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JISHOU, HUNAN — I suppose I should not be surprised that Chinese adolescents can be as catty and mean-spirited as Americans are, but two incidents this week still bug me. I need to vent, so if you want to skip all this drama, go ahead.
To set up incident number 1, I need to explain my oral English examination format. Modeling the Cambridge Business English Certificate exams, I meet two (sometimes three) students at a time for about 20 minutes. I test them on vocabulary and pronunciation, then give them a topic on the spot to talk about between themselves for a few minutes. There is usually time left for me to ask them a few questions to verify listening comprehension and coach them on pronunciation issues.
Students sign up for these sessions in class about two to three weeks in advance. With more than 200 students to evaluate, I’m booked pretty tight.
A couple of days ago, I was scheduled to meet three girls — roommates, as it turns out — who I will call A, B, and C. And B are among my best students in their class; their spoken English is not perfect, but they can chatter away at fairly high speed in English. C is a less motivated student, and much quieter in class. If students had been picking members for softball teams, I suspect she would have been one of the last ones that one team would have reluctantly picked. You know what I mean. I certainly do.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — A few days ago, I wrote about an Orange County, Florida, school board member who took a version of the 2010 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) for 10th graders and did very poorly on it: he only got 62% on the reading portion and completely bombed the math section.
Rick Roach, who has two master’s degrees, argues that his results suggest that the test is not really testing what students need to know and that the tests pigeonhole students unfairly.
One could also argue, as a few commenters on that post have already, that Roach’s poor reading and math skills are to blame, not the FCAT. He does admit in an email to educator Marion Brady that his math skills are rusty, but I contend that Roach and his detractors are also not considering the time factor.
For example, 10th graders have 70 minutes to answer 58 or so math questions, and 70 minutes to answer about 45 reading questions, from what I can gather from the 2006 exams available online.. That works out to an average time of 1:12 for each math question and 1:33 for each reading question. If any Floridians can correct my information, please do, because those figures don’t seem realistic.
Anyway, my challenge to people who dis Roach and refuse to criticize the test is this. Try these math questions from the 2006 FCAT for 10th graders and time yourselves. I’ll be generous: you have 2 minutes for each one. No cheating. You may use your calculators.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Here’s a novel idea. A very well educated school board member in Orange County, Florida, took his state’s mandatory assessment test, which tests reading, math, science and writing, and he did very poorly. So, he wonders, how valid are those tests, really?
The board member, Rick Roach, is no dummy. He has two master’s degrees in education and educational psychology, and he’s working on a doctorate. He’s trained 18,000 teachers in 25 states, and served on his school board for four terms.
But his reading score on a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test was 62%, which would have sent him to remediation classes. On the math part, he guessed on all 60 questions, getting only 10 right.
In an email to education critic Marion Brady, Roach wrote:
It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.
Roach went on to note how his life would have much different had he been required to take the FCAT in high school, and done as poorly as he did now.
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 Mouseover text: Funding was quickly restored to the NHC and the APA was taken back off hurricane forecast duty. It’s an Educational Psychology joke (if such things really exist).
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One of the staff writers at Danwei.com has written a poignant and illuminating essay about his experience as a high school (senior middle, in local parlance) school student.
Here’s an excerpt describing the typical day in a Chinese high school. Contrast his description with life in your own high school.
I have to say that high school is a monastery and an army boot camp combined. Eleven classes every day. We had to rise before dawn and went to bed after 11. After the last class, we were encouraged to use any bit of extra time for study. There was one student who would go to read his lessons every night in the toilet, because that was the only place where the light would be kept on 24 hours. Everyone hated him, because his breach of a delicate equilibrium that is vital for us to live in peace with each other — he studied just a little too hard. The school encouraged us to be frugal with our time. It had a slogan hanging from the main building: “Time is like water in sponge; if you squeeze harder, there is always more.”
And contemplate this paragraph about the possible consequences of tying teacher pay to students’ performance on standardized tests.
This is a preview of From Danwei.com: What life is like for Chinese high school students . Read the full post (377 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
But only as a first approximation …
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Back in 2006, a really good Western Kentucky middle school science teacher had to quit her job because someone (a student, it seems) saw her in a porn movie done when she was younger.
She got married, left the Paducah area and found work under a different name in a school in Missouri.
History repeated itself last week. Another student with too much …uh … time … in his hand .. on his hands … put two and two (or something) together, and found out his teacher, Tera Myers of Parkway North High School used to be Tericka Dye of Reidland High School, who once performed in a few porn movies as Rikki Andersin some 15 years ago.
Apparently, the boy approached Myers with this knowledge, and she then went to her superiors, told them what’s what, and asked to be put on administrative leave. They agreed, and she is not in the classroom now.
She should be back in it. From all the reports from her schools, Myers is an excellent teacher, and in Kentucky, was a great volleyball coach, well liked by parents and students. Considering the lack of decent middle school science teachers in the USA, it’s a crime to lose her — again.
I’ve blogged about Myers before. The last post was an update in December 2007 that got several comments. One anonymous commenter, Terri, in October 2009 not only identified Myers, her husband and an (incorrect) school by name, but gave her physical address as well. I redacted everything but her first name and the state. In retrospect, I should have omitted that information, too.
This is a preview of Tericka Dye = Tera Myers = Another lost teaching job . Read the full post (579 words, 1 image, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
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