Standardization, Accountability and the Ethic of Care

Something I've never understood about those who would put accountability and high standards -- which usually translates to a standardized experience for kids -- as their first virtues in our schools is that there are, in every school, those students we love for whom the normal school or classroom experience does not work. For urban educators, this often manifests as the student who lives a life that most teachers can't imagine.

I've taught those kids who couldn't understand how cosine and sine could help them dodge the streets... the kids who couldn't see how learning about the Reformation would help them figure out where they were sleeping... What was failing my class because they couldn't see how The Great Gatsby was relevant to their life going to do. (For the record, the Great Gatsby is relevant to their life. A few years ago, we wrote a modern version of it, with an upstart rapper trying to crack high society. We read a lot about Puffy as preparation, but I digress...)

So for those kids... how do we serve them? How do we best serve them? Yes, I think we have to ask a lot from all kids. Yes, I think we have to recognize our limitations and know that we cannot individualize curriculum for every single child given our teaching loads.

However, every year, we run into those kids who we know that if we only found a way inside... found a way to make school and curriculum relevant to how to survive the unspeakably difficult lives they go home to after they leave our walls, then somehow we could make their lives better.

The ethic of care suggests that we must take that step with them... and yes, we must then hold them accountable for their behavior and their work, but what wouldn't we do for them?

For those kids who show up every day, but can't seem to find the way to overcome their own lives to do the work of our classes, doesn't our moral obligation require us to see the limits in our units, in our structure, in ourselves, so that we can change what we do to help those kids who want it?

For some reason, as I thought about this blog entry, I kept thinking of the part of the Passover Seder that deals with The Four Sons. The four sons are the wise son, the contrary son, the simple son and the son who does not know how to -- or cannot -- ask the question. I think our schools know how to deal with the first three sons. I don't think we know how to deal with the fourth.

For those students who cannot ask the question... for whom the entire game of school seems like a maze where success is both not fathomable and also difficult to understand the benefits... I think we have an obligation to find a way to take them by the hand and help them find success. I don't worry that our other students will be angry that we "make exceptions" or that they will think it is not "fair" that some students pursue a different curriculum to be able to pass. I think the ethic of care suggests that there are times when we know that what we do for 99% of our students does not work for the last 1% of our kids, no matter what we do.

When we realize that, don't we have an obligation to find what will work for that student? Don't we have to hold the value of the life of that student above the value we place on our lesson plans? I think we do.