“Why don’t teachers just teach what is going to be on the test?”
Here is a guest column by Jonathan R. Herman, director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Georgia State University.
By Jonathan R. Herman
The astonishing reach of the CRCT cheating scandal may be opening lots of eyes, but many of us in the academia have already been noticing a fundamental, and unhealthy, change in how many people understand the purpose of education and what is meant by “learning.”
A case in point. Last semester, I taught a seminar on the infamous Scopes “monkey trial,” which addressed the question of whether public school curricula should follow the consensus of the community or the expertise of instructors. I asked my students to think about who should determine what is taught in the classroom and how exactly that determination should be made.
As the conversation developed, one young woman seemed especially impatient, punctuating her irregular eye-rolls with exasperated sighs. “Why don’t teachers just teach what is going to be on the test?” she finally asked.
The implication couldn’t have been clearer. There is a finite, identifiable body of data that students are supposed to learn. It is the task of the instructor simply to transmit that information.
A generation or two ago, the very worst thing one could say about a teacher was that he or she went blandly “by the book,” assaulted students with facts and figures, and demanded that they “regurgitate” names and dates on tests. It was widely understood that learning should nurture critical thinking, creativity, imagination, analysis and synthesis.
But now, many students want “just the facts,” and they are often baffled by teachers who seem too lazy or recalcitrant to hand them over, who instead haze them with Socratic method, linger on interminable class discussions, and force them to do research apart from consulting Wikipedia. “Less thinking,” they seem to be telling us, “more regurgitation.”
So how did this happen? Why is the expression “teaching to the test” even a part of everyday vernacular?
I would suggest that a big part of this is the sometimes sincere, but more often cynical, desire to hold schools and teachers accountable for what they are accomplishing in the classroom, which has produced a clumsy demand for concrete, mathematically interpretable “data.” Thus, the new educational lexicon involves “rubrics,” “measurable learning outcomes,” “quantifiable standards of performance,” “numerical targets,” and so on.
Suddenly, these calculations have become the basis for funding and accrediting and hiring and firing, which turns the whole intellectual process inside out. Curricula are designed to satisfy the numbers, students are conditioned to tick off their rubrics mechanically when they fulfill assignments, and schools are mandated to engage in ongoing “assessment,” i.e., to construct methods for reducing students’ learning to measurable data points and determining what quantitative thresholds are sufficient to indicate success.
How could a student be immersed in this environment and not conclude that learning is anything other than a process of jumping through a protracted set of strategically placed hoops?
Such a view is perpetuated when schools are pressed to participate in the charade, to foster a “climate of assessment.”
Like the time I wrote an “assessment report” of our program’s goals and results. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to meet with assessment coordinators from other departments so we could discuss how to improve our methods of assessment and write better assessment reports. You heard me; we were assessing our processes of assessment.
At the end of the meeting, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire, asking me for recommendations that would improve this type of workshop. They wanted me to assess their assessment of my assessment.
Don’t get me wrong. It is absolutely crucial that we put considerable effort into curricular design and that we hold our teachers and schools accountable. But the simple reality is that the very best of what we accomplish cannot be boiled down to these “learning outcomes,” and I want my own children to gain more from their education than an ability to satisfy rubrics.
I recently received a surprise email from a long-lost former student, who is now a public school teacher. “Classes I took with you,” he wrote, “were so instrumental in rewiring the way I saw the world around me.”
He added: “I love what I do, and, part of what I do, is try to re-create that same learning environment I experienced in your class. To throw it all into question, to push my students to wrestle with the content and come up with their conclusions, and to take seriously every question that every student asks and to answer it sincerely.”
I’d like to see someone try to quantify that.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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96 comments Add your comment
Cobb History Teacher
April 30th, 2012
5:44 am
“I would suggest that a big part of this is the sometimes sincere, but more often cynical, desire to hold schools and teachers accountable for what they are accomplishing in the classroom…”
And that right there is the problem…we only want to hold teachers and schools accountable. Isn’t it the student who should be held accountable? After all they are the ones learning and assimilating the new information. Now I’m not saying there should be no accountability on the school and the teachers part, but we conveniently leave the student (and the family i.e. parents) out of the picture.
It’s funny how if a Doctor or Dentist prescribes a regime of treatment and the patient fails to follow that regime and the condition gets worse we don’t go after the Doctor or the Dentist we blame it on the patient.
Bottom line teaching should be done for the sake of transmitting knowledge and learning should be done for the sake of learning not just regurgitating information on some standardized test.
Jordan Kohanim
April 30th, 2012
6:12 am
“I love what I do, and, part of what I do, is try to re-create that same learning environment I experienced in your class. To throw it all into question, to push my students to wrestle with the content and come up with their conclusions, and to take seriously every question that every student asks and to answer it sincerely.”
That is what teaching should be. Sadly, in this current environment, teaching can no longer be what it should be. It can only be what it has become: mind-numbing. As more is introduced, required, and scripted, less is open for possibility.
Learning is possibility–not data.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
6:30 am
It is great if a student can learn to think outside the box, to reflect upon his or her philosophy of life, or other “deep” matters. But we have students graduating high school that cannot talk in literate sentences, can’t do simple math, could not write a coherent sentence. You need to master the “basics” before you tackle the “deep” learning. That is what the test is measuring and that is why teaching to the test is acceptable, in my mind.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
6:30 am
“I want my own children to gain more from their education than an ability to satisfy rubrics.”
The next time you’re at a fast food counter or a grocery store and the cashier can’t figure out how to give you change, even when the computer screen has already counted it out, perhaps you should think about whether or not that child met the rubric. That person can’t think because we’ve spent years drilling information into him/her without much time to think about it, ask questions, and learn to think beyond the memorization of information.
I think Mr. Herman hit right at the heart of the testing debate. While we lament scores and wring our hands about cheating, perhaps we should take a long hard look at how we assess learning and what, exactly, is important. We need to assess the way we assess.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
6:32 am
If you have “tracked” the kids into different levels, then the ones who need to work on basic arithmetic in 12th grade are in one class, while the high achievers are in another class discussing Descartes. And the SPED students are not interfering because they are also in a separate class.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
6:36 am
“The next time you’re at a fast food counter or a grocery store and the cashier can’t figure out how to give you change”
This has nothing to do with “critical thinking” this has to do with memorization and practice of basic concepts. A lot of high schoolers today cannot tell you what 7 time 8 is without a calculator, because they never learned their multiplication tables. No thinking, just rote memorization. Enough to last a lifetime. I am glad that I had that.
tired
April 30th, 2012
6:47 am
It’s hard to believe they don’t bring a student’s fundraising numbers into their grades somehow. I kid, I kid… sort of.
I was so fortunate to have some outstanding teachers who not just encouraged, but demanded, critical thinking and insightful questions. Of course, that was 20+ years ago and standardized test scores had much less of an effect on local property values, teachers’ job stability, state funding, PTA outrage, etc. It’s sad that so much undue importance has been placed on standardized test achievement.
catlady
April 30th, 2012
6:57 am
Next time, Professor Herman, when someone does the eye roll and sigh, invite a professor of advanced math into the room and have him launch into differential equations. When students protest that they don’t understand, tell them it is on the test and this is their preparation for that test! In my experience, many of the students experience this kind of disconnect. They have been passed along and passed along, have poor reading skills and no basic facts memorized (they are to discover! these facts over and over!) so even a test like the CRCT presents skills that are beyond them. And, since they know they won’t be retained, they blow through the test.
I mean, I get your point, too. When my kids want to know why I am teaching them something, I tell them they are getting it FOR FREE. Might not be on the test, but will be “on life.”
catlady
April 30th, 2012
7:05 am
Kudos to those above. Cobb History Teacher is right–when I did not do well on a test, it wasn’t the TEACHER’S fault–it was mine (and, by inference, my parents) for not putting in the work to do well. Our teachers, although in many ways not as educated as we teachers are now, were not blamed for the failure of the student.
Poor Boy from Alabama
April 30th, 2012
7:57 am
I agree with mountain man @ 6:30
“It is great if a student can learn to think outside the box, to reflect upon his or her philosophy of life, or other “deep” matters. But we have students graduating high school that cannot talk in literate sentences, can’t do simple math, could not write a coherent sentence. You need to master the “basics” before you tackle the “deep” learning. That is what the test is measuring and that is why teaching to the test is acceptable, in my mind.”
Many education professionals seem to forget the need for students to master the basics before they go off on a critical thinking riff.
You won’t find many great musicians who didn’t spend hours mastering scales before they became accomplished players. You won’t find many great mathematicians who don’t have math tables and other basics securely memorized. You won’t find many great chemists who don’t know the Periodic Table by heart. You won’t find many great chefs who haven’t mastered the basics, including a working knowledge of math, biology and chemistry, good knife skills, etc. . .
I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. Students don’t become accomplished adults without mastering basics. We do both the students and the broader society that foots the bill for their education a big disservice if we don’t measure how well students are performing against what some may consider to be mundane stuff; stuff that’s essential in the real world.
Johns creek
April 30th, 2012
8:04 am
Some kids are just plain dumb, and happy to be so. They end up at McDonalds, unable to count change, because that is the life they have chosen.
dc
April 30th, 2012
8:07 am
baffles me how supposed “learned/thinking” educators don’t see that you have to teach the basics first (call it teaching to the test….but IMO, that’s a smokescreen). Then if the student shows the ability to, you can teach the higher level “thinking”. But without the basics, you end up with a student who is pretty much useless to any potential employer.
I’m not an educator, but articles like this make me as a taxpayer and parent think that some educators don’t realize the key role that they play in developing the basic student. I get that the higher level stuff is much more fun, but the basics are more important in the long run.
Progressive Humanist
April 30th, 2012
8:15 am
I have been surprised at how much undergraduates want professors to spoon feed information to them. You’re not “teaching” if you’re not lecturing at them, telling them the information that will be on the test. Asking them to facilitate discussions, write, create projects is not considered teaching. In general, they are very lazy thinkers, even at a college with high achieving students. That may or may not have anything to do with the current testing environment in k-12 schools.
With that said, we’ve got to have assessments that can measure students on basic skills. One half of the adult population in this country reads at an 8th grade level or below. A great many students who actually graduate from high school can’t do simple math. We need to know which students can’t read and who can’t do math, and those results should be tied to whether students move on to the next grade. But we don’t need to blame the 6th grade teacher if the 6th grader can’t read. That problem started long before that and rests with the parents and teachers who passed that student on when he clearly wasn’t ready.
A Conservative Voice
April 30th, 2012
8:40 am
Somebody’s doing something wrong……..
BEAVER, Pa. — Police say two teenage girls who fell asleep while sunbathing on a rural Pennsylvania road have been struck by a car.
GwinnettParentz
April 30th, 2012
8:50 am
The bogey of “teaching to the test” has been so useful, for so long, to those resisting accountability in education—that it’s bound to seem facile to point out no such ability exists.
If teaching to the test were possible … would public schools be in the fix they’re in? Wouldn’t teachers have effectively employed it to take the heat off themselves and their schools?
Instead, teachers’ unions and others with a vested interest in stonewalling reform find it a useful canard to trot out whenever talk turns to poor test results and the culpability of a K-12 education system devised in the 1800s.
The above article is merely the latest in an ongoing attempt to obfuscate and to distract parents and taxpayers.
What cheating scandal?
April 30th, 2012
8:53 am
You keep assuming that there is a cheating scandal. It was only in APS, and maybe in some limited instances around the country. The methodology has been shown to be flawed, and I don’t think it’s really getting picked up nationally since the first fraudulent story came out in late March. Maybe the AJC should focus on being a local newspaper and cover local news? No one believes this!
thomas
April 30th, 2012
8:54 am
There is nothing wrong with teaching to the test in principle. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a test worthwhile to teach to. Most, if not all, of the tests out there simply tests what’s easy to test.
What cheating scandal?
April 30th, 2012
8:55 am
And @Maureen, everyone knows that you comment under alternate aliases.
vmracer
April 30th, 2012
9:04 am
Teaching the test means teaching the skills to answer the questions on the test, it doesn’t mean giving the answers. Apparently too many AJC readers are too dumb to know the difference.
Colonel Jack
April 30th, 2012
9:12 am
Actually, we *do* teach to the test. We just don’t admit it – at least, not officially.
Howard Finkelstein
April 30th, 2012
9:12 am
Seems private schools have none or atleast fewer of the problems that so frequent public schools. Perhap public schools could learn something? NAH….thats too logical….
Howard Finkelstein
April 30th, 2012
9:14 am
Public schools motto. TSA employees educating future TSA employees.
Tony
April 30th, 2012
9:30 am
The most dangerous thing we as teachers can do is limit our classes to only that which will be on the test. In many places, this is not only practiced but mandated from above. As I said, this is the most dangerous thing we can do.
Learning is not limited to some finite, predetermined set of knowledge. Thinking, expanding horizons, learning how to learn, and other critical factors to should be in place in our classrooms are getting squeezed out by the testing craze that is plaguing our nation’s politicians and business leaders.
bu2
April 30th, 2012
9:43 am
Since they are talking about new tests rolling out as soon as 2014, are they going to introduce the new common core grade by grade or all at once? If all at once, some students will miss concepts introduced at earlier grades now. It would be common sense to roll it out grade by grade, but common sense seems to be an awfully high standard to expect from Georgia school administrators.
