Saturday's Chicago Sun Times, as always, carried a 'Viewpoint' piece written by Hen Kennedy who is a middle school teacher at Carl Von Linne Elementary School. Ms. Kennedy's letter is not some off the wall piece harping on the senselessness of standardized testing. Rather, it is a thoughtful piece about the impact of standardized testing on learning.
Ms. Kennedy laid out what has taken place in her Social Studies classes this fall and the ramifications that 16 days of upcoming testing will have on her curriculum. As Ms. Kennedy puts it, "the amount of testing is limiting my students' opportunities to learn." It isn't just a matter of missing over three weeks of school, it is a matter of disrupting the flow of teaching/learning, losing ones classroom to testing, and other logistic headaches.
Ms. Kennedy isn't opposed to standardized testing so that point ought to be clear. What is at stake is the loss of significant opportunities to learn. Said Ms. Kennedy, "they (the students) cannot afford to lose access to the types of learning they find exciting, engaging and meaningful."
Anyone who argues with that last statement just doesn't get it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment