Why did the fly stop flying? a) Because she lost her passport. b) Because she ran out of air miles. c) Because she discovered the low cost comfort of rail. d) Because she was dead.
Which of these is funnier? Why? Would it be less funny if "because she was dead were the a, b, or c option? Is it funnier that the fly is referred to as a female? Would it be less funny if the pronoun used was the genderless "it?" Is this observational, anecdotal, situational, irony, farce? In my opinion the best answer to all these questions is the best question of all: WHO CARES???
I am a firm believer in the idea that analyzing humour is the work of soulless pedants and busybodies. The kind of people that force us to wear helmets on motorbikes, bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, and they're coming for us pedestrians mark my words! I think of Rainman memorizing the Who's On First routine and repeating it in humorless monotone cursed with the mystery of what makes it funny. I think of comedians who have written thousands of jokes and know the mechanics so well that there are few unexpected punchlines and humour has truly become work for them. Is this why so many funny people die tragically?
I find myself wondering something similar almost every day about my chosen profession, teaching English, since I've begun my master's in education and much more so since I began the CLB PBLA training course for the acronym loving people at the Canadian Language Benchmark offices learning portfolio based language assessment. I even think I know what those good people who are attempting to standardize ESL teaching across Canada would like even better: pointing out the fact that I erroneously referred to CLB and PBLA as acronyms and they are NOT! I am WRONG! They are but abbreviations having no acronymity based on the fact that we do not read them as words, we just recite the letters. I'm pretty sure the word acronymity would stick in their collective craws as well. It's not a word. I am in error having used it. Period. But I kinda like it. I kinda like authors like Tom Robbins or Douglas Adams who have made the English language their lover, not their bitch and understand that it is a living being and it only grows through creativity and is stifled by standardization. But this sentiment is rife with inaccuracy and needs to be excised like the cancer it is! At least that's the message I'm getting.
Let me illustrate. This week we studied how to test for and evaluate comprehension of "receptive skills" which just means reading and listening but sounds more scientific and impressive and that is why the term is used and was invented I'm betting. We learned that studies show three levels of comprehension - literal which is understanding specific information, interpretive which is integrating information and making inferences, and applied which is using information from text to express opinions. This week we were assigned two tasks, one of which was creating 6 comprehension testing questions and specifying which of the three levels of comprehension they are designed to assess. The questions were all about a report card that the student was supposed to read and understand. One of my questions was "Which subject is Sabrina better at, Mathematics or English? Explain your answer." The level of comprehension I randomly chose was "applied" but it's really all three. Sabrina got two B's and an A in English. Numerically the B's are worth 3 points in that they place Sabrina in the category of meeting the standards of the provincial standardization organization mandates and the A is worth 4 points and puts Sabrina in the category of having exceeded the provincial standardization organization's expectations. 10 points for English. Whereas Sabrina got two A's and a B in Mathematics which works out to a score of 11. Hence, using literal understanding of specific information, Sabrina is better at Math than English. However, there were comments made by Mr. Cardinal - Sabrina's teacher in both Math and English, and the test taker might comprehend her superior skills in Math through inference based on Mr. Cardinal's comments in which case interpretive comprehension is exhibited. Conversely, it might just be the opinion of the test taker that two B's and one A is not as strong as two A's and one B. I think most of us might draw that conclusion and share that opinion, no? And that would show "applied" comprehension, right? As sister Mary Elephant said, "Class, class, class, cla - WAKE UP!!!"
Who does this? Who CARES about this? I'll tell you who - Lisa the standardization soldier and my "teacher" in the PBLA training I am currently plodding my way through. Each week we the students are tasked with assignments that are really just exercises in alignment with the CLB standardization rules and regulations. Every week Lisa finds things that are "wrong" with my assignments, gives me what is called "action-oriented feedback" but which is nothing more than she is right and I am wrong and I need to take action, which means I need to correct my "mistakes." I know next week she will say that example question was either literal or interpretive level of comprehension testing and she won't be wrong. It IS both of those. What pedants who want to standardize English and turn it into Math or Science don't seem to realize is it is an unquantifiable art, not math or science. We are talking about the mind and how people comprehend things. This is not an exact science but Lisa will force me to pretend like it is and correct my erroneous teaching like she does every week.
