Complex Thinker Assessor

It’s 7:30 on a working morning. I am sitting alone in an empty room filled with small desks. In front of me is a pile of papers, awaiting my attention. Just outside, I can hear the murmurs of the people who are waiting to enter. I steadily lift my cup of tea and take a sip while looking over my plans for the day. My mind is racing, thinking, wondering if today is going to be a good day where all my plans fall into place, or is there going to be an unexpected surprise (which is always something you cannot prepare for). Regardless, I am confident in what I have prepared and as long as the young people outside of my door are in the right mindset, then all my plans should work flawlessly.

7:45. My concentration is interrupted by a loud ringing of a bell, signaling the official start of the day for my eager little minds outside. I rush to the door and cautiously open it, bracing to stop in case there is one of them near the door’s opening arch. I see them. All 20 of my little ten to eleven year olds, standing outside my door, staring right back at me. I put on my best smile (even though they can’t see it because of my COVID mask), and invite them into their second home. Taking the time to greet each and every student. They all enter, sit down at their assigned desk and without asking, they reluctantly pull out their binders and start copying the work that is on the board. While they focus their attention on the grammar assignment, I quickly take attendance for the day. I scan the room for any irregularities amongst the children. Sometimes, it’s easy to spot someone in distress, and other times their uneasiness emerges through other unwanted forms of behavior. However, upon quick glance, everyone appears to be engaged in the work on the board. I begin to prepare myself the rapid Q and A session on grammar rules. I quickly arise from my seat and walk around the room, checking the work of each individual.

Returning back to the front of the room, I begin, “alright, let’s see, what is the first mistake on this paragraph? Jane?”

Jane looks up and then back down on her paper. “You need a capital on the ‘g,’” she replies with confidence.

Ha! I don’t let her off that easily. “Oh, why?”

“Because it’s the beginning of the sentence.”

“I see, ok, what’s next then? Let see… Mark?”

Mark looks up wearily. Ah, my first sign of distress. Why is Mark so tired? Was he up playing video games, like he usually does? Or was it the constant fighting that he has to endure from his parents at home. My heart drops a little, as I wait longer than usual to see if he is going to give me a response. “Um, put a capital on the ‘m.’”

I really don’t want to give him the follow up question, and I am sure he doesn’t want to hear it either, but I ask it anyway. “Thank you, Mark! But why? Why should I capitalize the ‘m?’”

Mark begins to look a little irritated by my question. “Because it’s the name, ‘Monday.”

Trying to maintain my cheerfulness,“yes! Thank you again, Mark! Well done, you have eliminated yet another grammatical error!” He slightly smiles at my joke.

I continue going over grammar with the students. Once we have completed the round of proofreading, I begin moving on with the next prepared lesson for the day.

This is my career. It has been my passion for over two decades and I am glad I dove into the field of education, or as I would like to call it, “Complex Thinker Assessor.” Many people think that teaching is an easy “job.” Sure, that may have been the case 50+ years ago, but so much has changed since then.

I remember when I was in elementary school, the focus was on rote learning and recalling facts. Tests were designed to see how much you could remember and didn’t really test if you were a thinker or not. This is a common misconception of what really goes on in the classroom in the 21st century. Who needs to recall facts when you have a mini computer with you, All. The. Time?

Additionally, back in the 70s - 80s, school seemed more like a prison to students. Who is to blame them? I personally didn’t feel challenged when I was a student. I just went with the flow, trying to keep a low profile. Moreover, there were teachers who would either pass or fail you without any reason why. Kids were graded from the time they walked into the classroom. If a child had a track record of being an academically poor student, then they were left with that mark until they graduated from high school, or moved to a different district, allowing them the opportunity to change. Most teachers, especially in middle and high school, didn’t seem to care if you failed a class. It wasn’t their problem. It was you and your parents’ problem (if you still had both of them).

