[edi581] NYS eight exam
- From: "diana romeo" <dromeo@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: edi581@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:43:46 -0500
Tonette wrote:
"I am interested in some unique ways that teachers are preparing for the
eigth grade state exam. Has anybody started reviewing already through
spiraling, if so how?"
Tonette and classmates,
It is barely November and we are talking about "preparing for the state
exam" and "reviewing"??? I find this somewhat disquieting, but not at all
surprising. "Teaching to the exam" is no longer a cliche. It has become endemic
to New York State education. I am not faulting Tonette. What she is describing
has become universal, and I have every reason to believe she is a good teacher.
A few years back, a teacher's job was perceived to be imparting good
education to his or her students in a more liberal application of the term, and
preparing them to go out into the world.
The teacher was allowed to use his or her creativity to make the curriculum
as interesting as possible to the students. This often included classroom
discussions that were not strictly within the narrow paramaters of the State
curriculum, but were subject related and interesting to the students and made
them want to learn.
The system was good, but it was not perfect. Even its staunchest defenders
admitted it was in need of repair, and people were working very hard to improve
it and make it better.
However, this was not good enough for the omniscient leaders in Albany.
They decided there needed to be a radical change and it needed to be immediate.
They determined what the teachers needed was a NEW RELIGION, and decided to
give them one.
So, they invented a God, and they called the God the "state test", and
everything that went on in the classroom had to serve at the altar of the new
God. It did not matter if it stimulated the children or gave them meaning or
made them want to learn. If it did not please the God of the State Test, it was
anathama. "Meaningful" discussions that did not relate directly to the State
test? Nonsense!
Teachers were evaluated not on how well they knew their subject or how
well they could stimulate young minds and instill the love of learning in them,
but strictly on how well they pleased the new God, i.e. prepared them for the
State test.
So, schools began to serve the new God from the first week in September.
All energy was now directed toward preparing for the state test (God) from the
first day of class. Such ideals as enrichment , meaning and relevance became
inane vestiges of a former time. All learning and all energy was directed
toward the altar.
I wonder how historians will evaluate the promulgators of this system some
time in the future, when this god will inevitably lie on the scrap heap of all
false idols?
At my cynical worst,
Carl
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