Elizabeth-04-07-2012-Chapter+8

Elizabeth-04-07-2012-Chapter 8

Divided against ourselves: Standards, Assessments and Adolescent Literacy

It seems to me that teaching is being controlled by preparation for standardized testing and not true adolescent literacy. In the ivory tower we learn about new approaches to teaching and experiment with ways to make learning fun and authentic, yet when we go to schools to practice what we have been taught we are met by resistance, real life, other teachers’ practices and the bottom line. Even in adult ESL education, I face issues like unavailable funds. I don’t have a hint of technology in my classroom and I feel I am teaching in the 19th century. Other teachers focus on standardized testing and drill students in questions similar to those that will be on the tests. Scores are key for funding especially that funding is meager for adult education. We are the step children of the educational system which is fond of funding K-12 primarily. Elementary school students in the Wayne-Westland district, where I occasionally substitute teach, have a smart board in their classroom but we don’t even have a DVD player or a single internet connection for students to use in our adult ESL class. Standardized scores are appearances. Adults and children alike are taught for the purpose of passing tests and are given a set of test taking skills. They get by and so do teachers. We all play the game and pay attention to appearances instead of acquiring authentic literacy.

The whole assessment process and the standards are ideology-based rather than research based. To say the least our literacy is still rooted in the autonomous literacy theory. I liked the way James Marshall describes the language in which standards are set: “Painfully opaque”.