“Palms get clammy, pencil tip keeps breaking, can’t use my highlighter. Only fifteen minutes left, it just keeps ticking! I’m wasting time thinking about it. I need to get into college, oh my gosh.”
I believe this is the perfect example of the SAT’s. This could be a stellar student on an everyday basis, she gets anxiety from the thought of having such a massive test. Why is there so much emphasis on something that is literally trying to “trick” one’s mind? Personally, I think it is a horrible way to “classify” students. The SAT proves nothing but pure memorization and whit.
If one is a student at a public school, they must take MCAS in the fourth grade, IOWA in the seventh grade, and the MCAS again in high school in order to graduate.
These tests force the student to choose only one answer, they are not allowed any creativity, they are stripped of their ability to truly think. These students are oppressed. Freire makes a point that “it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system.” The government is the reason why students have on “horse blinders.” They take away our ability to question and to argue points that we “cook up” on our own. Students can’t be given an idea and let their minds wander and have a “creative flow” unless they are in art class.
It is the government that sets the standards for the school systems. The government has control over everything in the sense that the “youth is the future.” If the youth is only learning what the government is pushing on them, they have learned nothing. Freire says that “the educator’s role is to regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the students.” His concerns for the poor are for their good interest. It is as if he picks them up because they are fresh and untouched, they have not been oppressed yet, they are not contaminated.
Structure in classrooms is needed in order for the class to be successful. After reading The Banking Concept of Education, I view structure differently. When is structure too much?
2 comments:
What are your suggestions for making sure students are learning and are ready for the next grade level?
I agree with this response. In high school I was never one who tested exceptionally well. On the contrary, I did stay after and participate in classes frequently, which essentially is why I did well in my classes. Although, if given specific materials to study for, I managed to test well.
Also, I have noticed that for some people, the SAT has fallen on a day of inconvenience for them, which, in itself inhibits them from doing well on the exam. I believe that the tests that are given in class on the materials that the students have learned illustrate more about their intelligence. However, like in the response, I can see why colleges would want to make the exam the same so that the test material is on a level playing field for each student.
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