Enduring Lessons

By teaching students only what they need to pass standardized test, students are not given the opportunity to really think and have quality learning experiences. An educators job is not only teach concepts and skills used to take test, but also to teach students to think. Although it is important that educators teach basic concepts and skills, educators that only do this are not teaching the whole child. Teaching students to think is the responsibility of every educator. Imagine if students were never taught to think, then nothing would ever change; no new medical treatments, no new technology, etc., advancements in society would stop. When student are not taught to think it hurts everyone.

In the future schools will not be able to attract highly qualified teachers because more and more school systems stifle creativity and originality in instruction. Many veteran teachers left the public education system to teach in private schools where standardized tests do not shape instruction. Veteran teachers are one of the most valuable resources that any school has to offer a beginning teacher. There is not a college out there that prepares beginning teachers with all the tools that they will need in the classroom. Teachers that have been in the classroom for many years have tons of little tricks to help beginning teachers. If veteran teachers are being pushed out because of the effects standardized testing has on curriculum, we need to weigh the advantages to using this type of assessment and the resource that we have in veteran teachers.

Due to No Child Left Behind’s main purpose being accountability, which is shown by the grades students receive on a standardized test teachers are not teaching enduring lessons. Enduring lessons go past just memorization of basic concepts and skills, they help prepare students for what comes after school and allows them to have a purposeful life, by truly understanding a topic. Without a serious commitment to improving teaching skills through professional development, the pressure to improve test scores will damage both the teaching and learning processes. This corruption in turn will alter the meaning of the test scores.