Joe Meyer teaches eighth and ninth grade English at Eagle Ridge Junior High in Burnsville, Minn. In 2011, he was named the Burnsville District Teacher of the Year and was a top 10 finalist for the Minnesota Teacher of the Year. Meyer enjoys this picture because it makes an amusing case for the importance of knowing how to use English. (Commas, anyone?)
Joe Meyer ’87 Does standardized testing shortchange our students? Our society is focused on accountability, and to make kids accountable, we typically use lots of standardized testing. Unfortunately, because we focus so much of our energy on testing things that are objective and easily measured, we sometimes lose sight of things that are more difficult to measure. For example, how do you see if a student has a voice in their writing? How do you learn if students can adequately represent their ideas in writing? How do you test for curiosity? Those were things I learned at Saint John’s. I remember English professor Eila Perlmutter telling me, “You never know anything until you’ve written it down.” I hated it when she said it, because it meant we had to do a lot of writing, but her point was that you don’t understand something until you’ve thought about it enough that when you put it into writing, it actually means something. And that’s something I tell my students today.
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There were others at Saint John’s who shared with me their passion for reading the work of great authors and great thinkers, not just so we could write an essay or take a test, but so we could discuss their ideas, and see how their ideas might shape us as individuals. It was part of the Benedictine value system to become the person that you can be, and to share our talents with others. That experience was really powerful. Saint John’s isn’t just about academics, it’s about creating a whole person, and being part of a community. In the same way, I hope that in my class, people understand that I care not just about their grades, but who they are as people. I might want my kids to learn the kinds of things that are on a test, like what an adjective is, or how to read for meaning. But there’s so much more than that. I don’t know if we want to be known as a society that just teaches to tests, so we can report percentages that are run in the Star Tribune. What I really want my students to learn is to appreciate learning and know how to learn. I want them to see that there’s a great big world of learning out there, and that they can go off and discover it.