What is Lisa doing? She's taking the fun out of funny. She's analyzing that which is rendered ineffective through analyzation. She is measuring teaching, learning, understanding, thought like they are conducive to measurement. They aren't. And every time she tells me I'M the one who's wrong she gets wronger and wronger in her wrongness. But Lisa has urged us students individually and as a class to understand the necessity of keeping our ESL teaching standard across Canada. Strictly standard. Like virtual lock step one with another standard. The most hilarious part of all this is that after talking about how important uniformity of curriculum is nation-wide, the CLB compliant standardizers and overlords assure you that they value learner-centered education because, as we all know, students are all different. THAT is the funniest joke in this post. Funnier by far than all the fly jokes put together in my opinion. Students are all different and for that reason we teachers should all be the same and our lessons should all be the same.
Last week was week 6 of my 8th course out of 12 in my master's of education course. As part of my portfolio assignment in which I commented on the readings of the week I wrote this:
The Lloyd article provided insight into teachers’ learning while
developing curriculum adaptation skills. Again, I have significant experience
in the use of various curriculums that have been provided for me and/or written
by me so this information was not novel to me. However, it was particularly
interesting to trace my own personal journey from “thorough piloting” as a new
teacher and “offloading” curriculum materials unchanged in any significant way
to “adopting and adapting” and using the curriculum as a guide using my own
strategies and personal lessons to augment the curriculum more heavily as my
experience and expertise grew to my current state in which, if allowed the
autonomy by my employer, I take the “intermittent and narrow” approach
“improvising” and using the curriculum suggested by the employer for “seed”
ideas while relying almost entirely on my own resources and strategies (
However, I am hopeful that LINC (which IS an acronym!) (that was what humourists call a "call-back." It was funny because it called your attention back to an earlier joke and you are "in" on that joke because you read the original joke that this new joke references) ppppppttttthhhhhhbbbbbbbtttttt!!!!! As I was saying, I remain hopeful that LINC won't be as overzealous as the erstwhile Lisa has been in finding fault with my half-hearted attempts at taking my quality teaching materials and watering them down by standardizing them and weakening them to align with CLB expectations. It's really not that important. REALLY. Canadian education is not standard. Never has been. It's provincial as Sabrina's report card illustrated. I went from province to province during my education finding out that what was being taught was drastically changed by something so abstract as a provincial border. Although I must have frustrated many a teacher's attempts to maintain standardization throughout my Canadian education, I turned out okay. I'm no dummy. I am living proof that standardization is useless.
I'll go further and say that standardization is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to education. It's not bad enough in Asia that 18-year-olds suffer the traumatic stress of university entrance exams Suneung in Korea, EJU in Japan, the Gaokao in China, these are all words closely associated with high stakes and teen suicide in these countries. Now the 14 and 15-year-olds get a glimpse of the stress of do or die, hero or zero, success or utter failure, school closures, teacher firings, and it's all your fault, with the PISA tests. THIS is a nice evaluation of PISA tests and even it evaluates the whole experiment as a failure. THIS is not so nice but more accurate. Standardization leads to teaching to the test, cheating, stress, and horrible educational practices. It's not a secret. Why the hell it's being implemented in Canada by the ESL racket is anyone's guess.
However, it is on the decline. Hopefully the folks at LINC can recognize the error of using CLB standardization and do what most places I've worked (with the massive exception of the last place I taught in Korea - another abbreviation loving business called SPEP where they mistakenly refer to their name as an acronym all the time (if you are an ESL teacher and YOU have standards don't work for these jagovs)) do: they use a text or curriculum as "seed" material and allow teachers to teach. Some places let the teacher create his/her own curriculum. They actually TRUST the teachers! Hopefully LINC can develop this virtue and make me more comfortable in my new job. Otherwise, it may be yet another short lived position.
Having said all this, I am finished week 4 (except for the inevitable corrections I will be forced to do to the assignment I've turned in to Lisa) and week 5 is the last week. Hopefully I will never have to deal with Lisa and the CLB standardizors ever after. We've been watching horror movies this month and if I were to make one I think that would be the title - The Standardizors. They would absolutely HATE that title! lol I will be starting a new semester with LINC November 15 and still have one class. Hopefully after the semester ends in March I will be more used to the LINC method and I will acquire more classes, more pay and maybe even some sweet benefits. I sure hope so! Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment