Chris Shamburg

NETS Book and a New Look at Standards

My NETS-S Book came in the mail yesterday, and I have to say that I’m very psyched. There are a few chapters that I’d like to amplify and have plans to expand on. I’m writing a book that extends the podcourse chapter (will do a lot of posting here about that). This book will be based on the HS English Course Podcasting and Creative Audio that I’ve been teaching at NJeSchool for the last two years. I’m also writing a HS curriculum (and will hopefully be teaching in Summer) for a course on fanfiction which will expand on the fanfiction chapter (preordered Rebecca Black’s Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction…want to read it ASAP). I’m also working with some graduate students on research projects in these areas (one will be contributing to the upcoming podcasting book).

The one chapter that I’ve been giving the most thought to is the introductory chapter on standards. My first few drafts of that chapter were the obligatory descriptions and lists of the NCTE/IRA Standards and the NETS-S Standards. I wasn’t entirely happy with mailing it in like that, so I started to do a lot of reading about standards–much of it written during the early 1990s when the standards movement was really taking shape.

What I found were some compelling cautionary ideas about standards that gelled with my experiences with teachers and teacher educators. In a way, I had dismissed antistandards folks as either crunchy low-expectation types or provincial states’ righters, but an unintentional (?) consequence of the standards movement is that teachers and teacher educators are asked to abdicate their responsibilities to be creative, innovative, and reflective. The authority of standards often come without adequate explanations (who wrote these things and how did they get here?) and discourage reflection and innovation. I’ve never heard a teacher educator or administrator ask teachers when they would modify, change, or disagree with a standard. This is especially ironic when you consider that most colleges of education have the word ‘reflective’ in their mission statements.

I know that most organizations solicit input, but this really has seemed perfunctory and limited to me. I’m going to try to do more on this with my graduate students…maybe start a standards’ wiki and see what happens. I do think standards can help map out the boundaries of a discipline, but a conversation about these markers or rallying points should be part of the standards experience (and there should be more transparency in their development). I did try to capture this spirit throughout the book, and I’m looking forward to continuing with this idea.