Smart Kid/Lousy Teacher

clintl

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As kaitie, clintl, myself, Chrissy, and kuwisdelu are saying we don't think students start out that way, but the system does beat them down pretty hard, so by the time they get to me in ninth grade it can be a dismal situation.

That's why it is so important to have quality teachers.

The biggest problem with NCLB is that we've been training students to do well on multiple choice tests. A skill they will have little to no use for once they leave high school. Every test in real life is open book, free response.
 

Chrissy

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Do you really think there are students who would prefer a bad education or no education at all? Whether or not they're willing to work for it is different. But I do think most students want a good education.

For example, 93% of students agree that the more education they have, the more money they'll make. That alone, when combined with recent polls on student goals and expectations for the future (95% think they will be better off than their parents, for example), indicates they value education, if not for the reasons some would like. Although this only indicates one reason students would value education.
But is that valuing education, or is that valuing diplomas, degrees, getting into college, etc? I.e., THE SYSTEM? Maybe I'm being more esoteric than you intended, but it's worth mentioning: being able to pass a class doesn't mean you've been educated (see below):

The biggest problem with NCLB is that we've been training students to do well on multiple choice tests. A skill they will have little to no use for once they leave high school. Every test in real life is open book, free response.
QFFT!!!!! Times a million. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from college and still. didn't. know. shit. I was a brilliant test taker, though. (ETA: This was 1999. Hopefully things have improved.)
 

ArcticFox

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The biggest problem with NCLB is that we've been training students to do well on multiple choice tests. A skill they will have little to no use for once they leave high school. Every test in real life is open book, free response.

Right on!
 

missesdash

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But is that valuing education, or is that valuing diplomas, degrees, getting into college, etc? I.e., THE SYSTEM? Maybe I'm being more esoteric than you intended, but it's worth mentioning: being able to pass a class doesn't mean you've been educated (see below):

This is definitely a valid question. Unfortunately I think it would be hard to answer with a survey because most students will equate good grades and passing class with education and even knowledge. So even if you ask whether or not they want to "know things" they'll say yes because "smart people" (people who go to ivy league schools, duh) make a lot of money.

I do question, though, whether it's a problem when kids aren't interested in the topic but do want to do well in the class because of the 'system.' I don't think there's a way to teach every subject so that everyone will be interested. Especially not to older kids who already have an idea of their interests and personality. But then again I think we limit the scope by only focusing on academics for the sake of academics and not even considering outcomes for kids genuinely uninterested in school and college.

I don't know if I told this story before (that must mean I'm here too much) but I once graded papers for a teacher (I was a student aid) and the assignment asked them what they wanted out of life. A lot of them, most actually, talked about careers and families and traveling and experiencing life. And then one the kid had drawn a picture of him on his bike, riding down his block. And it said something like "I just want to stay here, where I grew up, and spend my free time riding my bike."

And it was a small town, the kind no one ever wants to stay in, and we were at least 16 at the time. But that was the first time it struck me that not having 'serious' aspirations isn't an inherently bad thing. That not everyone stays because they're stuck or afraid or lazy. Some are just perfectly content with simple things. And for people like him, there is no need for college and it should be just as valid of an option as those who decide to do the whole college thing.

So I guess along with reassessing how we teach, I think we should consider why we are teaching kids and exactly what we're supposed to be preparing them for.
 

Chrissy

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This is definitely a valid question. Unfortunately I think it would be hard to answer with a survey because most students will equate good grades and passing class with education and even knowledge. So even if you ask whether or not they want to "know things" they'll say yes because "smart people" (people who go to ivy league schools, duh) make a lot of money.

I do question, though, whether it's a problem when kids aren't interested in the topic but do want to do well in the class because of the 'system.' I don't think there's a way to teach every subject so that everyone will be interested. Especially not to older kids who already have an idea of their interests and personality. But then again I think we limit the scope by only focusing on academics for the sake of academics and not even considering outcomes for kids genuinely uninterested in school and college.

I don't know if I told this story before (that must mean I'm here too much) but I once graded papers for a teacher (I was a student aid) and the assignment asked them what they wanted out of life. A lot of them, most actually, talked about careers and families and traveling and experiencing life. And then one the kid had drawn a picture of him on his bike, riding down his block. And it said something like "I just want to stay here, where I grew up, and spend my free time riding my bike."

And it was a small town, the kind no one ever wants to stay in, and we were at least 16 at the time. But that was the first time it struck me that not having 'serious' aspirations isn't an inherently bad thing. That not everyone stays because they're stuck or afraid or lazy. Some are just perfectly content with simple things. And for people like him, there is no need for college and it should be just as valid of an option as those who decide to do the whole college thing.

So I guess along with reassessing how we teach, I think we should consider why we are teaching kids and exactly what we're supposed to be preparing them for.

This post... completes... me.

ETA: and I agree that students who want to follow the system shouldn't be somehow "less than." Not at all.

