Should Education use The Bar or Your Bar?
by Douglas W. Green, EdD ©2012
Twitter: @DrDougGreen
Email: DGreen@stny.rr.com
Blog: HTTP://DrDougGreen.Com

Today I offer an original piece that takes on the folly educators indulge in when they talk about The Bar. I hope you enjoy it. Please share.

• In education, we often hear talk about how we should raise the bar. The bar they speak of is a metaphor for the passing standards we set in schools as well as at state and national levels. This metaphor comes from the world of track and field where people who compete in the high jump or the pole vault try to jump over a pre set bar. What educational leaders and policy makers miss is while there is one bar that all players use, each athlete gets to decide where the bar will be set for their first try. Thus the commonly used metaphor of “the bar” breaks down because the geniuses who use it fail to notice that there is one bar but many different heights.

Share this: