Today, while in the act of turning in an essay my teacher gave me the option of turning it in two days from then, to take a final look over to make sure everything was going ok. Sounds great, right? Expect the first words out of my mouth were, "Are we going to have points taken off for turning it in later." After thinking about what I said it dawned on me that standardized tests, essays, or even high school related assignments have all become a numbers game.
Its seems as if we don't care about improvement or academic growth but rather than spending our time and energy on the way in which to maximize the amount of points from a specific assignment. In addition, on of my teachers quoted a professor who said that more time is spent on the logistics of assignments and grading scales rather than learning or practicing new techniques both for writing and other subjects.
School has become a numbers game. Higher education is becoming harder to get into and what seems to matter the most during college processes is the one or two standardized tests you take during your Junior year. More emphasis is put on achieving a certain grade rather than improving a skill that will be helpful later in life.
The question I pose is, who is to blame for this "point system" and why?
1 comment:
That is a really interesting point. (Pun intended) I was thinking about this a lot today. After taking the PSAT, I began to realize how a single test attempts to sum up a student's entire career into one number. I do not think anything or anyone is to blame for creation of standardized tests besides the human desire to oversimplify things: "Oh, he got a 35. He's really smart. She got a 25, she's dumb." It makes no sense.
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