If the test wasn’t around the corner, I would be planning a debate for my eighth graders around the banning of books, a culmination of a great literature unit on The chocolate war and WWII. Instead, I need to give a practice reading test.
Need is relative. A debate would help my students with some of the same skills they need to do well on the test. If it were November or February, I would go with the debate but we have two weeks before April break, and when the kids get back from that break, the test is on Tuesday. I know that I’ve taught my students a lot about reading and writing this year but frankly, it’s crunch time and now I have to teach them to study for *this test.*
I am not a fan of this test for so many reasons. Luckily, at my school I also don’t feel a huge amount of pressure to “teach to the test.” There is an understanding that good teaching that gets at standards and essential academic and life skills takes precendence over “test prep.” Nonetheless, there is the lingering knowledge that our school lives and dies partly by these tests… and the idea out there that a teacher’s worth is determined by the amount his or her students grow on the test.
Mostly, I don’t think it’s right to send students into a test without some practice and a sense that they know what’s coming and that they can do it—even though my students have already made it into high school and their middle school test scores will soon become irrelevant data points.
Anyway, just taking a moment to remark on the fact that I just spent two hours inputting the test questions, answers, and standards for each question into a computer program so it can grade the multiple choice questions electronically, instead of planning a debate. Instead of allowing students to build sound evidence-based arguments on real issues, I am giving them practice choosing the best of someone else’s answers to someone else’s questions on a text with no context. Feels like a loss to me…
[image credit: en.wikipedia.org]
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Author
Ariel Sacks
Ariel Sacks began her 13-year teaching career in New York City public schools after earning her master’s degree at Bank Street College and has taught and coached in grades 7-9. She is the author of Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A Student Centered Approach (Jossey-Bass, 2014) and writes a teaching column for Education Week Teacher.
Ariel’s work as a teacher leader with the Center for Teaching Quality involved her in co-authoring Teaching 2030: What We Must Do For Our Public Schools – Now and in the Future. She was also featured in the CTQ book Teacherpreneurs: Innovative Teachers Who Lead Without Leaving.
She is currently working on a book about the role of creative writing in equitable, 21st century schools, and she speaks and leads workshops on the whole novels approach.
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