Emma Brown (FGCU) Cheated by Education

I am a tutor for multiple children and go into elementary schools each week for several hours to help them with homework. Before this, I had always known that we are programmed, but now I have a new perspective on it. One of the children is a girl in third grade whose name shall be unmentioned. Up until March, she was dedicated to learning the math I was helping her with and gave an honest attempt for each question. If she got a problem wrong, I’d simply show her where the mistake was and how to fix it. After March and FCAT was over, however, she stopped caring. Now she guesses on the worksheets, whether or not the question has multiple choices. All of her effort is gone, leaving me asking the simple question: why?

                From how I see it, FCAT is over, so the math doesn’t matter to her anymore. She’s tired of it. The only reason she wants me there is for a friend and has even admitted to me that by spending time with me during class time, she is excused from whatever the rest of the class is doing. FCAT takes us away from the real world. Sure, it ensures that students are all on the same level at the same age; however it is pressure on the teachers, students, administrators, and families. And now I see that after it’s done, very little is accomplished. The teacher may try to teach more, but whether or not they actually are able to because the students are so tired of the subjects is a completely different story. FCAT may help keep our kids on track, but it also makes them lazy. It holds back the intelligent kids and pressures the ones whom are slower to do better, or else. Without the FCAT, the teachers would be able to teach at their class’s pace and there wouldn’t be such a surge of laziness following the test.

                The laziness is causing her to guess at the answers and making me tell her she’s wrong, but who am I to tell her she’s wrong? One of the problems we recently worked on had a picture of two jars, one filled with marbles and the other only had a few. The problem asked to estimate how many marbles were in the one that wasn’t entirely full and the answers were multiple choice. There were some that were very evidently wrong, but it made me wonder what exactly the definition of ‘estimate’ is. Upon looking it up, I discovered it is “to determine roughly the size, extent, or nature of” and implies a judgment (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/estimate). What if her judgment is that there are a thousand marbles in the jar? Just because there aren’t doesn’t mean that her idea is wrong. How can an idea be wrong?

                It’s unfair for me to have to tell the girl she’s incorrect. What’s worse is that she will be told she’s wrong until she finishes college, and maybe even after that. On each test that she gets less than a perfect grade on, she’ll be considered wrong. Everything she does in life will remind her there is someone above her to prove her wrong. What if her idea of what lies in the jar is right? What if it’s the creator of the problem’s judgment that is wrong? What if I am the one who’s wrong for telling her she’s incorrect instead of encouraging creative thought? We are taught the basic rules for life in elementary school. Don’t hit others and keep your hands to yourself. Share. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Most important, don’t think outside the box.

This entry was posted on 6. April 2009 at 00:25 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.