After reading this CNN news, I really really appritiated for my gifted learning environment and made a commitment to myself to never ever become anything close to this.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/05/atlanta.public.schools.scandal/index.html
This news article is pretty much about a school having been found to cheat on standarize testing. Not only were the principle and teachers not ashamed becuase of what they have done to such a large group of children just for their own benefit, but they had played it so big and long where it almost became a tradition to the school district.
I really do not understand how can people do this. And by people, we are not dealing with some well known heartless business people but educators-teachers. To the base of my belief, techers have a great heart and desire to help children and even the society. It is a profession where someone has to have as much love as one can to become one. And this is because you are putting a lot of time and effort for little pay to work and help kids, to watch them grow. This world had been twisted so much that more than enough human beings are becoming the followers of the devils for doing things that humanity would never agreed with. Cheating on standarized tests for fundings and others is the worst thing a teacher can do as role models for students. Cheating almost can be determined as the best way to face challenges and solve problems to these students' acknowledgement. If this is really how we educate our children, why do we even need a education system with different subjects? Don't we just need training centers to teacher our younger generations how to play tricks for anything they valued as the only goal?
Personally, I think that the saddest part of today's world is that people's value on things are so twisted. Less and less people seem to work for their hearts but money, fame, pride, and success. I know this may sound very negative, but I'd rather the end of the world to come sooner than later to end this hopeless era of human beings. We were not created like this, and a lot of us truely ruin the beauty and meaing of life.
On this note, I also read an article on MSNBC about rage in the classroom. The article talked about teachers who have used violent and belittling means to discipline their students. It went on to say that corporal punishment is still legal in 20 states. While they did attribute some of these "rages" to nervous break downs, I don't think that the cause matters. It's hard to believe crazy people who intentionally seek out to hurt our children are still allowed in schools.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me that the whole community knew about the scandal in the article you posted. I cannot believe that no one spoke up for so long and wonder how many students have been effected by the actions of the adults in that community.
I think this also goes to show the stress that standardized testing is putting on teachers and districts across the nation. I hear from all the teachers that I know that they are not given enough time to teach the proper way because of the standardized testing. They can only teach so much of what they think is important because they need to make sure that their students are prepared for the standardized testing. While I do understand that these tests are important and probably will never go away, their needs to be more stress on teaching children how to be creative and how to learn instead of cramming their heads full of facts that we feel are important. This strategy limits what students are able to learn and what they ultimately get out of their education. These standardized test also are used to rate how well teachers are doing. I don’t know what the right answer is to fix our system, but something needs to change.
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