My biggest frustration with the educational system is how it must require conformity to such a large degree. By virtue of its mission, its objective. But we can improve upon it, I'm certain.
 
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ArcticFox

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missesdash - Well said! I always tell my kids that I don't teach them English because I expect them to love Shakespeare or poetry. That's wonderful if they do, but it's not my goal. English really teaches how to analyze our culture, and it helps them explore their own feelings. It exposes them to new things.

I think this helps them find themselves. I agree that there are people who don't want or need to go to college. I want them to able to know themselves well enough to make that informed choice for themselves.

Kudos!
 

Celia Cyanide

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I can't get my head round the idea that your typical bored, apathetic high school student doesn't think exactly the same way this guy does. I think most kids know what flaws their education system has by high school. They just have more of the common sense to work out that the teacher isn't the one who makes the rules.

Yeah, that's it exactly. Kids who don't do things like this are not lazy or apathetic. Most of them are probably just doing their best to learn within the system they have. They might even be interested in learning, even though the teacher is not touching their hearts.
 

benbradley

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This is from the article I linked to in that area's local news. At least this has gotten the school district's attention:
We want our students and teachers to be engaged, but the method by which the student expressed his concern could have been handled in a more appropriate way.
I don't know about "appropriate," maybe there was a theoretical point there, but this (and only because the video is "out there" now) has ended up being an EFFECTIVE way to point out that students (at least that one) weren't being engaged, and perhaps more effective than anything else he could have legally done. Writing a letter to the teacher CC'ing the principal and school district director AND printed in the school paper MIGHT have been as effective, but I wouldn't bet on it. He might have trouble getting it printed in the school paper, better to send it to the editor of the local newspaper.

But then, I might be cynical.
 

blacbird

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The biggest problem with NCLB is that we've been training students to do well on multiple choice tests. A skill they will have little to no use for once they leave high school. Every test in real life is open book, free response.

In my core-level geology classes at the local uni, I give take-home tests only. They do have multiple-choice questions, but not the kind requiring rote memorization of trivia. Plus some analytical problem exercises. Students have a week to complete them. I don't care if they get together and try to figure things out. My advice is "use all your resources", and if that includes each other, I'm fine with that. They have to remember that they might all get things wrong, as well as get things right, and both happen on these exams. I've never had any problem with working a class this way.

My experience is that students have a love-hate relationships with these exams. They like the absence of time pressure, but don't much like the difficulty of analytical thought required for them. Because they are conditioned to think of education in terms of vomiting rote-memory answers, stuff they won't remember the moment they walk out of the classroom after the exam.

I consider that testing should be a learning experience as well as an evaluatory one. I give a difficult mapping problem on one of my exams, and part of it involves figuring out a map scale, when none is provided. It's a map of the local area. There are a couple of ways to do figure it out, one rather subtle way on the map itself. But, when I go over the exam in class later, which I always do, I point out another one that never seems obvious: Go find another map that does have a scale on it. I know for certain that such a map exists at the University library, and is easy to find. You could even figure it out from an on-line city street map.

But, to my unending wonder and applause, the first time I did this, when I asked people who had figured the problem out, and in what manner, I had a woman in the back of the classroom timidly raise her hand, and tell me she had gone to the local U.S. Geological Survey office and asked somebody about it. I think she thought that might somehow be cheating, but how good was that? I actually got a student to take the time and effort to go to the local U.S.G.S. office and talk to a real live geologist, to find out something. I can't think of a better result than that.

In-class multiple-choice exams is something I was really good at in high school and college. It's a skill. I'm good at trivia, and that helps enormously. But my son, who is extraordinarily smart (IQ once measured at 140), is horrid at these kinds of exams, because his mind just doesn't process information in the way that makes these exams easy for other people.

The whole point being that doing well on multiple-choice exams, under time pressure, measures . . . how good you are at doing well on multiple choice exams, under time pressure. And damn little else of lasting value.

caw
 

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PISA - Grade Expectations: How Marks and Education Policies Shape Students’ Ambitions

Table of contents
  • Chapter 1: What do students expect to do after upper secondary school?
  • Chapter 2: What behaviours do teachers reward?
  • Chapter 3: What is the relationship between marks and educational expectations?
  • Chapter 4: Policy recommendations
  • Annex A: The educational career questionnaire
  • Annex B: Data tables on educational expectations and marks
PISA 2009 Results: Learning to Learn (Volume III)

Table of contents

  • Chapter 1: Effective learners, proficient readers
  • Chapter 2: The reading and learning habits of 15-year-olds
  • Chapter 3: Tackling gender and socio-economic inequalities in reading
  • Policy implications
  • References
  • Annex A: Technical background
  • Annex B: Tables of results
    Annex C: The development and implementation of PISA - A collaborative effort
Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the United States

US President Obama has launched one of the world’s most ambitious education reform agendas. Under the heading “Race to the Top”, this agenda encourages US states to adopt internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace: recruit, develop, reward, and retain effective teachers and principals; build data systems that measure student success; and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practices and turn around their lowest-performing schools.

