" Students do not learn in order to be evaluated:they are evaluated so that they can learn more effectively..." (Quebec Ministry of Education, 2003)
In the world of teaching, among the pressure of standardized tests, and other assessments, many teacher forget this very important thing. We get so caught up in making sure our students are ready for those EQAO and other standardized tests that we forget the most important thing; whether our students are actually learning or not. I came to Canada at the young age of 9 from Pakistan. In my culture, schooling is usually taken very seriously by elders and family members. Schools give out tons of homework (we're talking notebooks upon notebooks!) during the summer breaks and families place a lot of effort on schooling and making sure that their kids are doing well in school. It's so important in the culture that it is actually abnormal for a child to not be going to a tutor to learn. It is a common thing for elders to ask kids whether they've actually learned something or just memorized it (most kids just memorize things). Keep in mind that public schools in Pakistan usually teach by the Victorian era, traditional, old story model. Students are expected to memorize their multiplication tables pretty early on compared to Western schools, and there is not much if any constructivist style of teaching.
Bringing this back to Canada, in my experiences as a student, a student leader and as a teacher, I've noticed that schools sort of brainwash us into only caring about marks and not really caring about actually learning. As soon as an assignment is handed out, students immediately question exactly how the teacher would like it to be. We actively try to cater our own work to fit the ideas of our teachers and our leaders. If teachers ever give an open ended assignment with free roam to do what we want with it, usually the next 10 minutes are chaos. People usually ask where the rubric is or why it doesn't exist. There is suddenly a lot of anxiety generated about the assignment. Trust me, I know. I do the exact same thing when it happens to me. Over the span of public schooling, we create this strict model of telling students exactly what we expect from them. It doesn't help that our marks determine our future, especially in the last couple of grades in high school. It is a ridiculously scary experience. We put so much emphasis on getting good grades so that we can go to good universities, or get scholarships that often times, we aren't learning anything, we're just spewing out information that has been cashed in, in our heads by our teachers. Now obviously all this is just my experience and doesn't apply to all schools/teachers in Canada or even in Ontario.
It is a wonderful feeling when you find passion for something and it's an even better feeling when you can help someone else find it. When we (teachers) concentrate too much on the assessments, we forget what many of us actually started teaching for; helping students find their passion for learning.
In the world of teaching, among the pressure of standardized tests, and other assessments, many teacher forget this very important thing. We get so caught up in making sure our students are ready for those EQAO and other standardized tests that we forget the most important thing; whether our students are actually learning or not. I came to Canada at the young age of 9 from Pakistan. In my culture, schooling is usually taken very seriously by elders and family members. Schools give out tons of homework (we're talking notebooks upon notebooks!) during the summer breaks and families place a lot of effort on schooling and making sure that their kids are doing well in school. It's so important in the culture that it is actually abnormal for a child to not be going to a tutor to learn. It is a common thing for elders to ask kids whether they've actually learned something or just memorized it (most kids just memorize things). Keep in mind that public schools in Pakistan usually teach by the Victorian era, traditional, old story model. Students are expected to memorize their multiplication tables pretty early on compared to Western schools, and there is not much if any constructivist style of teaching.
Bringing this back to Canada, in my experiences as a student, a student leader and as a teacher, I've noticed that schools sort of brainwash us into only caring about marks and not really caring about actually learning. As soon as an assignment is handed out, students immediately question exactly how the teacher would like it to be. We actively try to cater our own work to fit the ideas of our teachers and our leaders. If teachers ever give an open ended assignment with free roam to do what we want with it, usually the next 10 minutes are chaos. People usually ask where the rubric is or why it doesn't exist. There is suddenly a lot of anxiety generated about the assignment. Trust me, I know. I do the exact same thing when it happens to me. Over the span of public schooling, we create this strict model of telling students exactly what we expect from them. It doesn't help that our marks determine our future, especially in the last couple of grades in high school. It is a ridiculously scary experience. We put so much emphasis on getting good grades so that we can go to good universities, or get scholarships that often times, we aren't learning anything, we're just spewing out information that has been cashed in, in our heads by our teachers. Now obviously all this is just my experience and doesn't apply to all schools/teachers in Canada or even in Ontario.
It is a wonderful feeling when you find passion for something and it's an even better feeling when you can help someone else find it. When we (teachers) concentrate too much on the assessments, we forget what many of us actually started teaching for; helping students find their passion for learning.
This is a very interesting blog. I like your personal connections and comments about Pakistan education. It is interesting that we talk about believing in constructivist learning here and then tell students exactly what we want. And then students spend their time conforming to what the teacher wants. When directions aren't absolutely clear then there is panic. Seems to be what Jack Whitehead called a living contradiction. It is also an experience that will happen in this class if it hasn't already happened. But how do we really learn something if we just follow the steps that someone else tells us? It is almost like memorization. Some things must be learned this way but many cannot be. In the complex world we live in we need to have ways to go about collaborative problem-solving for what folks call ill-structured indeterminate problems. Glad you touched on passion. You will see passion-based learning as you move through the text. One of the paths out of the wilderness!
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