Quote:
Originally Posted by nikki1920
I do think that No Child Left Behind has completely screwed up education--there is WAY too much emphasis on testing and scores and not enough on long term retention.
I am scared for this generation. How you leave high school without knowing how to write a term paper is beyond me, but I had to write a 20 page final in 11th grade. I took 3 AP classes my senior year. These kids don't know how to use an encyclopedia, how to look up books at the library, etc. It scares me. Yes, computers are EVERYWHERE, but you still need to know what to do when the computers go down.
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Exactly!! I am astonished to see how much my mom struggles (she's an 8th grade language arts teacher) to teach her kids something that DOESN'T revolve around testing. She always telling me how her curriculum has to focus on the TAKS tests. In 8th grade they don't take the writing TAKS, they take the reading. So to make sure her kids pass the TAKS she has to focus her curriculum on making sure the kids know what to do on the reading, and so their writing skills suffer!
My mom says that the main worry in the schools is to just teach what the kids will be tested on...why? Because the teachers just want to be able to keep their jobs.
I was SHOCKED to see my 8th grade cousin (who is very bright) plagerize her science fair report. When I questioned her about it she said that:
1. she didn't plagerize b/c she changed a couple words around
2. her teacher never taught them how to make sure NOT to plagerize
3. her teacher doesn't even care.
I know that I got in major trouble in 4th grade for plagerizing, and to see that it isn't taken seriously at this stage is appalling. What is she going to do when she goes to HS and college?
I know that soemtimes testing can be good, but not everyone (like me) do well on standardized testing. I think we should just go back to the days when teachers were able to TEACH!
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