Inman Park Boy
April 30th, 2012
9:49 am
Carl Sandburg said that the best classroom is “Abraham Lincoln on one end of a log and a student on the other.” That is unattainable, but we definitely should get away from the atmosphere of constant assessment. I am currently a private school principal, and just this morning I am working on a two year interim accreditation report (reams of paperwork) when what I qwould like to be doing is visiting classrooms, helping teachers, and working with chilldren. And the crux of most of the accreditation questions? Data…Data….Data. And “data” is norning more than numbers, numbers from ITBS tests, numbers from SAT and ACT tests, numbers and more numbers. Since it is so difficult (if not totally impossible) to “quantify” the kind of classroom that Dr.Herman describes, accrediting agencies and state/federal governments insist on such useless DATA that says nothning about a child!! We’re in a hell of a mess.
Tonya C.
April 30th, 2012
9:57 am
bu2:
Chances are, heck no. They will roll it out across all grades at once and attempt to remediate those who didn’t receive the content. That’s how the state and districts handled the math fiasco, so we can assume this would be no different.
Chuck Chambers
April 30th, 2012
9:57 am
The issue goes beyond the CRCT. Many teachers also “teach to the test” for regular, in-class tests, even going to the extent of issuing “study guides” before exams that in some cases lay out fairly precisely what topics will be on the exam. In my opinion, the focus on memorizing discourages development of critical thinking ability, the competency that the kids will need most once the students leave school for a job.
In article published two years ago entitled ” Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from
Random Assignment of Students to Professors,” Professors Scott Carrell of UC-Davis and James West of the Air Force Academy suggested that students in introductory calculus courses at the Air Force Academy whose professors, mostly younger professors, “taught to the test” tended, on average, not to do as well in more advanced calculus courses as students of profs who didn’t. Still, profs who taught to the test got higher ratings in teacher evaluations. http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/staiger/files/carrell%2Bwest%2Bprofessor%2Bqualty%2Bjpe.pdf
Mary Elizabeth
April 30th, 2012
10:08 am
If one of the reasons for educating is to enlighten, then we must acknowledge that enlightenment will not be forthcoming simply by teaching factual information. Below is a paragraph from my blog which elaborates upon this thought.
————————————————————–
“I have observed that some who view others with generalized, stereotypical perceptions, often insist that the only valid ways of knowing truths are through factual, mathematical, and scientific deductions. Although those ways of perceiving should be valued, it seems that many who accept only those ways of perceiving truth often fail to recognize and develop higher consciousness concerning why we are here, who we and others are in full, and how we should relate to others. These ways of understanding reality are fostered, not by a series of facts, but by the humanities, which emphasize mutilayered dimensions of thinking and perceiving human nature with complexity. Moreover, those who are exclusively centered on sets of facts for determining reality may often fail to appreciate the transcendent beauty and power of the human spirit, as experienced in performances such as Puccini’s ‘Madame Butterfly.’ The humanities and the arts aid in cutting through stereotypical thinking into more realistic and complex understanding of ourselves and others. Seeing others as stereotypes not only limits the other in our mind, but it also impairs our ability to solve effectively many of the world’s problems. For example, I do not think the problems between Israelis and Palestinians will be solved, regardless of how many facts are on the table, until both groups can envision the other as equal human beings who have an equal right to exist where they are, and not simply as the embodiment of a stereotypical external label, which can easily be turned into a one-dimensional, caricatured enemy.”
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/danger-zone-stereotypical-thinking/
Maureen Downey
April 30th, 2012
10:12 am
@Mountain, Nothing taught me basic math skills as effectively as my career as a waitress, starting at age 13 at Dairyland, an old-fashion ice cream parlor, all the way through to grad school where I worked on weekends at a swank steakhouse. These were the old days when I did it all on a pad with a pencil and folks paid cash for the most part and expected their correct change.
Maureen
Jack
April 30th, 2012
10:13 am
The “eye-rollers” usually wind up as fry-cooks. And they’re usually the sub-set that are always always whining and moaning about how “unfair” life has become.
Jack
April 30th, 2012
10:15 am
Maureen’s 10:12 hits the nail on the head.
Atlanta Mom
April 30th, 2012
10:29 am
Seems to me, long ago and far away (and certainly before NCLB), there was a need for exit exams in high schools because HS were graduating students who could neither read nor write. I believe this is a justifiable use of testing.
cargo
April 30th, 2012
10:41 am
@dc One of my fondest memories is my Dad teaching me to count to 100 when I was a toddler. One to ten is rote memorization, yes. But he made it interesting and fun, by making it a puzzle. He showed me that I could figure out what comes next myself, because everything repeats itself. By the time we got to 39, I had gotten it, albeit with some corrections – fifty instead of five-ty. Once we got to 100, he explained that it starts all over again and I could have counted to a million on my own.
That simple problem-solving exercise got me so excited about learning, and my potential (I feel that way to this day). External rewards, like test scores, given to trained monkeys, is a poor substitute for curiosity and an internal desire to learn.
catlady
April 30th, 2012
10:52 am
In about 1978 Doonsbury had a series of cartoons about how “current day” college students were all about taking notes only on what was going to be on the test. At one point the prof went crazy and started spouting off, and one student said to another, “I can’t believe this is ogoing to be on the test!” Everything old is new again.
irisheyes
April 30th, 2012
10:53 am
@Atlanta Mom, I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case. I think, instead, students who were poor readers and writers were still able to find jobs and careers that required hands-on skills. My grandfather, for example, graduated high school reading at about an 8th grade level (if even that), yet he was able to support his six children by working on the railroad. Those labor intensive jobs don’t exist anymore, so those students are struggling to find a place in the world.
Eric
April 30th, 2012
11:06 am
You’re right on with this article, Maureen! Thank you.
I agree with several posters above that mastering the basics (e.g., multiplication tables) early on would enable higher order/abstract thinking in the later (adolescent-college) years. However, the current over-emphasis on assessment turns learning into an anxiety-ridden experience, thus stifling creativity and critical thinking.
Being Censored by @Maureen
April 30th, 2012
11:07 am
Bravo, GwinnettParentz!
d
April 30th, 2012
11:09 am
I wonder what exactly is teaching? I had a student tell me today that she was going to report me to the assistant principal for not teaching anything all semester and then giving them a test on it. (Actually, I am administering a practice EOCT to see what information I need to review before the real deal next week). Now I did have to inform this student, as I did her mother last week, that if she would be quiet and listen to what is going on in class, she might actually learn something.
That being said, I’ve heard many times about the Georgia Performance Standards – they are the MINIMUM to teach, the MAXIMUM to test. Fair enough. I have gone beyond the GPS on many occasions, but heaven forbid I am actually doing that on an observation day. I don’t have a GPS for consumer and producer surplus, so it won’t be tested, but it does stretch the understanding of Economics for students.
Another issue I have seen, and I have mentioned this before, students tend to get bored when they are spoon fed the information that they need to have to be successful on a Georgia test (CRCT, EOCT, whatever), but I have so much resistance when I actually ask them to think about anything and come up with the answer on their own. I know how they feel. Day after day in my World History class, we copied notes off the transparency scroll on the overhead. Not very fun. I did learn a lot, but what helped me grow as a student is when my teacher did have us create stuff based on what we learned. I couldn’t have expanded on information to reach higher levels of thinking without the base knowledge. I will say where I am concerned is adding 22 Georgia Performance Standards for Economics to however many additional requirements for Common Core when everything I have seen so far indicates that Common Core will assume my seniors next year will be able to operate having 12 years of the Common Core Curriculum under their belts. They don’t. I am really worried that I will be teaching double the material with no extra time and don’t know how much Common Core will appear on the Economics EOCT.
GwinnettParentz
April 30th, 2012
11:17 am
Amidst the self-pity of public school teachers who don’t want to be held accountable …
… we wonder if they’d voluntarily entrust the life of their own son or daughter to a surgeon who never had to sit for an exam demonstrating his/her competence? Or turn their life savings over to an investment adviser certified without testing? Or their nation over to a President with absolutely no idea of how the national economy works?
Eric
April 30th, 2012
11:20 am
Who in their right mind wants to be held accountable anymore? Just look at the new Common Core curriculum changes. Can anyone say public education is “dumbing down” our students? Hardly!
EXAMPLES OF COMMON CORE CHANGES (source AJC, 4/30/12)
The new Common Core standards will lead to curriculum changes in Georgia schools this fall. Some examples:
In math:
• Shapes introduced in kindergarten, not the first grade.
• Factoring, prime numbers, composites and adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions introduced in the fourth grade, not the fifth grade.
• Negative numbers introduced in the sixth grade, not the seventh grade.
• Solving inequalities and basic probability introduced in the seventh grade, not the eighth grade.
• Calculating the mean absolute deviation introduced in the sixth grade, not the ninth grade.
• Determining the volume of a sphere introduced in the eighth grade, not the 10th grade.
• Use of the Pythagorean theorem to find distances introduced in the eighth grade, not the ninth grade.
Maureen Downey
April 30th, 2012
11:26 am
@Gwinnettz, Teachers do sit for exams.
And here is the another analogy on the other side of teacher accountability debate using your doctor framework:
We wonder if a hospital would hold a heart surgeon liable for an overweight patient patient who never exercised, who ate Big Macs and fries for lunch every day, who forgot to take his medication, who skipped appointments and who told the doctor, “I am never going to give up my cigarettes or my Jack Daniels.”
Laurie
April 30th, 2012
11:37 am
“[L]earning should nurture critical thinking, creativity, imagination, analysis and synthesis.”
Absolutely.
There are some things that do need to be memorized or perhaps just repeated so frequently in practice that they get picked up (yes, multiplication tables); but in truth, the more understanding you have of a topic, the less you need rote memorization. Rote memorization is what you need for things that have no meaning, and if you have poor understanding, there are a lot more things like that that need to be drilled.
The problem, as I see it though, is that a lot of teaching involves neither the teaching of “facts” nor to the facilitating of real understanding. Criticizing the teaching of “facts” and extolling the importance of “creativity” can, unfortunately, be a cover for just plain poor or absent teaching. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it often is.
Glen Lillquist
April 30th, 2012
11:37 am
ear Maureen,
Sadly, Chuck Colson has passed. Fortunately he also passed on some great thoughts about education. His book: How Now Shall We Live?”
(Tyndale House, l999), emphasize acquiring a worldview.
Seems as though our educational system and philosophy is very wrong in that teaching to pass tests is the end all and be all.
The direction I see being discussed today is to inculcate a love of reading, and a desire to learn at the earliest age. Let science and math come along later in the educational process. Give children a zeal and zest for writing, communicating, exploring concepts, ESTABLISHING A WORLD VIEW based on who they are, where they are and the responsibility of interdependence.
Jacques Maritain (d.1973) a gifted philosopher described educational process: early years: love of reading and learning, teen years: basics, young adult: undergrad still in classical courses, languages etc. POST GRAD: mandatory for all- decide what one wants to do for a career and take the appropriate courses. At age 30 work in chosen field for 20 years and then do government service for 5 years (mandatory) Freedom to chose retirement after government service.
Good luck, and good night.
Glen Lillquist
Tonya C.
April 30th, 2012
11:47 am
GwinnettParentz:
Teachers are not AGAINST testing as a whole. But testing is fast becoming a substitute for actual education. As an example here are the tests my 8th grader will take next year:
COGAT
ITBS
CRCT
Georgia Writing Exam
This does not include midsterms and semester exams. He’ll do well because he is a natural test taker. But all told those tests take a good 4 weeks out of a 178 day school year. That’s not a drop in the bucket. And there is prep for the CRCT and Georgia Writing Exam that will take place as well. I as a parent want benchmarks of my son’s progress. But I can’t say that that list isn’t overkill, and would love to hear the perspective of someone who thinks it’s fine.
thomas
April 30th, 2012
11:51 am
@ bu2,
In math, they are switching to the Common Core, except for those HS (or could be MS) students who have already started their HS math curriculum this year (or earlier). They will get to complete the HS sequence as it is now.
The Common Core GPS for next year includes several “transition standards” to cover those standards students would have missed. Some topics have been moved up (to a later grade) while others have been moved down (to an earlier grade). Those topics that have been moved up, at least in theory, should not require as much attention since students have already learned it previously. So, hopefully, teachers will have sufficient time to include the transition standards – actually, in most cases, if they don’t, students can’t make sense of other on-grade topics. So, teachers really have no choice.
dc
April 30th, 2012
11:51 am
re the hospital holding the surgeon accountable in spite of the incoming condition of the patient….seriously, Maureen? Of course they do. It’s called malpractice, and the Surgeon is absolutely forced to do all he/she can…. Sitting around and whining about the patient not caring just isn’t a viable excuse.
I’ve watched athletic coaches take a bunch of kids who didn’t care and weren’t in shape, and motivate them to give their all and excel. Not easy, but since the coaches job is 100% tested (wins/losses), they have no choice.
None of this is easy (even in the “real world”….:), but those teachers who truly can inspire a set of students to achieve above and beyond need to be recognized and compensated….and just like w/ coaches w/l %, testing appears to be the only way to subjectively measure the value a teacher brings to a group of students.
dc
April 30th, 2012
11:52 am
objectively, not subjectively.
