What's Missing......
I was walking tonight, hand in hand with the lovely Mrs. Polski3, and thinking. I was thinking about my lesson plans this week. And recalling what I used to teach.
As you teachers out there know, NCLB with its testing mandates, has led those of us in the classroom to more rigid, less flexible mode of teaching. Standards must be taught. We are told to learn and chant the mantra, "DDDDOOOOOMMMMM IF it is not in the standards, Don't teach it" OOOOHHHHMMMM." Meet with your departments, go over the standards. Here is a standards guide with each standard rated by importance on the State Test. The standards rated A are most important. Du Wilst gecover dieses Standards!!!!! B rated standards ist nichts so important. If it is a C rating, forget it. Don't teach that standard.
There is no real rhyme or reason for some standards being rated A or B or C.....hey, if it is in the standard, shouldn't it be taught? For example, in looking at the ratings in Grade 7 World History, we find rated A is a bit about geography of northern Africa. A lower rating goes for the geography of Europe. Forget the geography of China. Or the Americas.
That aside, there is so much more missing.....book reports, country reports, Illustrated Geography Vocabulary Dictionaries, current events activities, building models, playing games, in class, group projects, and anything related to doing research in the library.....It seems that there was so much more that I used to do with my students prior to the push for covering all the "A and B" rated standards. I guess it means survey, not teaching anything in depth. Like so much of society and those things that fleeting impact our students lives, be shallow. Rush through the standards, be sure to cover all the A and B rated standards. Because those must be the ones the kids will be tested on. Fun? We are in school to learn the A and B rated standards, not to have F U N !!!!
I know this is kind of a ramble. I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say. I hope you can comment. OH, other than such depressing thought, it was nice to walk with my wife, hold hands and talk about stuff.
Thanks for reading my blog !
And it has taken
As you teachers out there know, NCLB with its testing mandates, has led those of us in the classroom to more rigid, less flexible mode of teaching. Standards must be taught. We are told to learn and chant the mantra, "DDDDOOOOOMMMMM IF it is not in the standards, Don't teach it" OOOOHHHHMMMM." Meet with your departments, go over the standards. Here is a standards guide with each standard rated by importance on the State Test. The standards rated A are most important. Du Wilst gecover dieses Standards!!!!! B rated standards ist nichts so important. If it is a C rating, forget it. Don't teach that standard.
There is no real rhyme or reason for some standards being rated A or B or C.....hey, if it is in the standard, shouldn't it be taught? For example, in looking at the ratings in Grade 7 World History, we find rated A is a bit about geography of northern Africa. A lower rating goes for the geography of Europe. Forget the geography of China. Or the Americas.
That aside, there is so much more missing.....book reports, country reports, Illustrated Geography Vocabulary Dictionaries, current events activities, building models, playing games, in class, group projects, and anything related to doing research in the library.....It seems that there was so much more that I used to do with my students prior to the push for covering all the "A and B" rated standards. I guess it means survey, not teaching anything in depth. Like so much of society and those things that fleeting impact our students lives, be shallow. Rush through the standards, be sure to cover all the A and B rated standards. Because those must be the ones the kids will be tested on. Fun? We are in school to learn the A and B rated standards, not to have F U N !!!!
I know this is kind of a ramble. I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say. I hope you can comment. OH, other than such depressing thought, it was nice to walk with my wife, hold hands and talk about stuff.
Thanks for reading my blog !
And it has taken
posted by Dan Edwards | 8:39 PM
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