John Ogozokak, a high school teacher in upstate New York, ponders here which is the more meaningful task: to clean a septic tank or to grade a standardized test:
About a half dozen years ago the septic tank lurking beside our old farmhouse went kerflooey. I dug out the top of the rusty thing and it was clear something VERY wrong had happened. I’ll spare you the graphic details but suffice to say I had to rig up a temporary pipe until the experts could arrive days later. It was a smelly, nasty job. But as I was standing there, ankle deep in crap under a beautiful spring sky, I found myself wondering……would I rather be doing THIS or dealing with some of the nonsense I encounter every day in school -like inflicting mindless standardized tests on students.
I vote for the septic tank. And, not just mine. No, I’d pull over and help a random stranger who was dealing with a similar plumbing disaster if it would save me from grading yet another useless test. At least I’d be accomplishing something real.
I face a similar situation this morning. I woke up about a half hour ago thinking about the ridiculous test I was forced to give my 12th grade Economics students on THEIR LAST DAY EVER in school: an economics “post-assessment” created solely with the purpose of trying to calibrate if I am a good teacher. I have to go look at the results this morning. (I refuse to count it for anything against these kids.)
The test is crap incarnate. (Cue Paul Simon’s first line in “Kodachrome”….. that song just keeps ringing in my head)
To make a long, boring story short: my high school again outsourced the production of this “assessment” to our county’s Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES.) I could have gone and helped in the construction of this nonsense. I refused since I do not want to be co-opted by this whole process…… “yes, look, teachers participated……blah, blah, blah.”
Once again, the test is crap. Outdated trivia, textbook jargon, the same old supply and demand graph about socks. I was so pissed off that after I saw the thing I stopped to visit a friend of mine who owns a business. His family works out of an old storefront and you might have seen some of their handmade products in high-end catalogues. He’s not only a super smart guy but a person I respect for his integrity and common sense. He also knows a lot more economics than me so I ran a couple of the test questions past him.
Like, for example, how many federal reserve districts are there in the United States?
Huh? We both stood there and tried to guess. Eight? Twelve? Fourteen now? WHO CARES!
I mean, is this really one of the 50 essential facts that a young adult who is entering a our deeply dysfunctional economy needs to know? The test had not one question about the scandalous burden of student loans today; nothing about the near depression these kids lived through as they innocently went through school; not a mention of the growing chasm between the wealthy and the workers that support them in this nation. (Sorry, kids, soon to be YOU doing that backbreaking work!)
I’m disgusted.
And, so Governor Cuomo decides to give some public school teachers a temporary reprieve from having their career tied to these ridiculous tests. WHO CARES?
It’s time we stop giving kids tests when we all know that some of these assessments are crap.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I mean, is this really one of the 50 essential facts that a young adult who is entering a our deeply dysfunctional economy needs to know? The test had not one question about the scandalous burden of student loans today; nothing about the near depression these kids lived through as they innocently went through school; not a mention of the growing chasm between the wealthy and the workers that support them in this nation. (Sorry, kids, soon to be YOU doing that backbreaking work!)”
O.K., so this teacher is more interested in indoctrinating his students than in educating them. Normally, I sympathize with teachers when they complain about these kinds of tests, but in this case, his students are better off with him NOT making their tests. All that “textbook” stuff is what high schoolers are supposed to be learning. Apparently, this guy couldn’t make it as a college professor/professional political activist and is determined to do a junior-varsity version with the under-18 set. I feel sorry for his students.
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He is merely showing the disconnect between the pending realities of their young lives and the necessity of assessments and their content. He is most in touch with their needs as their teacher, and understands that these assessments do not inform the tomorrows of his students in any useful way. Teachers are pretty frustrated by the amount of time taken away from instruction and meaningful human interaction with students to deliver what are excessive testing and data collection mandates..from the feds. I would roughly and anecdotally say that the amount of “in class” time delivering assessments in most classrooms across America has quadrupled in the last ten years. That is a lot of resources routed into an endeavor of certain, not questionable, excess.
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The “pending realities” he wants to teach them about are highly ideological — all about how The Man who runs The System has it in for them. Covering these issues in a non-ideological manner is fine, as long as the kids are still getting the “textbook” information, too. Yes, it IS important for a high school economics student to know how many federal reserve districts there are. What kind of competent teacher would say otherwise?
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Oh, right, because teaching them Friedmanite supply-sided economics wouldn’t be “indoctrinating” them.
Try reading some Friere. There is no such thing as “objective” education. Either you teach kids the reality of the situation which directly confronts them, or you are colluding with and supporting the dominant powers which benefit from maintaining the status quo.
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Oy.
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http://www.wjfw.com/print_story.html?SKU=20140710202825&textsize=small
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Oh, good, another completely invalid comparison of U.S. students to foreign students! How very informative!
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Philosophical scepticism is what people trot out when they have run out of rational arguments. Nobody really believes it.
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Jack, that’s quite a leap of faith against that teacher. Or have you been sitting in his classroom for months on end to make that highly subjective and selective judgment against this teacher?
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Hmmm… seems to me that if you were reading about a teacher who wanted to teach his students about the realities of over-regulation, massive government debt, skyrocketing college tuition due to government policies, etc., you wouldn’t need to have sat in his class to conclude that he had an ideological ax to grind.
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It is not clear if this class is a general introduction to economics, an introduction to microeconomics or an introduction to macroeconomics. If it is a general introduction or a macroeconomics class clearly the exam should have had asked about Keynesian economic models. If it is a microeconomics class, the emphasis on markets is reasonable. If it is a microeconomics course though, one might have expected some questions about the labor market.
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I also think these tests and the whole APPR process is crap! My advice would be to get your union and your district on the same page, working to have teachers give meaningful assessments that are part of what they normally do with students. My post-assessment is given early in May. I helped design the assessment with my department and it is something I would have done anyway in class (a DBQ essay)…my entire district creates their own assessments and we are encouraged to only do something that is meaningful…no pre-made tests that don’t relate to our classes. Your union should fight for this, just like we did.
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What is a “DBQ essay”?
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We love them here in Texas. DBQ stands for Document Based Questions. You can look it up on the Internet. They can be really well done. But most of them take a narrow look at a point in history and use documents that are often well beyond the capabilities of many students. Therefore, you spend a lot of time walking students through paragraphs of historical interest, often written by those who were there at the time. After wading through sometimes as many as a dozen documents, students are led to some conclusions. Then, the student writes an essay about the topic. All well and good, but very demanding, especially for students without much background information on the topic at hand. You can tell that I have mixed feelings about DBQ’s. In the words of one man, they should be used like cavalry charges. Sparingly and in the right place at the right time.
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Thanks for the clarification. I am AI* so I need help with acronyms.
*Acronym Impaired.
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I actually don’t like DBQ essays much, but using one as my post assessment is a better option than doing something created by an outside company that may not match what I teach…at least I know my students have are learning the content for the essays and are learning how to write this type of essay. The worst part of the process is having to read essays written by students who had teachers who didn’t teach either of these!
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Do you think people in the Soviet Union liked doing what they were told to do? Do you think all Germans liked doing what Nazis told them to do? it doesn’t matter what you or I or Dr. Ravitch thinks. It only matters what those in power think, people with lots of money. Those in charge can do whatever they like. Many of you don’t understand what a mass society is. You either do what they say, or you go clean septic tanks, dig graves, work as a cashier, or do whatever else there is left to “do” in this country. No one will care what happened to you. You lose your job as a teacher now, and you will never teach again. I think we have over 250 applicants for every opening at my school. In a “mass society” individual lives are “cheap”, and if you won’t do it, someone else will. There are millions who have no jobs and nothing to do.
It could be worse. In Russia you were sent to a Gulag or in Germany you would be worked to death in a concentration camp. That wasn’t much fun either (or fair).
So I would say, “Keep your head down. Do what they say. Keep your mouth shut and try to avoid being ‘purged.'” Yes, everything they are doing is wrong and destructive. That isn’t your decision. Let them live with their destruction.
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So it’s okay that our democracy is being stripped away because it could be worse? Seriously? As someone once said (and I have no idea who, sorry), I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. I will fight this. I will NOT be complicit in the destruction of education and my nation.
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I didn’t say it’s OK. I am saying that there is nothing that we can do about it. That is different. Thinking you have any control over these forces is laughable. German professors during the Nazi time buried themselves in their offices and steered away from controversial topics, but they did not quit their jobs. If you want to go clean septic tanks to protest, then do it. No one will care.
