Hell Week (AKA Standardized Testing)

This week we are in the middle of Hell.

Actually, it's just the administration of the California Achievement Test (CAT)... but it feels like Hell.

The lovely state of North Carolina requires that every student enrolled in home school take a nationally recognized standardized test each school year. Our chosen form of torture is the CAT.

We don't do anything special to prepare for the test administration. No reviews or lessons on test-taking strategies. We just sit at the dining room table with number 2 pencils and a timer. You would think it would be pretty stress free. You would be wrong.

The youngest child has dissolved into tears on at least three different occasions. She's the epitome of a virgo perfectionist. She struggles over each and every question, even the easy ones, pencil poised above the bubble sheet, paralyzed with fear that she will mark the wrong answer. She cries when she's frustrated. I hate that testing makes her cry.

Her older brother zips through the sections like it's a race. He would rather be doing other things. Anything really. He has slammed the test booklet shut and escaped the room before time is up on every single test section. He has no desire to check his answers, no stress over how well he's done. He's just happy to be finished.

They have two very different test-taking personalities. Which one is more effective?

Watching them test makes me wonder just how well the test measures their knowledge. Because it doesn't matter how many fraction problems they've completed correctly at that dining room table in the past. It doesn't matter how well they comprehend what they read or how well they punctuate their writing on any other day. The only thing that the test measures is if they answer the questions correctly. It doesn't measure how well they know the material because when the test is rushed through or constantly second-guessed through tears and fear, how well does that measure real knowledge and thinking skills?

No. The test measures how well students take a test.

Meanwhile, my oldest daughter who is currently enrolled in an early college high school program, is wading through exam review. Next week is semester finals. The school dedicates two weeks of instruction time for exam review. She has to watch an informational video on testing rules for each exam she has to take. The same video. Over and over. The same video she watched last semester. And the semester before that.

That's two weeks of her education every semester focused on taking a test. Not on learning important information or math concepts or critical thinking. Two whole weeks committed to ensuring testing success.

In North Carolina, those standardized tests determine teacher effectiveness and student success. They even influence teacher bonuses and school funding.

But it doesn't measure learning. It measures how well the students take a test.

Makes me wonder how many students are like my younger daughter, agonizing and questioning herself over every single item. Or how many are like my son, flying through without really caring how well they perform.

How are either of those tests a true measure of knowledge? They aren't, but the Powers That Be say we must take them. So we'll walk through this week of Hell just to get back to the real learning... which is exactly what those poor public school kids are doing this week, too.

Happy Hell Week, everyone. Godspeed.

Testing Doesn't Determine Success

It all started with a Facebook post. I was just innocently scrolling through my newsfeed when I saw it: a "friend's" post about her score on an online IQ test. You might question the IQ of someone who believes online IQ tests are a valid measure of intelligence, especially when that person posts their results for all of their cyber friends to see. You might also feel sorry for someone who needs to validate themselves so publicly in such a shallow and meaningless way.

Then, over the long Thanksgiving weekend, it got worse. My oldest son announced to family and friends that he is enlisting in the U.S. Army. (He's already qualified. He's taken the ASVAB and his physical, and passed his psychological evaluation. He's good to go, just needs to sign a contract.) Upon hearing his news, more than one person asked him what he scored on the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery)... then felt the need to tell him about their much higher score. (Nice people skills!)

Perhaps it's because we've been programmed through our entire school careers to believe that scoring well on a test is the ultimate goal. There is such an emphasis on successful standardized testing that our children suffer from anxiety. Often teacher pay and school funding is affected by student test performance. There's a lot at stake. Students are run through mock practice tests and weeks upon weeks of test review. Lessons about test taking strategies trump more effective and interesting forms of instruction because ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE TEST. Just score well on the test and everything will be fine.

It's a lie. Tests measure how well someone takes a test. That's it. They don't measure motivation or character or ambition. Tests don't measure creativity or will power or self-reliance. They don't measure passion or confidence or communication skills.

