Mobile Register reporter Rena Havner tries hard to make the scenario of "teaching to the test" seem disastrous, but it honestly doesn't seem to me like the kids are being disadvantaged by an increased focus on long division:
Two years ago, before the Mobile County school system began administering standardized quarterly tests, third-graders weren't taught long division until the last two weeks of school, [teacher Cindy] Naylor said. Now, with the federal No Child Left Behind Act and a greater emphasis on standardized testing, long division must be taught months earlier, before the children are mentally ready, Naylor said.
The kids may have been excited on this recent day, but they weren't fully grasping how to work the problems on their own, Naylor said. Some still hadn't passed timed tests showing that they knew how to multiply small numbers by 3, and many were still having to use their fingers to work one-digit multiplication problems.
Naylor, who has taught for 24 years, has told the Mobile County school board that too much emphasis is being placed on standardized tests and that children, and their grades, are suffering...She said she now has to "teach to the test," meaning that her lesson plans revolve around the subject matter covered on standardized exams that the system uses to evaluate teachers and that the state uses to rate schools.
Are we supposed to assume that a test for third-graders is bad if it requires they learn long division? I think so, but it sounds to me like many of Naylor's students are benefiting from this new structure:
She undertook plenty of tactics to try to make the long math lesson sink in: To prepare the children for long division, she read a story about ants that must find a number by which 25 can be evenly divided before they can march in a parade.
They played a math game: The students stood in front of the classroom, pretending that they were 17 cupcakes that must be divided evenly onto three platters. They soon realized, with a bit of confusion, that it couldn't be done without leaving two cupcakes off to the side.
The children helped Naylor work problems on the board using a funny story to help them remember the steps. She also gave them four problems for homework, and some clamored for more.
Some mornings and afternoons, Naylor has bus duty, meaning she has to leave her class at 3 p.m. to stand in front of the school to monitor things. On this day, though, Naylor stayed in her class until children could begin filing out at 3:30 p.m. First, the car-riders lined up, with Naylor asking each to solve a multiplication problem before leaving the room.
After she had walked them down the hall and out the door, she returned to occupy her bus-riders. Like the car-riders, each bus-rider had to solve a problem.
"What's three times seven?" Naylor asked.
"Ummmmmmm," a child responded.
"Go to the back of the line," she said.
"What's nine times eight?" she asked another.
"Seventy-two!" the boy said, bragging to his classmates. "That was a hard one, but I got it right."
Remember, this is a kid who wouldn't have been taught long division until sometime next year. And now he's thrilled about the fact that he can do multiplication in his head, on command. I realize Ms. Naylor does have a lot on her plate, and I'm sure the paperwork associated with NCLB can be overwhelming. But I don't get the feeling that her students are suffering because of it. Ms. Naylor feels she's not teaching as much "constructive" information any more, but the lesson plans above suggest she's doing a bang-up job in getting her students to understand the rules of mathematics. It's hard to see where the problem is with that.
Posted by kswygert at December 6, 2004 11:54 AM