Field Blog Post 5

Beachwood Middle School


        The focus of my second visit to Beachwood Middle School is how Ms. Karim feels about the curriculum and its effect on her teaching as well as testing and how it has changed over time. We have spent a lot of time in class talking about standardized testing and its negative attributes. Personally, I have long thought about how it has contributed to the faults in education. During our discussion, Ms. Karim agreed that it can be a negative, but also introduced the other side of testing that I had neglected to examine. Overall, I still believe that testing has done more harm than good, but I also understand how it can yield some benefits. Beyond that, I cannot come up with an alternative solution, so I can emphasize with those who must consider different options.
        The textbook and program that Ms. Karim is using was developed by teachers who wanted to change how the classroom worked. Overall, she said that it outlines the core curriculum and is therefore effective both for administrators and teachers. She said that while it is not perfect, it gives a number of options for teaching strategies. The book gives the team format and Ms. Karim said that the team aspect has helped the students. With the program, there is both team tests and individual tests. This format works for Ms. Karim and she likes that she has been able to see progress in the students with the program. I asked her if she would prefer being able to develop her own curriculum and guidelines for her lesson plans. She said that while that would be the most effective way to individualize the teaching, the time needed to do so is not realistic for most teachers. She sees the textbook and program for the algebra class to be a good solution because it was developed by teaches who understood the needs and wants of the common teacher. I looked at the textbook itself and at the start of every chapter there was the common core standards that the chapter will cover. Ms. Karim also said that the program has videos for teachers in order to help give the objectives of the chapter and the best way to go about getting the students to comprehend what they need for the tests. 
        Technology has played a big role in testing and how students prepare for them. There are multiple sites that Ms. Karim was able to show me while the students took individual tests. Beachwood is among the schools that decided to take the standardized tests online instead of with paper and pen. As a student, I would not like to have to take it on a laptop because I work better with paper and pencil. I was able to see some examples of questions on the tests and they were not what I recall having at my Catholic grade school. There were the classic multiple choice, "pick all that apply," drag and drop, critical response, drop down, and interactive graph problems. The variety of question formats makes the testing not only difficult to get through the information, but also more work for teachers to prepare students to answer in so many different ways. The testing is incredibly demanding and seems to be a lot of pressure on students that young. It seems to also disrupt the natural order of the classroom because it demands teachers to always have testing in the back of their mind.
        However, Ms. Karim told me about how testing has helped her in some ways. She said that the demand that testing has created has ensured that she cannot get complacent and always has to push her students to learn and work harder. She said that teachers that do not teach their students well can also be identified and give their students the opportunity to have better teaching. While the tests are incredibly demanding on the students, she also sees how the students have embraced the pressure and succeed the expectations that they set for themselves. So in this way, students that perform well can make more progress than they typically would. On the other hand, students that do not do well on the tests only have more criticism to be subject to. Moreover, the teachers of students that naturally do not test well become victims of harsh evaluations. This leads to teachers not wanting those who struggle and genuinely need the help because half of their evaluations depends on the scores of standardized tests. Those students could then possibly lose the attention and help that they need. 
        While I fail to see another way to mandate a national way to evaluate students, I feel that there is no need for a national system. Students are individuals that make up individual classrooms, schools, districts, states, and the nation as a whole. In using such a wide scope to see the "success" of students, those creating the tests fail to see the pieces that make up the national education system. Students should be evaluated, but they should be tested based on the type of student they are. I see that teachers are able to constantly try to improve their students which could be beneficial, but all in all, there are students that become lost in the system. As a teacher, I hope that I will never neglect my individual students in order to better the way that the administrators evaluate me. Ideally, I hope that I teach in a school that also understand the value of each student.