If someone is giving me the option of whether I want my own child’s teacher to be data driven?  My answer is, yes, please.

I had been a George Couros (@gcouros) groupie for the entire conference, attending all of his sessions.  So, when ‘I hate the term data driven’ came out of his mouth, I was taken aback.  Of course, in that setting, there was a gasp and some agreement as he explained his thinking.   (His belief is that we should be focusing on the whole child more than the data.)  While I agree in a big way with most of his thinking, I cannot get on board with the bashing of data driven.  Yes.  We teach kids and, no, it should not be all about the numbers, especially the standardized test scores.  Yes.  It should be learner centered and all about finding things that each student can be successful with.  At the same time, you have to balance learner centered and some of the utopian ideals with basic functions and skill deficits.   Even George will concede that some basic math functions are a must no matter how much passion there is driving the learning behind them.  I flat-out reject the idea that we cannot use data to drive our programming, training, and lesson planning without having empathy for the individual learner.  In fact, I think I could make a pretty strong case that the absence of formative and summative data to guide instruction is malpractice and absolutely not in the best interest of the whole child.  George, you hate data?  I hate the fickleness of education and the lemmings that exist in and out of education.  Your contribution in the area of data is going to reduce or eliminate buy-in for many listening for all of the wrong reasons.  Many educators will use this thinking as a way to excuse themselves from data analyzation.  I have already heard several references and omissions of data driven initiatives in the two weeks that you have been absent our district (at the time of this writing).  Please consider withdrawing that shocker of a punch line from your presentations.  When someone of your stature says things such as this, it is harmful not helpful.  Here is some of my reasoning.

 

I love data and it’s not because I hate kids.  It is quite the opposite actually.  Because I empathize with kids, I want to get them the help they need and data is a commodity that can help us to do that.  There are many parallels to the education and the medical field.  If a person has a broken left leg, it is important that the doctor identifies the issue correctly, and then has appropriate strategies that he has learned about and physically executed prior to this emergent situation.  If a student has a life-hampering learning deficit, we do need to identify this so that we can help that student.   As an educator, I first need to have the information (data), then I need to have the knowledge and ability to address the deficit.  One difference, which I completely agree on, is that there is also human emotion involved in education and focusing on a student’s strengths rather than their deficiencies can definitely help lead one in the right direction.  Why do so many people get the idea that it has to be data or student empathy?  It is not one or the other!  I believe that as professionals, we can focus on the positives and the strengths of our students in a way in which we can still address the lurking and crippling deficits that many of our students arrive to school with.  Drawing back to the medical comparison, it is wonderful that have two strong arms to utilize as go forth into the working field, but my broken leg needs to be addressed and fixed as soon as possible so that I am able to maximize the use of my very strong arms.  I may even heal more quickly if you allow me to exercise my strong arm muscles due to blood flow and elevated amounts of movement.

Let me put this into the context of my child who will attend our neighborhood school next year. As a parent, I will expect his teacher(s) to learn about him through conversation, formative assessment, summative assessment, conversation, goal setting, and as many other modes and means possible.  No matter how you poke and prod to pull these together, in the end, you have a set of, you guessed it, data.   Data that includes my own child’s strengths, weaknesses, as well as his likenesses and differences from his peers.  How can I hate for teachers to use the factual information that they have gathered about my child as a basis for reasoning, discussion, and ultimately, knowing my child well enough to build up his strengths without ignoring his weaknesses.  If someone is giving me the option of whether I want my own child’s teacher to be data driven?  My answer is, yes, please.