Back to School
Sometimes I wonder if I will grow less able to relate to other adults who moved beyond the school cycle to a year round occupation. Other than the first five years of my life and a couple of years as a missionary, I've started a new school year every fall (I did take classes straight through the summer a couple of times, but the university atmosphere during the summer is quite different from the regular school year).So far this year is looking to be about 1000 times easier in the classroom discipline department. I'm teaching mostly chemistry and one section of ap physics, both for the first time. It was quite a battle to get my ap class and overall I'm very excited about it, but I do have some repressed sentiments of betraying my educational philosophy.
Overall I view much of what we do in education as a waste of time. If we're going to forget most of what we cram in our brains anyway, why not subjugate content to the development of lasting skills (logical, analytical, thinking). Not that we don't need to teach certain content, but most of the time the need to "cover the curriculum" takes precedence over the need to actually learn. I think a different approach is even more critical in the global economy where we hear that most people will change careers several times, that the future jobs of many current students don't yet exist, etc.
Back to my ap class. Teaching to the test is inherent in the ap program. So while I'm loving having a group of bright, respectful students who plan for their futures, I'm wondering if I'll be sick of a year of cramming by the time the test comes around. I'm hoping that the consolation for my perfidy is that my students gain a valuable experience through accomplishing a difficult task...or at least save a little money on college tuition.
Comments
There are a lot of thinks taught in school that will stay with your throughout your life. Some math, grammar, spelling, writing, history are helpful no mater what you do. While I've forgotten a lot, I do remember some facts, figures, dates, concepts, etc, and they do come in handy.
And you have a point about accomplishing something for the sake of accomplishing it.
Moreover, Test taking is a skill itself. Learning a bunch of otherwise useless information within a short period of time and dumping that information onto a bubble sheet, while using your best logic to guess at the answers you don't know is something that everyone has to do throughout college and/or graduate school. It's a skill that can make a big difference in which careers and jobs are available to a person.
So I say, who cares if you're teaching to a test?
And I agree we should try and teach logic and analysis. But do we have teachers with these skills. Are they capable of teaching them? Can they be learned? My experience is that most people do not have these skills and I don't know whether these skills are innate or whether they can be taught.
You bring up an interesting point about test taking skills determining college/career etc. Are the same skills that contribute to success on multiple choice tests in general the ones that will make someone successful at the more practical aspects of a vocation? Sure there is logic and deduction involved, but I think we've all met people that test well that we wouldn't consider as all that intelligent, that we wouldn't want working for us. I don't particularly see mastering test taking strategies as a higher order thinking skill (though testing data would disagree with me).
I agree that many teachers lack advanced logic and analysis skills, but maybe that's because they too are products of a system that didn't reward learning them. I'm dealing in ideals here, so yes we also need much better teachers.
On the other hand, there are many professors who are quite advanced thinkers yet they are worthless teachers.
I'm guessing that these skills are more innate for some and maybe out of the reach of others, but so is calculus. Focusing on them will facilitate their development in those that have the capacity. And you don't know who has the capacity until you give them a chance instead of weeding them out with multiple choice tests.
You write, "Are the same skills that contribute to success on multiple choice tests in general the ones that will make someone successful at the more practical aspects of a vocation?"
Well, I didn't mean to artificially limit "test taking" to multiple choices tests. Furthermore, I guess I'm not sure what "practical aspects of a vocation" entail.
Some test taking skills are definitely like work. When I think really hard about a legal problem, my brain hurts in a very similar way to how it hurt when I thought really hard about a bar exam question. And apparently the strongest indicator for success in law school is not your undergrad grades or any kind of job experience, but your LSAT score. Of course, this career is unique in some ways.
But it's not entirely unique. For example, I hear that some engineering jobs will actually give you a test before you can get a job. So, there's another job where your work is very similar to taking a test.
And apparently the people that ran the fire department in that one (New Jersey?) town thought that a test was, at least partially, a good way to determine which fire fighters should get promotions.
Now, there are lots of jobs where what you need aren't so much test taking skills but other talents or attributes, like creativity, leadership, schmoozing skills, good looks, musicality, athleticism, wheel-greasing skills or organization skills. But, you'll notice, a lot of these skills are actually "taught" or promoted in one way or another in high school too, like in sports, clubs, student counsel, etc.
I don't know Brett. I kind of think test taking is a decent indicator of whether or not someone is smart. Of course, there are all kinds of test, and some are lousy. But a well written test can tell you a lot.
Maybe you can provide some examples of job-related smarts that does not translate well into any kind of test? I'm sure there are some. I just can't think of any right now.
I guess what bothers me about the predominant testing practices today is that we test exactly what we taught. It ends up being an exercise in memorizing facts or even algorithms, but with minimal frontal lobe activity. It bothered me as a new teacher that a student could get an A on a computation heavy physics test but then fail miserably a basic conceptual test. Students were memorizing which equation to choose when, and then doing well at plugging and chugging. But give them novelty, ask them to make a value judgment, and they were kindergartners.
I'm not advocating that we give specific instruction in formal logic, simply that teaching how to think should take precedence over listing the steps of the scientific method. I agree there would be plenty of time to still cover the curriculum (in most cases). All the more the reason why we should do it.
-Theresa
With regard to developing/teaching analytical and logical skills, I think this is why I am such a fan of people taking math in high school. Even if they have no clue how a derivative will ever be applicable, I think that our brains our learning different reasoning/logical skills by just going through the problems. I also appreciate Ryan's comment that test taking skills do correlate to "smartness." Lots of people say that they are just poor test takers, but unless there is some anxiety issue that makes them bubble in the right letter by accident, I think they probably are a decent indicator. That's all.
-Lindsey