How well a person scores on a standardized test (or even stupid internet IQ tests) do not determine success. High IQ scores or ASVAB scores or even SAT scores are not good indicators of where a person is headed in life. A great test score is just a great test score until that person does something with it.

A high test score does not mean everything will be fine. It doesn't mean that a person has the skills to be successful. It doesn't indicate how happy they will be, or how much money they will make, or how much they will contribute to society.

There are a lot of seriously smart people out there, some of them could probably ace the ASVAB (Let's not even get into cheesy internet IQ tests here) with their eyes closed. But if those super-smart people are lounging around couch potato-style what value are they really contributing to society? (I'm talking to you here, internet IQ bragger wallowing in debt, stuck in a dead end job, and working on your third failed marriage!)

I told my son not to worry about those people who needed to brag about their test scores. What are they doing with those test scores (other than attempting to make him feel inferior)? Did they join the military?

By just joining the United States military, my son has made himself part of an elite group. A very small percentage of people join. The numbers vary, but the consensus seems to be around 2 percent of the population.

He's already set himself apart from the average, test-taking American by enlisting. Sure his score might not be as high as Billy Bragger's, but he qualified, and he's doing something with it. It's the other qualities that the test doesn't measure that will make him a successful soldier and a successful person.

Taking the test and doing something with the knowledge it supposedly measures are two very different things.

Billy's score is just a number, albeit a very high number, on a piece of paper.

My son's is a ticket to his goals.

Who Owns The Minds Of Our Children? - Pearson's Stranglehold On Education

Photo by Josh Davis

Big Brother is watching your kids. No, it's not the NSA phone taps or spying Samsung Smart TVs that we need to be concerned about. This time it's public education.

Pearson PLC to be exact. Over the weekend, one of the world's largest education publishing companies, Pearson PLC, the company responsible for crafting Common Core's vile standardized tests, was exposed for monitoring students' social media accounts.

Word of the giant mega-company's "spying" first hit the internet via the blog of Bob Braun, former education reporter for The Star-Ledger from Newark, New Jersey. Braun shared a copy of a letter sent by Superintendent Elizabeth Jewett of Watchung Hills School District to her staff.

"Last night at 10 PM, my testing coordinator received a phone call from NJDOE [New Jersey Department of Education] that Pearson had initiated a Priority 1 Alert for an item breach within our school. The information the NJDOE initially called with was that there was a security breech DURING the test session, and they suggested the student took a picture of a test item and tweeted it. After further investigation on our part, it turned out that the student had posted a tweet (NO PICTURE) at 3:18 PM (after school) that referenced a PARCC test question. The student deleted the tweet and we spoke with the parent - who was obviously highly concerned as to her child's tweets being monitored by the DOE. The DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media during PARCC testing... the DOE wanted us to also issue discipline to the student."

I get it. In order to keep the test's results pure and untainted, Pearson has to be the vigilant yet creepy internet stalker to make sure test material isn't leaked. The sanctity of THE TEST must not be corrupted! There are, after all, about $108 million dollars on the line (and that's just in Pearson's contract with the state of New Jersey... they also have hefty contracts with other states, including a $32 million contract with the state of New York and another $500 million deal with Texas) - and that's an awful lot of George Washingtons.

Which brings me to the really scary part of all of this... Pearson PLC isn't even an American company. Great job there, US public education policy makers! You've sold our children's minds to a privately-owned FOREIGN company.

Think I'm being a tad bit dramatic? Let's take a look at just how deep Pearson's power reaches.

1. Pearson has designed and implemented the exam used for teacher licensure in many states. That means that only the teachers approved by Pearson will gain employment in the classroom. Only the teachers that pass Pearson's screening (AKA Teacher Licensure Testing and Performance Assessment. Here in North Carolina it's the PRAXIS... which is also a Pearson test.) will be allowed to teach your children.

2. Pearson provides educational resources for classrooms across the country. In the form of textbooks, teacher's manuals, digital and online resources, and plug-and-chug curricula, Pearson dictates what and how those pre-approved teachers... I mean "licensed educators"... will be teaching in their classrooms.

