This N.Y. Times article written by Michael Winerip is a piece that really makes us think about the standards set for AP testing and what kind of things are actually being covered. Chris Doyle, who is an AP history teacher, is doing his best to help students do well on the AP tests while still having in depth conversations and time dedicated to events that are current to the students. Doyle spends at least 5 weeks discussing the wars that the students he teaches have been a part of;
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Teach to the test. Teach to the test. Teach to the test. Taceh to the tset. Tcaeh to the tset.
Teaching Beyond the Test, to Make Room Again for Current Events
This N.Y. Times article written by Michael Winerip is a piece that really makes us think about the standards set for AP testing and what kind of things are actually being covered. Chris Doyle, who is an AP history teacher, is doing his best to help students do well on the AP tests while still having in depth conversations and time dedicated to events that are current to the students. Doyle spends at least 5 weeks discussing the wars that the students he teaches have been a part of;Afghanistan , Iraq , and other significant events like 9-11. There was a great parallel that was made in the article between an advanced biology lesson and the lack of conversations and attention to the wars of late, “We studied how animals stop reacting to a stimulus after a certain length of time,” said a student of Doyle’s, “That’s what the war has become to us.” It really is sad that even our brightest students in high school are not challenged, at least by the tests, to formulate opinions and study the basis of the wars that we have all seen and been a part of in the last 15 years. I think that it is great when teachers like Doyle make sure to get kids to think critically about what is going on currently in the world around them, even when it isn’t a part of the test that he as a teacher will be evaluated on by the student’s test scores.
This N.Y. Times article written by Michael Winerip is a piece that really makes us think about the standards set for AP testing and what kind of things are actually being covered. Chris Doyle, who is an AP history teacher, is doing his best to help students do well on the AP tests while still having in depth conversations and time dedicated to events that are current to the students. Doyle spends at least 5 weeks discussing the wars that the students he teaches have been a part of;
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This is a great point. Do you think students want to be challenged? Not just the best and brightest, but the mass of students in schools today; do they want to be challenged and their disaffection with education comes from that dearth of intellectual respect?
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