Resolved Question

I have met very, very few people who are in favor of standardized testing. My colleagues and I HATE the two weeks of the year that our kids spend locked in the classrooms for 4 hours a day taking multiple choice tests. Also, English, math, reading, and science teachers have the great fortune of being forced to "teach to the test" so the kids pass, and spend at least a month of the school year just doing that. We all hate it... but is there any other alternative to make sure kids are meeting national and state standards?

Ooh, that's a hard one.

From what I understand, no-one, teachers, parents or kids, want to do all these tests, so maybe instead teachers having to teach kids just what they need to do for the tests, teaching should become much less formal and stressed.

Teachers should be allowed to do what they want, providing they meet the curriculum of their country, but they should also teach in a variety of ways. Most businesses, especially where training is involved, are aware of the four main types of learning (trying to remember them - active, pragmatic, theorotical and reflection) and this surely does not just relate to adults.

I believe if teachers were able to teach the subject they love with passion, the children would benefit immensly.

And why should children be tested so rigourously? I don't understand that, all it is going to do is make kids who are not as bright feel like failures. Surely just by teaching them with passion, and incorporating all learning styles, will give our kids a more rounded education, and possibly a love for a subject they wouldn't have had before.