But what does the “top” look like internationally? How have the countries at the top managed to achieve sustained high performance or to significantly improve their performance? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides the world’s most extensive and rigorous set of international surveys assessing the knowledge and skills of secondary school students. This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy from their reform trajectories.


Table of contents

  • Chapter 1 Introduction
  • Chapter 2 Viewing Education in the United States Through the Prism of PISA
  • Chapter 3 Ontario, Canada: Reform to Support High Achievement in a Diverse Context
  • Chapter 4 Shanghai and Hong Kong: Two Distinct Examples of Education Reform in China
  • Chapter 5 Finland: Slow and Steady Reform for Consistently High Results
  • Chapter 6 Japan: A story of Sustained Excellence
  • Chapter 7 Singapore: Rapid Improvement Followed by Strong Performance
  • Chapter 8 Brazil: Encouraging Lessons from a Large Federal System
  • Chapter 9 Germany: Once Weak International Standing Prompts Strong Nationwide Reforms for Rapid Improvement
  • Chapter 10 Vignettes on education reforms: England and Poland
  • Chapter 11 Lessons for the United States
 

Maxinquaye

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The whole point being that doing well on multiple-choice exams, under time pressure, measures . . . how good you are at doing well on multiple choice exams, under time pressure. And damn little else of lasting value.

I think the most horrible disservice we do to student is to equate knowing with intelligence. Intelligence is a measure of ability to attain knowledge; it is not a measure of how many facts a person knows. These standardised tests drive home a false point that knowledge is intelligence.

I see it again and again and again, and it annoys me to no end, when obviously smart and bright kids are dismissed as stupid because they don't know some factoid that is probably wrong anyway. I'd rather have a kid that's curious and unknowledgeable who is fearless in the pursuit of understanding than a kid who rabbles factoids at me and refuse to understand the contexts of those facts.

Standardised tests standardises this erroneous emphasis on what is already known, instead of equipping the kids with the tools and abilities to enter a field they know nothing about and efficiently aquire knowledge through their own confident and able analysis.

That's what intelligence is about. That's what these stupid standardised tests penalises. That's why countries that rely on standardised tests fall behind.
 

Ambrosia

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Are you serious?
Semi-serious. History in and of itself is not boring. But put a teacher in front of a classroom who doesn't engage the students and it is dry as dust and just as interesting. I had teachers like that, who didn't engage and presented only the dry facts of history--dates and names and events without any rhyme or reason. Just memorization. Just pass this test. There is nothing good that comes out of that type of teaching. It wasn't until I got out of school that I found out I had an interest in history. It very much is in the presentation.
 

kaitie

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I teach language classes, so for me memorization actually is a big thing. That being said, I think it's more important to make sure students have a good understanding of the concepts and language patterns and how and when to use them. I very rarely (I can't think of an exception?) think of a class I've used multiple choice.

The final exam I made yesterday is almost entirely short answer, actually.
 

Celia Cyanide

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Semi-serious. History in and of itself is not boring. But put a teacher in front of a classroom who doesn't engage the students and it is dry as dust and just as interesting.

I agree. History isn't really boring, but to kids who aren't really enjoying school, it is. The same could be true of any subject, but my art teacher sucked, too, and I still liked art class.
 

AncientEagle

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Semi-serious. History in and of itself is not boring. But put a teacher in front of a classroom who doesn't engage the students and it is dry as dust and just as interesting. I had teachers like that, who didn't engage and presented only the dry facts of history--dates and names and events without any rhyme or reason. Just memorization. Just pass this test. There is nothing good that comes out of that type of teaching. It wasn't until I got out of school that I found out I had an interest in history. It very much is in the presentation.
Good points. I guess I was jolted by your earlier comment because I really enjoy history. But now that I think about it, my love for it probably survived classroom experience as much as it was enriched by it, and I really came to really like it mostly on my own, after college. Still, some of my teachers did a pretty good job of putting basic history stuff across to me.
 

kuwisdelu

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I agree. History isn't really boring, but to kids who aren't really enjoying school, it is. The same could be true of any subject, but my art teacher sucked, too, and I still liked art class.

Good points. I guess I was jolted by your earlier comment because I really enjoy history. But now that I think about it, my love for it probably survived classroom experience as much as it was enriched by it, and I really came to really like it mostly on my own, after college. Still, some of my teachers did a pretty good job of putting basic history stuff across to me.

I find history boring. It's just not very interesting to me.

But in middle school I had a great history teacher. His class was great, it was interesting, and I learned a lot.

I still find history boring, and I never learned much in any other history class after that, because the teachers couldn't make it interesting like that one teacher could.

Pretty much all the history I know is still from his class in middle school.