Students Not Numbers

     When did students stop being students and become only numbers within our school systems?  What or who allowed this to happen?  Is it money?  Is it arrogance?  Is it politics?  The answer is unfortunately yes to all of these reasons and more.
     When policy makers set standards which have to be achieved and school systems do not fight back, students no longer existed.  When school systems began receiving recognition, awards, and grants for overachieving these standards students no longer existed.  When superintendents and administrators began touting their success based on the numbers, students no longer existed.  So now our educational system is made up of numbers not students.     Until our educational system from top to bottom focuses on students, not numbers our students will continue to fall short of their potential, and to struggle in life after high school.  Our advanced students are no longer pushed as they are seen “safe” when it comes to passing tests and their grade level.  So since the advanced students are going to reach their testing numbers they are now deemed not worth the time.  Our struggling students struggle even more because we pass them on before they have earned it so our numbers don’t fall. The struggling student is put even further behind as they are pulled from their classes to be “coached” to pass a test, not to learn anything.
     The job of a school system from top to bottom has to be about more than numbers and test curriculum.  Our job has to be to teach.  Teaching should include:  curriculum, understanding how to learn, how to succeed, how to make decisions on their own, what is acceptable behavior in certain settings, and so much more.  Our responsibility is to develop successful citizens, not just college students.  College is not for every student, nor necessary for every profession.  And to be completely honest, as watered down as our testing curriculum has become we are not producing many prepared college students anyway.   We prepare students to take tests, not to think critically for themselves.  We teach our students to circle answers, not to write a comprehensive paper.  Right now we only train, not teach our students.  All of this is traced back to numbers.  The numbers have to look right.  The problem is education is not about attaining numbers, it is about teaching students.
     We have to get back to teaching, not to a test, but to the student.  We have to teach students how to teach themselves, to think for themselves.  We have to inspire and allow our students to think.  If students are not thinking for themselves they are not learning.