Sunday, August 25, 2013

Favorite Quote and Thanks!!!

I want to thank my instructor and colleagues for all that they have shared with me. I enjoyed reading and replying to everyone blog and discussion. Good Luck to everyone and God Bless.

This is one of my favorite quotes :“The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.”
- Maria Montessori

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Testing


I agree with the standardize test somewhat. I do like the fact that it measure different subjects. It shows the teacher what needs to be revised in their teaching style and it also makes schools aware of what teacher is doing its job. One thing that I question is the pressure that is put on the children who are taking that test by the teacher and school. I have heard many children complain about the test and the pressure. Most of these children are stress out from testing day after day for a week. Some children feel that why we should have these test and we already take test for classroom lesson. Another issue that was brought up was that some of the questions on the test are bias. For an example, there would be a vocabulary word that an inner city child would not know, but a rich child would know the vocabulary word because of their upbringing and environment they live in.  

Children in Mexico are also tested by standardize test. The schools are not equipped like America. So they don’t have the necessity to gain the knowledge with technology like we do here. Their funding for schools are based on their test scores. “Quality most students fail to acquire the skills necessary to raise their productivity, improve their earnings and help the economy grow. Scores on national reading and math” (Puryear, 2011).  Most of their scores are above lowest levels. 53% of their students scored at the bottom of the reading exam.  For the PISA Exam “Roughly half the Mexican students scored at or below the lowest level, meaning that they cannot do more than “carry out routine procedures accord- ing to direct instructions in explicit situations”(Puryear,2011). It sad because these school in Mexico have less material then we have and the teachers are trying to do their best for them.