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Could that possibly be the question with which teachers will be evaluated if the state Department of Education — in current negotiations with the teachers’ union leaders — affirm this “framework” for evaluation?

Teachers are being set up to be evaluated on classroom management by their level of caring for their students using a rubric designed by Charlotte Danielson. It is currently being piloted at Pahoa High and Intermediate School as part of the restructuring process at the school, as it races to the top.

This teacher is disheartened. The art of teaching is once again being tossed into the wild world of pseudo-science, corporate jargon, and meaningless language.

In this case, “care” is being used as a term to describe the performance of a teacher in the classroom. “Care” is such an abstract quality that it becomes meaningless and would fall into the “doublespeak” category defined by George Orwell in 1984 and taken on by William Lutz and the National Council of Teachers of English and Doublespeak Committee.

Disturbingly, the word “care” brings to mind the word “help,” a weasel word in the English language; weasel words are those that should usually be avoided at all costs because of their tendency to mislead, distort, deceive, inflate, circumvent and obfuscate (Lutz).

The Danielson rubrics would definitely be my choice of nominees for the next Orwell Award. Teachers and staff are certainly a caring group of professionals. If caring can be equated with patience, they are already off the charts and off the rubric in terms of being “highly distinguished” in the caring department.

Other teacher characteristics under evaluation would be: teacher level of engagement with other teachers —presumably at mandatory meetings called Professional Learning Communities (these meetings are heavy-handedly facilitated by other teachers in an oppressive, robotic, and often patronizing manner) — level of engagement with the community at large, and service to extra-curricular activities at the school and community. In other words, forced “caring” and mandatory use of the Danielson rubric. Again, since all teachers are affected by this, it would be in teachers’ best interest to use the words “care” and “engagement” to maximum effect with students, parents, and other faculty and staff at the school.

All in all, teachers are a worrying, neurotic, harried, yet focused lot of human beings. Teachers spend the day with other human beings. Many of those other humans are their students. They show they care by high expectations, persistence and fortitude, and even by their “tough love” which could be viewed by some as the opposite of caring and which could be the best possible demonstration of altruism, generosity, and morality for a particular student or group of students in a given place and time. They also show they care just by showing up to work in order to work with some of the most disadvantaged student populations in the country.

Teachers will need to “care” or “worry” about any evaluation system or tool because their very careers hinge upon the outcome of evaluations. Their pay, license renewal, teaching lines, and basically, every aspect of their job depends upon receiving a satisfactory performance review. They will certainly wrinkle their brows a bit, screw up their eyes, grimace, and begin sweating, as with any other evaluation that ties teacher performance to pay and job retention.

Danielson touts that other professions — such as nurses, doctors, architects, and lawyers — participate in rigorous professional development in order to maintain their professional licenses. This is not only a false analogy when presented as an argument that the teaching profession be on par with these professionals paid at least three times as much as teachers, but is dangerously misleading because it is purports that other professions are constantly being monitored by their peers.

Teachers are required to go through endless trainings, meetings, and further trainings as their administrators jump on a trendy bandwagon that changes annually and even semi-annually. Other professions are trusted to carry out their jobs once licensure is granted. If they seek additional certification, specialization, or degrees, then yes, they must be evaluated before the granting of such endorsements which enhance their professional reputation, salaries, and career longevity.

Danielson’s premise is actually based upon a business model of professional enhancement or cycles of re-training that certainly other professions have fallen victim to, whether it is nurses working for huge hospitals or lawyers under a corporate umbrella. These professionals come under review in the profit and loss world.

Where does this leave K-12 teachers? It leaves them plugging away with overwhelmingly abstract and vague criteria upon which they will be deemed in the range of low-performing to high-performing in their jobs as educators and, in the end, they will cease to care about “caring” because that weasel word will become just another meaningless part of their day.

Sources:
Danielson, Charlotte. “Enhancing Professional Practice, A Framework for Teaching,” Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), 2nd Edition, 2007.

Lutz, William. “Weasel Words: The Art of Saying Nothing At All,” Language Awareness, Readings For College Writers, Eschholz, Rosa, Clark. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.

Susan Kay Anderson teaches English at Pahoa High School and Hawaii Community College on the Big Island. She has taught in island schools for nearly two decades.