Dude. You did come off as snarky and dismissive of Millie’s comment.
So do the teachers not get to see the tests ahead of time either? Are they getting surprised by what is on the tests?
Typically not. They are copyrighted and the school enters a binding policy that the teachers are not allowed to later discuss the tests.
Which means they can’t talk about what is working or what is not.
With each other.
Or the parents.
Yeah, that’s going to go well. Using these tests to evaluate teachers is a horrible idea.
But scandinavian countries specifically empower teachers to get better results, from what I’ve read. The needs of society may be served better by giving teachers more power rather than less. I mean, the argument that we should run everything like a business is predicated on the idea that putting profit ahead of thing X (for any given thing X) somehow gives better results for thing X. The idea that empowering teachers could be good for students isn’t that far fetched.
And the government cares what everyone things, even if very very little.
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Hang on, are you actually claiming that “show your work” is not the correct way to teach math? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one from an adult before. I mean, I hated and resented it as a kid, but I resented every second that I wasn’t allowed to play video games; if they’d let me do whatever I wanted, I’d still be living with my parents.
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To quote that known pinko commie Henry Ford:
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
As you say, I think we have perverted the idea of business so that it is all about the latter rather than the former.
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We thank you for your time today, sir. Could we trouble you a bit more, for the time it would take to fill out this form? We will certainly try our best to do better next time. Have a nice day!
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“Show your work” was a mantra that my mother would teach to the students she tutored. If you show your work and make a mistake halfway through, you still get some or most of the marks for the question, so if your goal is to pass and that’s in question you had better do it.
While it’s probably a good idea for almost everyone, and probably a good thing for teachers to try to reinforce, for me, and probably for some others, it was always just a reminder that we were part of a system that treated everyone uniformly. Losing marks on a question that I did entirely correctly because I didn’t show enough steps along the way was a great way to teach me that I marks were just a means for adults to try to exercise control over me, so I tuned them out.
So I agree that “show you work” is probably good, but the fact that teachers can’t or don’t recognize the differences in different students is too bad, and “show your work” is emblematic of that to some of us.
SteampunkBanana is correct. The equivalent of an NDA is required of the teachers.
On the other hand, the preparation worksheets are provided which should be representative of the test problems, just as the example I posted was, but I do not know if such prep-sheets are provided in non-Pearson curriculum schools. Are they part of the curriculum or are they part of the CC tests? I really don’t know but will attempt to determine.
Even with a heads up for the teachers, how motivated is a student to learn a more cumbersome technique for division after they have already learned a most-efficient (for them, anyway) method? And once a student knows the “standard method” for division, wouldn’t a teacher be teaching to the test if they introduced an alternative mechanic just because it was on the test?
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That’s the kind of outrage I can get behind. Stupid NDAs that prevent teachers from doing their job are definitely a problem.
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WTF is an area model?
I see what you mean about newer math.
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And I would agree. This is not a new problem In high school 25 years ago I was bored silly by most of the classes. I did some looking around, figured out the minimum entry requirements for a couple of the local colleges, and aimed exactly 5% higher than that. (By this point I had already come to realize that getting into the ‘right’ college was a confidence game played on most people). Doing so freed me up to enjoy a lot more activities outside of school and have something of a life compared to a few of my classmates.
Education’s only purpose should be to prepare children for life as adults in a technological, rapidly changing society. The now laughably archaic ‘Typing’ and ‘Accounting’ classes that passed for pre-employment training in high school amounted to a massive waste of time and resources. We DO NOT KNOW what sort of working environment will exist for our kids thirty years in the future. We didn’t know 30 years ago - the usual tendency is to assume minimal superficial changes to the status quo, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the past 100 years.
As a result many of my peers finished school reasonably qualified to work in trades (some of which are now obsolete), clerical work (much of which is extinct), factories (endangered), or attend university (largely redundant or irrelevant outside a few shrinking professional careers and as a hothouse for the first maturing process outside the nest).
We can and should learn from our mistakes and do better at preparing the kids to deal with a constantly changing world and find or create places for themselves within it. Standardized testing and rote memorization simply does not fit the bill, nor will it ever.
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Finland is an excellent example of how good an education system can be without any standardized testing-or homework. To emulate them, we’d need to require all our teachers to have Master’s degrees, develop their own curriculum, and then compensate them a heck of a lot more. Could it be done in the US?
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Are you actually claiming that inflicting all that pain is the correct way to teach math? I have the same issue with grading students down for clumsy writing, requiring pens for certain classes, requiring cursive, harassing students for being unable to hold anything with the dynamic tripod grip, and the rest.
@PhasmaFelis doesn’t appear to be saying that. They seem to be saying that showing your work is a better way of teaching math and that if it was up to them they would have avoided it as a kid but they understand why it needs to be done.
Showing your work in math is one really great way to see if the student understands the principles.
Where did they go wrong and was it just some dumb transcription error (seeing a 7 where there was a 1) and they got everything correct is a really good thing to know. If they get 3/4 of every equation right but stumble on the same thing thing it’s good to see where to apply corrective measures.
You don’t go to the eye doctor and they hand you glasses because you can’t see, they figure out the source of the problem and fix just that part.
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Not evil, just boring. And its funny that you assume that corporate wage slaves are the only people who pay taxes. Fascinating. I just find it strange that tests would be the most enjoyable part of school for someone. The reason I called you a self-satisfied narcissist is because I was feeling angry and I got this image of a smug kid who knows all the answers turning her paper in before everyone else with a self-satisfied grin on her face, feeling all superior. It was bitchy, I agree. Though I’m not sorry because it felt good to write it, and apparently I had you nailed as a corporate drone given your slightly unhinged response.
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Is this an apology? On the internet?
You win today, nice work.
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Yeah… not seeing the connection here. I’m one of the kids that could answer every question right through about 5th grade without showing my work, but you know what? If I hadn’t gotten into the habit when I didn’t need to, 5th and 6th grade would have been a real shocker learning algebra and the concept of step by step derivation at the same time. Again, it’s easy to go overboard with “show your work” but the concept is pedagogically sound.
And once you get good at showing your work, then if there is a valid shortcut, guess what? You learn why it works, show that at the top of your test answer page, label it “Theorem 1/2/3/etc.” and cite it each time you use it. I dare any math teacher to have a problem with that.
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