By Allan Alach
Testing is pretty much dominating the educational scene in Australia
as the time approaches for their poor kids to be ‘naplanned.’ Good luck kids.
Sorry you have to go through this.
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| Hypocrite! |
If it’s any help, you may be interested to know what your Minister
of Education, Peter Garrett, thinks about you and your parents’ rights.
https://treehornexpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/parents-are-stupid-people/
Hard (impossible?) to believe he used to be the singer of Midnight
Oil, a politically minded rock band. Hypocrisy then, or now, Peter? One or the
other, mate - you can’t have it both ways. Guess there are some rather
disillusioned fans out there, not just in Australia.
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it
to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
Problems
in American education: let teachers teach.
Letting teachers teach would also solve most
problems in New Zealand and Australian education...
The Coming Revolution in Public Education
As Bob Dylan wrote:
‘The times they are a’changin…’ Keep
fighting against GERM, people. We are winning.
‘It's
always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts. Is it when a few
discontented people gather in a room to discuss how the ruling regime might be
opposed? Is it when first shots are fired? When a critical mass forms and the
opposition acquires sufficient weight to have a chance of prevailing? I'm not
an expert on revolutions, but even I can see that a new one is taking shape in
American K-12 public education.’
Education
Reform Party is Over -- What a Mess!
More of the same.
Some
market-driven "reformers," undoubtedly, are motivated by profits.
Mostly, I suspect, it is the egos of the true believers in Big Data that have
kept this testing alive. With the help of the best public relation flacks that
money can buy, the top corporate "reformers" and the top state and
federal accountability hawks might be able to fend off the evidence-driven
protests of teachers. But as these testing outrages grow, they will not be able
to stop the ridicule. As more of these absurdities are lampooned, we get closer
to the endgame chorus of, "Good night, the party's over."
Eighth
grader designs standardized test that slams standardized tests
‘A
13-year-old eighth grader in upstate New York woke up on Sunday and decided
that it would be funny if she designed a standardized test that made fun of
standardized tests.’
Online education is mostly a fantasy
The neo-liberal
dream is to replace teachers with online education (e.g the Khan Academy, that
Gates has described as the future of education). They dream of rooms of
computers with children logged on to their own online ‘teaching’
(indoctrination?) software. No troublesome teachers to worry about, think of
the money to be saved and profits to be made. Not so fast, GERMers, maybe you
should read this.
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| Back to the past! |
Testing,
Testing… But Not Teaching
-How
standardised classroom tests are producing some frightening outcomes in the US.
‘Migration
to Finland however, is not an option for New Zealand teachers. Although many of
them would probably share Jerry Conti’s fears about where the undue emphasis on
standardised classroom testing is leading us, and the damage it is doing to
children’s creativity.’
High-stakes
test time for state's schools
‘Preparations
for standardized testing include assemblies, free food, high-tech analyses’
As Bruce Hammonds comments, ‘God help us!’
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