Why Can't We Accept That Our Society Needs Its Teachers to Teach for The Test?

[truedelphi]

There may have been a day when the public needed to learn critical thinking, and also needed to learn how to judge if an activity was or wasn't moral.

But those days are long gone. We no longer have the luxury of letting people think for themselves.

Our TV Station Execs have gone along with the program nicely. We no longer have the morality plays with life lessons taught by such situations as The Cartwrights supporting an immigrant family in "Bonanza," or Sheriff Andy of Mayberry letting Opie know that it is very wrong to tape record the conversation of prisoners. In fact, in that one episode of "The Andy Griffith Show," Opie's dad wisely explains the meaning of the Fourth Amendment - and this all happened during Prime Time, back in the day.

However, things are quite different now. The One Percent is totally aware that you can't have an Orwellian society, complete with Total Surveillance, and with little difference between the goals of leadership in Both Parties, if the average people in the society remain in control of critical thought processes, and are supported by the nightly narratives on TV. So these days, instead of dramas and sit coms with actual story lines, and moral resolutions, we see instead how TV station after TV station has made sure that most programs are pablum.

Few if any moral lessons are contained in the program "The Bachelor," and even fewer moral lessons are learned by the endless hijinks of the Kardashians.

"Repo" this and "Repo" go on air as well, that let us know that should you be a worm who falls behind in your bills, the repo squad will come for you, and it won't be pretty. On the bright side, when that unemployment check stops coming, you can always hock whatever family heirlooms you have held onto, and should you manage to get a break from the pawn shop owner, your family might have housing for a month or a week longer.

Against this backdrop of idle show times, celebrity nonsense, and mental carelessness, one group of Chicago school teachers is fighting an uphill fight. Apparently they never got the memo about how our kids need to be kept continually dumbed down.

http://chicagoist.com/2014/02/28/teachers_stand_ground_refuse_to_adm.php

Teachers who refuse to administer the ISAT or who encourage students to not take it could face the loss of their state education certification.

"Illinois Federation of Teachers president Dan Montgomery called the ISAT "testing for testing's sake."

“The preparation and administration of this test brings teaching to a halt and robs students of valuable time to learn. The ISAT is not appropriately aligned to curriculum and forces educators to teach to an unnecessary test that is defunct and has absolutely no practical use... (W)e encourage parents to work with their teachers to opt out. We also strongly encourage CPS to reconsider their plans to punish teachers for doing the right thing. IFT members around the state salute and stand with these teachers and parents as they stand up for their students.”
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The full article is at this link below, but please don't back away from the scheduled TV shows that are our nation's mediocrity's life blood. After all, this article can be read at your leisure, like whenever "Hoarders" or "Wife Swap" are not on.

http://chicagoist.com/2014/02/28/teachers_stand_ground_refuse_to_adm.php

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

1. The future of TeAching

My buddy is a teacher at a poor school in the Chicago area and is convinced that teachers will be reduced to TAs and courses will be taught online. He believes a dozen or more "superteachers" will teach all students in this way. Classroom teachers won't have much of a role. Here in the Chicago area, kids at the poorest schools are being given laptops this year.

[truedelphi]

3. Yikes. That would be terrible.

I seem to remember ads for computers a couple years back, and the ads suggested that computers are make learning so much fun for kids that they certainly don't need the classroom.

I am not sure who really believes this.

As a parent of a junior high student, circa end of the 1980's, who had installed a Mac in my son's bedroom for a year, I don't believe it for a moment. I can remember how well he did in his after school hours, spending so much time in front of that Mac, and I knew that he'd be getting A's.

Then came the report card with C-'s. (Before the arrival of the computer, he'd been a B+ and A student.) Then I realized that the time was being spent on gaming and not studying.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. It's all about the Apple$$$$$$

My friend says schools are selling their souls to Apple and Microsoft. He thinks we've already passed the tipping point. I suspect Bill Gates and his "Waiting for Superman" campaign mesmerized everyone from President Obama to Rahm Emmanuel and his ilk. Move over teachers, make room for salesmen par excellence!

[Igel]

2. Sadly, there's a kernel of truth to this.

The reason for the tests is that teachers weren't teaching what they were told to.

You're told to teach evolution. You don't. How do your bosses find out if you're teaching evolution? You test it.

You're told to teach problem solving strategies. But that's just plain painful. So you teach facts. How do you find out if your kids' teachers are teaching problem-solving strategies? You test them.

Now, the teachers can write tests, but it works like this. "What have we taught and what do our kids know?" That's not accountability; that's worrying about making yourself look good.

