Today I read a piece about PARCC on Diane Ravitch's blog called Bob Shepherd: Why PARCC Testing is Meaningless and Useless which hit on something I don't feel like we've been talking about enough. Mr. Shepherd complains how PARCC and the Common Core are truly warping what reading means. He says, "...these are tests of literature that for the most part skip over the literature, tests of the reading of informative texts that for the most part skip over the content of those texts." I haven't heard many people complain about our skill-based reading instruction that has been in vogue since before CCSS, but now under the new standards is bad literacy on speed. We are teaching reading without enjoying words, or thoughts, or the context that created the stories we read. Even when we choose beautiful pieces of literature, they become lifeless vehicles to teach a dry, decontextualized skill.
For the past two weeks, my co-teacher and I were teaching off the standard that asks our fifth graders to compare and contrast two pieces of literature from the same genre. In my inclusion classroom, that looks like reading two myths without any teaching around what myths are, about Ancient Greece, about how the myths point to our own humanity. No, we are told to have the kids create a Venn diagram of the two texts and then practice writing a constructed response. The kids have no idea who Zeus or Hera are. They know nothing about the way myths were used to explain religion and nature to an ancient people. There is no chance to connect these ancient stories to the kids' own lives. I hear the kids mutter, "Why are theses such funny names?" But because we are on a strict pacing guide, and because the teaching of Greek Mythology is not in the standard, we simply moved on. This week we're on to comparing poems. In order to practice more constructed responses. To get ready for PARCC.
I cannot believe how we are warping the experience of reading for these children. Sometimes we are told to do a "close read"of stirring passages about the Underground Railroad for the sole purpose of pulling out the main idea and supporting details. We don't actually talk about the Underground Railroad-letting the horror of slavery sink in. No, it's simply about getting the skill, so the kids can demonstrate the same skill on the dreaded test. What a ridiculous disservice. I still remember my fourth grade teacher reading us a novel on Harriet Tubman and how that story was one of my first understandings of true injustice. We were inspired to create art projects, to write poetry, to pull out further texts on slavery from our library. We had class discussions. We wrote letters. We felt the text come alive. Our kids are not getting anything remotely like that experience. Because of PARCC.
And to make things worse, I teach at an all African-American school in a high-poverty neighborhood on Chicago's southside. Killing the love of reading before it starts for my students is nothing short of criminal. But because of the high-stakes nature of PARCC, knowing that schools just blocks away have been closed for their poor test scores, our school is in a sickening frenzy to raise our test scores by any means necessary. Everything revolves around this test. And my students who so desperately need safe, supportive, relevant, and engaging learning environments, instead are given high-pressured, standardized, test-prep CCRAP.
This type of readicide is not new because of PARCC. Schools under high-stakes accountability have been forced into this twisted form of reading instruction for many years. But things are getting worse, so much worse. Thanks to PARCC.
Any chance that kids get to become enthralled in a story, to become spellbound by a fictional world, to be pulled into the past through powerful prose, is done through teachers secretly stealing time for that wonderment. It is not in the standards. It won't be on the test. And it's definitely not in PARCC.
