The Piano and the Beach

In the book Grasp, authors, Sanjay Sarma and Luke Yoquinto, explore the relationship between the way our minds work and a classroom’s ability (and desire) to truly tap into the enjoyment of learning. They discuss a young child on a beach, and his or her ability to explore for hours...watching the sand erode with each wave, seeing air bubbles, forming shapes with sand, watching waves coming in and out. They paint a picture where kids can do this for hours, enjoy it, and learn without realizing how much they are learning. Nobody tells the child to “sit there and learn” - they just explore, are interested, and learn. The authors then - of course - question how much of this same, fun, “natural” learning can occur in our schools within the universal format of school. It’s the furthest thing from a negative remark about our teachers or the profession, but instead a question that creates self-reflection about teaching and learning.

I cringe when I think of some of my early tests and exams to assess student learning. They weren’t very good. I can still remember standing at a scantron machine shuffling sheets in and watching scores automatically calculate and stamp in the appropriate place. It wasn’t the act of utilizing the machine; it was the act of creating plot development questions and determining that if students didn’t know this answer, they hadn’t learned. I look back and realize that this January Exam asked questions about Boo Radley that my students may have read back in September! Yes...a January semester exam, fresh out of the 2-week Christmas break, because we absolutely had to balance the school calendar. We couldn’t possibly have more days in one grading period than another, so we had exams when we returned from a 17- or 18-day break. I’m sorry former students! I don’t worry too much about my classroom, as it was a good place, but I do worry about some of the testing that was and still is used.

I have stories that haunt me, but I also have great memories of learning, including one about my student, Scott Stein. I don’t know how old Scott is at this point or what he is doing, but his story is rewarding enough (for me, personally), that I have used it dozens of times when the conversation of good assessment has surfaced. I stumbled upon some reading back then that challenged teachers to provide the students an opportunity to show you what they learned, and to not answer questions about items the students may not have learned. It sounded like a cool idea, so I went with it. As one piece of assessment for the To Kill a Mockingbird unit, I told the students to “show me what you have learned. I don’t care what it is you do or how you present it, but I want you to dive into the book and bring something to us that shares your learning with the entire class”. The students struggled with this at first, because they’re used to simply doing what we tell them, but they eventually got to work and made it to a good place. Scott made it to a great place!

When it was his turn to demonstrate, he asked me if we could all walk to the choir room as a class, which we did. Scott comfortably sat down at the piano - with all of his classmates surrounding him - and played a song that he composed himself! He attempted to take the feelings and actions of Atticus Finch, Jem, Boo, Scout, Tom Robinson, and a racist southern community and turn it into a piano composition. He nailed it! It’s a challenge to capture an internal feeling and bring it back to life on a musical instrument, but I can share that each one of those 25 freshmen sat and listened intently. We may not have been able to explain which note represents Tom Robinson getting shot or Atticus Finch getting spit on by Bob Ewell, but there was a feeling that surfaced from that composition that made us all realize Scott Stein had learned something. The piece was dark, mysterious, and joyful, and it tapped into the many emotions the characters experienced during that novel. It wasn’t a letter grade that made the difference that day, but it was so much more meaningful than my scantron tests that determined what kids had learned.

If you read this and are not in education, please know that there are MANY obstacles standing in the way of our schools conjuring up these assignments consistently. State testing, the 3rd grade reading guarantee, state report cards, etc. are events at the top of the list. That fact, though, should not take us away from students having fun while they naturally learn. We should still provide the stage for them to step back and show us their experiences. As an assistant principal at Strongsville, I witnessed the graduation-required Senior Project, where students, during their last month at school, embarked upon an action to “summarize their learning” in one final project. I will never forget one of the seniors who got into the family car with her dad and traveled across the USA to NY City, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc. and came back with a report on how Jazz music influenced some of the most significant cities in our country. That’s correct. This is how she finished - a trip across her own country with her dad to learn on her own about the influence of Jazz music. Wow! I always considered that one of the best learning experiences a student could ever encounter.

One of the best things about our profession lies in those educators who constantly search for what is best for kids, what provides a fun and rewarding experience, and what helps prepare them for the many tests which will be a part of their future. In this moment of recall, I’m certain that the Scott Stein experiment was a much stronger experience than bubbling in 120 answers on a scantron.

For those of you in leadership positions and desiring to discover what your workers have learned, it’s important to remember that what they’ve actually learned might be different (and more beneficial) than the answers you actually wanted them to find.