Fielder’s Choice
One day last week I was having an informal conversation with an educator about state testing.
In the newspaper dated September 13, I wrote a front page story on recent data released by the Mississippi Department of Education.
County superintendent Lela Hale and city superintendent Irene Turnage talked about progress of the students, plus strengths and weaknesses revealed by the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program.
I’ve written a lot of stories over the years on state testing.
They’re difficult to write, partly because it has been an ever-changing process by the state – and partly because this guy with a college degree from 1984 has a hard time understanding all the data.
And maybe it’s partly because I wasn’t raised on state testing. And I think I came out OK as did lots more of my classmates.
Back in the days, the 1960s and 1970s, I just remember the teachers teaching to the best of their ability. And I was blessed with good teachers.
That’s one statement made by myself and the administrator at about the same time last week – “Hire good teachers and let the teachers teach.”
Sure, our students today face different challenges as far as landing good jobs in a whole different world – the information age (also known as the computer age or digital age) – and becoming successful in their fields of choice.
But just call me old school.
The foundations of all foundations, as far as I’m concerned, are reading and writing. And maybe that’s because those are the things I loved the most and the things that steered me toward a career in journalism.
My earliest memories with my mother are of her reading to me. And I carried that over to my own children.
I read and wrote and read and wrote and read and wrote from elementary school, to junior high to high school and on through college. And it continues today.
I loved reading mysteries, and that started at a young age with the Hardy Boys books. I read several, starting with the first – “The Tower Treasure.”
And on up in the high school years and college, I had to read (some to my enjoyment and some not) – books like “The Scarlett Letter,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Grapes of Wrath,” “Tale of Two Cities,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Catcher and the Rye,” “Lord of the Flies,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Hamlet” and others.
And I wrote term paper after term paper and essay after essay.
I survived math and history and science. I enjoyed dissecting a frog. But those things weren’t my favorites.
Everyone has to pick their favorites.
And in my case, good teachers steered me into my favorites – and to this day I’m thankful for their excellent teaching and their great guidance as far as career choices.
I have a great appreciation for educators. And particularly, I have a great appreciation for the educators of today. Their jobs and challenges, I believe, are much greater than they were in the 1960s and 1970s.
The world has changed. The kids have changed. The jobs have changed.
But good teaching is still good teaching.