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Education critics such as Michael Apple, Diane Ravitch, and Valerie Strauss often observe how standardized testing takes over school calendars and curricula and thus turns teaching into an exercise in test preparation. These critics, however, seldom mention the moral consequences of over-testing in classes in English language arts (ELA). Each novel, play, or other longer text an ELA class gives up for test preparation is a lost opportunity for moral reflection and growth for our students. Opponents of over-testing, I argue below, should emphasize these moral concerns in our efforts both to cut tests down to size and to support teachers in teaching students as whole people. Both as an ELA teacher and now as a teacher educator, I have seen over-testing undercut ELA's moral mission, and I believe we have no time to spare in defending our discipline as a venue for students' moral growth.
By ethics, or morality, I mean people's diverse ways of defining, debating, and living good lives. In ELA, ethical questions include: In Brown Girl Dreaming, was it good for the young Jacqueline Woodson to decline to say the Pledge of Allegiance? In what ways is Esperanza in The House on Mango Street living a good life (Cisneros)? Who is most to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)? In order to answer these questions, students must reflect on their own beliefs as well as the beliefs of the authors and literary characters under study. When students view texts in light of their own moral ideas, and vice versa, they can refine their moral understandings.
Ethics, writes the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, is bound up with narratives. MacIntyre explains, "I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question 'Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?'" (216). That is, moral evaluation requires asking who a person is, was, and may become, both as an individual and as a member of groups. Consider how readers of Brown Girl Dreaming might evaluate the ethics of Woodson's decision as a young girl not to say the Pledge of Allegiance. In MacIntyre's view, readers ought to factor in Woodson's identity at the time as a Jehovah's Witness and...