3. Pearson designs and scores the standardized tests used in Common Core. Those tests are used to gauge teacher effectiveness (Let's make sure those pre-approved teachers continue to conform to those pre-approved standards, shall we?), which often determines not only individual teacher's job security but also federal funding for school districts. There is no marching to the beats of different educational drummers when there's only one very loud drummer that offers you cash (aka federal funding) for marching with him.

4. Those same Pearson standardized tests are used to 'measure' student success and college eligibility for each student. Basically, they have your child's whole future financial success and potential career satisfaction in the palm of their grubby corporate hands. This wins the parents over, too. No mother wants her 32-year-old son still living at home because he couldn't get into a good college and therefore can't get a good job. Test scores are important... especially to greedy corporate moguls.

5. Pearson is data-mining your kids. By collecting, storing, and analyzing student performance, the company knows more about your kids than their teachers, and they'll know even more next year. Sure they are touting their intent to use that data in order to better tailor teaching to meet your child's specific needs, but that means they can also market their materials. They can see each child's weaknesses and interests and customize their products to suit them. They can sell school districts on more products, which means more cash in their pockets. Plus they can  potentially sell that mined data to marketing companies. It also means there isn't a lot of privacy when it comes to student performance or even their personal interests. You wouldn't let anyone else in cyberspace stalk your kid with such fastidiousness. That would be creepy and disturbing. But so long as it's a private corporation from overseas that claims to magnanimously have the interests of your child at heart... well, that's okay.

6. Speaking of internet stalking, they are watching what your kids post on social media... even after school hours. And they want your kids to get in trouble with the Department of Education if they don't toe the Pearson-approved line. It's not exactly spying, since the internet is a very public forum.  Anything that your kids put out there is open to public scrutiny, but the practice is definitely a violation of their freedom of speech. When the Department of Education (with a healthy amount of corporate arm-twisting thrown in for good measure) steps in to tell you what your kids can and cannot say even when they aren't on a public school campus, that is government infringement on one of those very inalienable rights laid out in the handy dandy Bill of Rights... but how could we expect a foreign-owned company to respect American liberties?

7. Not only will Pearson attempt to bring the long arm of the law down on students who tweet about the test, but they also don't want them discussing the test content with ANYONE. That doesn't only include other students, but teachers, administrators, and even their very own parents as well. Call it test security, but it has the capacity to keep unfair, incorrect, or otherwise questionable material from going public. If no one knows what's in the test, how can anyone disapprove?

Pearson isn't the only big corporation making big bucks off the minds of children (there's also McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), but it is the largest. So no, it isn't a total monopoly... but it's pretty darned close. With Pearson products intimately involved in every aspect of education, from teacher training to text books to standardized  testing to student record management, it wouldn't be a stretch to conclude that Pearson might have the biggest influence on the next generation of Americans... bigger than television, social media, and pop culture.

Also considering the number of hours that kids spend in school and doing homework over their entire school career (Pearson also has it's hand deep in the college cookie jar), this private British company might have a greater influence than the kids' own parents.

Scary shit, if you ask me. I'm not sure we aren't living in a teen dystopian novel.

I'll just file this under reason #916 that my children are homeschooled.

5 Things You Didn't Know Children Are Learning In School

It's Monday.

Most school-aged children had the luxury of a two-week vacation over the winter holidays. Today, much to their chagrin (and probably their parents' delight), they will be marching (In a straight line, please. Keep your hands to yourself!) back to school where they belong.

They will be back in the hallowed halls of learning, their ready brains poised to soak up education like the malleable little sponges that they are. Facts and numbers and grammar and literature and history and science being dumped continuously from now until Spring break into their minds, tamped down and packed together and ready to be regurgitated onto the test sheets required by state and federal governments for processing later in the year.

I'm cynical about compulsory education (and that might be stating it nicely).

Parents send their children to school with the best of intentions (even if one of those intentions is to get them out of their parents' hair before someone loses their temper and permanent psychological damage is done which may take years of therapy to unravel). While parents would like to believe that their darling babies are seated in neat little rows behind neat little desks learning everything they need to be successful in life, they may not realize exactly what their children are learning during their long stints behind the closed doors of public education.

There's a lot more being taught than the "Three Rs" That's reading, writing, and 'rithmetic in case you were wondering. That we are listing them as Rs is probably a commentary on the shortcomings of the system, but I digress.

There are other lessons that are taught in the public school system, and none of them will be found in the pages of textbooks or written across classroom whiteboards. Instead, these lessons are more subversive, taught through small interactions with teachers and other students, picked up through attitudes and environmental conditioning. They are lessons that may stick with your children long after they've forgotten state capitals and vocabulary words and the parts of a cell. (You know? The stuff they memorized just for those tests and then promptly forgot?)

What lessons? Here are just a few that most parents might not even realize (or if they do realize, don't think to question. Maybe because of their own standard compulsory education).

1. Obedience to Authority. Blindly. Even when it doesn't make sense. Arbitrary rules often run rampant in the classroom, but if the teacher (or principal or guidance counselor) demand it, even the child's parents will probably back it up. This goes for dress codes, assigned seating, and how the students put their names on their papers.

My daughter told me about something that happened in one of her classes. The teacher asked the class to read a selection and then use a highlighter to mark important information. One of the students chose to underline rather than highlight. The teacher pushed the issue, insisting that she use the highlighter even though underlining achieved the same result for the student. So the child, in an obvious act of defiance with an "I'll show him" attitude (because she couldn't respect an apparently arbitrary rule), highlighted the entire passage. Major trouble ensued with threats and lectures from the teacher about how she needed to "take her education more seriously." (Translation: Don't question my authority or your grades will suffer and then you won't get into a good college or get a decent job and you'll live the rest of your life a bum on the street... or something to that effect.)

The message is to do what you are told. The outcome isn't important, but your obedience is.

2. Indifference. Students are conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to move from one task to the next when the bell rings. It doesn't matter how interested in the current task they may be. It doesn't matter if they are finished or not. It doesn't matter if they are even remotely interested in the next task. When the bell rings, they are finished. They are expected to turn themselves on and off like light switches.

It's a subtle message. But the bell system teaches children to not care too much, to not get too engaged. It teaches them that no work is worth finishing. Nothing is as important as the arbitrary class schedule. Drop whatever you are doing when the bell rings and move on. There is an amount of detachment and coolness that must be applied to every "learning experience" with the knowing that there is only 45 minutes to focus, no matter how engaging the subject.

The message is to not get too involved, to not care too much. There isn't enough time for that.

3. Dependence and the Danger of Self-Motivation. Good students wait for the teacher to tell them what to do.  (My daughter tells a tale of a fellow student who got in trouble with the teacher for reading chapters ahead of those specifically assigned in the class-required novel.) The message drilled into our children is to wait and follow directions. Someone with more training, someone more qualified to make decisions about your lives will do it for you. Don't try to overtly or covertly attempt to make decisions for yourselves (I'm talking to you here, Highlighter Girl!). You aren't qualified. Let someone else decide what you will learn, how you will learn, and when you will learn it. And if it doesn't make the authority approved list, it is insignificant and unimportant. Follow directions. Do what you are told... and only what you are told.

Self-evaluation is also deemed unimportant and discouraged. Instead a person's value and worth is determined by test scores, grades and report cards... all handed down by some third-party observers. Children are taught not to trust themselves, or to place personal value on their own achievements. Instead, they are taught to rely on the evaluation of certified and licensed officials. People need to wait to be told what they are worth. They need to depend on those in authority to tell them they are good and valued.

4. Acceptance of Surveillance. Even aside from the new security cameras being placed in schools across the country, there is no privacy in our public schools. Each student is watched by teachers and administrators and government entities. They are constantly tracked and compared through transcripts and test scores.

Students enjoy no private time. The amount of time between classes is kept to a minimum. Hallways are monitored by faculty. Lunch periods are kept short. Socializing in class is not permitted. Students are encouraged to spy on one another and to tattle, especially in the wake of huge anti-bullying campaigns. There is no time or space for independent or unapproved interaction. Everything is monitored and kept within the tight confines of approved behavior.