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Pancho Villa: “Prefiero morir de pie que vivir de rodilla. “
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Ah, thank you! I couldn’t remember where I’d heard the quote. Mike, I know I won’t win, but I will still go down fighting. At least I make a difference to some. Some of my greatest heroes are those who risked their lives to shelter Jews in Europe during WWII. One of them, Raoul Wallenberg, just received the Congressional Gold Medal yesterday. He didn’t “win.” The Soviets grabbed him at the end of the war, and no one still knows precisely what happened to him, but he probably died in the Gulag. But he sure made a difference to thousands of Jews. Now, I’m not saying that the education fight is equivalent, but it IS extremely important work that we do to fight off these people who would wreck public schools and our democratic society. And I could not live with myself if I didn’t fight them.
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Hello Mike:
You are an educator and you have expressed your feeling like ?= immigrants with economic driven survival and without knowledge of democracy.
Truthfully, that is exactly my feeling if I still live in communist or fascist country. However, please do not give up your hope while you live in the most democratic policy in the world.
Please use all of your might, your energy, and your teaching knowledge in order to educate and to alert parents, students, and new minted educators about the importance of American Public Education in all settings whether it is in a parent-teacher meeting, or in any public engagement.
It is your responsibility as an educator to protect and to preserve American Public Education. May from Canada.
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“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke
Orwell also points out what happens when you just put your head down and do nothing in Animal Farm. It’s worth rereading. Then you can contemplate who is most complicit in the pigs’ subversion of the egalitarian dream.
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As one of those county level folks who provides PD and assists teachers in creating curriculum and assessment I have alot to say about this! I, too, think the APPR is silly. Determining what a student has learned, how much s/he understands, and the degree of growth over a period of time requires more than a test about a smattering of facts. While clearly not all readers agree with what John would like to see assessed, that fact that he was more interested in finding out if his students could understand economic realities, argue about them and use evidence to support their view is significant. I find the entire assessment process has been bastardized/simplified/co-opted. The entire concept of formative assessment is misunderstood by so many administrators is makes my head hurt (if one more AP asks me for to help their teacher write formative assessments as a summer curriculum project I might rip my ears from my head just to never hear the request again).
All of that said, given John’s desire to establish that his students are capable of argument using evidence and demonstrating their conceptual understanding he very much needs to be part of the process. Don’t let the lowest common denominator create these assessments. Some teachers participate for the right reasons (John?) but many many others participate for the stipend. I’m not slamming teachers, but they aren’t all awesomely knowledgeable. They aren’t trained assessment writers. They often aren’t even experts in their own subject matter. John, you are passionate. You clearly have a focus on big ideas in your classroom. You want your students to walk away with more than meaningless facts. Please please please participate in the process. As one of the C&I professionals who are charged with making some these ridiculous things happen, we need your voice.
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What exactly does APPR stand for? Annual Professional Performance Review?
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@ Mike.. I don’t know about your advice… myself… I am kind of glad (understatement here) the US and Russian’s did not bury their heads during WWII. Teachers in unison will hopefully be a powerful enough force to bring sanity and learning to the lives of our nation’s youth.
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It would be nice if you were right, but I think that is very naive. That is simply not how power in America works. Now if you told me you found a few billionaires who were willing to throw their resources behind us, then I would be more excited.
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Kimberly, if you are providing PD to teachers you should know that a lot is two words.
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Don’t know what happened to my reply. I thought I hit post and it never showed up. Oh well, here it is again.
Are those two words bull & shit?
I just sooo love being professionally developed. The cult of professional development is strong and has many believers. All part of the “continuous improvement” meme (CI). Who can be against “continuous improvement”? I can and am!! At least for about 99% of the “professional development” I had to endure.
Please, oh, please CI leaders, professionally improve me!!! Take the students’ learning time so that I may continuously improve. The gods of testology demand it now!
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I see my typos, plenty of them. My hastily written reply while waiting for my plane requires editing. I know. I’m sorry.
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More thoughts (from my phone, forgive the sloppy typing)–
Duane-APPR is the annual professional performance review plan/process that every NYS district was required to create. It relies on some degree of pre and post testing and other variables as described by each district. The variability isn’t great from district to district in terms of what they do. How they do it, with creation of the assessments being the primary area of flexibility, does vary. Ideally, teachers would create these departmentally and also use judgement, observation, exit interviews etc. But the law/state wants tests. So testing it is.
