Us Not to Use Artificial Intelligence". What a thoughtful, honest, quality writing piece which may capture what many students are thinking. 

My opinions have evolved through my years in education, first as a teacher and later as a school principal. From my experiences, I realized that if learning is to "stick," what we assign to students has to be meaningful. For far too long, schools have focused on memorization and regurgitation of information rather than on deeper thinking. Getting a high score on a test did not necessarily mean that the student learned more. It could mean that they were good at memorizing. And the question to ask is, did students retain the information or was it forgotten as soon as the test was over? Often, it’s the latter.

I asked two male teens to read the op-ed by Benjamin Weiss. I asked if they agreed with the writer. One  teen said, “I agree cause teachers should be teaching kids in a way where you can’t cheat so easily. I think memorizing doesn’t help if you don’t understand the concept,” he added. The other teen shared, “I agree because I don’t think that teaching for a test is really teaching; at that point, it is basically giving the students a script to remember.” They agreed that assignments should be more thinking and discussing rather than just memorizing. And, I should add that these two teens, although they perform well in school, have shared on numerous occasions that they don’t really enjoy school.

Back in 2020 while schools were still closed due to the pandemic, I wrote a blog titled, “Time to Examine Our Beliefs about Education.” Amongst my thoughts were the following:

• Seat time and good grades are not necessarily an indication of learning. Too often, learning in school is merely memorizing and regurgitating information. Real learning means applying skills or facts to delve deeper, to make sense of information, and the application to new situations. It may mean that students get feedback then revise their work before submitting it for credit. How do we change our reporting system to tell the story of real learning that has lasting impact on a student?
• Too often, school is teacher-directed. It is the teacher in the classroom who determines what to teach, when to teach it, and what is the evidence of learning. Students are often passive learners as opposed to being passionate, self-directed learners whose curiosity about a subject drives their own learning. How can we ensure that our student learners have an opportunity to create their own learning that is meaningful and impactful to them?
• The public judges schools based on standardized test scores, and schools feel the pressure of ensuring that their students are prepared for this once-a-year high stakes testing. Teachers may be evaluated based on the scores of their students. While we understand that the public needs to know that our schools are educating our students to be contributing citizens of their community, is there a more reliable, less expensive, and less time-consuming way to rate our schools besides high-stakes testing?

Our world is changing, much more rapidly than when I was a child or even for much of my teaching career. Our schools, our educators, and our school leaders need to take a good look at what we are expecting from our students. AI is not the problem; unless we change the way we do schools, our students will continue to look for the easiest way to complete rote assignments. As Benjamin Weiss shares in his op-ed, “We are at a crossroads. Educators, policymakers and everyone with an interest in the future of work has a decision to make. They can either continue supporting an education system that teaches students to think in ways that AI can clearly do better, or they can decide to reform education to prepare students for the not-to-distant world of the future.”