Written by Kimberly Kokernot
As a future teacher, I have no choice but to accept that standardized testing is an integral part of education. It marks student progress, allows teachers to see academic strengths and weaknesses and sets state guidelines for what students should be learning.But it also comes with drawbacks. Class time is spent teaching students how to properly bubble in choices, and pick the “best answer.” Hours of instruction are spent on test taking strategies and giving practice exams.Students walk away with the ability to pass a test, but without real knowledge. True learning happens when a child is interested in what he or she is exposed to, which doesn’t usually involve bubbling in answers on a Scantron.We spend our entire lives learning, whether it be about types of cars, the political system or literature. Children need exposure to all interest areas, but also need time to explore ones that are interesting to them. This is when natural, self-motivated learning occurs, and it is this type of knowledge that produces rocket scientists, genius mathematicians, artists, writers and brilliant thinkers.I can’t help but feel that standardized testing puts student minds in a box, and that the results of these tests are one root of President Barack Obama’s new initiative to extend school hours.
American children are consistently outperformed on science and math tests by students in Asian countries. In a society that strives to be number one, Obama is looking to cure this perceived ailment of the education system by increasing the number of hours that students spend in school per year.But if you look at the data that shows the number of hours that American students spend in school each year (1,146), our children are actually in school for more hours than their Asian counterparts. According to anarticlepublished by the Associated Press, these are the number of instructional hours for several Asian countries with higher test scores than America: Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). Also notable is that these students attend school for 190 to 201 days per year, while our students are in school for around 180.This would imply that stretching the school year out may prove more beneficial than simply adding extra hours to each school day. Longer school days would increase the burn out rate for teachers and students, and may cause many children to resent education.Some schools have already added three hours to the school day. For many high schools, this would force students to be at school until 6 or 7 p.m. When are students supposed to eat dinner? Relax? Do homework? Play sports?This would also usurp the time that teachers have to prepare lesson plans and organize things for the next school day. If three hours were tacked onto each school day, it would create 55 hours of in-class work every week (not counting the hours spent on school-related work outside of the classroom) for teachers and students. It would be an overwhelming burden on everyone involved in education. Good teachers would become frustrated and quit, and school would seem like a prison to students.Obama has also suggested that schools stay open on the weekends to provide students with a safe place to go. I was outraged at this recommendation. Teachers are not babysitters, and if students do not have a safe place to go, we don’t need to simply put a Band-Aid on the problem. Money would be better invested in services that would work with families to provide safe homes or create community centers, rather than forcing students to go to school on the weekend.Neither of these suggestions will successfully repair the education system. Teachers and students are being asked to do more, reach higher standards and not accept failure. But in search for more classroom instruction time, the education system has removed the tools that students need to be successful.Research has proven that children need active, creative play to stimulate their minds. They also need exercise, and not just to prevent obesity.When the body is exercised, there is an increase in the brain cells in thehippocampus, the part of the brain that is used for learning and memory. Some schools have come close to completely removing activities that involve exercise. Looking at research, this means that we are academically disabling our students.Recess, physical education, music and art classes have been eliminated from many school systems in order to make time for more classroom instruction. All of these subjects promote brain formation and neural development, which in turn increases math and science scores–Obama’s intended result from extending school hours.But I don’t believe that these are the programs that will be enabled if time is added to the school day. Time will be made for extra math, science and reading sessions. As important as these subjects are, if students were able to explore interests in the arts and get adequate exercise throughout the day, each minute of instruction would be more valuable and effective.Anyone who has studied for a difficult test knows the feeling of a mental shutdown, where your brain just can’t handle any more input. Children experience the same thing during the school day. If they are tired after a 40-minute math lesson, having the time for an additional lesson does no good if their minds have already clocked out. The reform of education should be focused on how to make lessons and student minds more effective, and not just on how many standards can be covered each day.Perhaps this can be accomplished by a system that has more breaks during the year, and a shorter summer. It would help reduce the amount of information that students lose during the summer months, and give their minds a chance to rest during the academic semester. And because summer break is based on an agrarian society, its original purpose doesn’t apply to most of the U.S. population today.Obama has been brief and unspecific in what he actually plans to do with education reform, but I hope his advisors can look past test scores and focus on enabling students to learn more than just how to pass a test. Education should not be focused on beating out the scores achieved by another country, but on the needs and interests of students.