Measuring growth is tough business and it can be valuable, but used as the club to bludgeon teachers isn’t going to improve instruction.
Teachers improve when they collaborate while planning, conference with students to determine what works, expand their body of content knowledge and instructional strategy. They don’t change/improve/innovate when we create shitty mechanisms for evaluation.
Also, I know a ton of PD sucks. Really, I do. I’m working very hard to do it better, in a way that’s responsive to teacher requests for further knowledge. But the posting above was not about PD, it was about the wrongheadedness that isAPPR. On that I think we can agree.
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How widespread and organized is this moratorium on using high-stakes tests to evaluate teachers?
Two bills recently passed in Rhode Island, one of which put a three-year moratorium on using high-stakes tests as a barrier to high school graduation (the other ruled that “effective” and “highly effective” teachers need only be evaluated every other and every three years, respectively).
The usuals moaned about how “the teacher union” controls every decision that our state makes, which is a laughable statement but some people really believe it.
I pointed out that the bills passed just weeks after Gates urged states to put a moratorium on the use of standardized tests for these purposes. But of course it COULDN’T of been due to any influence of Gates on our Assembly that caused the bills to pass — COULDN’T have been anyone LIKE Gates who caused our Speaker of the House to do a complete 180 on the moratorium bill! Oh, no! That’s CRAZY talk! It MUST have been the all-powerful “teacher union”!
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The only college professor I had who taught “just the facts”, unadulterated by his or her personal beliefs was in the one art history class I took. And just maybe I didn’t know enough about art at the time to know the difference. Since I could memorize just about anything, I was a star pupil.
Is this the education Jack Talbot desires for all?
Exposure to ideologies, including investigation and discussion need not be indoctrination. It can encourage critical thinking and discourse.
I guess it boils down to what kind “workers” we want.
It is all about “workers”, isn’t it?
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Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Worth reading to understand the horrors caused by the Obama administration on the public schools. If ever a president wanted to destroy the country he ruled, what the Obama’s administration is doing is exactly the road map to follow. And I voted for this fool twice. Never again. As far as I’m concerned the Democratic Party is on notice that they are about to lose my vote and it won’t go to the GOP. I
The United States needs a new political party for the independent voters who can think for themselves.
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“Every nation gets the government it deserves.” -Joseph de Maistre
We have been very, very bad… and now we’re getting it good and hard.
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We need a political party who represents the citizens. What we have is a mercantile, cash and carry political system. It’s disgusting. Vote 3rd party.
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“Microsoft” (parody of Kodachrome, by Paul Simon)
When I think back on all the tests I took in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of Micro-software hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
Microsoft, they give us those Common-Core standards
Give us reforms and numbers
Make you think all the world’s a sunny day
Well I got an icon chimera
I love to make those Excel graphs
So Mama don’t take my Microsoft away
If you took all the facts I knew when I was rational
Brought them all together for one night
You know they’d never match Gates’ sweet imagination
Everything looks better in black and white
Microsoft, they give us those Common-Core standards
Give us reforms and numbers
Make you think all the world’s a sunny day
Well I got an icon chimera
I love to make those Excel graphs
So Mama don’t take my Microsoft away
Mama don’t take my Microsoft
Mama don’t take my Microsoft
Well, Mama don’t take my Microsoft away
Mama don’t take my Microsoft
Leave your laptop in the loft
Mama don’t take my Microsoft away
Mama don’t take my Microsoft
Well, Mama don’t take my Microsoft away
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larry:
TAGO!
😎
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Larry – awesome!
KrazyTA- My research into the meaning of TAGO produced a site that promised me 5 possible meanings but only listed 4, including: TAGO: Taiwan Association of Gynecologic Oncologists (Thank goodness, I’ve needed an acronym for that!).
Would you be willing to share the secret 5 the meaning?
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Thanks KrazyTA (I think) and ETIC (can I call you that?)
Not sure this is correct, but I read TAGO as “way ta go”
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TAGO comes courtesy of Duane Swacker, a frequent commenter on this blog.
T[hat’s]AG[ood]O[ne]!
He’s also been known to mention a fella named Noel Wilson once in a great while…
😎
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Thanks, KrazyTA, I confess I never knew the meaning of TAGO.
