Standardized Testing

When I was in high school, being “taught to the test” for standardized testing was just starting. Our teachers were given packets of information, things we needed to learn and were told to focus more on the packet and less on what they had planned to teach. The idea was that the students would get better scores by being taught what was supposed to be on the standardized tests. This in turn would make the school look better and they would not lose any of their funding. I guess this is happening a lot these days, and I can remember during my senior year my English teacher talking to us about it. He talked about how he did not become a teacher just to teach us what was on a piece of paper. Basically, his freedom of choosing what we were going to learn was taken away from him, and our class really became boring because we would have to take “pre-tests” every week. I do not really think that “teaching to the test” really helps students. For one, I thought that it was boring and pretty stupid when we would have to go over seven pages of information that we “needed to know”, and then do other work in class. Also, there is so much pressure on students these days to do better and to score higher, that when the time comes to take the test they may be too nervous about screwing it up. I know some people in my school did not even try on their tests, because they were fed up with being pressured to do well. I know that what they did was childish but pressuring students until they are nervous to take the test is not much better. What I guess I am trying to say is that I really do not think that “teaching to the test” for standardized testing is a good idea. In fact, I think that it has negative effects on the students and the teachers who are forced to teach to it.