Click, scroll, click. These are the sounds that fill a quiet classroom as students complete state assessments. We are all familiar with the state assessments and how stressful they can be as teachers struggle to help the building make AYP. It is important to help prepare students for these tests, because they will suffer from failing scores later on in their schooling career.
But is there a time when too much emphasis has been placed on the state tests? What if students pass the assessments? Does that mean that students are ready for the next level? What is being left out of students’ educations to ensure that they pass those ever important state assessments? These are just some thoughts I have considered over the last few weeks as state assessments have begun in my building.
Last week we read Burke’s article “Teaching English in a ‘Flat’ World”, and I felt that some valid points were made. In the article, Burke pushes for teachers to move beyond tradition. This does not mean he wants to abandon tradition, rather he is asking teachers to include what is traditional but to not limit themselves to just that.
What does this look like? Well, Burke has many ideas on what to do. I will sum it up with this statement. As teachers we must look beyond the end of the year or then next year. We must take into consideration the future years of our students. Even if they do not plan on going to college, there are skills that our students need to be successful in any career. As teachers it can be hard to look beyond the year we are teaching. After all, our goals are set (either by us or our schools) to help move students forward in the next year.
What if Shakespeare, Cummings, and Wadsworth are not state assessed poets? Does that mean one should leave them out, even if introducing eighth grade students to these poets will serve them better in the future? My CT felt that this information along with several other pieces of my poetry unit were crucial to introduce our students to. It was my CT’s theory that it was better to prepare our students for their long term futures than just their short term futures.
This may seem like some to be an obvious conclusion to come to. Burke’s article suggests that this is not always the case. Having an introduction to classical and modern poets will help my students in the future. Those students with even a small background knowledge of Shakespeare are more likely to be successful in reading his works later.
Of course, this is not exactly what Burke was discussing. But he was trying to point teachers in a direction that takes them away from just teaching to THE test. I know that I am not alone in this belief, but I also know that there are teachers on the other side of the fence. Some of them wonder why they should bother to teach material that is not on the test. It makes sense, it really does. But let me ask you this, does the state assessment (the way it is now) test whether students are “collaborators and orchestrators, synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, adapters, green people, personalizers, and localizers” as Burke discusses? The simple answer is no. The state assessment cannot test how students work together through multiple choice tests, but I think we would all agree that working well with others is a skill required in all professions.
How do you find a balance between state assessments, content knowledge, and life skills? How do we as teachers make sure students have a foundation, walls, and a roof for the future? I think it is by following Jim Burke’s advice and moving beyond tradition. Maybe some of you have other ideas to add to this or have comments on my ideas.
The state assessments currently do very little of what they are designed to do. They provide little actual assessment of a students ability beyond their ability to color in bubbles and take multiple choice tests on subjects they have often been drilled on before hand for the specific purpose of passing. They are not accurate reflections of a student's content knowledge or a school's teaching ability. They do not test useful skill sets or their knowledge in a varied enough series of subjects. The state assessments are more of a burden than anything else and I feel that teaching for the long term is much more important. It's my personal belief that until teachers stop complaining quietly to ourselves and actually stand up and let the government know that the current testing style and format is a detriment and not an asset, then we are going to be stuck laboring under them forever.
ReplyDeleteKatie,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you and what Burke says in the article you refer to: it is crucial for our students' success to move beyond traditional instruction. After all, we're TEACHERS! We have to stay relevant, we have to change with the times. If we fail to do so, we fail in the classroom, and our students suffer the consequences.
Finding a balance between teaching to "the test," as it were, and teaching actual life skills and content knowledge is difficult at best, but it is what we've signed up for in by participating in this vocation. I believe that if we move beyond traditional teaching methods, we will begin to find that balance.
I would also like to use my comment to pose a question pertaining to what Cameron has said: How can teachers "stand up and let the government know that the current testing style... is not an asset?" How is something like that done in a constructive manner that is not already being attempted? I agree, the assessments are frustrating, but they become even more difficult to deal with if you view them in a negative light. I think that we should look at the state assessments as something to be dealt with, tweaked, and changed, not as a weight or "a detriment... we are going to be stuck laboring under" for the rest of our careers.
In short, I think that it is common knowledge that the state assessments should be changed. The current style and format of testing does not work to the students' advantage. How can we, as future educators, affect this change? What do we need to do to see these changes come about? What would such change look like? How would change be implemented?
And perhaps the most important question of all: how can we convey these proposals to the government without sounding like a bunch of complaining ninnies?