Students not knowing how to learn - thanks, NCLB
Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 02:46:21 AM PDT
This past Monday my three non-AP classes had their first quiz, on the first chapter of the material in the textbook. It was worth 25 points for 25 answers. It is the same quiz I have given each of the previous two years, since we got a new textbook and began teaching Government in the 10th grade. The first year the scores were perhaps a bit weak, last year a bit weaker, and this year they plummeted. And I have no doubt as to the reason. It is due to No Child Left Behind.
If you want a brief exploration of the impact of this horrid piece of legislation, keep reading. Otherwise, trust me - our schools and the learning of our children is increasingly damaged eery year this failed approach is continued, and having now read through all 400+ pages of the proposed revision of Title I, there seems little hope things will improve. Come seen exactly how bad it is.
I teach in Maryland. My first 3 years (beginning in 1995-96 school year) I taught in Middle School. In those years the tests given to middle schoolers required integrating material across the curriculum, doing exercises which combined skills and knowledge from science and social studies as well as reading and math. No more. Since only reading and math have counted for Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB, the state has stopped testing the other content areas, and as the testing has narrowed and schools and districts have begun panicking about the scores, the instruction has similarly narrowed. NCLB became law in January 2002, meaning the testing regimen went into effect in the 2002-2003 school year. This year's 10th graders have thus been under its regimen for 5 years, 4 of them when they were being tested every year.
The Maryland tests do require some writing - what are called Brief Constructed Responses (a BCR is about a paragraph - in high school they also get Extended Contructed responses) as contrasted with most questions, which are Selected Responses (what we know as multiple choice). The problem with multiple choice questions is that you do not really have to KNOW the material, you merely need to be able to recogize bad answers and eliminate them to make a decent guess. Remember that. Also know that in Maryland there is no correction for guessing as there is on SATs and APs.
I had been warned that there was a significant dropoff in performance level for the class of 2010. Their 9th grade US History teachers had already seen problems last year. I knew that there had been narrowing of background - some of my AP students last year had told me that they had had little 8th grade US history because of the focus on the testing. But I was not prepared for what happened on Monday.
I expect students to struggle a bit on this first quiz. They are used to simply looking definitions up in a glossary, and copying word for word. I warned them they would need to rephrase definitions in their own words so that they understood, or they would have trouble on my quiz. We went over the homeworks, trying to have them understand. On the quiz, I provide them with a definition and they have to provide me with the term itself. This is actually pretty low level - I usually can within a month or two reverse the process and give them the term and require the definition. But after Monday I don't know.
In my 3 non-AP classes, the median number correct was 14, 11, and 10. In one class the highest score was 13 correct. In the other two classes there were students with 24 and 23 and 21 correct, meaning those who followed my instructions did okay. I can use that as something of an indicator that my instruction is not totally over their heads.
I even reminded them that leaving an answer blank was a mistake, that there was no further penalty for filling in a wrong answer. Yet about 1/3 of the students made no real attempt. I discovered that some of them were used to not even trying because they were used to getting to retake tests n which they did badly, so why bother?
Here's a key point - this is a quiz. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes. Before they take it I go over about 3/4 of the material with them - in other words, they have just heard again enough to be able to pass. And yet there is no effort. This is unlike anything I have ever seen.
I talked with other teachers in the building, and my experience is not unusual. School for many of these students has been reduced to how they do on tests used to measure the school, and why care about anything else? As soon as those tests are done they shut down mentally. Besides, what happens during the preparation for those tests is mindless, mind-numbing.
The result? The tests used for AYP in high school in Maryland are also required for high school graduation, beginning with this year's junior class. But the scores across the state are so low that the state superintendent is already exploring alternative methods of being able to ascertain that students know enough to warrant allowing them to graduate. She is considering allowing .... PROJECTS to demonstrate competence. DUH!
I am in contact electronically with educators all across the countryl The phenomenon I am experiencing is quite common. We are killing public schools. We are driving out the good and creative teachers who cannot bear what they have to do because of NCLB. We are turning off to the jou of learning a generation of school children.
I do not know what I will do after this year. I want to make a difference. I struggle to find ways to connect. On Monday night I interrupted our normal instruction to have them ask relatives what they remembered or knew about the '63 civil rights march and I devoted Tuesday to the anniversary - I was at the march so I was able to share the experiences of one participant, and put the events into a broader context. I had them write a paragraph on what they had learned as a result of this exercise. It did connect a little with them - some begin to grasp the point of trying to change policy and law to benefit people. It is something not quite as dry as a lot of what they are asked to do.
But there is so much remedial stuff I must do - on writing, on how to read, on how to study. I have a responsibility to them to prepare them for the stupid state test which counts for their graduation, even though not for AYP, and for which they seem to lack a good deal of the basic background knowledge: if they didn't really get 8th grade history, I have to teach them the context of the American revolution, that the colonists thought themselves Englishmen being denied their historic rights. They don't know what they should know, because they haven't been taught it because of NCLB, and if they are going to be successful in learning the materialn on which they will be tested by the state ....
Of course, I could just simply prepare them to take the state test. I know how to do that. Heck, I did SAT prep for Princeton Review and for another company for about a half-dozen years.
But I still maintain a shred of intellectual and professional integrity, and I cannot just go through such motions.
We should be teaching our students how to learn, not merely how to pass tests. There should be joy and excitement in learning knew things, in having one's mind expanded. Instead there is dullness and drudgery.
I feel so frustrated right now, and angry on behalf of my students. And having read the draft on Title I, perhaps almost to the point of despair, as I see how much is still wrong in that proposal.
And now I have to get ready to go to school to try to still make a difference. Is it still possible, or am I kidding myself about my ability to overcome what they have already experienced?