Maureen Downey
April 30th, 2012
11:57 am
@DC. It is not called malpractice when a patient refused to comply with care or do his part. If a doctor was held accountable for lifestyle related premature deaths of patients, we’d have very few doctors still working.
Maureen
GwinnettParentz
April 30th, 2012
12:06 pm
@Maureen. The “tests” the AJC sits for are its quarterly profit statements.
Why wouldn’t Cox Corp stockholders be justified in concluding your newspaper’s continually falling circulation has much to do with the poor fit between its decidedly liberal newsroom staff—and a less liberal public?
Results are results, whether they be stagnant CRCT scores or falling share prices. And at the end of the day, excuses will be seen as excuses.
Maureen Downey
April 30th, 2012
12:15 pm
@Gwinnett: As with all testing, there are different measures and messages. Our online readership is skyrocketing. Does that then suggest a good fit to use your analogy? And our circulation numbers are improving. Does that suggest a better fit or a better economy?
Simple answers are nice, but they are often wrong.
Maureen
C Jae of EAV
April 30th, 2012
12:30 pm
It would seem the big question that remains unanswered is what’s to be done after the assessment. With all the various instruments of assessment floating about (CRCT, ITBS, SAT, ACT etc.) we seem to have quite a firm handle on the gap in learning, but have yet to figure a way to fill it in. What use is all this data when collectively we can’t understand what it tells us enough to effect any lasting progressive change.
HS Public Teacher
April 30th, 2012
12:55 pm
@GwinnettParentz – You state “decidedly liberal newsroom staff”. What does this mean? How do you measure it? How would you know?
Do you know the definition of liberal? I would bet a large wager that you do not. Look it up. I would bet it goes something like…. one that is generous, favors freedom of religon, favors freedom of choice, etc.
So then, how do you know that the staff of the ajc fits that definition?
Just asking.
HS Public Teacher
April 30th, 2012
1:02 pm
When will the “powers” in Georgia get it?
Regardless of how ‘bad’ or how ‘good’ something is, no one will ever know if it works unless we allow it enough time. Georgia jerks education from one place to another every 4 years or so. No one knows if QCCs, or GPSs, or Core Standards are good or bad because Georgia will never give them enough time to see!!!
Honestly, these types of things don’t matter at all if we cannot get the children of this State to take their own education seriously. And, this starts at HOME!!!!
Mary Elizabeth
April 30th, 2012
1:09 pm
@ C Jae of EAV,12:30pm
“What use is all this data when collectively we can’t understand what it tells us enough to effect any lasting progressive change.”
==============================================
We can effect “lasting progressive change,” if we use instructional data, as a good doctor uses diagnostic medical information for each patient, to assess where each student is academically functioning. Then, we must, as educators, be allowed by those in higher authority, to teach each student where he or she is functioning. That can be through small groupings witin larger groupings. Once we address each student’s instructional level, lasting progressive change will be forthcoming in education. If we do not do this, no change will be forthcoming, even if we use the data to rank teachers and schools. Assessment instruments and data must be used, primarily, to assess if individual students are being placed properly, and instructed on their correct functioning levels, whatever their grade levels are.
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/cyndies-story/
Fled
April 30th, 2012
1:48 pm
This is a question for which it is easy to see both sides. Back in the day, we were freer to explore and follow our bliss in college because we could work enough to support ourselves and get out of college with a degree and not very much debt. There were some people who went overboard with borrowing and regretted it, but the situation was much different than that facing today’s students where borrowing huge sums seems normal.
Thus it is that while I firmly believe in learning for learning’s sake, it is hard to fault students for being of a practical frame of mind. Many of them are essentially reducing themselves to peonage for a number of years simply to get through college. I have a hard time encouraging anyone to major in English anymore, and especially not to pursue graduate degrees in the humanities, when there is such a financial burden attached to the degree.
At the same time, I find it hard to have sympathy for people who attend college just for the piece of paper at the end and expect to be coddled and spoonfed all the way through. I never thought anything but that I must raise myself up to a level to be able to appreciate great art, music, and literature. It simply never occurred to me that great work and thought should be lowered to the level I was when I began my education.
I am sorry that financial pressures mean that many young people will not have the chance to explore tangents and learn about subjects like philosophy and anthropology. We are all the poorer for it. Also, if liberal arts majors were truly the ones who started Occupy Wall Street, we could use a lot more of them.
Frankie
April 30th, 2012
1:51 pm
Teach the test? Then teach them how to take a test, that is timed. Teache them to answer the questions they can and guess on the ones they are not sure about…
THen yuo will see kids failing even more so. I had a friend of mine skip a question and go the next question, but he marked his answer on the line he skipped…hence he flunked the test because every right answer was off by one number…..
the content of the crct should be a part of the whole curriculum for that grade…
Maybe the CRCT questions need to be more intune with what is taught in the class room….just sayin.
Lauren
April 30th, 2012
1:57 pm
Accountability should be on everyone. ESPECIALLY and MOSTLY students. I don’t see the problem with having top level classes versus lower level classes to adjust how and what lessons are taught. And if you fail, you stay behind. You’re taught to think for yourself, not just to memorize.
GwinnettParentz
April 30th, 2012
1:58 pm
@Maureen. To be clear, our earlier reference should have been to surgeons who lose too many patients, investment advisers who continually make losses, and Presidents whose policies fail to grow jobs or the economy.
@Tonya. Consider that a private school can get by with less testing because it is the choice of parents with confidence in its program. Expanded parental choice (tuition vouchers) would result in more kids going to schools, public or private, which parents likewise have confidence in.
William Casey
April 30th, 2012
2:40 pm
Isn’t it interesting that the rising call for teacher accountability has coincided precisely with a declining call for student accountability? Hmmmm. I favor BOTH. And, less quit pretending that there aren’t any “students” in our classes who lack intelligence and motivation. NCLB my a$$.
MOUNTAIN MAN and others here have advocated “teaching the basics.” I totally agree. We’ve somewhat gotten away from this because it is tedious and boring. It is, nevertheless, essential. I’m all for critical thinking and taught it. However, I also remember thinking 30 years ago when higher order critical thinking became all the rage: “How does one think critically about NOTHING?”
