black board, white chalk

I am satisfied that President Obama won. I am not sure that I am overjoyed by it, but I am satisfied. I do wish, however, that there was more to be said in terms of education in America because neither of the candidates seemed to adequately address the issue. Part of what I hope to do with this blog is to share my thoughts on where education as an institution should go and what we need to do in order to really reach the students. As I said in my first post, we cannot continue to have students graduating high school, yet be reading at a first grade level. We cannot really believe that standardized tests are what will bring American students out of their slump.

We cannot believe that simply targeting teachers in terms of content knowledge is sufficient. We cannot believe that band-aid solutions will address the growing concerns of bullying, illiteracy, dropouts, lack of motivation, and irrelevance in the lives of students and their families. We cannot believe that one size fits all because no one seems to fit and many children are being left behind.

Nikhil Goyal, a very wise 17 year old, in this thought-provoking piece clearly articulates many of the concerns surrounding American education, in particular why there is no student voice when they are the obvious recipients of this thing called education and education reform.

~ by Omaira on November 7, 2012.

Posted in Aims, Teacher Training, Vision
Tags: education policy, election, motivation, professionalism, respect, standardized testing, students, teach to the test, teachers