Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Teachers and Testing
After todays discussion in class about how important testing in schools has become, I began to think more about the effects these test have on not only the students but as well as the teachers. When it comes to testing students get all sorts of anxiety. When it comes to the ACT or the SAT's the pressure is even more intense. However, I think back to when I was in elementary school preparing for that week long of testing on every subject that we all dreaded. While taking the tests, I never thought about the effects it has on the teachers and why it was so important that I did well as a student. Besides the fact that doing well on the test provides the school with more funding, teachers have to make sure they are providing all the correct curriculum. This means adjusting there creative ideas and means of teaching. For teachers, not doing well on these tests is not an option. Upon taking the test, teachers are then evaluated based on how well your students performed. I have found an article that talks more about these evaluations. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/education/us-lets-states-delay-using-tests-to-rate-teachers.html?_r=0. I think teachers having to adjust there curriculum in order to accommodate these standardize test is not right. They should be able to teach students through a create way and be able to teach what they enjoy and have a passion for. These standardize test are causing more harm then good. The government needs to take a step back and really evaluate these global test and really see if they are what is necessary.
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While the laws that are requiring a school system that is doing new testing to not have to do old testing also are a great improvement, it is still ridiculous. The fact that testing is so important to the government and colleges is ridiculous. Along with being able to fire teachers because of the testing scores. While, at times it is reasonable to look at testing scores for some teachers especially if there is a constant failure rate, but one bad year should not be able to decide the future of a teacher.
ReplyDeleteThinking about going into this career field and knowing that if I have one bad testing year that I could be fired, is terrifying. There is already so much pressure put on teachers about teaching their students adding even more pressure with testing could be crippling for some. I agree with how much anxiety it also causes on the students. For me testing was "fun" in a weird way, but we all know several people that are extremely intelligent but when it comes to testing they fail because of the anxiety that they feel. So the additional anxiety just stresses students out even more.