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The Language of Education Reform Submitted by elle on 2010-09-02
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Words on websites like these have the power to brainwash the public. For starters, accountability is just another way of saying adherence to a standard.\r\nWe hold our students accountable by squishing them into a one-size-fits-all mold, while those marginalized from the \"all\" are, in short, left behind. Then there is the promise of higher achievement— read: higher test scores. We teachers know they are not one and the same.\r\n\r\nIn \"The Words That Bind,\" Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian prove that language is perhaps our greatest competitor to educating students in meaningful ways. Nuances between crusades and crises, results and consequences, reformation and destruction are actually stark differences that have shaped the public\'s view of what goes on within school walls. Emery and Ohanian cite refrains spoken by prominent political and corporate figures defending high-stakes tests as a way to improve public education. The average citizen, hearing these refrains, is quick to Tag Heuer Replica(http://www.fashion-replica.com/GoodsBrand/Tag-Heuer-65.html)  hop on board. Emery and Ohanian note that \"people who haven\'t set foot in a school in thirty years or more, will testify to failing public schools\" and demand \"school reform\". What the refrains hide from the public are the socioeconomic hurdles involved, the flaws within the existing tests, and the effects of these tests on that group that used to be a school\'s first priority: its students.\r\n\r\nThis sugar-coating of hindrances to education grows increasingly dangerous. When NCLB was instated, school vouchers were called \"freedom of choice.\" Average Americans, who are not versed in NCLB lingo, will find these words quite attractive indeed. Who doesn\'t want freedom? Who doesn\'t love choices? Our nation was founded on these very principles. If NCLB called vouchers \"survival of the fittest\" or \"every man for himself,\" the public would be more apt to consider the underdog. Obama used these tactics, too, in his acceptance speech last August. While responding to teachers\' desires by promising higher pay and more support, he assured the rest of the audience he\'d \"ask for higher standards and more accountability\" (\"Barack\"). We emphatically cheered— public and teachers alike—thinking, finally, someone in Washington is listening. But we must stay aware of the reality of President Obama\'s reforms. How will he know schools have raised their standards? How will he hold schools Tag Heuer Replica Watches(http://www.replica-king.net/B-Tag-Heuer-65.html)  accountable? Through a measurable, high-stakes test, Of course. While reform may raise some school standards, it may also diminish real learning.\r\nFrederick W. Smith, CEO of Federal Express, said, \"If you can\'t measure it, you can\'t manage it\" (qtd. in Emery and Ohanian 12). So managing student learning becomes a simple matter of focusing on testing. Higher test scores equal smarter students. Everyone is happy, right? Teachers and students are rising to meet statewide expectations, as shown formulaically and numerically—through a holistically scored picture prompt.\r\n

Article No is 5394 Category is Gameing

The Fun of Language Submitted by carina on 2010-08-25
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I read students a poem at the beginning of every class. It\'s my routine. I choose mostly contemporary poems in which the poet has shined a light on some segment of living, poems that can be accessible upon hearing once. Contemporary poems feature some of the best language used in America today, voices such as those of Mekeel McBride, Ken Brewer, and Mary Oliver, scores and scores of others, poets well known, poets obscure. Such poems surprise us with indelible perceptions and precise, inventive language. When I read a poem to students before attendance, before announcements, before classroom business, students settle into our learning Tag Heuer Replica Watches(http://www.kopeez.com/B-Replica-Tag-Heuer-Watches-65.html)  environment, sharpen their listening skills, and experience poetry as meaningful and delightful. When I taught high school students, they did this 180 times a year.\r\n\r\nFor English teachers and their students, learning to delight in language is crucial. Toddlers show us the way. My two-year-old granddaughter peers through the glass of the storm door where her family\'s German shepherd customarily surveys the street. \"Look, Mom,\" my granddaughter announces, pointing at the window, \"finger-paint\" Leah Mae is involved in the deep fun of language acquisition. It\'s not idle play. It\'s not casual observation. It\'s definitely not merely \"cute.\" Language acquisition is natural, inevitable, creative, playful, and brilliant. Her linguistic sense making is a genius of the species, critical to becoming fully human.\r\n\r\nThere is another critical delight in using language, too, one that\'s indispensible for negotiating the world: Using language compels us to think. Actually laying down one word after another is generative, not just communicative. When we talk or write, we discover, associate, and realize. One of the stalwarts of our tribe, Donald Murray, maintained that he wrote what he did not know he knew (Crafting 47). We teachers often overlook Murray\'s profound and simple insight as we devise assignments to prepare students to take proficiency tests in writing by fitting their voices and visions into a formula.\r\n\r\nIn Ohio\'s book of academic content standards for K—12 English Language Arts, there are plenty of standards about writing. Most are sensible, some rigorous, a few trivial, some absurdly complex when broken down to their component parts. No standard, however, comes close to identifying language as generative of thought. Without that fundamental truth, written communication would be anemic Breitling Replica(http://www.kopeez.com/B-Replica-Breitling-Watches-19.html)  indeed, and writers would find it devilishly hard to compose anything of worth. An academic standard about writing I\'d like to see would read something like this: \"Students will learn to be writing warriors, producing words expansively with faith and fearlessness both in drafting and revision, trusting the language in them to lead to surprises of meaning and insight.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n

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