Midterm
exams are coming!
The
evidence of the level of stress experienced by the students at my school was
made obvious at our latest staff meeting. Apparently last year an elementary
school student broke into a teacher's computer and with a USB stole a copy of
the exams. So now we have to put everything under lock and key and shred drafts
of our exams. It doesn't make sense, the school policy is no one gets less than
a 75% anyway, so why steal?
Maybe
a child would go to such extremes because they're completely under
pressure by parents, peers, culture to perform to perfection. And even we
teachers have to create the tests in such a way so the kids make less mistakes
as possible. Obviously I want them all to do well. But it seems we are
minimizing as many negative consequences as we can for the student's poor
choices, and as an educator, is that really teaching them anything? I basically
said, let them steal tests and suffer the consequences. That in itself is a valuable
learning experience. My manager looked at me like I was nuts. It feels nuttier
working from the assumption that elementary school students are thieves, and I
must act as though tests are the sacred Ark of the Covenant.
Parents and principals want their kids to have
a good education, but not at the expense of test scores. I think society needs
to have a conversation about our priorities concerning learning and education;
is it preparing children to pass tests in Junior High and High school, or to be
a leader, an innovative thinker that has a high EQ regardless of IQ. What
happens when students use their voice and life to positively impact other
people?
Is “helping” the student get the right answer conducive
to learning? Is it even ethical? What is wrong with allowing kids to fail? How
can tests be useful? There was a great article in the NY Times, “Why
Flunking is a Good Thing” that finds pretesting more effective than testing
at the end of a subject, as it primes the brain and predisposes it for learning.
When the student “fails” (or in my case gets a
75%) then teachers are the first to blame, not the one size fits all system or
the lack of child-parent interaction or lack of appropriate sleep and exercise.
Teachers are under pressure, and teachers are numerous and expendable.
Obviously its better to be a foreign teacher than a local teacher in Taiwan.
We all
work hard, we all want the kids to score well on tests, but we do a disservice to
students by robbing them of the experience to fail or to get caught cheating.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
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