Quote:
Originally posted by baltassoc
I ignored the second aspect, but history is an area where teaching to the test really hems in a lot of the point of the class. History is partially about learning facts, but it's also about learning how to find facts (research) and think critically about those facts. If I'm a history teacher charged with getting my students to pass a test on history that will impact not just there own ability to graduate but also my schools funding, the two week long research project where each student researches a different figure from the American revolution and writes an essay on their contributions is gone, and I'm replacing it with drills on dates of battles.
You may be okay with that. But the essay assignment is not exactly radical pedagogy.
|
I'm not okay with that, obviously. But, why is this an either/or solution set for you? When I was a kid, we certainly learned all those timelines - it was, like the foundational work - and we also did the research and writing. Have our expectations dropped so low that it's now normal to think that we cannot expect that level of work? This is a primary reason, in my mind, why we're so far below many other countries' ed systems - our lack of expectations.
