By Ashley McLeod, Staff Writer
Dec 31, 2015, 15:48
COLONIAL HEIGHTS — School Superintendent Dr. Joe Cox has recently released his first book, a self-published novel by the name of “Cinnamon Snarl.”
The book was released in July 2015, and was a two-year process from start to finish. Cox said he always wanted to write a book, and had started writing a detective novel about 10 years ago, but never completed it. He then decided it was time to start again, and “Cinnamon Snarl” began.
“I always wanted to write a novel in life, so over time I thought, you know why don’t you write about something that you are familiar with,” said Cox.
After finishing school, Cox began teaching. He then moved to California where he worked as a superintendent of schools. After two years, Cox then moved back to Colonial Heights.
With all of his years of being a student, a teacher, and an administrator in schools, Cox has learned a lot about the educational system in our country, both the good and the bad.
The book “Cinnamon Snarl” is a novel about the problems in the educational system and all of the parts behind it.
“It is about money, greed, and power,” said Cox. ”It kind of encompasses four things: the United States Department of Education, testing houses (the ones that publish tests), universities, and the media. And basically, kind of what I wrote about is the four kinds of acting together.”
Cox wrote the book to show the impact of the current testing practices in schools, and how different people are affected by the tests, including students and administrations. The novel shows what teachers and students face in today’s test-driven schools, and challenges authorities behind the tests to fix the problems faced by teachers and students in today’s schools.
Cox said the concept behind the book was simple for him to come up with.
“Part of it was frustration, and part of it was just the passion of this has been my life’s work. My life’s work has been working with administrators, working with teachers, working with students and parents, and I just felt that the federal government, between mandates, and between just testing regime that has existed, I just really felt that people I cared about and even across the nation, I just feel like it’s a very unfair system,” said Cox.
In Virginia schools today, teachers are told to teach students particular subject matter, which is seen on the Standards of Learning tests given to students throughout their schooling. The content is authorized by the Virginia Department of Education to meet the Board of Education standards. The tests gauge what a student knows based on what the Board of Education thinks they should know at that certain time in their schooling.
“I’ve been a superintendent in two places, and it’s not just the SOLs. All over the country, you’ll find different tests in different states,” said Cox. “I think the point is that its way overemphasized, it’s more of an endurance test most of the time more than your skill level.
Administrators and teachers are evaluated based on students’ performances on the tests, and sometimes it seems that teachers are teaching for the tests, and not for the students to grow and learn. Cox thinks that this way of teaching upsets a lot of people.
“When you spend so much of your time either teaching towards the test, or in Virginia, working on SOL-related materials, I think it really takes away from what the learning experience for students could be,” said Cox.
The book shows how these types of practices happen in school, and how they affect students, especially those with special needs.
The book features four main characters: Teddy Jackson, a superintendent; Margradan, a special needs student; Tyler Brown Kennedy, a middle school principal; and Mimi Spencer, a teacher.
The character of Margradan is loosely based on Cox’s daughter who is in ninth grade, and who also has Down syndrome. His experiences with his daughter and her schooling have shown him the unfairness seen in testing in today’s schools.
“I think when you particularly look on how tests affect special needs students, what she’s required to do on a test versus what she can actually do … to expect her to comprehend and to read certain subjects, as opposed to what she can actually understand, I think is unfair and it’s a waste of time,” said Cox.
With his book, Cox hopes to show how the school system sometimes fails students, and show what could help fix the problems.
“I haven’t just made it a book about what the federal government is doing to us, I’ve tried to talk a little bit about testing and what education could be,” said Cox. “I hope I’m playing a small role in standing up for students and teachers.”
The book has been released in three formats: a paperback, a kindle, and an audio version, and can be found on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.
