Standardized tests and the "failing" public education system

This cartoon I found online really reflects my attitude toward standardized tests. I think it is so true of how reliant our society has become on standardized tests. Not all kids are the same; they don’t learn in the same ways, at the same pace. Certain children may not test well. I don’t think it is fair to assume that just because a certain student doesn’t perform as well on standardized tests they are not as smart or as educated as their peers. They may be poor test takers, may not have cared about the test because they realize their grades aren’t affected by it, or perhaps just were having an off day. On top of this, we put too much emphasis on testing in schools. Students have a lot of anxiety about these tests, and it is because teachers are pressured to make sure their students perform well. As I’ve said before, I think it is more important for the child to learn about subjects and broad concepts, not to just memorize random trivia to do well on a test. We take hour upon hour from our school year teach kids to make educated guesses, to eliminate answers that make no sense, to practice tricky multiple choice questions and to review fandom trivia, all for the sake of doing well on a test. I am not saying there are not good reasons to have these types of tests, I am sure they do a lot of good, I just don’t feel we should focus as much time making sure these children perform well on these tests. The children in the cartoon look very worried about the test results, and an unfair assumption is made that just because a student (or several students for that matter) doesn’t fit the mold they have formed, that the ENTIRE public education system is flawed in some way. Some students don’t perform well on tests. Is this the fault of the child? The teacher? The school? The public education system in general? What do you think?

Social-skills help with academic learning

In my search for interesting articles to use for my letter to the editor assignment this semester, I came across an article titled “Study finds social-skills teaching boosts academics” on the Education Week website. This article is really interesting and in my opinion shows the importance of focusing not only on academics, but on these social and emotional skills as well. The children are not only benefiting by learning to cooperate more with their peers and are able to handle stress better (which prepares them just as much for real-life and the workforce as academics, in my humble opinion), but also improve their grades and standardized-test scores. I hope that this study will reach the school administrators and political figures out there who are trying to decrease or phase out the amount of time that is spent teaching children these skills. Focusing on math and science is not the only way of guiding our children to be contenders in the global job market and to help our nation continue to be front-runners in the global economy. We want our children to be well-rounded individuals, allowed to pursue their interests, not just those interests that administrators feel they should pursue. As one of my classmates said in a class last night, not all students are meant to be academic, or want to pursue careers as engineers or scientists. We should give them options in their learning and not make those decisions for them.

First postings make me nervous...

My name is Jessica. I'm a grad student at George Mason University working on my Master's of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. This blog is actually an assignment for a course on "Integrating Technology in Elementary Classrooms" with a focus on literacy. On our blogs we are supposed to post our thoughts on education and the teaching profession, including our thoughts on public opinion of the school system and our response to these opinions. I am going to have to do a bit more research in order to complete this assignment but I do know that society constantly demands that teachers improve student performance on standardized tests, assuming that teachers aren't doing their jobs or that the school systems today are flawed in some major way. I am not about to say that there aren't bad teachers out there, I am sure there are plenty, but I feel that teachers get a lot of unfair treatment and blame for things that a lot of people don't fully understand. People who have never taught cannot even begin to understand how complicated the profession is and unfortunately form opinions based on their experiences as students. I will start to do more research and post my findings and opinions on this blog as I go along...should be interesting.