Parental Involvement

It would be extremely difficult for me to incorporate all my thinking each week into one comprehensive post, so for today's I wanted to respond to a point in the Current Trends article. One of the things that jumped out at me was in the section discussing the trends in Asia and how "parents, especially mothers, take an active role in their children's education...and reinforce curriculum at home..." I believe I have probably had this discussion with various people one hundred times. Families today do not appear to be as involved in their children's lives as they once were. I know there are families who still sit down together and have dinner or talk about their days together, but that is more the exception than the rule. There are a number of reasons why this may be the case, more households with working parents means less time between picking up the kids from daycare and having a meal together in addition to getting homework done and off to bed before the routine begins again. It seems kids are involved or signed up for so many different things these days too. Extra curricular activities are scheduled multiple nights of the week. Even Sunday used to be a day that sports leagues didn't meet and families could spend time together. These things have all changed. The result I think is that families have other priorities and may view school somewhat like their job, where you go there from 9-3 and move onto another focus outside of those hours.
I do know one thing, the number of children that come to school without homework completed or their school/home folders still full with yesterdays newsletters and work, continues to increase each year that I teach. Home is just generally not a place where curriculum takes place.

Testing the U.S. Way

I am wondering about the way tests are developed in other countries. I am really thinking about the way Sweden, Finland, UK, etc...develop their tests. It makes sense that tests, the Rich Tasks, are developed by educators and scored by educators. It would be nice for the U.S. to look into taking the time to train test assessors and develop meaningful tasks to assess student learning rather than the bubbled, machine scored assessments that come around once a year and increase stress levels of district administrators across the United States.
I think that sometimes officials look for the most efficient way of doing things and don't always consider the value of digging deeper. If time is so valued, and that is the reason that we continue with multiple choice standardized tests instead of tasks that cultivate independence and active learning, than why do we waste time preparing students for these tests that teachers and students have little or no connection with other than that they are used to "ensure equitable education"?