A Teachable Moment

Have you noticed how the data driven drones of the education world increasingly frame their enthusiasm for data collection in terms of mining metaphors? Thus, we are asked to dig down or drill into the data as though some precious mineral awaits us if we just go deeply enough. Have you noticed too how no one ever explains where teachers are supposed to find the time to do all of this data mining? It’s simply presumed that they have gobs of time to drill into the data of each of their students generated by the ever increasing number of computerized tests to which they are subjected. Rather than having mining as the operative metaphor, I suggest we use swimming and observe that many of our teachers are already drowning in data with no sign of anyone throwing them a life preserver.