To make it worse, piles and piles of homework extend the hours of school surveillance well beyond official school hours. homework ensures that there is little free time to pursue unauthorized activities. Hours spent writing boring papers and drilling math problems and memorizing useless dates can't be spent developing passions, or learning from parents, or lost in free thought. Homework is the long arm of the school system extended into what should be private time. It's just another way that the schools influence, manage and direct the lives of their students.

The message is to just accept invasions of privacy. Pay no attention to Big Brother. He's been watching you since preschool.

5. Truth Comes From Authority. The right answer is the one the teacher wants. That's the answer that will be rewarded, the answer that will keep you from public ridicule, the answer that will get you passing grades and entrance into the future of conformists' dreams. What the student thinks (Although, it's probably safer if he or she doesn't think at all) is irrelevant. Besides, schools aren't set up to teach people HOW to think but rather WHAT to think.

My daughter was finishing up some Civics homework last semester when she asked for help with clarification of a question regarding the intended purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance. We discussed it for a few minutes, and then I asked her, "So what is the right answer?" She responded, "By 'the right answer' do you mean what I think is the right answer, or do you mean the answer the teacher thinks is right?"

Now THAT is a tough choice to make. Follow your conscience? Or get good grades?

Enough classroom squashing of independent thought makes people afraid to think thoughts other than what authorities tell them are "right".


All of these subversive lessons make large groups of children easy to manage. But the problem is that those easily managed children grow up to be easily managed groups of adults.

Although, I suppose that's only a problem if you aren't doing the managing...

The Irony of Black History Month

February is Black History Month.  It's a short month, but for its 28 days, America's school children are exposed to great historical figures like Crispus Attucks (first casualty of the American Revolution), Harriet Tubman (famous conductor of the Underground Railroad), and Martin Luther King, Jr. (prominent leader of the American Civil Rights Movement).

I don't like it.

I think Black History Month is a pox on our educational system.  Call me crazy (or racist if you want to), but I just can't fathom why school children can't learn about these prominent black figures in context with the rest of history.  Surely we can squeeze ol' Crispus Attucks right in there with all the other dates and names and places of the Revolutionary War that must be memorized for some useless standardized test.  And just as easily, Harriet Tubman fits into discussions of inter-state tensions leading up to The War Between the States.  And even though Martin Luther King, Jr. already garners his own holiday, we might be able to squeeze him into History class when the American Civil Rights Movement comes up in the horribly limiting text book.

History in context.  What a novel idea?

I guess I think more like Morgan Freeman (call him a racist, too if you feel like it).  In a 2005 interview for 60 Minutes, the Academy Award-winning actor said, "I don't want a Black History month.  Black History is American History."

I applaud you Mister Freeman!  For all the Americans who marched and protested and sat at lunch counters and refused to move to the back of the bus, Black History Month seems like a great big giant slap in the face.  To all of those school children that were escorted by armed troops to formerly white-only schools because we realized that separate could not be equal, a national Black History Month must appear as a gross regression into segregation.

Black History Month forces great American heroes to be pulled out of their historical context and singled out because of their race.  They become BLACK leaders and BLACK politicians and BLACK scientists and BLACK entertainers.  (Notice the emphasis on the word 'black"?)  It's kind of like a virtual lynch mob only it's the schools (and blacks themselves) singling out these individuals from the crowd of history's great achievers because of their race.  By segregating black history from American History at large, doesn't it kind of relegate separated black history to the same standard as the less-than-standard water fountains that were common during the Jim Crow era of segregation?

I say leave them where they are.  Surely Harriet Tubman's heroism isn't any more or less spectacular because of her race...because what she did was pretty freakin' heroic.

Morgan Freeman went on in his 60 Minutes interview to explain how he thought we could end racism.  "Stop talking about it.  I'm going to stop calling you a white man.  And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man..."

