Thursday, September 19, 2013
Tests, Tests, Tests
Throughout our class discussions recently, I have been thinking a lot about the issue of testing. I was poorly educated on the debates surrounding this issue as a student growing up because I came from a generally small. wealthy town in which all the students achieved excellent test scores without a question. It was expected that we would all pass our tests on the first try, as it was expected that we would all graduated and the question was WHERE are you going to college rather than ARE you going to college upon graduation. However, I never took the time to consider our areas surrounding my school district, including the district in which my dad teaches. My dad is one of the most intelligent people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Sometimes I believe he knows more than the history books do about history. He has been teaching for over 30 years and loves it. However, no matter how smart and passionate of a man my dad is, his students test results remain low. When I questioned him about this he explained that over 70% of his students are Somalian, this does no bother my dad but it does alter his teaching styles. Rather than teaching history lessons, he is forced to teach these students basic english for half the class just so they understand what he is saying. After he gets over this obstacle, their anxiety towards taking hours of tests in a second language to them, becomes another issue. The stress over tests causes poor performance in the classroom before the testing even begins. I think it's ridiculous that students should feel pressure all year knowing they will be measured against other students and it is no wonder the test results are negative. This also has nothing to do with the kind of teacher my dad is. Overall it's a frustrating concept that has many flaws in my opinion. http://brainconnection.positscience.com/tests-stress-problems-for-students/
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Same thing happened in the high school that I graduated from. I was from a small public school, that was given MANY state grants. Like you said passing was a thing you did on the first attempt and everyone graduated and then went off to college. It just makes you realize how lucky you had it at your own school compared to some that are really close to the school you graduated from. I know I feel I was privileged to come from such a great school and wish had that everyone could further their education.
ReplyDeleteKellie,
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome first of all that your dad has been teaching for that long and loves it! My dad is a teacher as well at a poor school district and they have many of the same struggles, which is getting their students to pass. I feel for those students that has to be hard. Test are talked about all the time in school and stressed so much on how important they are. That is a lot of pressure put on one child to know that this test determines so much. This is especially stressful for students that are learning English as their second language and haven't mastered it all yet. It a shame to see to that people look down on the teachers when the teacher is probably doing everything in their power to help the students but the situation they are put in is hard. I think people need to take a step back sometimes and look at the situation and all the obstacles the students are going through before they decided to judge a student or teacher based off of test scores.