1900-1950

Sometimes I forget that the history we learn in school isn't actually that long ago. A hundred years seems like a long time to us, a bunch of twenty-somethings, but for our grandparents and great-grandparents it's pretty near the time when they were born or small children. I found myself being really impressed by the Work-Study-Play program, also known as the Gary Plan I believe. I have a hard time swallowing our current situations in school because it seems everyone has forgotten exactly who we have in the classroom–kids. Kids need to play, not sit down for eight hours a day until they turn 18. It was interesting to see when standardized testing came along. I think it's a necessary evil. You can't expect to know how well students are learning and what they're learning and how they compare to students in other states if you don't test them. Results like the ones we receive from SAT's and other tests are important. I bet if we lowered our standards or raised our scores, we (teachers and probably students) would be complaining about them less. There certainly is too much emphasis placed on doing well on these tests, but I still think there is value in having them. Questions arise about who decides what we teach our students. Lately, we teach according to what the students will be tested on. I wonder what would happen if we didn't do that.