Halos and More

Miss Levine is braver than me.

I’m still thinking about math. Some of you might recall that I wrote a post about the whole “new math” business about a month ago ( ah, here it is. Apparently not so much a month ago as four or five months ago). But still, math is back on my mind.

We did report cards in school recently, and pretty much every single one of my students fell well below the mark on problem solving — even the ones with excellent math skills. It made me wonder: does testing a student’s reading comprehension REALLY give us an accurate idea of whether they know how to solve problems? When we write the Provincial Achievement Tests, a student who might ace the darn thing if I read it to them could fail because the reading knocks them for a loop. I’ve seen so many kids look at that sheet, with all its words, and just shut down.

Now don’t get me wrong: reading’s important. Heck, I’m a writer; of course I think they’d better learn to read! And I use a lot of four blocks in my classroom, integrating reading into my other subjects. But math is DIFFERENT. Even on a social test, I don’t penalize kids because they can’t read the question. We do a lot of reading in day-to-day social, yes. But when kids ask “Does spelling count?” I always tell them the same thing: “As long as I can figure out what you’re trying to say. If you spell tomorrow with a Q or something, then it counts.”

Why? Because this isn’t a spelling test. If I want to give them a test on whether they can spell the names of the continents, I’ll do that. But spelling doesn’t appear in our curriculum guide (for social). Knowing where the darn things are, and what they’re called, does. So why on earth would I penalize a kid’s social mark if they know both those things but can’t spell the names properly?

Math is the same. If the kid can’t read well, we say, “Oh, he’s terrible at problem solving.” Doesn’t anyone at the government ever wonder what would happen if you sat down and READ the problems to them? Or if you stopped trying to trick them and actually let them show you what they knew? (Answer: NO, because they aren’t concerned with student success, they’re concerned with numbers. Case in point: two years ago, too many students were succeeding on the timed number facts section of the exam, so they changed it, moving from 30 questions in two minutes to 35. If 30 is grade level, why move to 35? The only possible explanation is so kids wouldn’t get such high marks. Obviously, then, the test is NOT designed to demonstrate whether students are at grade level — despite what the government may say).

This is my annual rant on standardized testing, I guess. But you know what? I can live with standardized math and reading comp tests. It’s the story writing that really ticks me off. I mean, come on. How can you STANDARDIZE concepts like creativity? Which, incidentally, they try to do — it’s on the scoring rubric. Ask the dozens of world famous authors who were rejected hundreds of times before achieving publication: writing is subjective. Trying to include it on a standardized test is nothing short of ludicrous.

Well, now I’ve worked myself into a state. But I know I’m not alone. Most teachers despise standardized testing. So the question becomes: who comes up with this garbage, and WHY is it still around?