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AngryDem001

(684 posts)
Fri Apr 18, 2014, 11:57 PM Apr 2014

Are there any teachers here?

Current or former?

I was curious about how NCLB and standardized testing has affected the way students are taught. I have heard that some states force teachers to "teach to the test" as well as use teaching methods that are state-approved. I am curious if this has killed creativity in the classroom.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Has testing taken the fun out of teaching? From Reddit:

Are there stories similar to this man's experience?

8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
 

NYC_SKP

(68,644 posts)
1. Raises hand.
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 12:02 AM
Apr 2014

Former classroom teacher here. I have the perspective of having worn many hats in many fields, but bar none, the educational institution is the most fucked up.

Warning: no two districts are alike, that person's experience is representative of many, but not all, teachers' experiences.

AngryDem001

(684 posts)
4. I think repukes are AFRAID of creativity and imagination.
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 12:55 AM
Apr 2014

A well-educated and imaginative person is a threat to their myopic world-view.

GOPee

(58 posts)
5. I still teach, but Private now.
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 01:04 AM
Apr 2014

I almost left teaching, not because of the testing, but the total absence of parental involvement. I can and have taught to the test, but I wasn't held to any standard as long as my kids were bright enough to pass at a high enough level to beat the requirements.

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
7. Quit when I saw the writing on the wall. Love teaching, had wonderful classes, that sounds like
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 01:27 AM
Apr 2014

a very creative teacher in the OP. No surprise s/he quit, all the best teachers I know, changed careers.

Friends who stayed in and experienced Bush's Corporate Training Program for Children, felt they could no longer 'educate' their students, the pressure of the constant testing and the threats that if they didn't succeed funding would be cut, ending their enthusiasm and the children's.

They want to drive teachers out so they can hire less qualified people for their Private Charter Schools, funded by Public School money.

We are so behind the rest of the world in so many areas. That is all you have to look at, where the US ranks in education as compared to other first world nations.

ancianita

(35,812 posts)
8. Former teacher, 34 yr Resisted all attendant political, bureaucratic bullshit of NCLB at our school.
Sat Apr 19, 2014, 01:03 PM
Apr 2014

I fought it, along with my colleagues, as both an infringement upon our college preparation, expertise -- far superior to those who made up this test (even as they lied and said it was developed by teachers) and our knowledge of what college achievement prep really is. The tests steeled my resolve to teach as if those fucking interruptions never existed. I utterly refused to even allow my students to think that it was a valid, reliable measure of their achievement in any way whatsoever, and I thoroughly explained why. Our English department's classes all were all the better off for it.

I told my students that there's a reason NCLB doesn't apply to private schools. Remembering those ten years in broad brush terms, I told them that the new testing was part of class war, and that white kids in public schools were getting the shaft along with them. I looked at the tests themselves and made sure my kids knew all the content and all the stupid ways that some info was foregrounded over other info in whatever topic content existed. I gave them every test taking strategy that expert test takers knew, and most of them did just fine.

But this treadmill of 'innovation and reform' has got to go. Teachers and the publics they serve are the only shot we have of ending this politicizing and privatizing of a great public institution of nation building.

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