A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind is an amazingly touching story for any future teacher. It gives hope to every student who is trying to make it in life. It enforces the importance of teacher expectations, human capital, and cultural capital. It touches on funding issues and the irrelevance of standardized testing. Cedric Jennings' life was everything but easy. He never had the opportunity to take the short, easy path, instead always being forced onto the long, winding road; in Cedric's case it gradually led to a world of success. Everyone, future teachers and others alike, should take the lessons in this story to heart, both as an example and as inspiration.
Set high goals... achieve high goals. This should be the theme in every classroom. It is a proven fact that when teachers set higher expectations for their students that the students achieve greater things. This is called the Pygmalion Effect; "the idea that one's expectations about a person can eventually lead that person to behave and achieve in ways that confirm those expectations" (Dillon K.). Teachers should use this theory of motivation and success in their everyday activity. It should only be used positively, of course. When used negatively, the teacher will see negative results accordingly. This often happens if a teacher has children from poor and/or minority families, they may develop the mind set that they will not make it, and that they will have a more difficult time learning the material (Spring pg. 55). The teacher will then make lesson plans in view of that false perception.
Cedric's teachers at Ballou seemed to have a double standard. For Cedric, he achieved high things on his own, and a few teachers encouraged him to do more and challenge himself...
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Class notes & discussion. November 2004. EDU 110. Dr. Haley.
Dillon, Karen. ©2003. What teachers Expect they Generally Get. Retrieved November 16, 2004 from http://www.kidsource.com/education/pygmalion.html
Lalas, Jonah. ©2000. Standardized tests unfair to students, schools. Retreived November 19, 2004 from http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/articles.asp?ID=2137
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Spring, J. (2002). American Education. New York: McGraw-Hill.
In the United States of America, Standardized testing has become a way of life for students and children, especially in public schools. Many argue that standardized testing does not measure the students as a whole, takes up valuable classroom time, and creates drastic mental health problems in students and teachers. In recent years, a controversy surrounding the idea of standardized testing has been brought forth as something that needs to be changed or adapted to the growing needs of today’s students and this can be examined when exploring the negative effects, the testing has had on society’s future.
Though Cedric is aware of the jeers he receives from his classmates for his accomplishments, he continues to hold his head up high when he thinks of his "green light": to graduate from Ballou, and continue his education at an Ivy League school. As I read A Hope in the Unseen, I thought of the unfairness of the American ideal.
This is precisely the problem. Standardized tests are old and outdated, and the harm they cause to America’s education system by far outweighs the benefits. These tests were intended to monitor and offer ways to improve how public schools function, but instead they have impaired the natural learning ability of students and imposed upon the judgment of experienced educators. Although a means to evaluate the progress of public schools is necessary, it is also necessary to develop more modern and effective ways of doing so. Standardized testing mandated by the federal and state governments has a negative effect on the education of America’s youth.
Cedric was a hard working young guy he had big dreams (accomplishments) for his college goal. He would always get on time to school well early. Cedric would only have a chance to
Standardized tests have been used to see how much a child has learned over a certain period of time. These tests have been a highly debated issue with many parents and just people in general. In the article “Opting out of standardized tests? Wrong answer,” the author Michelle Rhee argues that people should not be trying to opt out of standardized tests because it allows the country to see how much a child has learned and the things they need to improve. On the other hand, in the article “Everything You’ve Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong,” the author Kristina Rizga argues that standardized tests are not an efficient way to measure a student’s intelligence.
Some may say standardized tests are a wonderful thing for schools to test their students but I'm here to tell you why they are bad. The standardized tests have too many problems that need to be changed. There is problems with how many are taken and they need to be fixed. There are too many problems with these tests and the government needs to modify them. So this essay will explain that standardized tests are bad and they need to be fixed, because kids take too many of them, countries who take less are outscoring us, and they are too low quality.
Standardized testing scores proficiencies in most generally accepted curricular areas. The margin of error is too great to call this method effective. “High test scores are generally related to things other than the actual quality of education students are receiving” (Kohn 7). “Only recently have test scores been published in the news-paper and used as the primary criteria for judging children, teachers, and schools.”(2) Standardized testing is a great travesty imposed upon the American Public School system.
Mr Gradgrind, however, treats his pupils very differently. He sees them as 'empty vessels', and it is his job to fill them with facts, facts and more facts. He does not treat the children with respect, and treats them girls with even less respect by calling them by numbers rather than by their names.
"The Standardized Testing Debate: The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly." TakePart. N.p., n.d. 22 Feb 2013. Web. 15 May 2014.
tests were primarily employed as measures of student achievement that could be reported to parents, and as a means of noting state and district trends (Moon 2) . Teachers paid little attention to these tests, which in turn had little impact on curriculum. However, in the continuing quest for better schools and high achieving students, testing has become a central focus of policy and practice. Standardized tests are tests that attempt to present unbiased material under the same, predetermined conditions and with consistent scoring and interpretation so that students have equal opportunities to give correct answers and receive an accurate assessment. The idea is that these similarities allow the highest degree of certainty in comparing result...
Sacks, Peter. "The Toll Standardized Tests Take." National Education Association. 2000. Web. 2 July 2015.
Greene, Maxine. "Teaching as Possibility: A Light in Dark Times." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. .
Sadker, D.M., Sadker, M.P., and Zittleman, K.R.,(2008) Teachers, Students, and Society (8th ed.).New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Fairtest. (1990). Standardized Tests and our Children: A Guide to Testing Reform. Massachusetts: National Center for Fair and Open Testing.
Although standardized testing is commonly used in most schools and educational intuitions nowadays, it does not measure a student’s intelligence. As such, standardized testing should be revoked because, not only is it an unreliable way of measuring a student’s performance, it also pressures educators and creates a grade conscious mindset. Schools should focus more on the development of students, rather than ranking them based on the grades they receive on a test. Not only are standardized tests an undependable way of grading, but also, it does not promote life skills the student will need when growing