Because shouldn't someone be successful because they are successful?  Shouldn't they be influential or powerful or intelligent because they are influential or powerful or intelligent?  Race has nothing to do with those qualities.  The more we emphasize people's differences and the more we make those differences an issue, the more of an issue they become.  If we want our society to be "colorblind", if we want that our children "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", then we need to stop defining people by their color.

My daughter's school-sponsored a Black History Month shindig last week.  It included a motivating speech by a successful (black) graduate of the school, several presentations on historic black figures, and a performance by an African rhythm and dance troop...and a group singing of "The Black National Anthem".

No kidding.  The entire staff and student body were asked to stand and sing together.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "Black National Anthem," so I guess it was an educational experience.  But the concept makes me twitchy.  We do after all, have a National Anthem, one meant for all Americans.  But referring to a song as the "Black National Anthem" can create a lot of confusion and tension, especially here in the rural South where race relations can sometimes be tenuous.

I find it thoroughly ironic that the given title of this so-called "Black National Anthem" is "Lift Every Voice and Sing".  Every voice.  Not just black voices, but EVERY voice...which would include...well, EVERYONE. Interesting that the hymn emphasizes unity.   And it is a beautiful hymn which sings of very American virtues and struggles, like liberty and hope and faith, about learning from history's mistakes.  This is a song for all Americans, not just those with darker skin pigmentation.

Programs like the one at my daughter's school, and referring to hymns as "The Black National Anthem," and Black History Month in general, create a separation of the black experience from the American experience. And to me, this is the real tragedy...and the real failing of Black History Month being so emphasized in our public schools.  Because the black experience, the entire black experience...slavery and struggle and freedom and struggle for equality...are a very real part of the American experience (the entire American experience, not just the African American experience).  It's part of you and part of me and part of every naturalized or native citizen of this (sometimes) wondrous country of ours.  It should not be swept under a rug or devalued by segregation.

So maybe we should just toss the "black anthem" label...and toss black history month out with it.  Perhaps we can then focus more on our similarities than on our differences.  Perhaps we can focus on unity and brotherhood.  Perhaps we can strive towards a more cohesive society where our outward appearances are not as important as our integrity and our character.

At least that's what I want for my children.

Five Ways To Make A Kid Hate Reading

Illiteracy is a huge problem in the United States.  According to a study released last year by the U.S. Department of Education, 32 million adults (that's 14 percent of the population) in our country cannot read.  21 percent of our adults read below a fifth grade level.  And 19 percent of high school graduates (That's GRADUATES, people.  These people actually hold a diploma, which is generally considered a symbol of the most basic of educations, but cannot read.

And the rates of illiteracy haven't improved in ten years, in spite of all of the standardized testing and incentives for teacher effectiveness and No Child Left Behind and now Common Core.

But even more frightening than the numbers of adults in our country that struggle to read is the numbers of people who can read but choose not to.

This is the real tragedy of our country's educational system.  In the words of Mark Twain, "The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."  With all of the modern innovations in teaching and the tight-fisted control the government has on what is taught and how it is taught and when it is taught...and the testing...don't even get me started on the testing, and in spite of the appalling numbers of people the system churns out each year with "below basic" reading levels, the real failure of the system is the number of people who want absolutely nothing to do with reading...the number of people who will never pick up another book after high school graduation.

"Alliteracy" is the label given to the growing epidemic of general disinterest in reading. Unlike illiteracy, alliteracy effects those who possess the ability to read, but are completely and utterly uninterested in doing so

But people aren't born with a disdain for the written word.  Most children are intrigued with books, maybe even fascinated.  But somewhere in the course of growing up these children were pushed away from the pleasure of reading.

How do you make a person hate reading? Here are a few proven ways to drain any joy out of the experience.

1.  Dull textbooks and programmed reading instruction.  Read the paragraph and answer the questions.  Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.  It's great practice for test-taking.  It supports the publishers' bottom lines.  And it makes the schools feel like they are serious about improving reading scores...and in turn creating job-ready graduates...which they aren't.  And it makes reading horribly dull.  It limits subject matter and doesn't inspire deeper or creative ways of thinking.