Fast forward to 21st century. I can’t speak for all teachers and all schools, but students failing at my school becomes a great concern and we, as professionals, are always trying to find a way to help support our students to be successful in class. We believe that every student can be successful and every student can learn. We need to provide them the support and tools to help them achieve their goals (academic and personal). It is this daily challenge that keeps me passionate about educating. The challenge forces me to scrutinize my instruction and make changes when needed. I have to look at the bigger picture of things and decide which course is the best action in supporting my students learning. While the standards state test never paints the whole picture of our students, it still holds a major role in assessing me as a professional educator.

During my time in the classroom, I continually learn more from my students and what they are interested in. I need to creatively think outside the curriculum pre-packaged box in order to make my lessons relevant to their lifestyles. Adults tend to learn better when they can find relevance in their own personal life; children are the same way too. The difference is, adults have to think on the spot because their actions have real life consequences which can affect their family, friends, and more. Children need a safe space to make these mistakes and learn from them before the consequence become more severe.

An example of this is the classic 12-inch ruler. A simple tool for measurement, which can be important in everyday life, from clothing to construction. Every year, the students are asked to bring a ruler to school, and in the past, I didn’t really have a purpose for the ruler other than making straight lines. Knowing that the students need a more “hands-on approach” to supporting their learning, I decided to make use of the ruler for more than just making straight lines. I showed them how to convert centimeters to millimeters. That lesson will later lead to ratios and proportion. Focusing on centimeters, I showed them how they can use the same tool for finding decimals to the tenth place. Furthermore, they also learned how to estimate decimals to the tenths using: the ruler. Flip the ruler over (at least here in America), and you have inches. What could be taught using this? How about some fractions? Learning to find the sum, difference, product, and quotients of fractions through the use of inches also gives the students a real life use for the tool, while simultaneously being an effective visualization tool for many students. More importantly, it shows the students the relevance in math. In the past, I have used certain curriculum that may have one or two quick lessons on using a ruler, but then returns quickly back to algorithms and other forms of abstract math (meaning students need to be able to work problems out on paper and with their brains more than their hands). Unfortunately, that is not the case with some students I work with. They, like adults, need to be thrown into a problem and problem solve it from there (just like when people begin learning how to drive).

Teaching in the 21st century is definitely more difficult and there is more competition for teacher to go up against. I don’t mean each other, I mean we are competing with computers, video games, streaming services, and social media. When children walk through the classroom door, their minds are not on academics. We have to form more “edutainment” than education. Moreover, if it’s not the entertainment business making our career choice a daily challenge, it’s finding a way to teach the “truth” that may not be the “truth.”

With so many people online and using the internet, common knowledge has slowly shifted to uncommon knowledge. It is only “common” based on the social group you identify yourself with. For example, I can’t just simply teach: the earth is a round globe orbiting the sun. Presently, there are some people who believe the earth is flat. This is a prime example of common knowledge shifting to uncommon knowledge. For this reason, I like to think of myself more as a “complex thinker assessor” or CTA. Instead of testing for knowledge known, I test more for how a student solves a problem. If the problem is: how do you calculate hours in a day without using a clock. Regardless of “belief” it challenges the students to explain how the earth moves through space to provide the hours in a day. Therefore, I am assessing their thinking more than if the answer is correct or not. It is the same way with math. I focus more on the steps to the solution and not the answer itself, a huge contrast to earlier forms of pedagogy.

A day in the life as a dedicated, caring, and engaging educator is different everyday. There are never two days that are the same. The variable in the equation is always going to be students’ behavior and attitude. If they are feeling high and focused, then a lot of learning can happen in the classroom. On the other hand, if puberty has struck hard on my middle schoolers and they are emotional for whatever reason, the day is going to be challenging no matter how engaging I may have prepared a lesson. They are human after all, and they are learning: not only academics in the classroom, but how to deal with their emotions and brain changes. It still brings me joy whenever I see a student understand a concept in class, or when I hear them using what they learned in the classroom and applied it to their own life, beyond the classroom. I believe, this is the ultimate goal for every educator: taking what is learned in our four walls and applying it any time, any place, off of the school’s campus.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to planning for tomorrow.