Physics Teaching, High Stakes Testing

Comment in T&G on Clive's column criticizing high stakes testing for its effects on the quality of education:
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I agree with Maclear and Fitzgm that MCAS is a big problem. It distorts the curriculum by robbing it of many of the untested subjects, the ones that can give a high school education depth and beauty for the student. But more, it distorts the subjects it tests, freezing them in place like a finished product - or commodity.

Case in point, physics teaching. Because physics has been an untested subject, physics teachers have been free to innovate and explore new ways of teaching it, and even new ways of thinking about it. Working with university teachers, they've made huge breakthroughs in understanding how students learn and understand - and in measuring their results.

Out of this have come "research based" teaching approaches, like the Modeling Method out of Arizona State, which have enabled high school students to learn things that previously required spending several years as a physics major. These approaches have spread across the country, mainly from teacher to teacher. The Modeling Method alone is being used in 10% of America's physics classrooms. Teachers and students love it, and many achieve breakthroughs in math.

It also yields no revenue stream for the publishers.

Now around the country physics is becoming a "tested subject". The tests are coming out of the old physics and physics teaching, as reflected in the textbooks. They impose a pace and sequence of topics that is inconsistent with what we've learned. And from all over the country physics teachers are writing in distress about being forced to give up research-based instruction.

Knowledge is a living growing thing, the finest creation of our species, and acquiring it should be exciting. But these high stakes tests require defining the boundaries of subjects and transforming them into commodities that can be measured, sold, even speculated on. In the process they squeeze the life out of these subjects and make them unloveable.

As we love our children, we need to come together and say no to this commerce-driven assault on our children and the people who have dedicated their lives to teaching them.

Cheating on MCAS at Goddard

Comment on "Motives are the crux of MCAS probe", Clive McFarlane, in the Jan. 24 Worcester Telegram:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20110124/COLUMN44/101240377/-1/COLUMN

Good column, good discussion!

I know how tempting it can be to help a scared struggling student on a test - or to use a test as a teaching opportunity. And I feel for the teachers who have invested years - and a lot of money - in building a teaching career, only to be threatened with failure and defeat. But in a world where honor and integrity are treated as old-fashioned notions and cheating at every level is spinning out of control, schools and teachers must hold the line and set an example for the children.

And yet, we can't just walk away from the issue of what we are doing with those tests! They are damaging and distorting our children and educational system in very deep ways. Subjects that aren't tested get sidetracked or dropped, and endless hours are spend practicing for tests instead of real learning.

Even deeper, the tests freeze in place old ways of seeing and thinking. They remove the possibility of asking "why are we teaching this?" or "Wouldn't it be better to teach this in third grade or as part of a high school biology course?" And even the possibility of asking "does this make sense?"

As a math teacher, my students often challenged me with "this doesn't make any sense!" I always took the challenge on, but sometimes discovered that it really didn't make sense! Yet it was on the test, so I had to say "get over it, just learn it anyway." Not a good answer for a kid who's sick to death of school!

Students would challenge me with "when will I ever need this?" Often the truth was "you won't, except to get through your next two years of math, graduate and get into college." Not a good answer for a kid on the edge of giving up on 9th grade!

Kids - all of them - enter pre-school hungry to learn, full of the joy of life. Our schools crush that out of them! We can and must make of them places where children keep their curiosity, creativity and love of learning, where their minds keep growing and expanding.

Those tests are in the way!