Assessing English Language Learners

Bridges to Educational Equity

Connecting Academic Language
Proficiency to Student Achievement
Margo Gottlieb
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What Colleagues Say About Assessing English
Language Learners: Bridges To Educational Equity:
Connecting Academic Language Proficiency to
Student Achievement

“This practical book provides excellent background information and practical

guidance for educators interested in improving the assessment of English learners
(ELs) and connecting academic language proficiency to academic achievement. Its
format of using reflections throughout each chapter offers opportunities for readers to
think more deeply about topics and helps guarantee that they will be engaged and
apply what they are learning to their own settings. Sharing the reflections with
colleagues will help readers gain multiple perspectives related to the assessment of
language proficiency in ELs. The practical resources at the end of each chapter will
help educators apply what they learned.”

—Diane August
Managing Researcher
American Institutes for Research
Washington, DC

“While we know that first-hand teaching experiences cannot readily be substituted by

reading about the work and practice of others, with evocative scenarios of teachers,
students and schools used throughout Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges
to Educational Equity, Margo Gottlieb comes close to making this happen. This is
critical in two ways: first, the book is lively and interesting—serving as a welcome,
well-designed text for teacher preparation courses, and second, the scenarios with their
companion reflection questions can serve as an excellent stand-alone reference and
thought-provoking resource for the increasing number of classroom teachers who find
themselves responsible for the instruction and assessment of students acquiring English
alongside their content area learning.”

—Alison L. Bailey, EdD

Professor of Human Development and Psychology
Department of Education, UCLA and Faculty Research Partner, CRESST
Los Angeles, CA

“Margo Gottlieb’s new book brings together research and policy on assessment and
ELLs with practical tools for implementation. Her framework “Assessment as, for,

2
and of learning” helps educators understand how assessment shapes teaching and
learning and identifies concrete steps that educators can take to ensure that assessment
practices are equitable for this group of students. The consistent application of the lens
of the culturally and linguistically responsive classroom makes this book a must-have
for teachers, school and district administrators, and teacher educators alike.”

—Ester de Jong, EdD

Professor & Director, School of Teaching and Learning
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL

“Assessing English Language Learners is an important contribution to the field for

the many educators who believe that assessment for second language learners is
important, but only if it is valid. This book lays out a clear and compelling argument
that assessment and equity are not mutually exclusive concepts in educational
programs for the nation’s burgeoning population of multilingual learners. Its breadth
is impressive and includes important discussions about language proficiency
assessment, but also adds ideas for content area assessment practices. Important
reading for practitioners and educational leaders.”

—Kathy Escamilla, PhD

Professor, Division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity
University of Colorado, Boulder
Boulder, CO

“Assessing Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity is a great resource

for teacher education programs and professional learning opportunities for schools.
The book presents a new vision about assessment in the 21st century, which is
influenced by new standards, accountability and technological advances in education.
The new concept of Assessment as, for, and of learning that Gottlieb presents will
transform education and provide a different perspective of assessment to all
stakeholders. This is definitely a book that all educators should read.”

—Miguel Fernandez, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Chicago State University
Chicago, IL

“This book lays out a much needed practical process for instructional professionals to
design equitable access to educational opportunity for English learners! The author
both responds to and promotes growing awareness of the critical importance for

3
teachers and instructional leaders to ensure English learners’ meaningful engagement
with content through academic English. This authentic evolution of appropriate
assessment as, for and of learning answers the “how” part of the clarion call for
English learners to participate in rigorous curricula and instruction.”

—Jonathan Gibson
Title III English Learner Program Director
Nevada Department of Education
Las Vegas, NV

“Framed by a lens of equity, Gottlieb makes the complex landscape of assessment

accessible for classroom practitioners of English language learners. Readers will walk
away with a crystal clear understanding of the instructional conditions they can create
for English language learners, promoting linguistically responsive assessment
practices.”

—Trish Morita-Mullaney, Ph.D.

ELL Assistant Professor
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN

4
Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational
Equity
Second Edition

5
Dedication

To language learners and their families, whose linguistic and cultural wealth enhances our
classrooms and communities every day.

To teachers who embed the linguistic and cultural richness of their language learners and
families into teaching and learning so that school is an exceptional and exciting experience for
students every day.

To school leaders and administrators who rejoice in the languages and cultures of their schools
and districts every day.

To all the language learners, teachers, school leaders, and educators who have enriched my life
with their languages and cultures every day.

6
Assessing English Language Learners:
Bridges to Educational Equity
Connecting Academic Language Proficiency to Student
Achievement

Second Edition

Margo Gottlieb

Foreword by

Margaret Heritage

7
FOR INFORMATION:

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Copyright © 2016 by Corwin

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8
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gottlieb, Margo, author.

Title: Assessing English language learners: bridges to educational equity: connecting academic language proficiency to
student achievement / Margo Gottlieb.

Description: Second Edition. | Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin, A SAGE Company, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015045167 | ISBN 9781483381060 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: English language—Study and teaching—Foreign speakers. | English language—Ability testing.

Classification: LCC PE1128.A2 G657 2016 | DDC 428.0071—dc23 LC record available at

http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045167

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Program Director: Dan Alpert

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Copy Editor: Shannon Kelly

Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.

Proofreader: Eleni Georgiou

Indexer: Teddy Diggs

Cover Designer: Candice Harman

Marketing Manager: Charline Maher

9
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Organization of the Book
Audiences
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PART I: Assessment as a Context for Teaching and Learning: Bridges to Equity
Why Focus on Equity?
Why Center on Language Learners With Special Attention to English
Language Learners?
Who Are Our English Language Learners? Facts and Figures of the Changing
Demographic
What’s in a Name?
Who Are the Educators of Language Learners?
What Are Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Classrooms and Schools?
Resource I.1 Describing Your Language Learners
Resource I.2 Identifying Educators of English Language Learners
Resource I.3 A Rating Scale of a Linguistically and Culturally Responsive
School
Chapter 1 Assessment of Language Learners: The Bridge to Educational Equity
Considerations in Assessing English Language Learners
Identification of English Language Learners
Phase I Measures
Phase II Measures
Identification of English Language Learners With Disabilities
Educational Policy and Its Impact on Assessment
Principles for Assessing Language Learners
Formative or Summative? Which One Is It?
Introducing Assessment as, for, and of Learning
Purposes for Assessing English Language Learners
Measuring Academic Language Proficiency and Academic
Achievement
Planning Ahead: An Assessment Schedule
Academic Language Use and Assessment
Reaction and Reflection
Resource 1.1 A Decision Tree for the Identification and Placement of
English Language Learners
Resource 1.2 A Sample Language Use Survey for Newly Enrolled
Students

10
 Resource 1.3 A Sample Oral Language Use Survey for English Language
Learners
Resource 1.4 A Sample Literacy Use Survey for English Language
Learners
Resource 1.5 Purposes for Classroom Assessment, Types of Measures,
and Language(s) of Assessment
Resource 1.6 A Hypothetical Calendar for Assessment of Learning for
English Language Learners: State and District Levels
Resource 1.7 An Inventory of Initial Measures and Assessment Policies
for English Language Learners
Chapter 2 Assessment of Academic Language Through Standards: The Bridge
to Systemic Equity
College and Career Readiness Standards, Other Content Standards, and
Related Assessment
Getting Organized for Standards-Referenced Assessment of Academic
Language Use
Academic Language: The Bridge Connecting Content Standards and
Language Proficiency Development Standards
Academic Language Functions in Standards
The Foundation for Language “Proficiency” Assessment: Language
Proficiency/Development Standards
Performance Definitions
Language Proficiency/Development Standards
Supports for Instruction and Assessment
Implementing a Standards Framework Through Essential Actions
Integration of Standards and Assessment in an Educational System
Reaction and Reflection
Resource 2.1 Grouping English Language Learners by Levels of
Language Proficiency
Resource 2.2 Language Proficiency/Development Standards
Chapter 3 Assessment of the Language of the Content Areas: The Bridge to
Academic Equity
Planning for Standards-Referenced Assessment
Getting Organized for Assessment
The Language of Mathematics
The Dimensions of Academic Language: Implications for
Assessment and Instruction
The Language and Culture of Mathematics Operations
Measuring the Language of Mathematics
The Language of Language Arts
The Dimensions of Academic Language: Implications for
Instruction and Assessment

11
 Measuring the Language of Language Arts
Opportunities for Crosslinguistic Transfer Through Cognates
The Language of Science
The Dimensions of Academic Language: Implications for
Instruction and Assessment
Measuring the Language of Science
The Language of Social Studies
The Dimensions of Academic Language: Implications for
Instruction and Assessment
Using Cooperative Learning Strategies to Promote Oral
Interaction
Using Graphic and Visual Supports for Instruction and Assessment
Measuring the Language of Social Studies
The Language of Other Content Areas
Reaction and Reflection
Resource 3.1 Features Associated With Assessment of Content and
Language Across the Curriculum
Chapter 4 Assessment of Oral Language and Literacy Development: The
Bridge to Linguistic Equity
Getting Ready for Standards-Referenced Assessment
Language Proficiency Assessment: Oral Language
The Nature of Listening Comprehension
Instructional Assessment of Listening Comprehension
The Nature of Speaking
Instructional Assessment of Speaking
Language Proficiency Assessment: Literacy
The Nature of Reading
Ideas for Reading Strategies for ELLs
Expansion of Reading to Digital Literacy
Multiliteracies
Instructional Assessment of Reading
The Nature of Writing
The Difference Between Genres and Text Types
Crosslinguistic Transfer
The Convergence of Content and Language
Reaction and Reflection
PART II: Assessment From a Different Perspective: The Bridge to Schoolwide
Equity
Overview of Assessment as, for, and of Learning
The Role of Rubrics in Assessment as, for, and of Learning
Holistic, Analytic, and Task-Specific Rubrics
Using Rubrics With Assessment as, for, and of Learning

12
Resource II.1 Assessment as, for, and of Learning in My School
Resource II.2 A Checklist Descriptive of Linguistically and Culturally
Responsive Rubrics
Chapter 5 Assessment as Learning: The Bridge to Student Equity
Connecting Students and Classrooms
The Role of Teachers in Assessment as Learning
The Benefits of Assessment as Learning
Assessment as Learning Practices
1. Student Involvement in Planning Assessment as Learning
2. Student Involvement in Implementing Assessment as Learning
3. Student Involvement in Evaluating Assessment as Learning
Exemplifying Assessment as Learning: Students as Self- and Peer
Assessors
Questions and Prompts for Self-Assessment
Types of Student Self-Assessment
Student Self-Assessment as Information Gathering and Feedback
Peer Assessment
Reaction and Reflection
Chapter 6 Assessment for Learning: The Bridge to Teacher Equity
Formative Processes
What the Literature Says
Assessment for Learning: A Teacher-Directed Process
Common Instructional Products
Defining Common Assessment
Academic Language Use Within Common Assessment
The Importance of Inter-Rater Agreement in Documenting
Common Instructional Products
Design and Implementation of Common Instructional Products
Planning a Unit of Learning With Common Assessment in Mind
Evaluation of Common Instructional Products
Reaction and Reflection
Resource 6.1 Example Language Expectations for Language Learners at
Varying Language Proficiency Levels
Resource 6.2 Activities, Tasks, or Projects?
Resource 6.3 Planning for Common Instructional Products
Resource 6.4 Common Instructional Products: A Checklist for Use Prior
to Implementing Performance-Based Projects
Resource 6.5 Common Instructional Products: A Review Sheet for
Projects Involving English Language Learners
Resource 6.6 A Template for a Unit’s Common Instructional Product
Resource 6.7 Curriculum Design Highlighting Academic Language Use
Chapter 7 Assessment of Learning: The Bridge to Administrator Equity

13
 The Distinctions Among Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation
Validity
What the Scores for Assessment of Learning Mean
Interim Measures
High-Stakes Tests
Linguistic Appropriateness of Assessment Measures: Implications
for ELLs and ELLs With Disabilities
Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests
Types of Item Responses in Assessment of Learning
Provisions for Annual Testing of English Language Learners Under
the Every Student Succeeds Act
The Next Generation of Achievement Testing
Accessibility and Accommodations for Achievement Tests
Practice Items From the Next Generation of Testing: Language
Implications
Innovative Testlets in Mathematics and Science
Spanish Language Arts Standards and Assessment
The Next Generation of Assessment for Students With Significant
Cognitive Disabilities
The Next Generation of English Language Proficiency Tests
Accessibility Features and Accommodations for English Language
Proficiency Tests
Approaching State Accountability Systems
Reaction and Reflection
Resource 7.1 Accommodations for English Language Learners on Annual
State Tests
Chapter 8 Assessment Results: Feedback, Standards-Referenced Grading, and
Reporting: The Bridge to Sustained Educational Equity
The Issue of Grading
To Grade or Not to Grade? The Compatibility of Grading With
Assessment as and for Learning
Setting Learning Goals to Anchor Grading Practices
Giving Grades to English Language Learners
Criteria for Grading in a Standards-Referenced World
A Report Card for Dual Language Learners
Can Do Descriptors
Using Student Portfolios for Assessment and Grading
Features of Assessment Portfolios
Contents of Assessment Portfolios
Example Assessment Portfolio Entries
Reporting Student Progress in Portfolio Conferences
Teacher-Student Conferences

14
 Student-Led Conferences
Graduation Portfolios and the Seal of Bilteracy
Final Reaction and Reflection
Resource 8.1 An Assessment Portfolio Checklist
Glossary
References
Sources for Standards and Standards-Related Documents
Index

15
Foreword

While college and career ready standards (CCRS) represent challenges for all students and
their teachers, the challenge for English Language Learners (ELLs) is particularly
significant. Already, ELL students have to learn subject matter content while
simultaneously acquiring a new language. Moreover, the CCRS place a strong emphasis on
extensive academic language use to engage in deep and transferable content learning and
analytical practices. For example, mathematics CCRS ask students to explain, conjecture,
construct viable arguments, and critique the reasoning of others, while the English language
arts CCRS require students to engage with complex texts and write to inform, argue, and
analyze.

With the rising population of ELL students in the United States and their stubbornly
persistent low educational outcomes, like it or not, educational equity will depend in large
part on all teachers taking responsibility for their ELL students’ continuing language
development in the context of learning demanding content-area material. This means that
teachers will need to have a deep understanding of the content standards they teach, as well
as complementary English language development (ELD) standards, and the skills to
integrate them effectively, lesson-by-lesson, to provide optimal learning opportunities for
their ELL students.

And to be able to successfully engage their ELL students in content-area and language
learning, teachers must also have the knowledge and skills to use assessment information, a
critical part of teaching, for making sound decisions to keep their students’ learning moving
forward. Furthermore, it cannot just be teachers who engage in assessment. Learning is the
property of the learner, and while teachers and peers can help students learn, in the end, it
is only they who can actually do the learning. Effective assessment practices can enable
students to become agents in their own learning. By understanding what they are learning,
why they are learning it, and how they will know if they’ve learned it, students can engage
in self-assessment in ways that lead them to regulate their own learning, a core skill for
college and career readiness.

All of this is easy to say but much harder to do. Fortunately for teachers of ELLs and those
who support them, Margo Gottlieb, well known for her passionate advocacy for language-
minority students, has used the theme of “bridges” in this book to clearly move us to a
conception of equity for linguistically and culturally diverse students. Importantly, these
students are not treated as a homogeneous group. Rather, there is recognition that each
student comes to school with his or her own ethnic heritage, experiences, interests,
language, exposure to English, and variations in the time spent in U.S. classrooms. It
follows then that a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting ELLs’ learning will not meet the
needs of all students, underscoring the necessity for effective assessment practices that help

16
teachers be responsive to their students.

Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity—Connecting Academic

Language Proficiency to Student Achievement uses the conception of assessment as, for, and of
learning as a useful heuristic to capture the range of functions that assessment serves within
a comprehensive system. There is a clear and helpful differentiation of assessments, and
who uses them for what purposes, along with a recognition of the interdependence of the
assessments to support decision making by administrators, teachers and students.

Each chapter tackles an important topic, ranging from the changing demographics of the
U.S.’s school population, to detailed considerations of assessment for ELLs, to placement
decisions for ELLs, to how ELD and content standards can work together to produce
successful outcomes. To add to this, the book is full of practical advice that stems from
research and contemporary theory, and there are many helpful resources throughout that
provide support for thinking about the chapter topics and for taking action. The result is a
360-degree view of not only what needs to be in place but how to put it in place, to achieve
educational equity for ELLs.

While this book reminds us how complex and challenging teaching and assessment for
linguistically and culturally diverse students is, Margo Gottlieb has marshaled her
commitment to social justice and combined it with her deep expertise to lead the way,
across bridges, to an educational environment where success can be achieved. We should all
heed her wise counsel.

Margaret Heritage

Senior Scientist

WestEd

17
Preface

It’s strange. The opening to this preface is as relevant today as it was a decade ago when this
book was first conceptualized. So I repeat: In his seminal book, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962), Thomas Kuhn envisions a paradigm shift as the point in time when an
overwhelming mass of accumulated knowledge reaches a critical point that forces us to
adjust our way of thinking. The United States continues to undergo a paradigm shift in the
field of educational assessment, albeit of a slightly different nature than in the early years of
the new millennium. This transformation can be attributed to changes in demography,
policy, theory, and practice.

Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Educational Equity—Connecting Academic

Language Proficiency to Student Achievement (Assessing English Language Learners) is
organized around a series of bridges that leads educators toward a vision of educational
parity for all students. Each chapter highlights an equity issue that educators face and
illustrates how we can promote positive change through assessment in reasonable and
practical ways. By examining assessment through a social justice lens, the overall intent is to
generate, interpret, and share data that more fairly reflect what language learners, and
particularly English Language Learners (ELLs), can do.

18
Organization of the Book
This edition of Assessing English Language Learners presents information about assessment
and provides numerous examples of assessment strategies in eight chapters. The major
updates reflect (a) the growing recognition of academic language as central to both language
development and conceptual development, and therefore to assessment as well; (b) the
increased role of technology in our lives and assessment; (c) the broadening of literacy to
include multiliteracies and its measurement in authentic ways; (d) the influence of
academic content standards, including college and career readiness standards and their
facsimile on curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and (e) the emphasis on the
important roles of students, teachers, and school leaders in the design and implementation
of classroom or instructional assessment. Unless we provide all students opportunities and
equitable access to standards-referenced, technology-driven curriculum, instruction, and
assessment, these lofty twenty-first-century goals will not become a reality.

Part I sets the backdrop and rationale for a new vision of assessment. Chapter 1, Assessment
of English Language Learners: The Bridge to Educational Equity, paints the current
assessment landscape by identifying its key players—the students and their teachers.
Working from the premise that all students are language learners who are in the process of
acquiring grade-level academic language, this chapter outlines the purposes of assessment
for a variety of stakeholders, describes a comprehensive assessment model, and suggests that
without linguistically and culturally responsive schools, assessment data cannot be relevant
for the new majority—our minority students. Chapter 2, Assessment of Academic Language
Through Standards: The Bridge to Systemic Equity, discusses the influence of content and
language standards in shaping curriculum, instruction, and assessment. It explains how
multiple sets of standards, representing expectations for learning, work together to promote
academic success for students.

The midsection of the book addresses how language learners and their teachers are to be
involved in all forms of assessment within and across classrooms. Chapter 3, Assessment of
the Language of the Content Areas: The Bridge to Academic Equity, offers assessment ideas
related to key uses of academic language in the core curricular areas of language arts,
mathematics, science, and social studies. Chapter 4, Assessment of Oral Language and
Literacy Development: The Bridge to Linguistic Equity, speaks to the expansion of
performance activities, tasks, and projects within and across listening, speaking, reading,
and writing, including multiliteracies and translinguistic transfer, or translanguaging, as
part of meaning making and communication for language learners.

Part II introduces a relatively new paradigm in assessment in the United States that speaks
to students, teachers, and administrators—assessment as, for, and of learning. The
comprehensive, standards-referenced model points to the relationship among three

19
approaches and six forms of assessment. Chapter 5, Assessment as Learning: The Bridge to
Student Equity, focuses on the voice of learners and how, through self-assessment and
reflection, our students contribute to and help shape the assessment process. Student
agency and advocacy demonstrated in assessment as learning frames this and the remaining
chapters. Chapter 6, Assessment for Learning: The Bridge to Teacher Equity, illustrates how
classroom teachers, by carefully planning and enacting an assessment process, can
contribute sound evidence for standards-referenced decision making. Chapter 7, Assessment
of Learning: The Bridge to Administrator Equity, points to the shifts in testing since the
onset of college and career readiness standards and their impact on the new generation of
assessment. The last chapter, Assessment Results: Feedback, Standards-referenced Grading, and
Reporting: The Bridge to Sustained Educational Equity, summarizes how documentation of
assessment as, for, and of learning within a standards-referenced system can yield rich results
for educators, students, and family members, especially when supported through student-
led conferences and assessment portfolios.

Reflections are interspersed throughout the chapters (consider Reflections as embedded self-
and peer assessment or assessment as learning for yourself and your colleagues). They offer
opportunities for you, either individually or as a member of a grade, department, or
professional learning team, to grapple with some of the issues surrounding the instruction
and assessment of language learners and evaluate the potential use of these ideas in your
setting. Resources extend chapters by providing forms, surveys, and rubrics as well as support
materials for instruction and assessment. Many of these exemplars have been adapted from
the Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms series (Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2013, 2014a,
and 2014b) and are meant to inspire thoughts on how best to approach classroom-
embedded or instructional assessment. In addition to the expanded References section, there
is an extensive Glossary of words and expressions.

20
Audiences
A broad range of audiences will hopefully find this book useful. First and foremost are
teachers—each and every teacher who works with language learners, particularly ELLs, now
or in the future. Potential teachers who will soon enter linguistically and culturally rich
classrooms will also hopefully see the benefits of examining assessment through an equity
lens. School leaders, such as counselors, program directors, and curriculum coordinators,
can find some ideas for supporting valid assessment for students, especially ELLs and ELLs
with learning disabilities. Preservice and in-service teacher educators, whether working for a
school district or university or independently, can use this updated edition in a hybrid
course, with a professional learning community, or in a traditional face-to-face venue.

As schools move to more collaborative models for instructional planning and delivery, we
would encourage individual educators to pair with other professionals to delve deeper into
issues related to assessing language learners. There are a number of ways that professional
learning can be a springboard for teachers to work with other teachers as critical friends,
thought partners, coaches, or mentors. Hopefully this book will spur collaboration among
grade-level team members or content and language teachers within and across departments.

Bridges are the pathways that lead to equity and, subsequently, educational success for all
students, in particular ELLs. The accomplishments of current and future generations of
students rest on teachers forging new ground today. Assessing English Language Learners
provides teachers and teacher educators with the motivation, ideas, and tools to cross those
bridges.

21
Acknowledgments

What started off as a simple update of my inaugural Corwin book somehow morphed into
quite an overwhelming project. This edition would not have come to fruition if it were not
for the vigilance and guidance of Dan Alpert, who has always been there for me for the
better part of the past decade. As program director of equity and professional learning,
Dan’s advocacy for educational and social justice is far-reaching and, as is evident in this
book, has personally influenced my thinking. For that, I cannot thank him enough.

There are other folks along the way that make the transformation of a manuscript into a
book a reality. Kim Greenberg, senior associate editor, has been supportive since day one,
helping craft surveys and offering prepublication ideas. Katie Crilley, editorial assistant, has
double-checked every citation and figure (and there were many) to ensure that permissions
had been secured. From the production editor, Laura Barrett, to the copy editor, Shannon
Kelly, much care has been taken to ensure the scholarship of this book.

Last but not least, I would be remiss if I did not include the most wonderful colleagues who
support and inspire me. From my home state of Illinois to my adopted state of Wisconsin,
I must say that I have worked with an amazing group of educators during my career. I am
also grateful to have had the opportunity to interact with such a myriad of amazing people,
many of whom have become personal friends, in every corner of the United States and
throughout the world.

22
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
Corwin gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following reviewers:

Michele R. Dean, Ed.D.

Coordinator, Ventura County Indian Education Consortium
Ventura Unified School District
Ventura, CA

Miguel Fernandez, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Chicago State University
Chicago, IL

Peggy Hickman, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Arcadia University
Glenside, PA

Andrea Honigsfeld
Professor, Associate Dean, Director of Ed.D. Program
Molloy College
Rockville Centre, NY

Melissa Latham Keh

Assistant Professor
Bridgewater State University
Bridgewater, MA

Trish Morita-Mullaney, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Purdue University
Lafayette, IN

Kip Téllez
Professor
University of California, Santa Cruz
Felton, CA

23
About the Author

Margo Gottlieb
is co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education
Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and director, assessment and
evaluation, for the Illinois Resource Center. In the last 15 years, she has spearheaded
the crafting of language development standards and related resources, developed
instructional assessments, designed curricular frameworks, and constructed
instructional assessment systems for language learners. She started her career as an
ESL and bilingual teacher for the Chicago public schools and has since worked with
thousands of educators to share in professional learning with government agencies,
professional organizations, publishers, school districts, states, territories, and
universities. Margo has served on numerous national and state expert panels, advisory
boards, technical working groups, and committees. Throughout the years she has
traveled extensively to present across the United States as well as in American Samoa,
Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,
Finland, Guam, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan,
United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
Margo’s publications span over 80 articles, technical reports, monographs, chapters,
and encyclopedia entries. Her most recent books include Academic Language in
Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts (with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2014); a
foundational book for the series Promoting Content and Language Learning (a
compendium of three mathematics and three English language arts volumes co-edited
with G. Ernst-Slavit, 2013, 2014); Common Language Assessment for English Learners
(2012); Paper to Practice: Using the TESOL’s English Language Proficiency Standards in
PreK-12 Classrooms (with A. Katz & G. Ernst-Slavit, 2009); and Assessment and
Accountability in Language Education Programs: A Guide for Administrators and
Teachers (with D. Nguyen, 2007). She holds a B.A. in the teaching of Spanish, an
M.A. in applied linguistics, and a Ph.D. in public policy analysis, evaluation research,
and program design.

24
Part I Assessment as a Context for Teaching and
Learning Bridges to Equity

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their
students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging
them to create their own.

—Nikos Kazantzakis

It’s official. Due to the meteoric rise of the minority student population, the rigor of the
new standards with their emphasis on college and career readiness, and the importance of
academic language use throughout school, we have welcomed in an age where every teacher
is now a language teacher (Zwiers, 2008; Walqui & van Lier, 2010; Gottlieb & Ernst-
Slavit, 2014a). This new reality that educators face comes at a time when we are challenged
to make informed decisions about our students minute by minute, day by day, week by
week, month by month, and year by year. To do so, we plan, gather, and analyze
information for specific purposes from multiple sources so that the results, when reported
in meaningful ways, inform teaching and learning. That’s the core of the assessment
process. If assessment is reliable, valid, and fair for all students from start to finish, then it
can serve as the bridge to educational equity.

No matter how much progress we have witnessed in the last few years, discrepancies still
remain when it comes to race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, linguistic background, and
economic status of our students. Thus, this book is dedicated to building bridges that
promote educational equity, most notably in the areas of instruction and assessment.
Teachers’ and school leaders’ sensitivity to equitable treatment of all students, with the
recognition that every one is a language learner, will hopefully pave the way to more
inclusive and relevant practices and policies.

25
Why Focus on Equity?
The pursuit of educational equity has been very much part of U.S. history. Envisioned
within the greater civil rights movement, its roots can be traced to the mid-twentieth
century. Beginning with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of
Education that eliminated racial segregation, successive decades have included further
attempts to address social and educational inequities. In 1965 we saw the introduction of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which attempted to hold states, school
districts, and schools more accountable for improving the academic performance of
students regardless of economic status, race, ethnicity, proficiency in English, or disability.
In 1974 the Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court case expanded the rights of English Language
Learners (ELLs) by ruling in favor of Chinese students who were denied equal educational
opportunities on the basis of their ethnicity and language background, thus paving the way
to the endorsement of bilingual education.

The landmark 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, Public Law No.
94-142) ensures that students with disabilities are provided free, appropriate public
education in the least restricted learning environment that is tailored to their individual
needs, as stated in their individualized education programs (IEPs). This law extends to
ELLs from birth to age 21, stipulating that they are not to be denied language support due
to a disability. A recent policy (rather than legislation or adjudication) that touches on
equity of educational opportunity is state adoption of college and career readiness standards
aimed at universally increasing curricular and assessment demands.

National equity assistance centers (EACs), funded by the U.S. government under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, provide assistance to public schools in the areas of race, gender, and
national origin equity in order to promote equal educational opportunities. It is the
contention of the centers that, if fully implemented, their six goals for educational equity
will create a context that promotes equity. These goals include

comparably high academic achievement and other positive outcomes for all students
on all achievement indicators;
equitable access and inclusion;
equitable treatment;
equitable resource distribution;
equitable opportunity to learn; and
shared accountability. (Regional Equity Assistance Centers, 2013, p. 4)

We begin laying the groundwork for assessment equity by describing the ever-increasing
school-age population of linguistically and culturally diverse students. Of equal importance
are the school contexts in which students interact. To that end, we identify the many
educators who influence language learners and point to the necessity for linguistically and

26
culturally responsive schools.

27
Why Center on Language Learners With Special Attention to
English Language Learners?
Language is the universal medium for meaning making and for communicating to others.
Additionally, language is the primary tool for mental representation and cognitive
processing. In essence, learning and cognition are interconnected as both heavily rely on
language. As this notion of using language to mediate thinking and learning is not unique
to any one group of students, we all can be considered language learners.

When the chain of connections between the mind and language is disrupted, such as when
students do not understand the language of instruction, learning is disrupted (Kenji
Hakuta, personal communication, 2014). We cannot afford this interruption; we must
promote rich student discourse and sustained use of academic language across the
disciplines wherever possible in the languages of our students.

During the past decade, the staggering growth in the number of students who represent our
nation’s myriad languages and cultures has affected teachers, school leaders, and
administrators from preschool through high school and beyond. In fact, these changing
demographics are transforming schools and communities (Noguera, 2014). The students in
this heterogeneous mix have had very different life and educational experiences than the
Anglo-centric norm; some newcomers are refugees or immigrants, while many others come
from linguistic enclaves within the United States. What follows is a synopsis of some of the
major changes in our student population over the past decade, with a focus on ELLs.

28
Who Are Our English Language Learners? Facts and Figures
of the Changing Demographic
The beginning of the 2014–2015 school year marked a turning point in U.S. educational
history: For the first time, the minority student population escalated to the point where
nationally it became the majority. While Texas has held this majority-minority student
status since 2004, demographic shifts across the nation have now tipped the scales toward a
greater representation of nonwhite students in many other states as well. In large part,
school-age children from Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander backgrounds are responsible
for this new wave in our student population, while non-Hispanic white students are on a
decline. While there are over 150 languages spoken by ELLs, all but seven states claim
Spanish as the most common one (Batalova & McHugh, 2010). With these changing
student demographics trending across the country, it’s time for all educators to embrace
this new reality and harness the potential of every student, the hallmark of equity.

The future will see sustained growth of linguistically and culturally diverse students in the
United States, especially ELLs. Whereas in 2008 ELLs—that is, students for whom English
is an additional language and who qualify for language support—represented one in nine
students in public schools, it is projected that by 2025 one in four students will be an ELL
(McBride, Richard, & Payan, 2008). Figure I.1 shows the prekindergarten through high
school (preK-12) demographic surge and decline of the largest racial/ethnic groups for 2
decades, ending in 2023 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014).

Young children are the leading edge of this upward trend of linguistic minority
representation in schools. Although most of these children have been born in the United
States and are therefore citizens, in 17 states Hispanic students make up 20% of
kindergarten classes (Krogstad & Fry, 2014). Let’s focus for a moment on the burst of
population seen among ELLs, or, as they are known in some states, English Learners (ELs).

Figure I.1 Percentage Change and Projected Change in Ethnicity in the PreK-Grade
12 Student Population Over 2 Decades

Source: National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). Racial/ ethnic enrollment in
public schools. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cge.asp

29
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Then the educator should “time” himself in forming habits? How
long may it take to cure a bad habit, and form the contrary good
one?
Perhaps a month or six weeks of careful incessant treatment may
be enough.
But such treatment requires an impossible amount of care and
watchfulness on the part of the educator?
Yes; but not more than is given to the cure of any bodily disease
—measles, or scarlet fever, for example.
Then the thoughts and actions of a human being may be
regulated mechanically, so to speak, by setting up the right nerve
currents in the brain?
This is true only so far as it is true to say that the keys of a piano
produce music.
But the thoughts, which may be represented by the fingers of the
player, do they not also run their course without the consciousness
of the thinker?
They do; not merely vague, inconsequent musings, but thoughts
which follow each other with more or less logical sequence,
according to the previous training of the thinker.
Would you illustrate this?
Mathematicians have been known to think out abstruse problems
in their sleep; the bard improvises, authors “reel off” without
premeditation, without any deliberate intention to write such and
such things. The thoughts follow each other according to the habit of
thinking previously set up in the brain of the thinker.
Is it that the thoughts go round and round a subject like a horse in
a mill?
No; the horse is rather drawing a carriage along the same high
road, but into ever new developments of the landscape.
In this light, the important thing is how you begin to think on any
subject?
 Precisely so; the initial thought or suggestion touches as it were
the spring which sets in motion a possibly endless succession or
train of ideas; thoughts which are, so to speak, elaborated in the
brain almost without the consciousness of the thinker.
Are these thoughts, or successive ideas, random, or do they
make for any conclusion?
They make for the logical conclusion which should follow the
initial idea.
Then the reasoning power may be set to work involuntarily?
Yes; the sole concern of this power is, apparently, to work out the
rational conclusion from any idea presented to it.
But surely this power of arriving at logical rational conclusions
almost unconsciously is the result of education, most likely of
generations of culture?
It exists in greater or less degree according as it is disciplined and
exercised; but it is by no means the result of education as the word
is commonly understood: witness the following anecdote:[17]
“When Captain Head was travelling across the Pampas of South
America, his guide one day suddenly stopped him, and, pointing high
into the air, cried out, ‘A lion!’ Surprised at such an exclamation,
accompanied with such an act, he turned up his eyes, and with
difficulty perceived, at an immeasurable height, a flight of condors
soaring in circles in a particular spot. Beneath this spot, far out of
sight of himself or guide, lay the carcass of a horse, and over this
carcass stood, as the guide well knew, a lion, whom the condors
were eyeing with envy from their airy height. The sight of the birds
was to him what the sight of the lion alone would have been to the
traveller, a full assurance of its existence. Here was an act of thought
which cost the thinker no trouble, which was as easy to him as to
cast his eyes upward, yet which from us, unaccustomed to the
subject, would require many steps and some labour.”
Then is what is called “the reason” innate in human beings?
 Yes, it is innate, and is exercised without volition by all, but gains
in power and precision, according as it is cultivated.
If the reason, especially the trained reason, arrives at the right
conclusion without any effort of volition on the part of the thinker, it is
practically an infallible guide to conduct?
On the contrary, the reason is pledged to pursue a suggestion to
its logical conclusion only. Much of the history of religious
persecutions and of family and international feuds turns on the
confusion which exists in most minds between that which is logically
inevitable and that which is morally right.
But according to this doctrine any theory whatever may be shown
to be logically inevitable?
Exactly so; the initial idea once received, the difficulty is, not to
prove that it is tenable, but to restrain the mind from proving that it is
so.
Can you illustrate this point?
The child who lets himself be jealous of his brother is almost
startled by the flood of convincing proofs that he does well to be
angry, which rush in upon him. Beginning with a mere flash of
suspicion in the morning, the little Cain finds himself in the evening
possessed of irrefragable proofs that his brother is unjustly preferred
to him: and
“All seems infected that the infected spy
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.”

But supposing it is true that the child has cause for jealousy?
Given, the starting idea, and his reason is equally capable of
proving a logical certainty, whether it is true or whether it is not true.
Is there any historical proof of this startling theory?
Perhaps every failure in conduct, in individuals, and in nations, is
due to the confusion which exists as to that which is logically right,
as established by the reason, and that which is morally right, as
established by external law.
 Is any such distinction recognised in the Bible?
Distinctly so; the transgressors of the Bible are those who do that
which is right in their own eyes—that is, that of which their reason
approves. Modern thought considers, on the contrary, that all men
are justified in doing that which is right in their own eyes, acting “up
to their lights,” “obeying the dictates of their reason.”
For example?
A mother whose cruel usage had caused the death of her child
was morally exonerated lately in a court of justice because she acted
“from a mistaken sense of duty.”
But it is not possible to err from a mistaken sense of duty?
Not only possible, but inevitable, if a man accept his “own reason”
as his lawgiver and judge. Take a test case, the case of the
superlative crime that has been done upon the earth. There can be
no doubt that the persons who caused the death of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ acted under a mistaken sense of duty. “It is
expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not,” said, most reasonably, those patriotic leaders of the
Jews; and they relentlessly hunted to death this Man whose
ascendency over the common people and whose whispered claims
to kingship were full of elements of danger to the subject race. “They
know not what they do,” He said, Who is the Truth.
All this may be of importance to philosophers; but what has it to
do with the bringing up of children?
It is time we reverted to the teaching of Socrates. “Know thyself,”
exhorted the wise man, in season and out of season; and it will be
well with us when we understand that to acquaint a child with himself
—what he is as a human being—is a great part of education.
It is difficult to see why; surely much harm comes of morbid
introspection?
Introspection is morbid or diseased when the person imagines
that all which he finds within him is peculiar to him as an individual.
To know what is common to all men is a sound cure for unhealthy
self-contemplation.
How does it work?
To recognise the limitations of the reason is a safeguard in all the
duties and relations of life. The man who knows that loyalty is his
first duty in every relation, and that if he admit doubting, grudging,
unlovely thoughts, he cannot possibly be loyal, because such
thoughts once admitted will prove themselves to be right and fill the
whole field of thought, why, he is on his guard, and writes up “no
admittance” to every manner of mistrustful fancy.
That rule of life should affect the Supreme relationship?
Truly, yes; if a man will admit no beginning of mistrustful surmise
concerning his father and mother, his child and his wife, shall he do
so of Him who is more than they, and more than all, the “Lord of his
heart”? “Loyalty forbids” is the answer to every questioning of His
truth that would intrude.
But when others, whom you must needs revere, question and tell
you of their “honest doubt”?
You know the history of their doubt, and can take it for what it is
worth—its origin in the suggestion, which, once admitted, must
needs reach a logical conclusion even to the bitter end. “Take heed
that ye enter not into temptation,” He said, Who needed not that any
should tell Him, for He knew what was in men.
If man is the creature of those habits he forms with care or allows
in negligence, if his very thoughts are involuntary and his
conclusions inevitable, he ceases to be a free agent. One might as
well concede at once that “thought is a mode of motion,” and cease
to regard man as a spiritual being capable of self-regulation!
It is hardly possible to concede too wide a field to biological
research, if we keep well to the front the fact, that man is a spiritual
being whose material organs act in obedience to spiritual
suggestion; that, for example, as the hand writes, so the brain thinks,
in obedience to suggestions.
 Is the suggestion self originated?
Probably not; it would appear that, as the material life is sustained
upon its appropriate food from without, so the immaterial life is
sustained upon its food,—ideas or suggestions spiritually conveyed.
May the words “idea” and “suggestion” be used as synonymous
terms?
Only in so far as that ideas convey suggestions to be effected in
acts.
What part does the man himself play in the reception of this
immaterial food?
It is as though one stood on the threshold to admit or reject the
viands which should sustain the family.
Is this free-will in the reception or rejection of ideas the limit of
man’s responsibility in the conduct of his life?
Probably it is; for an idea once received must run its course,
unless it be superseded by another idea, in the reception of which
volition is again exercised.
How do ideas originate?
They appear to be spiritual emanations from spiritual beings; thus,
one man conveys to another the idea which is a very part of himself.
Is the intervention of a bodily presence necessary for the
transmission of an idea?
By no means; ideas may be conveyed through picture or printed
page; absent friends would appear to communicate ideas without the
intervention of means; natural objects convey ideas, but, perhaps,
the initial idea in this case may always be traced to another mind.
Then the spiritual sustenance of ideas is derived directly or
indirectly from other human beings?
No; and here is the great recognition which the educator is called
upon to make. God, the Holy Spirit, is Himself the supreme Educator
of mankind.
 How?
He openeth man’s ear morning by morning, to hear so much of
the best as the man is able to bear.
Are the ideas suggested by the Holy Spirit confined to the sphere
of the religious life?
No; Coleridge, speaking of Columbus and the discovery of
America, ascribes the origin of great inventions and discoveries to
the fact that “certain ideas of the natural world are presented to
minds, already prepared to receive them, by a higher Power than
Nature herself.”
Is there any teaching in the Bible to support this view?
Yes; very much. Isaiah, for example, says that the ploughman
knows how to carry on the successive operations of husbandry, “for
his God doth instruct him and doth teach him.”
Are all ideas which have a purely spiritual origin ideas of good?
Unhappily, no; it is the sad experience of mankind that
suggestions of evil also are spiritually conveyed.
What is the part of the man?
To choose the good and refuse the evil.
Does this doctrine of ideas as the spiritual food needful to sustain
the immaterial life throw any light on the doctrines of the Christian
religion?
Yes; the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Word by which man
lives, the “meat to eat which ye know not of,” and much more, cease
to be figurative expressions, except that we must use the same
words to name the corporeal and the incorporeal sustenance of man.
We understand, moreover, how suggestions emanating from our
Lord and Saviour, which are of His essence, are the spiritual meat
and drink of His believing people. We find it no longer a “hard
saying,” nor a dark saying, that we must sustain our spiritual selves
upon Him, even as our bodies upon bread.
 What practical bearing upon the educator has this doctrine of
ideas?
He knows that it is his part to place before the child daily
nourishment of ideas; that he may give the child the right initial idea
in every study, and respecting each relation and duty of life; above
all, he recognises the divine co-operation in the direction, teaching,
and training of the child.
How would you summarise the functions of education?
Education is a discipline—that is, the discipline of the good habits
in which the child is trained. Education is a life, nourished upon
ideas; and education is an atmosphere—that is, the child breathes
the atmosphere emanating from his parents; that of the ideas which
rule their own lives.
What part do lessons and the general work of the schoolroom
play in education thus regarded?
They should afford opportunity for the discipline of many good
habits, and should convey to the child such initial ideas of interest in
his various studies as to make the pursuit of knowledge on those
lines an object in life and a delight to him.
What duty lies upon parents and others who regard education
thus seriously, as a lever by means of which character may be
elevated, almost indefinitely?
Perhaps it is incumbent upon them to make conscientious
endeavours to further all means used to spread the views they hold;
believing that there is such “progress in character and virtue”
possible to the redeemed human race as has not yet been realised,
or even imagined. “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a
life.”[18]

FOOTNOTES:
[17] From Archbishop Thompson’s Laws of Thought.
[18] Matthew Arnold.
 CHAPTER XXIV

