Number 2 Pencil

A teacher tells it like it is

Blogger Ms. Smlph - who I adore at first sight due to her description of the Praxis as "frighteningly easy" - offers an insider's view of teacher certification coursework:

When it came time for me to start my second and last certification-required course, Reading in the Content Areas, there was only one "university" offering the class. This "university" is one that I have long suspected to be a REALLY CRAPPY school...

The instructor of this course...was a kindergarten teacher who had never taught the course before. She used the same assignments as the teacher before her, sometimes not even bothering to change the dates from the previous semester...We had weekly assignments, due on Fridays, that consisted of regurgitating information from the textbook. The on-line grade-book we could access showed that, week after week, the class average on these assignments was 100%. Clearly, if the instructor was reading our responses at all, she was not holding us to very high standards...

Going into the final, I still had 100% in the class. When I heard that, like the midterm, this exam would be open-book, I was confident that I could do fairly well. When the instructor told us it would consist of 25 multiple choice questions (this was the FINAL, people!), I became even more sure of myself. Then...I saw the test. Many of the questions contained obvious typos. Some of the questions had vaguely tricky answers, like this one:

Why should teachers allow students time to think?
a. Being given more time makes students think.
b. being given more time enables students to answer
questions better.
c. It is the polite thing to do.
d. It ensures quick answers.

I was a little torn between a and b. Eventually, I chose b because nothing, not wait-time, not a miracle can MAKE anyone do anything. Tricky questions like these aren't the type of trick questions that I can respect. Rather, they're the type that requires the test-taker to attempt to guess what the test-writer might have been thinking. Of course, I will never understand what my instructor was thinking with this next question:

What educational practices contribute to the students diversity in secondary classrooms?

a. More students entering school from poverty-level homes
b. Immigration
c. Cultural change
d. All of the above

Since when are immigration, cultural change, and poverty EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES????? I chose d because a, b, and c all contribute to diversity, but I hated myself for even having to answer it.

As any intelligent person who is interested in education, not ideology, should be. Also, let me take the opportunity to deem the two items she cites above as the The Worst Test Items In The History Of Testing.

As for this part of one of her rants, I just wish it fit on a bumper sticker:

I have always been of the opinion that, if someone is going to be my instructor, get up in front of me and lecture - or "teach" me over the Internet - that instructor SHOULD KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT SHE'S TEACHING!!! Does this woman have a single shred of a conscience? Did she not feel bad that she was collecting a paycheck for teaching us nothing?

I wish more teachers believed in the importance of knowing a great deal about the subject matter.

(via Joanne)

Posted by kswygert at August 1, 2005 07:43 PM