Edugenic harm
Is the problem the teacher or school?
“If I treated you all the same, that would not be fair,” I used to say to my 1st grade students when they complained that I was giving advantages to other students. I thought, if I was to be a good teacher, I could not treat all of my students the same. But my attitude was in contradiction to what I was tasked to do as a teacher: Help them achieve high, or at least passing, scores on state standardized tests. There was little room for my students to be unique individuals with diverse needs.
Two case studies illustrate the types of students that get left behind when a heavy weight is placed on standardized tests.
The case of Cory
Cory was born addicted to drugs, thus taken away from his mom at birth. He had a serious speech impediment, had difficulty sitting still to complete his work, and would become very agitated and upset if he thought I was going to send a report home that he was acting up in school. And he loved any attention he could get from adults. His auntie was responsible for his care, but his mom was trying to re-enter his life, which was not a positive development—even I was afraid of her. Cory did often act up in class. As a result, he got a lot of attention from me compared to other students. I would have done a disservice to Cory if I had treated him the same as all other students. But he struggled to understand the content taught in class, which required a level of support I, as one single teacher, was not able give him. He required a great deal of attention both emotionally and academically.
The case of Matthias
Matthias was consistently late to school, if he showed up at all, rarely completed his homework, or simply couldn’t find the assignment when he did complete it. When he opened his desk, it looked like a bomb had blown up inside of it. He was quiet and seemingly aloof, but when he did participate in class and complete assignments, it was obvious that he was profoundly gifted. His level of thought was above his peers and he completed tasks with ease. When speaking with his parents, I could tell they were at a loss for how to meet his needs. I wanted to scream at Matthias' parents, “take him out of this school immediately!” In schools with consistently low standardized test scores, and in classrooms with a handful of students like Cory, students like Matthias do not receive the support they deserve. Because my school was on the cusp of “failure,” and served many students like Cory, we were unable to meet the educational needs of students like Matthias. We didn’t have the resources (time, staff, materials, etc.) to provide him with more intellectually stimulating work. More seasoned teachers were likely better than I at differentiating class instruction to meet the needs of intellectually diverse learners, but I venture to guess that more often than not, on the whole, schools that are consistently worried about test scores are unfair to students like Matthias, and students like Cory.
In the end, attempts to achieve equality fail the high-achieving and low-achieving students.
Presently, there is much focus placed on having students achieve equal outcomes, measured by state standardized test scores. Testing of this sort starts in 3rd grade. In 1st grade, teachers focus on ensuring that students are on track to pass these tests. Students like Matthias required none of my attention to stay on track, students like Cory required all of it. But both of them lose out in a school that focuses heavily on test scores because teachers in these schools are often told to “teach to the middle.” In other words, they are told to target resources toward the kids who straddle the pass/fail line. Taking this approach is a teacher’s best chance to get the most amount of students to pass the test. Students like Cory are too far behind to catch up and students like Matthias will pass no matter what the teacher does.
By teaching to the middle, are teachers committing edugenic harm? Eric Weinstein would likely say yes.
Weinstein, during an episode of "Teach Me, Teacher," defined edugenic harm as “the harm done by educators to their students.” He specifically focused on the harm done to neurodiverse learners when their intellectual needs are neglected. He likens this harm to Iatrogenic harm. Iatrogenesis is “the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence.” Just like medical doctors present themselves as experts in disease and treatment, teachers present themselves as experts in a body of knowledge and how to teach that knowledge. They make decisions about what gets taught and how. As Weinstein describes: “In the classroom, you are so out-gunned by your teacher. Whatever your teacher says, right or wrong, fair or unfair, kind or cruel, underhanded or straight forward, goes. Your rights are not the rights of an adult, they’re not the rights of a peer. You are effectively captive in someone else’s world.” As such, he argues that the level of harm done by teachers should be measured, or at least better understood. Because the issue has not yet been defined in schooling, we don’t know, or can’t quantify, the amount of harm done by teachers. Maybe it’s minor, he qualifies, but we don’t know.
The term Iatrogenesis was introduced to the field of sociology by Ivan Illich. Illich also coined the term “deschooling.” In his book Deschooling Society, he argues that society writ-large needs to be deschooled. In other words, members of society need to stop depending on institutions, specifically schools and hospitals, to tell them what knowledge is legitimate and how to behave: “Rich and poor alike depend on schools and hospitals which guide their lives, form their world view, and define for them what is legitimate and what is not. Both view doctoring oneself as irresponsible, learning on one’s own as unreliable, and community organization, when not paid for by those in authority, as a form of aggression or subversion. For both groups the reliance on institutional treatment renders independent accomplishment suspect.”
Weinstein pointed to the authority of the teacher as the problem when it comes to harm. Illich points to the institution of school and the institutionalize of education: “universal education through schooling is not feasible. [...] Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupils nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software [...], nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue’s responsibility until it engulfs his pupils’ lifetimes will deliver universal education.” Jacob Chastain, the podcast host and high school English teacher, taps into the problem with the institution of school during the episode with Weinstein. But the school should be the primary focus when considering how to measure edugenic harm. To be sure, most teachers do not intend to inflict harm on their students, but when it happens, it’s likely a byproduct of how schools are structured. The behaviors and practices of teachers are the downstream effect of the structure of the institution of school.
I certainly had my flaws as a young teacher in a struggling low-income neighborhood, but Matthias and Cory, and the many other students like them, did not receive the education they deserved because the public school system, at least in its current form, is not designed to provide a well-rounded, robust education to all students. It is designed to ensure equal outputs measured by test scores so that comparisons can be made within and across schools and so that teachers and schools can be evaluated and held accountable. To achieve those equal outputs, many teachers must focus their energy and resources on preparing students to succeed on tests. This approach leaves some students behind, which can make them feel intellectually inadequate, invisible, or harmed. And leads them to misunderstand what it means to learn and be educated. As Illich articulated: The pupil is [...] ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is ‘schooled’ to accept service in place of value.”
There are great teachers working in schools and there are not-so-great, even bad, teachers working in schools. But investigating the upstream problems related to how schools are structured and function would better help us understand why neurodiverse learners like Cory and Matthias aren’t served well in schools then solely focusing on the practices of teachers.
“Cory” and “Matthias” are pseudonyms.
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