William Casey
April 30th, 2012
2:41 pm
that’s “let’s quit pretending…” sorry for typo
Just Saying
April 30th, 2012
2:54 pm
Oh well! The state has money to implement these standards but not enough to keep schools open or teachers employed. The only Common Core I care about is how I’m going to pay my rent. If anybody really cared about schools in this state, they’d realize that implementing these changes in curriculum won’t matter at all when there are no teachers in the classroom. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I foresee a time (in the very near future) when Georgia (and possibly the entire nation) will face a huge shortage of teachers. These students who are borrowing vast sums of money for their educations are not doing it to become school teachers. They have seen how teachers are treated. Oh, and by the way, the common core material is pretty darned simplistic.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
3:29 pm
The purpose of the assessment climate, as I see it, is to make our education system look bad, because if it looks bad, then every company with a “snake oil” cure for it can make some money. Politicians then get their nice dinners, vacations, golf days, what have you. At some point, no matter how much anyone does to improve, there has to be failure in order for the reformers to have anything to fix.
I would urge everyone here to do a little searching on problems with standardized tests. They can be a helpful tool, but they are often as flawed as the humans who create them. They may be the best tool we have so far, but that doesn’t let us off the hook for trying to find another. I still think portfolios could be done and objectively graded and show a lot better proof of a child’s learning, but that’s just my two cents worth (actually a penny when adjusted for inflation and furlough days).
irisheyes
April 30th, 2012
3:46 pm
@GwinnettParentz, as a parent of a GCPS student, I would think that you would understand that Gwinnett is certainly not afraid of assessment. If anything, we swing the opposite way! Consider, for example, my son who will be in fifth grade next year. In that year, he will take these standardized assessments:
CogAt
ITBS
Georgia Writing Test
CRCT
5 Benchmark Assessments over the 5 core subjects for a total of 25 tests
That’s approximately 34 or 35 mornings out of 180 days taking a standardized assessment. At what point do we say “Enough is enough”! I would think that we could cut out at least ONE or two of these assessments and still get an accurate reflection of his progress.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
5:29 pm
“A generation or two ago, the very worst thing one could say about a teacher was that he or she went blandly “by the book,” assaulted students with facts and figures, and demanded that they “regurgitate” names and dates on tests. It was widely understood that learning should nurture critical thinking, creativity, imagination, analysis and synthesis.”
That was about one generation ago and that was when education started going downhill, with more and more students graduating college without mastering what used to be mastered by the fifth grade. “Social Promotion” became the watchword of the day, no corporal punishment, and “critical thinking” (but not simple arithmetic). No more “three R’s”.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
5:31 pm
You can imagine my surprise when I asked my son a while back when Columbus discovered the new world and he could not tell me! He had never heard the mnemonic – “in 14 hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. So much for getting away from rote memorization.
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
5:35 pm
Irisheyes – We would not need all those tests if the grades that the teacher puts on the report card (and the administrator does not change) was indicative of the mastery of the subject matter, but it is not. Especially when teachers are told “NO ZEROES”.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
5:37 pm
Even if we have vouchers, does anyone here think the testing companies are going to just roll over and play dead because many private schools don’t use they myriad of tests the companies produce? RIGHT…and I have some great beach front property in Arizona you might want to check out.
They’ll find some reason to push their products on the private schools and their glitzy car salesmen will roll in and scare the bejeesus out of everyone because the schools aren’t testing more. I wonder what will happen when all the average and below-average kids, whose parents have vouchers, show up hoping for admission to private schools that have pointedly avoided them for so long. Will they turn away the money or find a reason to “expand” their offerings to be more inclusive? It will be interesting to watch Louisiana as it broadens its voucher programs. Time will tell, and I can only hope we’ll wait to see how it works for them before we jump into the same situation.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
5:40 pm
mountain man @5:31: there’s no standard for teaching the mnemonic for that evidently. In the attempt to increase rigor, the powers that be interpreted that as more, not tougher. Kids don’t learn basic, important skills because the curriculum maps and pacing charts don’t give them enough time to learn it. Sad, isn’t it?
Real teacher
April 30th, 2012
6:23 pm
Last week I was giving an assignment to a 6th grade student.
Student says “Why do we have to do this?”
I said “Because you are here to learn.”
Student gets an attitude and says “But school is over.”
I tell him “School is not over’ and direct him to get to my assignment.”
Student says with a big attitude and throws his hands up. “School is over. We took the test already. Isn’t that what we are here for?”
This is a true story–reality—what happens in the trenches– and what education has come to, period. Bottom line is the test score and real estate value. This one student is bold enough to voice his opinion while other students just act it out. It doesn’t matter where the curriculum comes from…. Until NCLB is done away with, this is the reality of education. Sad thing is, students like this are born into NCLB and learning to take a test is all they know. They take a test and think its over because society paints it that way and makes the jobs for teachers difficult. Politicians, leaders, professors, all like to direct from their ivory towers while their jobs are not on the line and they lack true experience in the trenches of public education but this is the reality teachers deal with everyday–and it sucks.
GwinnettParentz
April 30th, 2012
6:48 pm
@Ron F. You obviously serve another master in your unrelenting fear and loathing of companies in the vanguard of K-12 innovation.
Competition’s a nightmare for NEA union bosses, eh?
But those of us focusing on KIDS rather than on union revenues would point out that companies such as KIPP are doing excellent things in inner cities—where the union offers only stale excuses. Bad news for union bosses can mean good news for black kids and their parents.
We’re sure you wake up in the middle of the night with fears of Gov. Bobby Jindal under your bed. May it one night prove to be true!
mountain man
April 30th, 2012
6:58 pm
“Student says with a big attitude and throws his hands up. ‘School is over. We took the test already. Isn’t that what we are here for?’ ”
So why would you schedule testing before you have covered all the material? i.e. before the end of the year. Would you not get a higher score if you saved the testing for the very last days? Isn’t that what they do in college – schedule the finals on the last day of class? They don’t teach more after the finals.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
7:14 pm
“companies such as KIPP are doing excellent things in inner cities—where the union offers only stale excuses.”
Well since there aren’t unions in GA, by law, your argument is rather….”stale”, but keep on harping. It seems to amuse you, and I even had to laugh at the predictability of it. At least you’re consistent, albeit nutty.
As for KIPP, so far the results look good. I’ve never criticized them, and the fact that they’re a NONPROFIT organization gets praise for them from me. Maybe if a few more of those came along to help, teachers like me might just support the charter movement. Any ideas how to make that happen?
Bobby Jindal would scare the bejeesus out of me. Too uptight- now Chris Christie, I might not like his politics, but I bet he knows how to party!
EduKtr
April 30th, 2012
8:40 pm
The National Education Association (GAE in Georgia) isn’t as shy as some on this blog in frankly acknowledging they’re a union. Any reader who googles “NEA” and “union” will find the National Education Association website page on which they declare themselves to be “the largest union in the United States.”
So they’re obviously not confused about it. Nor is the Georgia Association of Educators on a good day. (All GAE members belong to the NEA @($168 extra yearly).
