When Teaching Interferes With Learning: Balancing Accountability With the Unique Needs of Every Child

Abstract

This article highlights the practices of administrators and master teachers who are trying to balance the needs for accountability, prescribed curriculum, and learning standards with a broader view of education that gives equal importance to skills not so easily quantified by standardized tests. The author makes a case for the use of careful observation of children, and documentation and analysis of project-based activities as a way to create a more complete picture of a child's skills while at the same time, supporting the innate desire to learn with which all children start life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the following: Maggie Mattson, teacher Hosmer Elementary School, Watertown, MA; Chris Whitbeck, principal, Douglas Elementary School, Acton, MA; Carole Cammarata, Lead Teacher, The Infant Toddler Children's Center, Acton, MA.