Failure is the only option.

Where did the last year go? Now I'm on to bigger and hopefully better things which is causing me to rant on a different topic than in the past. Anyway, here we go.

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor”   -  Truman Capote

As parents, we don’t want to see our kids fail, well at least not in public. But as we look back on the events in our lives that taught us the most, the majority of people will say that they learned the most when they failed.

The Love and Logic Institute teaches to set boundaries for your children and allow them the fail. They go further to qualify that the boundaries should be set so that when children actually fail the effects of the failure are manageable.  As we grow older, the effects of failures become more substantial, more complicated and more costly. Causing an avoidance of failure as we get older and leading to the saying “You can’t teach on old dog a new trick”

.

History is full of examples of failure. Thomas Edison didn’t succeed in his first attempts. He considered his failures as discoveries. Discoveries on how things don’t work is just as important as discovering how things work. One thing is common in every discovery ever made; they all start with an idea. Ideas that fail, get refined, fail again, and get refined again over and over until they work. Then the good ones will continually get refined.

What can we take from this? We just need to start.

Will we fail? It is guaranteed that we will. But when we succeed, the flavor of the accomplishment will be sweet.

When the statement is made that you can’t judge Student Growth and Achievement by a single test score, I have to question then “How should student growth be measured?” Is student growth a function of how well they learn the basics (math, reading, writing, social studies) as well as a student’s social skill? Are there any additional factors?

In a recent blog post, our superintendent made an argument that you can’t judge the effectiveness of a teacher based on a single graph showing student growth and achievement. I agree. There is more to it that what can be shown on a single graph. He went on to define other areas that he felt needed to be included to determine if a teacher is effective. I bet he didn’t realize that in this he actually set up the equation that can be used to measure teacher effectiveness.

It was stated recently that test scores are only a part of the picture and there is more interest in the development of the whole child. Great, now define what that means, measure it, score it, test it for those factors that make an impact, eliminate the factors that don’t, and repeat. 

We have data from the NWEA, M-STEP, and internal assessments. If those are the factors that are going to be used for student growth and achievement, create an index combining these three legs. Don’t try to correlate the data. When you have two or more measurement systems that are measuring the same thing, you correlate them. When you have multiple factors, you weight them and test them to see if there is and confounding of the factors, refine your equation to come up with more robust equation.

What are we missing? Like in any discovery you have to start somewhere. We just need to start knowing full well there is a great possibility that at first there will be failure. The failure cannot be the end, but the beginning of learning experience, a refinement and a new and better way.

Is that the end all? No, that is only one small part of another larger equation, which is only a small part of another. Students are evaluated, teachers are evaluated, administrators are evaluated, etc. Can the entire district as a whole be scored this way? Yes. 

Coming up is the Superintendents Parent to Parent book club. The first book that they are reading this year is: Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey. Without reading the book I am willing to be that the measage is to go out try things, fail, and learn from your failures. Should any action come from this? Yes, And if there is no action, then why go through the excersize.