WHENCE AND WHITHER

Part I
“The P.N.E.U. goes on,” an observer writes, “without puff or fuss, by
its own inherent force;” and it is making singularly rapid progress. At
the present moment not less than ten thousand children of thinking,
educated parents, are being brought up, more or less consciously
and definitely, upon the line of the Union. Parents who read the
Parents’ Review, or other literature of the Society, parents who
belong to our various branches, or our other agencies, parents who
are influenced by these parents, are becoming multitudinous; and all
have one note in common,—the ardour of persons working out
inspiring ideas.
It is hardly possible to over-estimate the force of this league of
educated parents. When we think of the part that the children being
brought up under these influences will one day play in the leading
and ruling of the land, we are solemnised with the sense of a great
responsibility, and it behoves us to put to ourselves, once again, the
two searching queries by which every movement should, from time
to time, be adjudged,—Whence? and Whither?
Whence? The man who is satisfied with his dwelling-place has no
wish to move, and the mere fact of a “movement” is a declaration
that we are not satisfied, and that we are definitely on our way to
some other ends than those commonly accepted. In one respect
only we venture boldly to hark back. Exceedingly fine men and
women were brought up by our grandfathers and grandmothers,
even by our mothers and fathers, and the wise and old amongst us,
though they look on with great sympathy, yet have an unexpressed
feeling that men and women were made on the old lines of a stamp
which we shall find it hard to improve upon. This was no mere
chance result, nor did it come out of the spelling-book or the
Pinnock’s Catechisms which we have long ago consigned to the
limbo they deserve.
The teaching of the old days was as bad as it could be, the
training was haphazard work, reckless alike of physiology and
psychology; but our grandfathers and grandmothers had one saving
principle, which, for the last two or three decades, we have been, of
set purpose, labouring to lose. They, of the older generation,
recognised children as reasonable beings, persons of mind and
conscience like themselves, but needing their guidance and control,
as having neither knowledge nor experience. Witness the queer old
children’s books which have come down to us; before all things,
these addressed children as reasonable, intelligent and responsible
(terribly responsible!) persons. This fairly represents the note of
home-life in the last generation. So soon as the baby realised his
surroundings, he found himself a morally and intellectually
responsible person. Now one of the secrets of power in dealing with
our fellow beings is, to understand that human nature does that
which it is expected to do and is that which it is expected to be. We
do not mean, believed to do and to be, with the fond and foolish faith
which Mrs. Hardcastle bestowed on her dear Tony Lumpkin.
Expectation strikes another chord, the chord of “I am, I can, I ought,”
which must vibrate in every human breast, for, “’tis our nature to.”
The capable, dependable men and women whom we all know were
reared upon this principle.
But now? Now, many children in many homes are still brought up
on the old lines, but not with quite the unfaltering certitude of the old
times. Other thoughts are in the air. A baby is a huge oyster (says
one eminent psychologist) whose business is to feed, and to sleep,
and to grow. Even Professor Sully, in his most delightful book,[19] is
torn in two. The children have conquered him, have convinced him
beyond doubt that they are as ourselves, only more so. But then he
is an evolutionist, and feels himself pledged to accommodate the
child to the principles of evolution. Therefore, the little person is
supposed to go through a thousand stages of moral and intellectual
development, leading him from the condition of the savage or ape to
that of the intelligent and cultivated human being. If children will not
accommodate themselves pleasantly to this theory, why, that is their
fault, and Professor Sully is too true a child-lover not to give us the
children as they are, with little interludes of the theory upon which
they ought to evolve. Now we have absolutely no theory to advance,
and are, on scientific grounds, disposed to accept the theories of the
evolutionary psychologists. But facts are too strong for us. When we
consider the enormous intellectual labour the infant goes through
during his first year in accommodating himself to the conditions of a
new world, in learning to discern between far and near, solid and flat,
large and small, and a thousand other qualifications and limitations
of this perplexing world, why, we are not surprised that John Stuart
Mill should be well on in his Greek at five; that Arnold at three should
know all the Kings and Queens of England by their portraits; or that a
musical baby should have an extensive repertoire of the musical
classics.
We were once emphasising the fact that every child could learn to
speak two languages at once with equal facility, when a gentleman in
the audience stated that he had a son who was a missionary in
Bagdad, married to a German lady, and their little son of three
expressed all he had to say with equal fluency in three languages—
German, English, and Arabic, using each in speaking to those
persons whose language it was. “Nana, which does God love best,
little girls or little boys?” said a meditative little girl of four. “Oh, little
girls, to be sure,” said Nana, with a good-natured wish to please.
“Then if God loves little girls best, why was not God Himself a little
girl?” Which of us who have reached the later stages of evolution
would have hit upon a more conclusive argument? If the same little
girl asked on another occasion, watching the blackbirds at the
cherries: “Nana, if the bees make honey, do the birds make jam?” it
was by no means an inane question, and only proves that we older
persons are dull and inappreciative of such mysteries of nature as
that bees should make honey.
 This is how we find children—with intelligence more acute, logic
more keen, observing powers more alert, moral sensibilities more
quick, love and faith and hope more abounding; in fact, in all points
like as we are, only much more so, but absolutely ignorant of the
world and its belongings, of us and our ways, and, above all, of how
to control and direct and manifest the infinite possibilities with which
they are born.
Our conception of a child rules our relations towards him. Pour
s’amuser is the rule of child-life proper for the “oyster” theory, and
most of our children’s books and many of our theories of child-
education are based upon this rule. “Oh! he’s so happy,” we say, and
are content, believing that if he is happy he will be good; and it is so
to a great extent; but in the older days the theory was, if you are
good you will be happy; and this is a principle which strikes the
keynote of endeavour, and holds good, not only through the childish
“stage of evolution,” but for the whole of life, here and hereafter. The
child who has learned to “endeavour himself” (as the Prayer Book
has it) has learned to live.
If our conception of Whence? as regards the child, as of—
“A Being, breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death,”—

is old, that of our grandfathers; our conception of the aims and

methods of education, is new, only made possible within the very last
decades of the century; because it rests one foot upon the latest
advances in the science of Biology and the other upon the potent
secret of these latter days, that matter is the all-serviceable agent of
spirit, and that spirit forms, moulds, is absolute lord, over matter, as
capable of affecting the material convolutions of the brain as of
influencing what used to be called the heart.
Knowing that the brain is the physical seat of habit, and that
conduct and character, alike, are the outcome of the habits we allow:
knowing, too, that an inspiring idea initiates a new habit of thought,
and, hence, a new habit of life; we perceive that the great work of
education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to the relations
of life, departments of knowledge, subjects of thought: and to give
deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which
are the outcome of vitalising ideas.
In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of
the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to
modern thought, as the Supreme Educator of mankind in things that
have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been
called sacred. We are free to give our whole force to these two great
educational labours, of the inspiration of ideas and the formation of
habits, because, except in the case of children somewhat mentally
deficient, we do not consider that the “development of faculties” is
any part of our work; seeing that the children’s so-called faculties are
already greatly more acute than our own.
We have, too, in our possession, a test for systems that are
brought under our notice, and can pronounce upon their educational
value. For example, a little while ago, the London Board Schools
held an exhibition of work; and great interest was excited by an
exhibit which came from New York representing a week’s work in a
school. The children worked for a week upon “an apple.” They
modelled it in clay, they painted it in brushwork, they stitched the
outline on cardboard, they pricked it, they laid it in sticks (the
pentagonal form of the seed vessel). Older boys and girls modelled
an apple-tree and made a little ladder on which to run up the apple-
tree and gather the apples, and a wheel-barrow to carry the apples
away, and a great deal more of the same kind. Everybody said, “How
pretty, how ingenious, what a good idea!” and went away with the
notion that here, at last, was education. But we ask, “What was the
informing idea?” The external shape, the internal contents of an
apple,—matters with which the children were already exceedingly
well acquainted. What mental habitudes were gained by this week’s
work? They certainly learned to look at the apple, but think how
many things they might have got familiar acquaintance with in the
time. Probably the children were not consciously bored, because the
impulse of the teachers enthusiasm carried them on. But, think of
it—
“Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,
Rabbits young and rabbits old,
 Rabbits tender and rabbits tough,”—

no doubt those children had enough—of apples anyway. This “apple”

course is most instructive to us as emphasising the tendency in the
human mind to accept and rejoice in any neat system which will
produce immediate results, rather than to bring every such little
course to the test of whether it does or does not further either or both
of our great educational principles.
Whither? Our “whence” opens to us a “whither” of infinitely
delightful possibilities. Seeing that each of us is labouring for the
advance of the human race through the individual child we are
educating, we consider carefully in what directions this advance is
due, and indicated, and we proceed of set purpose and, endeavour
to educate our children so that they shall advance with the tide. “Can
ye not discern the signs of the times?” A new Renaissance is coming
upon us, of unspeakably higher import than the last; and we are
bringing up our children to lead and guide, and, by every means help
in the progress—progress by leaps and bounds—which the world is
about to make. But “whither” is too large a question for the close of a
chapter.

