| | |
|
AjGarciaSecondPaper 3 - 03 May 2012 - Main.AjGarcia
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondPaper" |
|---|
| | | Sacrificing Critical Thought | |
<
< | The system currently in place stifles critical thinking, deep analysis about society and the surrounding world, and a passion for learning. Instead of teaching students how to problem solve and approach complex issues, we tell them to “jump” and expect them to tell us in return “how high.” Instead of learning by doing and constructing knowledge autonomously, they believe learning and success are measured by the results of a minimum standards test and by rote memorization. High performing students are put to the side to focus on the lower-performing ones. Why focus on them, when they already possess the minimum skills, right? | >
> | The system currently in place at these schools stifles critical thinking, deep analysis about society and the surrounding world, and a passion for learning. Instead of teaching students how to problem solve and approach complex issues, they tell them to “jump” and expect them to tell them in return “how high.” Instead of learning by doing and constructing knowledge autonomously, they believe learning and success are measured by the results of a minimum standards test and by rote memorization. High performing students are shoved aside to focus on lower-performing ones to get them to satisfy the minimum standards. | | | | |
<
< | Some might argue that this results-driven attitude grounds the conversation in hard data and provides a framework for talking about which systems are working and which are not. It’s true, it’s easy to measure learning by numbers, it’s convenient to point to data as measuring true growth, and it grounds the conversation for tracking where students are at. But it’s superficial. My first year of teaching was deemed a success, but I didn’t really teach anything worth learning. The system discourages teachers from teaching critical thinking, problem solving, and analysis and instead provokes them to turn students into test taking robots that can pass a minimum skills exam. | >
> | Some might argue that this results-driven attitude grounds the conversation in hard data and provides a framework for talking about which systems are working and which are not. It’s true, it’s easy to measure learning by numbers, it’s convenient to point to data as measuring true growth, and it grounds the conversation for tracking students' progress. But it’s superficial and lends itself to people being satisfied with using this means to gauge if learning is actually happening. My first year of teaching was deemed a success, but I didn’t really teach anything worth learning. The system discourages teachers from teaching critical thinking, problem solving, and analysis and instead rewards them for turning students into test taking robots that can pass a minimum skills exam. | | | Instead of providing an impetus for framing the conversation, results become the ends by which success or failure is measured. Worse, it’s insulting to students to say their improvement in learning can be pinned down to a number on a minimum standards exam. It comes at the cost of nuance that a hard number precludes by its nature. |
|
| Revision 3 | r3 - 03 May 2012 - 04:09:03 - AjGarcia |
| Revision 2 | r2 - 02 May 2012 - 23:29:48 - AjGarcia |
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |