Blogging in the school library

I know that my blogs are often negative about the direction that education is headed in America due to “No Child Left Behind” and the over-emphasis of standardized testing.  However, I am also hopeful that the pendulum will turn and educators will get back to the business of educating.  I believe the answer to reaching our students is to address their learning styles through computers and technology.  I have great faith in the American spirit as long as we keep our freedom to make choices.

Are the students getting stupider in America?  My husband is a professor of chemistry.  Over the past four years, the averages on his test have gone down markedly.  The only common thread that he can find is “No Child Left Behind” and the over-emphasis on standardized testing.  Please view the following video to see what you think.   .

My thoughts today are spurred by a newspaper announcement that former President Clinton is going to visit our city next month. I look back at his presidency and, while I don’t condone his pecadillos (Monicagate), I do appreciate that he is a reasonable man, a good statesmen, and articulate to a fault. Ah…. those were the days. And yes, I’m proud to call myself a LIBERAL.

Our current president and administration have brought a level of paranoia to our lives that is smothering to both educators and students alike. In a democracy, we are supposed to be free to make choices. As educators, we are supposed to educate students that freedom of choice is THE benefit of living in a democracy. However, with the onset of 9/11 and Homeland Security, we are forced into the role of guardian ed lauden which doesn’t stop at the school doors. For instance, if a student is cyber bullying another student and that students parents complain to the school, it becomes the school’s problem. So where does our responsibility stop when the students are blogging? If we setup our students on a blog and make assignments to that blog and a student completes the assignment at home, are we acting in the role of guardian ed lauden for that student’s behavior on the blog? I’m afraid the answer is going to be “yes.”

I must explain how my thinking went from President Clinton to President Bush to the students computing at school. First of all, with the “extreme right” administration currently in power, we now have “no child left behind” (I use lower case letters on purpose) which for any clear thinking educator is a ridiculous idea. No two children achieve at the same level. For years the educational research has proven that testing does not truly measure the student’s achievement. We have legislators who are educated, but not EDUCATORS. They haven’t the slightest idea what it takes to help students achieve. In a closed society, students are taught rote thinking. This is exactly what we are doing now with standardized testing. For example, how many schools spend the first few months of the school year teaching to the test?  The majority!

Sources may report that our students’ test scores are lower when compared to other students around the world. My question is this, if our educational system is so bad, why are our universities and especially our graduate schools flooded with foreign students? It’s because our open educational system has produced creative thinkers that do the most innovative research and development in the world.

How do we as educators present Web 2.0 and all the tools that are developing “faster than a speeding bullet” to our students so that they can be prepared for their futures under an unbrella of paranoia such as that created by our current administration. It won’t happen unless we do it under the radar. The only hope for our children is a new moderate to liberal administration that values our children as free thinkers that need to be nutured in the ideals of a democracy. Teaching our students to be educated consumers of the Internet is teaching them to be democratic thinkers. 

My final thought is about the next president. Above all else, DO NO HARM!!! Our current president will never be able to make that claim.