You're told to teach X. But that's paintful. So you teach a bunch of facts about X. Facts are easy to memorize. Knowledge is hard to build. Analysis is hard to reach. And critical thinking requires all of them--facts, knowledge, analysis.

Until you've seen a teacher who's primarily in it for his paycheck, who really doesn't like his subject or know much about it, whose been under the gun with a standardized test looming in the future and now realizes that (a) there's no test, (b) no accountabilty, and (c) nobody cares, you haven't seen a horrible teacher. "We can teach whatever we want. I'm all about what's easy for me. Nobody cares what we do--let's watch _Finding Nemo_ and say we're studying the oceans and ecology, and _Up_ and say we're studying the weather."

Kids love it. But the kids are dumber afterwards than before. For many teachers, "No test = party time! Now, where's my fingernail polish, I have something important to do during class time!"

And, no, there's no hyperbole in this post. No sarcasm. Just observation, however irritating it may be to good teachers and to those who think that their personal favorite topic is really important.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. Teachers, are expected to teach from dull textbooks, to huge classes of students...

who won't do their assignments, who won't read what they're asked to, who won't study, who won't come to class prepared, and who have parents that have been waging the Republican-designed war on teachers.

The problem is not the teachers. The problem is: 1) The parents, who require literally nothing of their kids, and whine along with them if they have assignments, 2) the Republicans, who, instead of allowing the freedom of teaching, are increasingly trying to destroy public schools, 3) the society, which is a disaster, and its kids are a mess of texting, and making little to no effort, but expecting something for nothing.

To give the same old, tired, Republican-designed answer of, "it's the teacher's fault my kid isn't (fill in here with learning, studying, making an effort, behaving in class, etc.), is selling out to the very intent that Republicans have had in mind for many years - the final destruction of public schools.

[truedelphi]

17. What you are saying is what I am hearing from people I know who are still in

The teaching profession. And from parents who are engaged with their kids. The kids who had an aptitude for school subjects now hate school, because so much of the classroom material is out of these dismal text books and very dull exam prep workbooks.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

20. Well, when I went to school, I practically fell asleep in

history (the books were atrocious! All dates, nothing interesting, almost 0 cute sidebars). Same with all maths, in English (reading Shakespeare in the original), and just about everything but art. Art I liked. If I'd had textbooks like the kids do now, omg, I'd be in heaven. color, sidebars, interesting facts.

Here's another thing. I taught in Spain and in the U.S., and in Spain there have always been entrance and final exams for everything, absolutely everything. You might have all As but if you don't take an entrance exam, you don't get into middle school, high school or university. You might have great grades, but you can't graduate from h.s. without taking the comprehensive, all-included exam to graduate. That's simply the way it's always been done in Spain, and they're perfectly fine with it. If we tried to institute that here, there'd be a revolution. Parents simply wouldn't stand for it.

I think Spanish students have tremendous admiration for schooling, and are proud to be students. I don't see that here, really.

[truedelphi]

22. European nations have the right take on education, as well as health programs.

Interesting to hear about it from someone who has experienced it.

What saved me in terms of education is that in grammar school, I was very tall, and the nuns positioned people according to height. So I was always at the back of the class room.

By third grade, I would have a book I that I enjoyed reading spread open on my knees, and I would read the book the moment that my dull spelling or math work was done. I could usually get an assignment that they allotted 40 minutes for done in a mere fifteen, so the rest of the time was spent reading Robert Louis Stevenson, Dickens, Alcott, and others.

What kept me in love with school was the English classes and the art classes.

Sadly, art and music classes are now missing from many school districts. I know our local school district has some 9.6 millions of dollars to operate on, down from 15.5 million in 2009-2010. California's budget badly needed help from the Federal Government, but that was declined. And so then Jerry Brown and the legislature has gladly slashed health programs and education in order to look like they are smart enough to deliver a surplus.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

23. You're right! Right wingers look upon art as communist, so many of them seek its

elimination and feel it's a waste to allocate funds to it so they campaign against it at every level, including schools.

[proudretiredvet]

4. Every grade has standards of knowledge the teacher is supposed to teach.

This means certain teaching specific things during that grade level of instruction. IE multiplication should be taught in 3rd grade here. So if the test is on the multiplication tables for ending third graders that is as it should be.
All states are not the same but testing is necessary to determine if the teacher is doing their job and to evaluate if the students are good to go for the next grade.
Using all the new buzz words and jumping on any bandwagon does not work.
Teach to the standards of that grade and then evaluate by testing both the teacher and the students.
Politics should not be in the classroom. If the teacher does not do their job then need to be helped with a retraining program. If after that they still fail to teach they need to be fired.
The standards are determined by your state or local school board and the teaching professionals. If you want those standards to be different than they are now then you need to get involved on that level.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. Republicans are attempting to turning schools into low-cost-high-profit corporations

They won't do that with the military, because they know damned well that all that accomplishes is coming out with an inferior product and result and make it hellish for everyone involved in the military, but they sure as hell will do it to schools. It's absurd, it's insane, and it has been destroying public schools since 1981.

[Scuba]

6. Ever watch reruns of "Route 66"? Moral lessons every episode!

[raven mad]

7. I'm glad I was out of school before this became normal.

I hated it when my kids were in school.

I had the greatest teachers. The SATs etc. were no problem - but they didn't teach to the test. They taught for knowledge, and taught HOW to learn. So many teachers want to do the same, and can't. I hate that.

[truedelphi]

13. My education was wonderful, as well.

I think that things started to get screwy for the younger generation in the 1980's. In first grade, my son actually had to learn to "act happy," rather than being excited about school subjects, when he was in the Palo Alto Calif school system.

Then when we moved to Marin, he was supposed to go back to being serious! So by the time he was in fourth grade, he had learned to adjust to two different styles of being a student.

And then came that "New Math," where memorization was frowned on, and that took over, until it was finally killed off. I never understood why "the experts" decided that it wasn't a good idea, to know your math tables and what not. The result has been an endless supply of young cashiers who can't give the correct change if a machine doesn't tell them what the right change is.

Doug Rushkopf hosted a Frontline TV program recently, in which he explored how High Schoolers are so enticed by becoming internet sensations. They are spending most of their time creating videos to show on YouTube. Critical thinking is apparently out the window, with a whole generation of young people not even able to answer Doug's question of what it means to "sell out." All that seems to matter is getting an endless supply of people to "like" your "Youtube." For that one in a half million youngsters who able to do a good job of presenting themselves through media, their future is secure, but the rest of the young people are avoiding school work and their lives will probably suffer as a result.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

25. When I was in school, I liked some teachers better than others, always. But there was no concensus

My friends each liked different teachers because we all are different human beings and have different tastes. Yes, of course we didn't like the stricter ones because kids were born to goof off and we were no different. I don't know there can possibly be a concensus on which teachers are good and which aren't. I guess it all boils down to the test and whether or not the teacher babied the students enough so the answers of the test remained in the brain with them making no effort?

I do know one thing that makes a huge difference between education back when I went to school, and now. Back when I went to school, everyone expected us to study, do all our work, and not make or give excuses, or whine about it. Now? Now it's as if the kids were all disabled - they feel an assignment is too long (and the parents take this very seriously and whine to the teacher about it), they want to be told exactly what to study for a test (and the parents expect think they should be babied this way), they whine about the homework, they whine about the books, they whine because they constantly want others to show them how to do this homework or that homework, and have never try to extrapolate, analyze, conceptualize, and heaven forbid they should read something to learn how to ever do something on their own. They (and their parents) would consider that inhumane treatment. When I went to school, I was expected to pay attention, to ask questions, to be polite, to have manners, to do my homework, to study chapters, to read assigned books, to have prepared by studying the chapters so anything thrown on a test I'd be ready for. Now? Now parents and kids expect classes to be as special needs classes, and they are handheld from one moment to the next. How did it turn out like that?

Back when I went to school, school was *my* "work." I didn't get paid for it, but it occupied my day and I was expected to do it, and that was fine. In fact, everyone knew those kids that whined about having to do any homework, were never prepared for tests, and they were seen as incredibly lazy. Nowadays? Kids feel it's a huge imposition, because it seems to take time away from their texting, sexting, playing games, shopping, watching TV and talking on the phone.

[woo me with science]

8. Huge K&R. For the same reason we have trouble accepting

that a profit-sucking corporate middleman is essential to a well-functioning health care system.

For the same reason we struggle with the eminently reasonable concept of attaching a profit motive to the imprisonment of human beings.

For the same reason we recalcitrantly blink when told that the definition of "militant" has been amended to include any male of a certain age who happens to have been blown to pieces by the drone...

...and that the Espionage Act has been reinterpreted to cast as "terrorism" many of the behaviors defining investigative journalism.

For the same reason we stubbornly ignore that putting Social Security cuts on the table and in one's own budget (except during election years) *really* signals a principle-based opposition to such cuts.

