Candid Beauty

“No Child Left Behind.” Wow. In some ways I’ve been an informed Bush critic. In others I’ve just assumed everything he does is dim-witted because he stresses all the wrong syllables in his speeches. As far as NCLB I always just took people word that it was wrong (all the time making occasional snide remark about it in conversation while knowing nothing about it). As mentioned in a previous blog, one the speeches I went to at the Bright Ideas Conference was about standing up to harmful interference, specifically NCLB, but did not go into detail about why it’s harmful. At the conference I gained some specifics, like how it unfairly measure attendance and base funding on it, but I didn’t feel like I got the big picture. I really feel like Nancy Patterson cleared that up.
I know this is an over simplification, but here it goes. Standardized testing is not an accurate test of anything, it’s most often bias, can be racist, and seems to be a better measurement of parent’s wealth than student achievement. NCLB forces schools to give lots of standardized tests. It costs lots of money to schools who don’t have cash to burn, it penalizes schools that need the most help, rewards those that don’t need it and pretty much keeps the status quo.
I also found it helpful to learn the history of standardized testing. I had no idea it started as early as the first World War. I can definitely see how test like these first appeared logical and extremely helpful. I am an extremely open person, in that I’ll hear almost anybody out on any subject. I think to not be this way you’re endanger of becoming complacent in what you already know. Unfortunately what comes along with this characteristic is being easily persuades, especially by those smarter than myself. My point is I have sympathy for all of those who have taken part in standardized testing, but isn’t it close to common sense that it’s not working? I don’t want to get the paranoid conspiracy theorist going in me, but at least some have to know of NCLB’s negative impact, but are going forward with it because serves their interests.
Speaking of conspiracy theories it really got me going when Nancy spoke about that textbook company (I can’t believe I forgot the name), the owners influential position to the government, how much they stand to gain from NCLB (because they produce standardized tests as well as textbooks), and the fact that the Bush’s and his (the owner of the textbook company) family own a island off the coast of Florida together. How can this pass as acceptable in a government that is supposed to be conscious of and discourage conflicts of interest. It’s like every friend of the Executive branch of the government has their hands in the cookie jar (cough..Haliburton). Well I suppose I’ve ranted for long enough.
I really enjoyed Nancy’s presentation, and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to be educated on the subject by her. If you’re interested in the topic of the last previous paragraph click on the link below.

Conflict of Interests

Grammar is such a touchy subject; it’s bizarre really. It’s funny, and actually quite revealing, that Weaver touched on some people linking grammar with religion. I would never have made the connection myself, but some people do have an almost blind faith in how grammar should be taught separate within itself. And to be quit frank, some people I’ve encountered seem to have a misguided and even disturbing motive for wanting to teach children grammar the traditional way.
This motive is that it’s a right of passage, and, “If I did it, they should have to do it.” What’s even more disturbing is at times, perhaps because of mob mentality or perhaps just because it’s an easy frame of mind to slip into, I’ve had the same time of sentiments. While the children are completing worksheets on prepositions we might as well make them run a gauntlet where they’re buttocks are assaulted with wooden, and cap it off with forcing them to swallow goldfish they mislabel a pronoun. All jokes aside though, I think this perverse logic passing something on solely because those before went through it, has no place in education.
But, with that rant being ranted, I do agree with Weaver in that some ground work should be done, if not just to introduce the concept of grammar to children. But after that I am in complete agreement that teaching grammar should be in the context of writing. Two things specifically jumped out at me from Weaver’s article. The first was about writing complete sentences in response to test questions. I remember clearly when being taught this in fourth grade. Well, clearly may be an overstatement. I do remember getting a science test back, and although all of my answers were correct I didn’t receive full credit because my answers weren’t given in a full sentence. The teacher was very frustrated with some of us; apparently we’d gone through this in class quite a few times. But she collected herself without inflicting any harm upon us, and calmly went through the lesson again. For some reason it clicked that time. From that point on whenever a test said, “Please answer the questions in full sentences,” I obliged. This is why I read about the process being slow and different for each child, it really hit home.
The second thing that jumped out was about min-lessons relating to writing that students have done, or are doing. I remember doing this in a high school English class. I also remember these lessons finally solidifying that most punctuation goes inside quotation marks. This grammatical victory is relatively small, but I cannot recall one straight-up grammar lesson in which an applicable grammatical lesson has stuck with me to this day.
To briefly comment on Romano’s article, I really enjoyed it. I think teaching kids to bend/break the rules in order to fully express themselves is a valuable lesson. But unfortunately this is not a perfect world, and we’re not all as respected well known as Romano. If constrained to creative writing, and if the point was made very clear that Grammar B was not to leak over into essays or academic writing, it could be very beneficial. It’s disturbing, because I may be more old fashion than I’d care to admit, because it teaching Grammar B does make me a little nervous.
Last year I taught English as a Foreign Language in Spain, and in preparation took a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification class. Weaver article said many people actually learn grammatical structure while learning a foreign language. I think it may be helpful, and it was certainly helpful for me, to look at some grammatical lessons made for people learning English as a second language. If you’re interested in doing this, check out the sight below. It’s a sight I used to make lesson plans when I was abroad.


Dave’s ESL Cafe

I’ve never actually graded a paper before. I’ve proof read many papers, but this was completely different. Some questions arose while doing it, but not all straightforward. I have another teacher who told our class that all grading is subjective. He claims even math is. Who said 90-100 should be an A? Why should it be a four point scale? I think the idea of grading being subjective couldn’t ring any truer than in grading writing.
OK, first with the straight forward questions. I know there is a standard format, as far as markings, for proof reading papers, but I’m not sure what it is. Is this standard just for uniformity’s sake? Was it proclaimed the standard just because everybody started doing it, or was it decided to be the most efficient or best way to do by some official group of scholars?
Second, should everything wrong with the paper be marked, or as a proof reader and grader should I pick and choose my battles. On one hand I can see marking every mistake or suggestion as being intimidating or demoralizing to the student. But I could also imagine a student making the same mistakes repeatedly if they are not marked, and also complaining if the same mistake is marked on one paper, but not a previous one.
The next is about giving the final grade. Should grades be relative to each other? In other words, should there be an unspoken curve. The professor who shared his views on grading being subjective also told us writing was graded relative to other writing being graded at the same time. He said it may not be done intentionally or even consciously, but it is done none the less. If this is already happening should you accept it, maybe let it be known? Or is this unfair? Should a conscious effort be put forth to not do it, or will that compensation become over compensation, and muddy the whole process? To keep from doing it should a strict rubric from grading be followed for every paper? Or will this stunt creativity?
Lastly I question how to grammar and structure with content, effort and passion. All seem important, but can they compensate for each other. Should a bland and generally inspirited paper with excellent structure and grammar receive a high mark. And oppositely should a highly passionate paper, ridled with grammatical errors, that’s poorly organized (sort of like this blog entry), receive a low mark?
I know most of these questions I’ll have to answer myself; and many are essentially rhetorical. But if anyone reading this has any answers or suggestions, please put them in a response. I know someone has a great website they’d like to share with me. As far a websites, here’s a decent one I found.

Establishing Standards and Criteria