As long as I have been in school, the American education system has been focused on test scores, especially standardized tests. If a student did not meet the requirements of that particular test, the student was often given a label with a negative connotation. Most tests only cater to one or two styles of learning, yet there is, in reality, a plethora of learning styles spread all across the gamut. The education system needs to do a complete shift in focus to, quite frankly, EDUCATING the students as they learn, not teaching to the test. NCLB (No Child Left Behind) was a complete step back in the progress of the education system.
Now is the time for new teachers and teachers-to-be to change the way schools operate. If we can all begin to return the schools to an education based environment as opposed to test based, I will be happy, as will my children and my children's children. School should be a place where we all can realize our strengths and weaknesses and know how to make our strengths improve our weaknesses. One of the most important ideas in education is allow students to explore and find their strengths and enjoy them.
3 comments:
I completely agree with your points about NCLB and teaching to the test. These changes in recent years have definitely become a negative aspect of schools. I liked the things that you said you would change and I think you wrote it well!
Karl, you are right on the money with this. You can not determine a student's regular success rate with one test, one chance. This ED 381 class is giving us nothing but proof that everyone learns and expresses themselves in different ways- what are we showing them and proving to ourselves by administering these standardized tests? If you haven't seen the movie "W" I would highly recommend it. It only briefly covers the subject of education, but I think it was quite eye opening with how NCLB got started.
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