Public schools, which are free and open to all children in the United States, are meant to serve neighborhoods, states, and ultimately, the entire nation, as they are designed to educate the future of our society to be informed, productive contributors. Throughout the country, the success and failure of this goal of public education are placed on the teachers. With so much pressure and expectation on teachers, it begs the question as to their ability to truly influence the end goal of developing informed, productive members of society.
In Au’s (2009) article “Steerage at a Distance,” he discusses many types of control that limit a teacher’s free reign in the classroom. Two of those are control of content and control of form. With legislation now requiring public schools to test the “essential” subjects—math and reading—teachers cannot present all subjects with equal resources, especially if the school is struggling in its standardized test scores. This creates content control, forcing the teacher to devote more resources to the faltering, tested subjects. Non-tested subjects, such as history, science, and music, will simply be brushed under the rug if scores on math and reading are not acceptable. This implies that these nonessential subjects do not promote our end goal of developing informed, productive members of society. Is this true? Do we really not value science? Is a musician not a productive, beneficial member of society?
Aside from content control, Au (2009) also addresses control of form within the classroom. With standardized tests, particularly in math, covering a range of topics, teachers are often forced to teach lessons in a fragmented way in order to relay all of the pertinent information before the tests. The teacher can rarely draw connections because time typically does not allow for this, as it will not be explicitly tested. In an age of Google and a portable computer in nearly every person’s pocket, simply fact-based knowledge lacks value and can be found in just a matter of seconds. Where Google falls behind and the human mind can prosper is in understanding the relationships between the facts, theories, and principles. Teachers, however, are still bound by the tests and are not free to teach in such a manner in United States’ public schools. If math and reading are the only subjects to be tested, maybe we should change our American goal of education to reflect what is being emphasized. Do we really want to be a nation of mathematicians and literary critics?
Comments
10 responses to “Valuable contributors to society or mathematicians and literary critics?”
Hannah-
I think this was an excellent post summarizing the constrain and control standardized testing puts on teachers. I specifically liked your point about what content is necessary to teach in our new age of technology with tools like Google at our fingertips. I, like you, think that the content taught in schools may need to be reevaluated. What is the sense in having students memorizing countless facts that they could just as easily retrieve through a quick search? Specially since a quick Google search is most likely what they students will use to come up with quick facts in the future.
When I would get frustrated having to learn certain subjects in school that I felt I would never use, my mom used to always tell me that I was just teaching my brain to think in new ways. Looking back, I somewhat agree with her. Yes, I think that schools should focus on more analysis, critical thinking, and innovation of material. However, I wonder if the next generation would lose a part of their mental capacity if they never engaged in memorizing material or solving equations. Where can we draw the line? What should teachers and standardized tests be focusing on?
McKenzie,
I do agree with what your mom said of you training your brain to think. While fact memorization for the simple purpose of standardized testing seems useless, I do find value in being able to remember a list of things that I need to know for later. I find that this ability helps me primarily in oral conversations whereas in most other cases I am able to write down what I need to remember and simply look at it when I need it.
In a similar manner, we have become a nation of multi-taskers; however, this is often done ineffectively. For example, in a business meeting many participants are on their phones or computers to find the information they need. Despite people’s claims otherwise, I do not believe one can be fully listening to the conversation and searching their computers; one will not receive adequate attention. Nevertheless, I do believe one could be searching their brain for facts and listening effectively. Rote memorization should not be entirely eliminated from education, but I do not find it as a good measure of school performance.
I really enjoyed your comment about how Google is literally at our fingertips day to day with our advanced technology and our iphones always in our hand, which allows us to gather the facts we need within seconds. We like to think as a society that we are creating innovated individuals in our school systems, but we simply are not with all of these standards set in place. You raise really good points about how these standards set do not allow a teacher to be creative, but only teach a class lesson based on a plan set forth by someone else in order to achieve the scores that the school needs.
I find it very important as a society that we creative individuals who can think outside of the box, instead of all these robots who can do a math problem the same way or master how to set up a prompt to get a perfect reading score. Sadly, that is what reform seems to be doing to our education system. When will it stop and how do these individuals that are in charge of these reform efforts not see how they are affecting students as a whole?
Hannah,
I completely agree that we need to revaluate what our priorities are when it comes to education. But, I don’t even think we’re preparing our kids to be mathematicians or literary critics. The coarse level of understanding that we are providing our kids in math and reading only really prepare them for the tests. Instead of mathematicians and literary critics, we’re getting robots that know how to do a specific type of test problem, but likely won’t be able to critically think about the ideas. With math, kids aren’t learning how the concepts connect to each other, but are instead learning tricks to be able to do the problem faster.