Likewise, a search on “NEA” and “donations” will bring up reference websites which track political donations reported by the union to regulatory agencies. Virtually all the NEA’s political money goes to Democrat candidates and liberal causes. And that’s merely what the union chooses to officially report!
Like @Ron F they sleep with one eye open—terrified that, one day, parents will have the freedom to choose their children’s schooling.
ref: http://www.nea.org/home/18469.htm
ref: http://goo.gl/rtJIZ
ref: http://goo.gl/bNdPt
Brandy
April 30th, 2012
8:43 pm
I might be with the pro-voucher crowd if you all would answer my oft repeated questions:
What if a parent chooses to spend their taxpayer funded voucher on a Catholic school? A Seventh Day Adventist school? A Jewish school? A Muslim or Islamic school? What if they choose to spend it on a school out of state? Out of the country? On a boarding school? A school that only accepts one gender? Only one race? if they can’t find a private school that will accept their kid? What if they still can’t afford the tuition after the voucher? What if they get in, but then get kicked out–who keeps the money? How will the private schools be held accountable?
Answer the questions, honestly, and you might have a convert. Right now, I can’t help taking your continued silence as an all too telling answer: You couldn’t give a d*mn about any of those possibilities, you just want your choice (to send your kid to a private school) to be paid for by the state. Well, sorry, life doesn’t work that way.
Brandy
April 30th, 2012
8:44 pm
Oh, I forgot one: Will homeschooling parents get to keep the money?
Come on, guys, answer the questions.
EduKtr
April 30th, 2012
8:52 pm
The National Education Association (GAE in Georgia) isn’t as shy as some on this blog in frankly acknowledging they’re a union. Any reader who googles “NEA” and “union” will find the National Education Association website page on which they declare themselves to be “the largest union in the United States.”
So they’re obviously not confused about it. And all Georgia Association of Educators members belong to the NEA @($168 extra yearly.
Likewise, a search on “NEA” and “donations” will bring up reference websites which track political donations reported by the union to regulatory agencies. Virtually all the NEA’s political money goes to Democrat candidates and liberal causes. And that’s merely what the union chooses to officially report!
Like @Ron F they sleep with one eye open—terrified that, one day, parents will have the freedom to choose their children’s K-12 school.
Like the union bosses themselves do.
ref: http://www.nea.org/home/18469.htm
ref: http://goo.gl/rtJIZ
ref: http://goo.gl/bNdPt
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
8:52 pm
Brandy: I gave up asking and just try to ignore the jabs. It’s like convincing Don Quixote that they’re just windmills even as the blades smack them off the horse. Like you, I’m open to considering anything that will truly help our kids succeed. But I want the questions answered first, and they won’t be. As a parent AND teacher, I want the best but I’m not rushing into this.
See you at the water cooler outside the cubicles…
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
8:55 pm
“Like @Ron F they sleep with one eye open—terrified that, one day, parents will have the freedom to choose their children’s schooling.”
I have two teenage boys at home who are well liked by quite a few teenage girls (and the girls ain’t shy these days!!). I ALWAYS sleep with an eye and an ear open…and the alarm set so I know if the doors open.
Helps to harpen my skills so I know when you’re sneaking into my cubicle.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
8:57 pm
sharpen, not harpen… get nervous thinking about all those folks under my bed. Much worse than the monsters of childhood OR my ex-wife!
EduKtr
April 30th, 2012
9:39 pm
@Brandy. Where are the words “BUT WHAT IF…!!!” as you contemplate the disaster of public school education in most of today’s large urban areas?
And I’m sure the local Louisiana NEA bosses won’t have reservations about applying their new tuition vouchers to their OWN kids’ private school tuition.
EduKtr
April 30th, 2012
10:11 pm
@Brandy. Where are your words “BUT WHAT IF…???” as you contemplate the disaster of public school education in most of today’s large urban districts?
And I’m sure the local Louisiana NEA bosses won’t have reservations about applying their new tuition vouchers to their OWN kids’ private school tuition.
Brandy
April 30th, 2012
10:20 pm
@EduKtr, Your comment to me makes absolutely no sense in regards to my post. Obviously we have different views on things. Good! Disagreement is good for the democratic process.
Now answer the questions.
Brandy
April 30th, 2012
10:26 pm
@Ron F., You bring the coffee, I’ll bring the donuts! Gah, do these people know how ludicrous they sound? Yes, we are all mindless NEA robots spouting off the common refrain they have programmed us to say. Um, nope, just as I’m sure they aren’t all Sarah Palin wannabes. Let’s all act like the grown ups we are and try to put together valid arguments.
Answer the questions and we “union shills” (i.e. teachers like me and Ron F. who are NOT, I repeat NOT members of nor employees of NEA, AFT, or any other union) might jump on the bandwagon along with you.
Ron F.
April 30th, 2012
11:02 pm
Brandy: I think the reason some don’t answer is because they just don’t know the answers. That or they’re afraid that folks with differing points of view might just be able to work together to make things happen the right way. That seems to fly in the face of current political leaders who just refuse to consider the possibility. I don’t know why people are afraid to honestly discuss, challenge, think, and accept questions. I enjoy the challenge and have learned a lot in recent months that has impacted my thinking, and not just to push it farther away from compromise. Oh well, I guess we just keep trying.
Starbucks or Dunkin? I’m honestly finding I like Dunkin’s coffee just about the best. Not all the complicated list of names to remember for a simple cup o’ joe.
Cobb History Teacher
May 1st, 2012
5:58 am
@mountainman
“If you have “tracked” the kids into different levels, then the ones who need to work on basic arithmetic in 12th grade are in one class, while the high achievers are in another class discussing Descartes. And the SPED students are not interfering because they are also in a separate class.”
Good point but at some point the “ego strokers and warm and fuzzies” decided that tracking was labeling and that’s wrong. They couldn’t see how maybe just maybe tracking students by ability might help the system to focus on their needs.
EduKtr
May 1st, 2012
8:15 am
Those new to the blog, and perhaps puzzled by the above “Ron F” and his obscure references … should be aware that he posts in multiple names (”Brandy,” for instance, today).
He’s an antagonist of education reform and a bitter-end defender of the teachers’ union against all who might question the role it’s played in bringing public school education to its present sorry state.
A character right out of the film “Waiting for Superman.”
irisheyes
May 1st, 2012
8:32 am
Ahh, I missed @EduKtr and his/her tin-foil rants. Who would like muffins at our mythical headquarters on Mt. Olympus?
real teacher
May 1st, 2012
9:55 am
@mountain man, teachers do not have control over the scheduling of standardized testing. These test dates are set by the state and local school districts… They schedule the test towards the end of the year and then try to leave enough time before summer to notify students who did not do well and give them a chance to register for summer school and retake the test. Our hands are tied.
crankee-yankee
May 1st, 2012
7:45 pm
@GwinnettParentz
So, the competition of charter schools keeps me awake at night?
