When thinking of the conversations that have been taking place for years, I often wonder why progress is too slow in our education system. Reading through my archived articles in the New York Times, I came across an example of what is slowing the progress. Margaret Spellings, our nations secretary of education is blinded by the hype of "Every Child Pushed Along Act".
The first river that needs to be forged is one of complete and ultimate reform. This "Act" is doing what it is intended to do. The children in our education system that need the most help get pushed along to make our National Report Card appear great. I see this happening every day. We can't continue to lie about the success of our education system. The current protocol is not working.
Our task at hand for educators is to TEACH children. We need to find anything and everything that will motivate these individuals to learn how to learn. Right now, we are teaching children to memorize. We are teaching children that the grades they get, reflect what type of person they are. We teach them that the most important reason they are in school is to pass a test in the Spring. We push them along, even if they do not understand the information we are teaching. The results are accumulative. The students are learning how to be helpless. We make decisions for the students, because we don't trust them to make important decisions on their own.
This effects the students that are the most vulnerable in schools. Until the people that understand the task at hand have positions of power, this will continue.
I am not claiming to know the ultimate solution. I am claiming to be able to recognize the fact that their needs to be a solution, and fast.
The list of students that currently have ADD or some other type of Attention disorder is growing at a staggering rate. Many times I wonder if this problem would still exist if we as teachers could find ways to keep their attention. I know the answer is not constant memorization, boring worksheets, time fillers, and days spent studying for a test to beef up our nations report card.
The first river that needs to be forged is one of complete and ultimate reform. This "Act" is doing what it is intended to do. The children in our education system that need the most help get pushed along to make our National Report Card appear great. I see this happening every day. We can't continue to lie about the success of our education system. The current protocol is not working.
Our task at hand for educators is to TEACH children. We need to find anything and everything that will motivate these individuals to learn how to learn. Right now, we are teaching children to memorize. We are teaching children that the grades they get, reflect what type of person they are. We teach them that the most important reason they are in school is to pass a test in the Spring. We push them along, even if they do not understand the information we are teaching. The results are accumulative. The students are learning how to be helpless. We make decisions for the students, because we don't trust them to make important decisions on their own.
This effects the students that are the most vulnerable in schools. Until the people that understand the task at hand have positions of power, this will continue.
I am not claiming to know the ultimate solution. I am claiming to be able to recognize the fact that their needs to be a solution, and fast.
The list of students that currently have ADD or some other type of Attention disorder is growing at a staggering rate. Many times I wonder if this problem would still exist if we as teachers could find ways to keep their attention. I know the answer is not constant memorization, boring worksheets, time fillers, and days spent studying for a test to beef up our nations report card.
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