For the same reason we are too naive to understand that withdrawing or drawing down some troops in an election year is a great victory, even if the money is diverted to other military actions or to pay for replacement mercenary forces.

For the same reason we don't understand that it is possible to care deeply about climate change and the environment, while simultaneously expanding drilling and fracking and fast-tracking a massive free trade agreement that will allow corporations to sue and challenge national regulations.

For the same reason we don't understand that it is possible to care deeply about income inequality while simultaneously enabling criminal banks and fast-tracking a massive trade agreement that will force Americans to compete with workers in impoverished countries and slash wages across the board.

For the same reason we don't get why it's essential to our safety for the government to spy on us; store our movements online, conversations, and sexual activities in a database for use in the future; and use our taxpayer-funded government agencies for suppression of dissent and corporate espionage.

We simply fail to understand what the corporate-bankrolled Third Way understands: that the implementation of a corporate authoritarian state is a necessary incremental step in the long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long. long, long journey toward a liberal, compassionate future.

They can't tell us people with limited smartness why. It's a secret.





.

[Enthusiast]

19. +1 a whole bunch!

Just spot on, woo me with science!

[truedelphi]

21. I am really loving this post.

And the graphics that came with it too.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. Like Carlin said...

they don't want people capable of rational thought, they want workers.

[woo me with science]

10. +1 Two-tiered system being constructed, as in every other area of life under corporate govt.

I am certain that Sidwell Friends operates very differently.

[BuelahWitch]

12. You interrupted my viewing of "Say Yes to the Dress" for THIS??!!

K&R!

[truedelphi]

15. Gee, I apologize. I mean, it wasn't even an emergency!

In the event that this had been a real nuclear catastrophe, we would have instructed you as to which reality TV show to tune into.

[reformist2]

14. It's not that there are hoops to jump through, it's that there are too many hoops.

I get standardization. I agree with it. But when you torment students with three-and-four-hour long exams in every subject, every year of their elementary and secondary school years, there ends up being ZERO time for teachers to teach anything other than what they need to know for the exam. And then to make matters worse, they begin tying awards and scholarships to your performance on these tests. That, in my mind, is very harmful to education.

[truedelphi]

16. A friend on another blog printed out the actual "logic problems" her once

School-loving daughter now has to deal with, and the reading material was pitiful.

Whereas the year before the need to "teach for the test" style of instruction came abut, the daughter's classmates were reading a grade level above theirs and discussing important concepts, like what used to happen when America was highly segregated. Now there is nothing but practice test booklets, with dismal "word problems" to solve.

"If John can help the assistant factory manager set up 14 pallets of goods in a half hour, how many pallets can be set up in eleven hours, if he takes a half hour for lunch." Hours and hours of stuff like that. (And many of the "logic problems" had built into them the not so subtle "suggestions" that no one needs to work only a forty hour week, or have any breaks.)

Her daughter no longer wants to go to school. I suggested the family look for a school for gifted kids, but it is not always possible to get into one of those, as there are far more parents wanting to get their kids into those schools than spots available.

[Enthusiast]

18. Kicked and recommended a huge amount!

Why would Democrats adopt a Republican education strategy? This is the part that makes no sense.

And sockpuppets, stop defending this bullshit. We aren't buying into the bullshit so just stop it!

[AverageJoe90]

26. The OP sounds like nothing more than a conspiracy theory to me, TBH.

Yeah, I'll have to admit I was a lot more open to this stuff 5 years ago than I am now, so I should know.

But then again, what do the Kardashians have to do with standardized testing?

For the record, I'm no fan of standardized testing myself. Never have been.....but the OP really does distract from the article. Sorry.

[truedelphi]

27. Oh ye of little faith -

There are days that I fear that within ten years, good ol' Kim K will be writing the standardized tests.

Or as Stephen Colbert put it -

"Then there is Honey Boo Boo, the Top Presidential Candidate for the year 2036!"

Anyway, I view "media" as being related to "medium" - and one of the meanings for "medium" is as the growth substrate for a culture.

Our TV programs are just that-- "programs" that promote culture growth and evolution, or in terms of what goes on today, devolution.

Our schools also exist as a medium.

It's the way my mind works. If you see that as being an indication that my mind doesn't work, please call my spouse at 1 -000 555 5555 and offer him your support. He is standing there waiting as I type this!

[madrchsod]

28. teach to test is not education.

we need to go back to the one room school concept of classroom education.

[rock]

29. Disagree

But of course I could be wrong.