Not likely, lets see why…
Nobel Learning Communities (charter schools in 15 states) successfully sued by the federal Dept of Justice for discriminating against kids with learning disabilities. (http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/January/11-crt-051.html).
Hmm, discriminating against kids, good corporate policy for sure.
Kaplan Higher Education Corporation sued by DOJ for a “systematic practice of refusing to hire African American job applicants. (http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/about/letters?id=0022).
Lets model segregation for our young, malleable minds.
Imagine Schools to pay out over 1/2 million in back wages plus lawyers fees, court costs, etc. for firing 2 pregnant employees (http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-18-10.cfm).
Gee, I guess they figure we have enough kids in the pipeline, they don’y need their employees adding to the population.
And not the least of which, right here in “good ol’ boy” GA, Greenforest-McCalep Christian Academic Center loses a pregnancy discrimination suit with the EEOC (http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/3-26-10.cfm).
No pregnant teachers are going to teach in my church!
These are the kind of bottom-feeders who are coming out of the woodwork with the attacks on public education.
Oh, and lets not forget the fundamentalists & creationism!
(http://www.southerneddesk.org/tag/creationism/)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxP4gI-qNhc)
What, me worry? It won’t be long before John Q. Public wakes to the facts and pushes back, at the ballot box.
Cobb History Teacher
May 1st, 2012
10:12 pm
@Gwinnettz, Teachers do sit for exams.
And here is the another analogy on the other side of teacher accountability debate using your doctor framework:
We wonder if a hospital would hold a heart surgeon liable for an overweight patient who never exercised, who ate Big Macs and fries for lunch every day, who forgot to take his medication, who skipped appointments and who told the doctor, “I am never going to give up my cigarettes or my Jack Daniels.”
Well put Maureen!
@GwinnettParentz
Teachers aren’t suggesting that there be no accountability in education, what we are asking for is shared accountability. Teachers are accountable for teaching the state standards using appropriate strategies and materials. What most would like as a certain amount of accountability on the students part and even to a lesser degree a certain amount of accountability on the parents part to provide supplies, a stable home, and reinforcement that what we are attempting to do in the public schools is relevant and important.
Folks can whine all they want about teacher accountability but until “precious” decides that his / her cell phone, constant restroom passes and sidebar conversation during instruction are less important than what is going on in the classroom, no amount of teacher accountability will change anything.
Cobb History Teacher
May 1st, 2012
10:22 pm
@ H S Public Teacher
“Honestly, these types of things don’t matter at all if we cannot get the children of this State to take their own education seriously. And, this starts at HOME!!!!”
Unfortunately many students attitudes about education are learned from home. Parents who had bad experiences in school as children usually transmit these feelings to their children who then carry them to school and repeat the cycle.
Amen. I don’t care how good of a teacher a person is you can’t make a student learn something they don’t want to or don’t take seriously. (You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.”
“I can help those who do not understand, but I cannot help those who do not care”
The Truth Hurts
May 1st, 2012
11:13 pm
Just like any other profession the majority of teachers are good. It is fairly easy to see if a teacher is doing his or her job on a daily basis just by looking at what is being done in class. So, I agree with holding teachers accountable in that aspect. However, parents should bare the same burden. If a student isn’t doing homework or studying then teachers should be able to grade the parent. Only then can a true picture be painted of where the problem lies. A couple of teachers and I are using loopholes with the state laws to basically grade (or at least harass) our less involved parents. When a student doesn’t do an assignment they are given detention. If they fail to show it then becomes a discipline issue which the state law allows us to use the code of conduct to address. So far we have handed out several ISS days and a few OSS days. If the student continues to fail to participate they will be sent to the alternative school where more severe punishments are available. We have had one student make it this far and after spending a week in an isolation cell at the jail recently for his attitude he is ready to learn. In addition, his parents are taking a more active role in his education now…lol. Hopefully other educators will follow suit.
Digger
May 2nd, 2012
11:01 am
Asking teachers to teach higher level thinking is like asking Justin Bieber to compose his own ‘Sgt. Pepper’.
Cobb History Teacher
May 3rd, 2012
10:50 am
@ The Truth Hurts
“However, parents should bare the same burden. If a student isn’t doing homework or studying then teachers should be able to grade the parent. Only then can a true picture be painted of where the problem lies.”
I agree and parents should remember (I’m a parent as well) if you can’t get your child to do their homework or study why do you think it’s any easier for a teacher to get thet same student to do their work? We are all on the same team and that is all too often forgotten. Bottom line students are responsible for their learning by paying attention in class, participating in class, limiting disruptions and studying what they have learned at home.
Cobb History Teacher
May 3rd, 2012
11:00 am
And now for the elephant in the room noone wants to talk about….the schools are a reflection of the community thet serve. If students don’t care about their education and learning where do you think they get that attitude?
Aimee
May 6th, 2012
1:50 pm
As a high school student, I can completely relate to this eye-rolling girl. My experience this “Socratic method” aka laziness all the time from teachers has not been a good one. After going through my junior year, I’ve come to hate creativity and critical thinking associated with learning.
“The implication couldn’t have been clearer. There is a finite, identifiable body of data that students are supposed to learn. It is the task of the instructor simply to transmit that information.”
This statement is so true. I don’t understand why teachers cannot just TEACH for once instead of coming up with a host of nonsensical methods of inciting students to critical think or in other words expect us to somehow become enlightened with knowledge that drops out of the heavens. What I have found is that teachers tend to instruct as little as possible. Then, they put the most absurd and difficult problems on the test and expect us to get the correct answer because apparently through their basic explanations, we should achieve a great understanding of this topic. By “truly understanding” it, we SHOULD answer any question they throw at us. However, in the end, 80% of the class does poorly, and no one ends up learning anything.
As an example, imagine a teacher saying, “4/2=2. Now, we will be having a test on long division with decimals tomorrow. Use your ability to use critical thinking, and you should achieve an A.” Now imagine this happening on a grander scale such as in a Calculus class.
The problem is that I want to LEARN. I wish my teachers would just TEACH me the more difficult info ALSO instead of expecting me to figure out the most difficult concepts of the subject DURING the test. I can’t emphasize how much the failure of teachers has caused students to become discouraged and resentful of learning. Not only that, students’ grades have gone down the grades because of it. As a result many are not getting into good colleges. Let’s face it, ROTE memorization is how we learn naturally as babies. It is how we gain at least an intermediate understanding of the topic. Please! Teachers, teach instead of hiding behind an excuse of using creative methods and discussions. Make your tests an accurate representation of what you teach instead of an examination built towards failure which tests critical thinking.