You are currently browsing the daily archive for November 7, 2007.
I wonder sometimes. I wonder how someone could attend a four year institution and one hundred percent want to and not be able to succeed. How could you flunk out and not care? Not attend classes for two weeks? And how does the department especially with everything going on in the world not think it was important to contact the student?
And what really gets me is that another individual can get As and Bs, work hard, get connections with a internship, and be organized? The worst thing is that these two people are related. How can two siblings be completely different? Where is the division between what the parents did and what the child did to their selves?
I wish that I could explain it.
Why do we do the things that we do? Like today, for example. I took a leap of faith and did something that I would normally not do. Recently, I have been like that. I started interviewing for internships and taking the effort to be ahead in the world and try to find a connection for a job. Since I am starting to panic since I’m going to be a writer. How many people want to hire a writer? I’m not sure.
The best though is the interviews that I will be going on. I have one Friday and another organization called me to ask a few questions, but my resume was being looked at. I worked really hard trying to portray myself as someone they might want to hire.
And then you stop and think about it. How much effort is putting into making ourselves ready to sell? Couldn’t a resume be compared to a bill stub for services rendered? I had to go out and buy professional clothes since I had an interview and I might actually have a job. One that I care about? I’m not sure since it may not involve writing.
I may up in Business after all. Maybe following your dream isn’t what its cracked up to be.
A hot topic circulating through the halls of the education building of Rowan University is one of standardized testing, their efficacy, effectiveness, efficeincy and future in our nation’s educational sysystem. No one really likes taking tests. No matter how old you are, the “pressure to perform” is not always pleasant or comfortable. Tests are a fact of life; we have all had to take them, whether to pass the eighth grade (the GEPAs), high school (the HSPA), be accepted into college (SATs), graduate school (GREs), or take the BAR exam (LSATs). Unpleasant as they are, they are needed to assess students learning and understanding of what they are learning and gauge their academic proficiency. Another useful purpose for testing students is something I never considered until studying education last semester in a course titled: Teaching in the Learning Community I. Another useful reason for assessments or testing students is to see if we, as teachers, are effectively teaching our students. So, tests can measure our abilities as educators and serve as a implement of self-reflection. Having stated these arguments or justifications for the need to test students, I would like to throw out a question to those interested, whether students, teachers, professors, administrators, or parents: “Do you think it is advantageous or necessary for elementary school students be tested each year or would it be better for all invoved to only test basic skills every other year or every third year of a students educational career?” If not, “What years, in your opinion would be the most important?” I believe there is a growing disdain for standardized testing among future educators of America, and I am not exactly sure why. Is is that teachers are being forced to teach to the test and this phenomenon is stifiling creativity and innovation in the classroom? Could the reason be that standardized tests, as presently written, formatted and designed, are not holistic and a fair assessment of the various, multiple intelligences of a diverse student body? Whatever the reason, I sense a growing “itching” for change.