Specifically for writing, tests actually harm the development of this skill. Because students have to conform to a very specific standard (that is only really known if you spend money on a prep course), they’re not able to experiment or be creative with answering the prompt.
I agree with the idea that there is value in diversified ways of thinking that reach beyond the scope of math and reading. A lot of subjects are definitely valued less than those which are tested and those which move you to the next level whether that be the next grade or from high school to college. However, I’m going to make a somewhat controversial statement just to play devil’s advocate (not necessarily what I think). It’s hard to argue with the fact that the fundamentals behind many careers lie in math and/or reading. Perhaps it is good to really focus on improving in those areas and let that serve as the foundation for exploring other fields of interest. By placing emphasis on math and reading, schools provide a basis from which students can branch out and explore in college and beyond. It’s definitely good for students to learn about science, music, etc. but perhaps they can be covered in a way that places less significance on them and is driven more by the student’s interest in the topic.
I think you point out some really prominent issues with the overuse of standardized testing. When I was in high school, made English teacher made a point similar to yours about Google. He noted that our methods of educating were archaic, and that we were hammering facts into students when in reality, they had the history of human knowledge literally sitting in their pocket. I think this example of not incorporating technology into education is a prime example of how technology moves too quickly for our culture to catch up. You noted how standardized testing prevents teachers from drawing connections between topics and teaching critical thinking skills. I agree, and I believe that modern education ought to take into account that nowadays, we can find the answer to any fact in about 15 seconds. Taking this into account, public schools should put even more emphasis on what Google doesn’t teach: connections and analytic thinking, instead of drilling students with facts that they can easily find the answer to.
I agree with the original post that math and reading are certainly not the only subjects that create valuable citizens. However, I also agree with Bryson’s “devil’s advocate” statement that math and reading are the basis of many other topics. Clearly, you can’t do a Google search about, say, history, if you can’t read. And it’s difficult to fully understand many aspects of science without a strong background in (at least basic) math. Based on my own personal experiences (and some principles I learned in high school psychology class), I believe that the best way to learn both the basics and the ability to critically think is to be fully engaged in the lesson. I frequently find that classes that I hold a previous interest in, that can be applied to my life, or that have an engaging and likable teacher are the ones that I most enjoy, try hardest in, and learn the most. As we have discussed in class, teaching to the test creates a system of uninteresting, fragmented lessons consisting of rote memorization. This disengages both the students and the teachers, and allows no room for critical thinking or interpretation. Teaching in a way that caters to the students’ interests, while still emphasizing the fundamentals, seems like the most effective way for students to learn–similar to the way many classes are taught here at Bucknell.
As most of our classmates before me have stated, I definitely agree with you in that our education goals may need to be reevaluated. The stress and importance that is put on standardized testing is indeed creating generations of children and young adults who only see value in facts, memorization, equations, and how to get A’s. However I agree that students who are artistic, creative, and think outside of the box are just as important to our society. Our society today values writers such as Shakespeare and artists such as Pablo Picasso yet our education system today is not reflecting what our society values as a whole. Or maybe it is reflecting what our society will value in the future?
I hope that we are not creating a world of solely mathematicians and literary critics as you put it, yet with the growing importance of standardized testing and having successful schools, it seems as if we are on this path. Tests cannot measure innovation or entrepreneurship and I think these qualities are definitely to be valued in our society. We want a society of individuals and different thinkers, and for this to remain, I think the focus in education in our schools definitely needs to change.
This is an interesting question and one that I don’t think has a solid one answer. I think if it were that easy of an answer we would have figured out already. I think what we value in education in learning greatly reflects what we value in society. Thus is standardized tests at the time value numerical data of math and writing, then we as a society expect that people be literate and can apply basic math skills. This is in contrary to the ideas of art and critical thinking. I think if we valued those as a society we would value more freedom and room for interoperation, but I don’t think that is what our society wants.
I don’t think that math and reading are the only valuable subjects taught in school but I completely agree that there is a large emphasis on this subjects when it comes to standardized testing. I can recall growing up and Physics or Geology were of no importance at all. I think we are at a very exciting time in the development of our educational system because it is adapting to this era of high technology, and sometimes the era of high technology always seeks to quantify and measure things. I think once we learn how to better regulate and use technology as a way to advantage or educational we will see the difference of just adapting education to technology (internet, wi-fi, etc.)