2. Standardized testing.  Feed a kid a steady diet of dull comprehension passages, just as practice for passing "the test"... because that's what's important, right?  Test scores?  In fact let's make sure we are "teaching to the test" at all times, leaving out anything that might randomly interest the student.  No superfluous learning.  No learning just because you are interested in it...or, heaven forbid, enjoy it.  That's not important.  Test scores are important!  The quality of human being the student becomes is irrelevant.  Just so long as they can pad the school's test scores, therefore proving the effectiveness of the "quality" education they are providing.

In fact, let's spend entire class periods devoted to teaching test-taking strategies. Students only need to know how to pass the test.  No real connections to the content of the text  need to be made.  No time for sharing ideas.  No time for reflection.  No time for applying new knowledge.  No time for reflection or absorption.  Just circle A, B, or C, and move along to the next meaningless task.  Once reading becomes a skill to be assessed and quantified and charted and analyzed, it loses it's personal and human qualities...and especially the magical nature that reading has when done just for sheer pleasure.  The system is far more concerned with whether kids can read, than with whether they actually do (Possibly because that is harder to assess and chart and analyze).

3. Assign reading assignments and quizzes and essays designed to bring out the points that YOU think the student should know.  Make sure they view literature through your values and life experience, instead of filtering it through their own thoughts and values and reality.  Make sure there is only one right answer to those questions and essays.  And make sure you never give the reader the opportunity to say what they really think about the book.

4.  Make reading a chore.  One great way is reading logs.  Make them write down how much time they spent reading along with a meaningless synopsis of what they read. Another great way to make reading a chore is vocabulary lists.  Fill their days with busy work involving words that have no meaning outside of their context.  It is a common practice to have a student stop what they are reading if they come across a word they do not understand.  Encourage them to open a dictionary to look it up (Maybe even copy it down and identify the part of speech and language origin and then write an original sentence using the word).  That's just stupid!  As an adult who loves reading and has a fairly impressive vocabulary (because of reading, I might add), I NEVER drop what I'm reading to look up a word...and I'm not sure I ever have outside of being forced to do so in the classroom.  It sucks!  It interrupts the flow of the plot and makes reading a burden and a trial. I developed (and am still developing) my vocabulary by reading.  A lot.   I meet the words over and over again in my reading until they become like friends.  And by meeting them again and again in context...they make sense.  No dictionary needed.

5. Make them read aloud in front of other people.  Nothing can make a child hate reading more than embarrassment, so make reading a constant source of possible failure and public humiliation.  Have kids read aloud in front of one another, even though the reading levels may be vastly different.  And go ahead and make the slow readers or the self-conscious readers or the introverts read publicly while the confident and advanced readers listen.  Go ahead.  Let those children fumble over words or drag on slowly while the other children giggle or lose interest or make faces.  Go ahead and make those tentative readers feel foolish and stupid and ashamed.

To quote Mark Twain again, "If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again.  That cat won't sit on a cold stove either.  That cat just don't like stoves."  Make reading a painful and disturbing experience for someone, and they are going to avoid it for the rest of their lives.

If I really let the conspiracy theorist in me run wild, I would suggest that the system doesn't even want to create readers.  In fact, that inner conspiracy theorist might even postulate that the system wants to DISCOURAGE reading.  Perhaps because avid readers are exposed to a boundless source of differing thoughts and opinions, and they are more empathetic and better critical thinkers.  They ponder and question and dig deeper.  What could be a bigger threat to "the system" than people who actually think...not just regurgitate the thought patterns the system prescribes?

While I stand by the belief that the vast majority of teachers are wonderful people and that they pursued careers in education for all kinds of noble and honorable reasons, the truth is that they are just cogs in a very broken system.  Our system of education has turned into a barrage of stress and test results...a place where real learning (the valuable life-lessons kind of useful and powerful learning) is devalued.

So what is the answer?  It's probably not an easy one, but we could start with just letting them read...whatever they want.  Without a thought to how it affects test scores or graduation rates or anything else that can be measured.

Because the real value of things can't be charted and analyzed and evaluated.  It's that way in life and it's that way in learning, too.

Because...well...life is learning...