Comenius, Dewey & Authentic Assessment

EDU 6120 Week 5

During this week’s readings, podcast and lecture, I was most taken by Comenius’ notion that “classrooms should be spaces with as much pleasure as fairs.” Dr. Scheuerman qualified this statement by saying that classrooms should not simply be places of fun and engagement but should connect students to practical explorations and investigations of ideas and outcomes that apply to student’s and adult’s actual lives. He connected this notion to the contemporary jargon of authentic assessment and student performance that connects to adult world challenges, structures and tasks. This philosophy of education was further emphasized in Dewey’s progressivism as evidenced in Dr. Ellis’ outline of education philosophies. Dewey posited, “education should be life itself, not a preparation for living.”

Reflecting on education through this lens allowed me to recall my own high school and college experiences that paralleled such progressive construction. It was a small but powerful minority of my own teachers who espoused such a progressivism in their classrooms versus the status quo perennialism and inertia which – looking back – I believe guided the bulk of my teachers and their respective course designs.

My experiences first as a staff writer and then as the Editor-in-Chief of my high school yearbook were likely my most profound educational experiences to date and moreover, the greatest example of progressive education, authentic assessment and a classroom with as much pleasure as a fair that still resonates with me today.

Yearbook was a serious endeavor at Aberdeen High School throughout the late 90s and early aughts. As I took the helm as Editor-in-Chief in Summer 2003 and we (our adult advisor and team of 8 section editors) were off to Yearbook Camp (yes, we went to camp #NerdAlert) at the University of Santa Cruz; I was immersed in a world of copy writing, editing, design, theme development, advertising, fundraising and a comprehensive and real journalism education. Adobe had just recently put out a suite of software which included InDesign and Photoshop that I was tasked with the responsibilities of teaching myself and then working with my photo and layout design editors respectively, to master. We spent a week workshopping and ruminating on the perfect theme that would encapsulate the focus of our upcoming publication.

We took this project seriously and not just for our student body and local community. Our yearbook, the Quinault, had a history of receiving national recognition. The previous year’s publication, entitled Voices, was one of seven high school yearbooks in the nation to receive both: The Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Crown and the National Scholastic Press Association’s Pacemaker awards. We arrived at Santa Cruz on the warm August night and mingled with yearbook staffs from across the country – the vast majority from schools in much larger cities and vastly different metropolitan areas than Aberdeen, Washington. I was stunned to learn what a big deal our yearbook was to these other students. I’ll never forget during the first night’s book exchange with all the schools at camp, watching a student from a famous (in our mind’s) Sacramento, CA high school stand up on a picnic table proclaiming “I got the Aberdeen book!” This made our staff feel like rock stars.

The following year and my management of a $75,000 project was an education unlike any I’ve known since. I was managing a creative process and a team of 23 peers who were my staff to encourage, reprimand and collaborate with – depending on the day. We were selling advertising to local businesses and parents who wanted to congratulate their graduating seniors. Many of the yearbooks that we encountered at camp sold their books to students at the end of the year for somewhere between $75-100. This was reasonable considering the amount of money that went into a hardbound, 11-inch 420 page, much of it color, publication. We however, were selling the Quinault to the students of Aberdeen High School – an economically depressed, former fishing and logging town where unemployment stood at 10% long before the housing crash of 2008. We sold ours for $35. We had to underwrite that cost with advertising dollars.

The year included the management of staff, deadlines, actual editing of copy and design, as well as two separate presentations with the school board where I lobbied on behalf of our team in order to feature a story about the growing prevalence of hard drugs like cocaine and meth in the AHS party “scene.” We wrote profiles on students who wanted to drop out, students with different religious backgrounds and beliefs, students in the vocational education track, students celebrating Quinceneras and even a friend who’d gotten into a life-altering car accident, which left her paraplegic. I was also responsible for writing the obituary for a much-beloved English teacher who early in the school year had committed suicide amidst a scandal. This was authentic assessment.

This was real learning. It was ongoing and had real impact on our community. I thankfully still have the hard copy proof of that year of my life. It was a year where the ideals and ethics of journalism fused with my academic and professional character and ambitions. That year taught me so much about time management and organization for myself and for a team. I grew as a leader and creative voice as we produced our also award-winning publication the Truth.

I have taken this experience with me into the classroom as a teacher these past 8 years and it shapes my philosophy of education as I get to reflect on it now. I am hopeful that I will someday be a part of a school that prioritizes such flexibility and creative agency for me to create a space for student creation and management of a long-term authentic assessment that can connect them to passion and skills that will still be empowering them 13 years later.