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I’ve noticed this kind of thing on my son’s middle school tests. They have exchanged basic knowledge of how something works for the minutia that surrounds it. It’s difficult to make something basic, though very important, rigorous.
So, to accomplish that goal, we add many, many details and obscurities, inflate the vocabulary and make the text as dry as it possibly can be, and design questions that are designed to trick the test taker (you’ve been learning how to do this using this line of thinking, so were going to design the question to lead you that way but alter it subtly so that if you proceed with doing it the way you learned, you’ll get it wrong). Voila, instant rigor!
I see our side often concede that we “need rigorous standards.” Why do we concede that the standards need to be rigorous? Why do we concede that we need to have standards at all? Maybe we do, but the other side needs to earn those beachheads, not have them gifted to them along with a complimentary daiquiri.
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cyn3wulf: in the standardized testing biz the “questions that are designed to trick the test taker” are known as “misleads” and “decoys” and “distractors.”
And that doesn’t take into account questions that are by their very construction ambiguous and/or that have [by the test makers’ own lights] one ‘best’ answer although there is more than one ‘correct’ answer!
😡
Anyone want a salutary lesson in the merits of high-stakes standardized tests? The kind that generate oodles and oodles of $tudent $ucce$$? Google the following: “pineapple” and “hare” and “Daniel Pinkwater.”
Just one link among many—
Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/04/20/daniel-pinkwater-on-pineapple-exam-nonsense-on-top-of-nonsense/
So when the invisible hand of the market place pens a prime example of how those infallible EduMetrics are generated that produce VAMania and the like, what do you call a description of the profundities that underlay it?
Well, an article in the Wall Street Journal is entitled “Daniel Pinkwater on Pineapple Exam: ‘Nonsense on Top of Nonsense’.”
[start quote]
Eighth-graders who thought a passage about a pineapple and a hare on New York state tests this week this week made no sense, take heart: The author thinks it’s absurd too.
“It’s hilarious on the face of it that anybody creating a test would use a passage of mine, because I’m an advocate of nonsense,” Daniel Pinkwater, the renowned children’s author and accidental exam writer, said in an interview. “I believe that things mean things, but they don’t have assigned meanings.” …
The original story, which Pinkwater calls a “fractured fable,” was about a race between a rabbit and an eggplant. By the time it got onto standardized tests, however, it had doubled in length and become a race between a hare and a talking pineapple, with various other animals involved. In the end, the animals eat the pineapple.
The tests can be used to determine whether a student is promoted to the next grade. Once new teacher evaluations are put in place, the tests will also affect teachers’ careers.
Pearson PLC, which created the test as part of a five-year, $32 million state contract, referred questions to the New York State Education Department. The department hasn’t returned requests for comment since Wednesday.
[end quote]
I don’t include most of the, er, ‘good’ stuff. And the other pieces you can find online—sheesh!
And how could this possibly apply to CC? Ah, no less an insider of the education status quo than Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute lays it out for us:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
(See duetsch29, blog of 12/28/2013.)
So what do you call it if a pineapple attending elementary school sits down for an eight-hour high-stakes standardized test proctored by a hare that is an expert in CCSS ‘closet reading’?
Well, I’m not sure, but it must be something like the advice that Henny Youngman got from his doctor:
“I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.”
😏
Or when it comes to charterite/privatizer math, maybe the other medical advice Henny Youngman got best describes how to massage numbers and stats:
“When I told my doctor I couldn’t afford an operation, he offered to touch-up my X-rays.”
😉
Ok, I officially give up. How can you argue with folks that refuse to budge from their foundational Marxist principles in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$?
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… Well, I have others.”
😎
P.S. Groucho, of course, the famous Marx…
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WOW! I was painting the garage most the day then I had to go somewhere so I didn’t see this whole exchange until now, later in the evening. Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful comments.
To “Jack Talbot”: I never have tried to be a “college professor/professional political activist” as you quipped. I’ve just worked extremely hard for 26 years to be a good high school teacher. If I can do that I will be very satisfied. Like so many teachers, I’m just disgusted with the entire testing process in New York State and what it is doing to our schools and students.
I believe the generation of young people in our nation now is getting a raw deal. Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives…..really, all of us older people (and I’m AARP eligible!) should be leaving our kids a better future. Politically driven testing, billionaires-know-best “reform” efforts and the dismantling of our public schools are NOT viable ideas. It is shameful and I’m embarrassed to have to play even the smallest part in it.
