What about the standardized test leads to completely discarding the constructivist model?
It's not so much the testing itself (although the raw volume of testing is a whole other topic...as I noted, I was administering something like 9 tests a year just in English class). Test-centric perceptions of education are really just the newest hurtle to producing change. Between media misreadings, pundit hyperbole, and political point scoring, America's been locked into a "back to basics" feedback loop since before the Titanic sank. Just a few examples thereof:
1909. The Atlantic Monthly publishes Plain Faces About Public Education. Essentially, it's complaint is that rote "instruction has been displaced by "every fad and fancy" imaginable.
As a result, a public groundswell push to return to "the basics" in our schools.
1938. Walter Lippman declares that "Teachers...conspire against pupils in their efforts to learn," by using fanciful approaches and experimental ideas.
As a result, public insistence in a return to "the basics."
1943. A New York Times article claims: "Students...have virtually no knowledge of elementary aspects of American history," because teachers are getting away from the traditional approaches "that we know work."
As a result, public outcry and a push to "the basics."
1950 brings Atlantic Monthly back. Quackery in the Public Schools: parents may find "your child cannot read half as well as you could at that age...," and should blame the fantastical ideals of today's teachers.
The result: a push to return to "the basics."
1955. The infamous Why Johnny Can't Read: "We have decided to forget that we write with letters, and instead learn to read English as if it were Chinese."
A push to bring our schools back to "the basics."
1961, Reader's Digest: "Teachers have been brainwashed with slogans like...teach the child, not the subject."
As a result: we push for a return to "the basics."
And so on. --
See, we can't return to the basics because we never left them. We never had the chance to. Our educational model predates almost everything we know about the brain's development, about cognitive psychology, and about adolescence....it's entire history can be summarized thus: "Approach #1 isn't working well enough." "Really? Well, what these kids need is more of approach #1."
I don't have an issue with standardized testing...I even like it...as long as it is a component of evaluation and not our primary determiner of school success. You and I have talked before about some of the issues inherent to the tests themselves, but I don't think those are red light issues so long as we have a multiple-input format of school evaluation. A single yearly test can be a valuable tool for determining some elements of school success. But all on its own, without incorporating other indicators or studies, it's just turned out to be our newest reason for preventing actual change.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we DO NEED a barometer on what our kids are learning at school. It can't turn into a free for all with the kids learning what they want, or the teachers pushing instruction in the areas that they feel are most important.
And I don't know that I've said anything to suggest that I'm opposed to that. I don't see why my example scenario above...and it is just a single offhand example of one possible way these learning theories could be incorporated...couldn't be coupled with a set of national standards which allow for uniformity and assessment.
There are new approaches being used in schools going back at least 40 years. The elementary school I went to was constantly trying out new concepts and being used for student research. I know for a fact I'm a lead lab rat in at least one and I'm pretty sure two PhDs regarding how kids learn math, and especially how gifted kids learn and process math. My sister was taught to read and write some new wave kind of way that left her having to relearn how to read in high school.
This may fall under more of your "back to basics" but new methodologies have been tried. Shifting the paradigm as you want will be a 20 year project.
There are new approaches being used in schools going back at least 40 years. The elementary school I went to was constantly trying out new concepts and being used for student research. I know for a fact I'm a lead lab rat in at least one and I'm pretty sure two PhDs regarding how kids learn math, and especially how gifted kids learn and process math. My sister was taught to read and write some new wave kind of way that left her having to relearn how to read in high school.
There are definitely a lot of "new" approaches that turkey fart their way through the known. Especially as concerns math, literacy, and vocabulary, a lot of bullshit has been sold to schools as being a big new idea without actually being any of those three words. I haven't seen Jaws in twenty years, but I'm pretty sure there's a scene in there where one character is making fun of another for living on an island when he's scared of the sea. He responds with something like "It's only an island if you look at it from the water." When all you're working on is the island, because you're scared of the water, you can very easily get sold useless ideas because you have so little perspective. But there's a big world out there...
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Shifting the paradigm as you want will be a 20 year project.
Oh, it would. I don't think it will even happen in my lifetime...at least, I'm not holding my breath. Our educational system will continue to be parceled out into superficial "fixes" that accomplish little or less, the press will continue to cry out, politicians will keep on scoring lazy points talking about it, and "approach #1 isn't working! More of approach #1!" will continue happening.
I have come to the conclusion that the teachers want a raise so they can afford healthier alternatives and reduce their obesity rates. Seriously, trying to find a skinny person in a picture of Chicago public school teachers is more entertaining than a Where's Waldo book.
Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, and fat.
Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, and fat. The only one that might not be fat is hidden behind a sign.
Fat, bellied, and fat.
Chubby and fat.
Fat, flabby, fat, fat, fat and fat.
Seriously, is this a picture of a fat peoples convention or a teachers strike?
And I have concluded that this is the Queen Fat Teacher draped in her mumu goodness.
I have many students who simply don't care about their work. They give me mediocre work when I know they can do better. Many purposely don't pay attention to lessons (believe me...I went the referral route, etc...this is regarding students I KNOW can do better).
McParadigm wrote:
Everything I learn, I learn because I have some say in the matter.
I learn it because I feel some ownership, some sense of genuine accomplishment for having learned it. I learn it because my brain enters into a state of disequilibrium, whereupon what it desires to understand and what it currently understands ceases to match up.
I don't learn well when someone at the front of the room tells me it's important, or that some note on some piece of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere will say that I earned a 'D,' or because if I do a good job, like a good dog, I'll get a treat.
Follow-up Responder wrote:
Here is another thing you can do that REALLY works. I see you teach 5th and so do I. Each year I get my students near the end of the year to know and learn an incredible amount of information and terms centered around the themes of the Civil War and Underground Railroad/Harriet Tubman. Anyone who gets an "A" or a "B" gets to participate in the civil war re-enactment along with someone who is Abraham Lincoln who frees the southern slaves. An all out water balloon fight is done which takes 7 minutes (continues horrifically)
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:54 am Posts: 7189 Location: CA
I suppose that follows my experience. When I had bad teachers, I couldn't care less. When I had decent to good teachers, I was generally engaged, and was at least inspired not to get a poor grade. I thought I saw a headline about how if we got rid of our worst 10% of teachers, we could reasonably expect test results to increase substantially. But of course unions have nothing to do with why those 10% are still employed in this particular field.
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