Life Skills & Assessment

Question Posed in Depth and My Concentration in This Study

 

 

How much of what students are learning in school today applies to everyday life skills for future success?

 

What our group would like to explore in this study is if the students, especially in urban areas like Newark, are getting the education needed to become competent and successful members of society. The issue of changing school and curriculum (educational reform) to compensate for the rapidly changing world in which these schools and it student’s exist has been an ongoing battle of both failure and success in particularly urban areas. Most of the students in the area we will be looking at, Newark, come from the lower income, working class families that are just barely making ends meet. The parent(s) in these families have low educational backgrounds and this lower education is linked to the lower income status they possess. President George Bush, in an effort to raise the failing schools and students in all areas, rural, urban, and suburban, proposed No Child Left Behind; a series of standardized tests and guidelines for meeting AYP or the school receives less funding or is closed down. What President Bush did not account for is that the students and families in all areas are different; some come to school hungry; some schools simply do not have the funding for necessities such as paper; and most importantly, all students learn differently. He did not leave room for other remedies and solutions to each area’s different social class make-up, ethnicities, poverty and etc. This idea of standardizing, everything goes against nature; there needs to be more than one solution to assessing schools and students.

What is happening due to the standardized testing is educators are teaching to the test, which right off the bat makes them invalid. The students are then being assessed on how much test content and information they can memorize to pass instead of assessing the depth, reasoning, and critical thinking that goes into making decisions of what they really know and understand. What our group strives to find is if these tests are giving the students the skills and tools needed, not only for school but, after graduation and in the work place, and in life. Many of the students coming from urban areas do not pursue further education and join the work force after graduation. The Secretary’s Commission of Necessary Skills released a set of competencies and foundations that are needed in the workforce. These skills are the foundation of a competent and successful member of society. Skills such as reasoning, critical thinking, and lifelong learning, etc. will help a student to success in any facet of life. In a world that is undergoing many changes of globalization it is important for one to understand how to work with others and make intelligent decisions, also part of SCANS. Unfortunately, educators are not preparing students with these necessary skills due to the pressures of “teaching to the test.” It is these students in the low income, low performing schools that are ultimately being set up for failure and the continuance of this concept of low education leading to low socio-economic status. We will also be exploring across seas and comparing techniques; curriculum and assessment of other countries such as Belgium and Sweden, where students out perform the United States on Math and Science tests and have higher success rates.

My part in this study really dives into the issues of “teaching to the test” and how all students learn, retain, and recall information differently. Also, how this rapidly changing world requires more cognitive demand on its students who need to be able to think creatively, out side of the box, and be able to reason intelligently. Students are not being taught how to think, they are being taught what to think because these standardized tests only have one right answer. We need to teach our students that there is always more than one solution and teach them how to learn and think critically building upon their strengths. If you want to see a student involved and interested, relate the content to something they care about and answer the question that students inevitably ask, “Why do I have to learn this stuff?” My other issue has to do with passing test after test – for what? Just to pass? School shouldn’t be solely about passing, it should be about what the students have learned and can use sufficiently in the world to contribute to society and use for the next steps in life. I will pose alternative forms of assessment, such as portfolio based and performance based, that can be used in juncture with standardized testing, but gives students the ability to show what they are capable of, how they reason, make decisions, and grow on their natural talents and interests. School reform is not a new issue; it has been talked about for years and slowly little steps are being taken.