Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The OP and a bunch of you didn't even read the OP's link!!
His letter expressed a number of concerns, but none of them were about indoctrination. One concern was that the district had privatized the testing, and the teachers union didn't fight hard enough to stop it.
Another huge issue he raised was is that teachers were forced to teach to a standard curriculum and use standard tests and quizzes, vs. letting the teacher determine what information their students did or did not understand on the topic, and being allowed to adapt in the classroom to meet those needs. That doesn't mean that the kids are being "indoctrinated" with information--good grief! It means that if you're an English teacher, and if a group of kids in your class are having trouble understanding how to use colons and semicolons, you can't develop your own quiz to help you understand exactly which kids get it and which kids don't, so you can reteach the information if necessary before you move on to another topic. That problem--removing the ability of teachers to actually run their own classrooms--springs largely from the "No Child Left Behind" policy forcing schools to meet state testing standards.
The basic premise of the resignation letter was that public schools sold out to corporate testing firms and now everything is based on test scores. As a parent I could care less about test scores. I just want to make sure my son can identify a problem, come up with a solution, and then carry out that solution. I want him to enjoy learning and be a life long learner with a thirst for knowledge. When he's older, I'm not going to stress him out about some random test that doesn't matter much in the big picture.
it is a system, education is not what matters. our kids are being bred to live in a community type life. forget math and reading, lets focus on self esteem and how to solve world peace. The system is in need of male teachers. the government would go crazy if the ration was reversed. they would create incentives to get famale teachers. why dont they make an effort to make the teching profession 50% of each sex.
What in the H did the OP's have to do with this garbled line of thought? The problem is that many schools have resorted to teaching to the standardized tests so they meet state standards. If kids don't get it, too bad--you aren't allowed to reteach. You just have to move on. First, you don't teach kids to think critically that way--you learn to memorize what you need to pass a test. It's not education. Second, kids--even bright kids--who don't master the information the first time around fall behind unnecessarily. If the teacher has the flexibility to actually run their own classroom and teach according to the needs of the group of kids he or she is working with, lots of those problems disappear. Most of us who aren't TWELVE had almost entirely female teachers growing up, and we did just fine--this has absolutely nothing to do with gender.
The basic premise of the resignation letter was that public schools sold out to corporate testing firms and now everything is based on test scores. As a parent I could care less about test scores. I just want to make sure my son can identify a problem, come up with a solution, and then carry out that solution. I want him to enjoy learning and be a life long learner with a thirst for knowledge. When he's older, I'm not going to stress him out about some random test that doesn't matter much in the big picture.
This^^ Those are the skills--the EDUCATIONAL TRAINING--that will take kids far in life, vs. just memorizing the information for a standardized test just long enough to pass it.
This^^ Those are the skills--the EDUCATIONAL TRAINING--that will take kids far in life, vs. just memorizing the information for a standardized test just long enough to pass it.
Dodgeball teaches kids to . . THINK FAST!
Some kids think that to "think fast" is to work on their weight problem.
Other kids, because of parental influence, think that to fast has something to do with Christian Doctrine.
With me, it's always been, prima facie, catch it, or dodge it.
I've always been discriminative as to what I have chosen to "catch".
The basic premise of the resignation letter was that public schools sold out to corporate testing firms and now everything is based on test scores. As a parent I could care less about test scores. I just want to make sure my son can identify a problem, come up with a solution, and then carry out that solution. I want him to enjoy learning and be a life long learner with a thirst for knowledge. When he's older, I'm not going to stress him out about some random test that doesn't matter much in the big picture.
Good luck then with the ACT, SAT, GRE, MCAT, DAT, LSAT.
While you do not care about standardized testing, the rest of the world does.
conservatives don't really believe in public education and never have.
First the idea that all children should be educated is something that many conservatives think is a waste of time after a certain point because they believe many children just can't learn all that much after a certain point, and we waste money on those children's education.
Also, the idea of American citizens of differing backgrounds getting together as a city or a state or a community to educate children deciding based on diverse ideas how and what those children should learn is terrifying to conservatives because they view so many other Americans as enemies out to destroy America and because they have a very narrow definition of who is a real American.
They don't want those people to have any input into how children are educated. To them courses should only be taught in certain very narrow ways touching only on certain subjects.
Any deviation is understood by conservatives as indoctrination.
blah blah blah......
FACT: Liberals have been in control of our public education system for a very long time and it is currently considered a laughing stock in the world at large.
Good luck then with the ACT, SAT, GRE, MCAT, DAT, LSAT.
While you do not care about standardized testing, the rest of the world does.
If you've learned the basics and you have good general knowledge, plus PROBLEM SOLVING AND REASONING ABILITY you'll do great on the ACT, SAT, etc. etc. The problem comes in when kids learn rote information for tests but they don't learn critical thinking that goes with it, so they can't apply what they've learned to problem solving. A lot (not all) of the college entrance testing is problem solving. Even taking the tests themselves is a strategic process--figuring out how to narrow down the answers that you might not be sure about. Not all standardized testing is bad when it's used to demonstrate what you've learned and how you can reason. The problem comes in when it's the only teaching tool available, which is what the teacher in the link was concerned about.
"Does this mean the end of public education? No. But it does mean that the old model -- which dates to the 19th Century,
when schools were explicitly compared to factories -- is at risk.
Smarter educators will start thinking about how to update a 19th Century product to suit 21st Century realities.
Less-smart educators will hunker down and fight change tooth and nail."
The times, they are a changin
Home schoolers unite
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