For the record: I do spend PLENTY of time teaching about the federal budget deficit and what it means to the citizens who will have to pay it off. (Jack Talbot might be surprised to see how far I am from being any sort of ideologue in and out of school.) And, I do try to cover as much of the “textbook” as possible. But as anyone who has actually taught in a real high school classroom can tell you, a balance has to be reached between multiple choice fodder and the real world most students will be living in. C’mon…..do citizens in our democracy REALLY need to know the exact number of federal reserve districts? How many of you reading this right now know that fact? Anyone? Anyone?” (Ferris Bueller reference!)
The growing chasm between the rich and the rest of us in the U.S. economy is a FACT. It’s an important fact that should be discussed in class, even if that means we don’t have time to memorize the correct number of federal reserve districts.. If some people want to call the discussion of this fact “ideology” or whatever…..that still doesn’t explain it away.
Thanks again and best to you all!
-John O.
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John,
Perhaps you could tell us a little about your course.
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Yikes, teachingeconomist….I just was writing a VERY long reply to you and I hit the wrong key and deleted it. Computers…..
As I wrote previously (though deleted), I’ve read your posts on this blog and I’ve always thought you’d be a great person to talk to. It sounds like you know your stuff.
A little background: our upstate district is about two hours from NYC in a beautiful though not economically thriving area. (The NY Times said we are the fourth poorest county in New York State.) Having said that, we have some really wonderful students. I’m very lucky in that regard.
I don’t know where you are based? If not in NY, just an overview……12th graders in New York take a semester of Participation in Government and a semester of Economics -both required for graduation.
I taught history for many years before taking the helm of our 12th grade Economics sections back in 2008-2009. I’ve really come to love teaching Economics.
We were using a “semester block” schedule with 84 minute periods when I took over. So, Economics would be taught in the space of about 9 to 10 weeks -minus snow days, staff development meetings, final exams etc…. etc…. It’s not a lot of time.
I have taught a standard Intro to Economics course before but I’ve felt compelled in the best interests of my students to try to mix it up…… I try to respect the NYS curriculum while also adding in practical information they need…college loans, FAFSA forms, for example, is something I’m working on this summer. Of course, college is a HUGE economic decision these kids are right in the midst of making.
I spend a lot of time using activities to show why economic thinking matters. How it IS useful in real life.
As you can tell, I’m pretty angry about the “outside assessment” the students have to take. It’s really being foisted on them just to rank ME. And, teachingeconomist, the tests so far seem to be using some stale, outdated questions. I mean, when was the last time Japan was our big economic nemesis? 1993? Or, for instance, I talk about GDP and then the test questions reference GNP. Why don’t they say GDP?
Politicians decided that teachers suddenly need to be rated by tests taken by their students. But what if adequate tests don’t exist yet in some subjects? (I helped prepare students for NYS Regents history exams for MANY years so I know something about testing. But there is no Regents in Economics.)
I try to be fair. I don’t think most the kids know my political point of view. (They ask and then I say I can discuss it outside of the classroom.) I still wear a suit and tie every day to school, even when it’s 95 degrees in June and we’re just sitting around rating exams. The idea that I’m some sort of radical is funny…or scary. Boy, if I’m a radical then our country is really in worse shape than I thought. (That’s MY reading of history.)
That’s a quick idea of where I’m coming from. Like I say, I had a longer version of my reply then it disappeared! I was out all day so I didn’t see your post until now.
Thanks for your interest and help!
-John O.
-John O.
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John,
Thanks for your reply. Glad you find my posts interesting.
I took a look at the NYS standards (I live in the middle of the country and economics is not required for graduation in my state) and it looks like a mix of micro/macro with a little personal finance thrown in. There seems to be an emphasis on market interactions. I have found that economics experiments are really helpful in getting students to internalize economic ideas. If your students have the technology available, you might be interested in the resources at this site: http://www.moblab.com/ . Most of the games there could also be run using pencil and paper in class, but given your limited class time you might want to have students do some of the games outside of class.
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Thanks so much. I appreciate you looking into the details here in New York..
Like I say, I’ve come to really love economics and part of that is due to help from people like you.
Take care.
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