It took me a while to understand my reaction to the Success Academy Charter School video, and it took me even longer to sort through my reaction to the public's reaction (here, and here, and here).
I was confused by the wide-spread surprise that a teacher might have momentary loss of control. Anyone who works with (or near) children knows that every parent and educator experiences flashes of discomposure, embarrassingly lashing out at children in fear, disappointment, desperation, or anger from time to time. So why the widespread shock?
I believe it was precisely because the video did not depict a loss of control. I did not see an exasperated lapse in judgment. Nor did I see a sadistic temperament. I also did not see an insidious outcropping of deeper systemic inequalities that teach privileged children to question and poor children to submit, although I believe such inequalities exist. Instead I saw something far more obvious and distressing:
The video shows a skillful and exacting technician confidently and deftly carrying out a direct mandate that came from each and every one of us: to raise every child’s standardized test scores at any cost. Because evaluating and compensating teachers and schools based on raising children’s performance on arbitrary, non-differentiated, developmentally inappropriate metrics leads necessarily to cruelty. It is the patent end to a goal we have collectively set in motion: to have each child reach inflexible standards that are incongruous with current research about how young and varied minds grow and develop. It certainly can be done. As circus animals can be made to do tricks with extreme enough systems of reward and punishment, so too can children of all ages be coerced into performing.
I believe that the collective alarm and discomfort that the video arose in the public was unjustifiably misdirected towards an individual teacher. To me she seemed to be an exceedingly competent educator, masterfully carrying out the task we asked her to execute. I believe the outrage was also misdirected at Success Academy, the charter school system as a whole, and even the widespread inequities in education. Instead, I believe the reaction of mass shock and discomfort that the video inspired was the horrified gasp of us realizing what we - all of us - have done. Because this is what standardized expectations of children look like: cruel and unusual.