FOOTNOTES:
[19] “Studies of Childhood,” by Professor Sully (Longmans,
10s. 6d.).
 CHAPTER XXV

WHENCE AND WHITHER

Part II
The morphologist, the biologist, leave many without hesitation in
following the great bouleversement of thought, summed up in the
term evolution. They are no longer able to believe otherwise than
that man is the issue of processes, ages long in their development;
and what is more, and even more curious, that each individual child,
from the moment of his conception to that of his birth, appears in his
own person to mark an incredible number of the stages of this
evolutionary process. The realisation of this truth has made a great
impression on the minds of men. We feel ourselves to be part of a
process, and to be called upon, at the same time, to assist in the
process, not for ourselves exactly, but for any part of the world upon
which our influence bears; especially for the children who are so
peculiarly given over to us. But there comes, as we have seen, a
point where we must arise and make our protest. The physical
evolution of man may admit of no doubt; the psychical evolution, on
the other hand, is not only, not proven, but the whole weight of
existing evidence appears to go into the opposite scale.
The age of materialism has run its course: we recognise matter as
force, but as altogether subject force, and that it is the spirit of a man
which shapes and uses his material substance, in its own ways to its
own ends. Who can tell the way of the spirit? Perhaps this is one of
the ultimate questions upon which man has not yet been able to
speculate to any purpose; but when we consider the almost
unlimited powers of loving and of trusting, of discriminating and of
apprehending, of perceiving and of knowing, which a child
possesses, and compare these with the blunted sensibilities and
slower apprehension of the grown man or woman of the same
calibre, we are certainly not inclined to think that growth from less to
more, and from small to great, is the condition of the spiritual life:
that is, of that part of us which loves and worships, reasons and
thinks, learns and applies knowledge. Rather would it seem to be
true of every child in his degree, as of the divine and typical Child,
that He giveth not the Spirit by measure to him.
It is curious how the philosophy of the Bible is always well in
advance of our latest thought. “He grew in wisdom and in stature,”
we are told. Now what is wisdom—philosophy? Is it not the
recognition of relations? First, we have to understand relations of
time and space and matter, the natural philosophy which made up so
much of the wisdom of Solomon; then, by slow degrees, and more
and more, we learn that moral philosophy which determines our
relations of love and justice and duty to each other: later, perhaps,
we investigate the profound and puzzling subject of the inter-
relations of our own most composite being,—mental philosophy. And
in all these and beyond all these we apprehend slowly and feebly the
highest relation of all, the relation to God, which we call religion. In
this science of the relations of things consists what we call wisdom,
and wisdom is not born in any man,—apparently not even in the Son
of man Himself. He grew in wisdom, in the sweet gradual
apprehension of all the relations of life: but the power of
apprehending, the strong, subtle, discerning spirit, whose function it
is to grasp and understand, appropriate and use, all the relations
which bind all things to all other things—this was not given to Him by
measure; nor, we may reverently believe, is it so given to us.
That there are differences in the measures of men, in their
intellectual and moral stature, is evident enough; but it is well that we
should realise the nature of these differences, that they are
differences in kind and not in degree; depending upon what we glibly
call the laws of heredity, which bring it to pass that man in his various
aspects shall make up that conceivably perfect whole possible to
mankind. This is a quite different thing from the notion of a small and
feeble measure of heart and intellect in the child, to grow by degrees
into the robust and noble spiritual development which, according to
the psychical evolutionist, should distinguish the adult human being.
These are quite practical and simple considerations for every one
entrusted with the bringing up of a child, and are not to be set aside
as abstract principles, the discussion of which should serve little
purpose beyond that of sharpening the wits of the schoolmen. As a
matter of fact, we do not realise children, we under-estimate them; in
the divine words, we “despise” them, with the best intentions in the
world, because we confound the immaturity of their frames, and their
absolute ignorance as to the relations of things, with spiritual
impotence: whereas the fact probably is, that never is intellectual
power so keen, the moral sense so strong, spiritual perception so
piercing, as in those days of childhood which we regard with a
supercilious, if kindly, smile. A child is a person in whom all
possibilities are present—present now at this very moment—not to
be educed after years and efforts manifold on the part of the
educator: but indeed it is a greater thing to direct and use this wealth
of spiritual power than to develop the so-called faculties of the child.
It cannot be too strongly urged that our education of children will
depend, nolens volens, upon the conception we form of them. If we
regard them as instruments fit and capable for the carrying out of the
Divine purpose in the progress of the world, we shall endeavour to
discern the signs of the times, perceive in what directions we are
being led, and prepare the children to carry forward the work of the
world, by giving them vitalising ideas concerning, at any rate, some
departments of that work.
Having settled it with ourselves that we and the children alike live
for the advancement of the race, that our work is immediately with
them, and, through them, mediately for all, and that they are
perfectly fitted to receive those ideas which are for the inspiration of
life, we must next settle it with ourselves in what directions we shall
set up spiritual activities in the children.
We have sought to establish our whence in the potency of the
child, we will look for our whither in the living thought of the day,
which probably indicates the directions in which the race is making
progress. We find that all men everywhere are keenly interested in
science, that the world waits and watches for great discoveries; we,
too, wait and watch, believing that, as Coleridge said long ago, great
ideas of Nature are imparted to minds already prepared to receive
them by a higher Power than Nature herself.
At a late meeting of the British Association, the President
lamented that the progress of science was greatly hindered by the
fact that we no longer have field naturalists—close observers of
Nature as she is. A literary journal made a lamentable remark
thereupon. It is all written in books, said this journal, so we have no
longer any need to go to Nature herself. Now the knowledge of
Nature which we get out of books is not real knowledge; the use of
books is, to help the young student to verify facts he has already
seen for himself. We, of the P.N.E.U., are before all things, Nature-
lovers; we conceive that intimate acquaintance with every natural
object within his reach is the first, and possibly, the best part of a
child’s education. For himself, all his life long, he will be soothed
by—
“The breathing balm,
The silence and the calm,
Of mute insensate things.”

And for science, he is in a position to do just the work which is

most needed; he will be a close loving observer of Nature at first
hand, storing facts, and free from all impatient greed for inferences.
Looking out on the realm of Art again, we think we discern the
signs of the times. Some of us begin to learn the lesson which a
prophet has been raised up to deliver to this generation. We begin to
understand that mere technique, however perfect—whether in the
rendering of flesh tints, or marbles, or of a musical composition of
extreme difficulty—is not necessarily high Art. It is beginning to dawn
upon us that Art is great only in proportion to the greatness of the
idea that it expresses; while, what we ask of the execution, the
technique, is that it shall be adequate to the inspiring idea. But surely
these high themes have nothing to do with the bringing up of
children? Yes, they have; everything. In the first place, we shall
permit no pseudo Art to live in the same house with our children;
next, we shall bring our own facile tastes and opinions to some such
searching test as we have indicated, knowing that the children
imbibe the thoughts that are in us, whether we will or no; and, lastly,
we shall inspire our children with those great ideas which shall
create a demand, anyway, for great Art.
In literature, we have definite ends in view, both for our own
children, and for the world through them. We wish the children to
grow up to find joy and refreshment in the taste, the flavour of a
book. We do not mean by a book any printed matter in a binding, but
a work possessing certain literary qualities able to bring that sensible
delight to the reader which belongs to a literary word fitly spoken. It
is a sad fact that we are losing our joy in literary form. We are in
such haste to be instructed by facts or titillated by theories, that we
have no leisure to linger over the mere putting of a thought. But this
is our error, for words are mighty both to delight and to inspire. If we
were not as blind as bats, we should long ago have discovered a
truth very fully indicated in the Bible—that that which is once said
with perfect fitness can never be said again, and becomes ever
thereafter a living power in the world. But in literature, as in art, we
require more than mere form. Great ideas are brooding over the
chaos of our thought; and it is he who shall say the things we are all
dumbly thinking, who shall be to us as a teacher sent from God.
For the children? They must grow up upon the best. There must
never be a period in their lives when they are allowed to read or
listen to twaddle or reading-made-easy. There is never a time when
they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well
told. Let Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” represent their standard in
poetry; Defoe and Stevenson, in prose; and we shall train a race of
readers who will demand literature, that is, the fit and beautiful
expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life. Perhaps a printed
form to the effect that gifts of books to the children will not be
welcome in such and such a family, would greatly assist in this
endeavour!
To instance one more point—there is a reaching out in all
directions after the conception expressed in the words “solidarity of
the race.” We have probably never before felt as now in absolute