Week 6 Classroom Reflections

"What is Smart?"

Recently, I've read through a book titled "The Smartest Kids in the World". The author investigates various countries throughout the world and assesses how each country moves their younger generations toward higher learning. 

One specific caveat I found interesting was that Korean schools had an intense methodology of providing education. 

In Korea, Classes began 8:00 am and then ran until 4:10 pm. Then, students cleaned classrooms from 4:10 - 4:30 pm. Following clean-up, students were headed back to class for "Test Prep" class. Afterwards, students had dinner in the school cafeteria. Finally, students went home, but before they ended the day in bed, they were instructed by their private tutors. All in all, the school day lasted from: 8:00 am - 10:30 pm. 

Now, all of this preparation was for standardized test rankings. In Korea, the higher the score the greater the opportunity. 

Of course this school day looks nothing like ours, but one of the characteristics that does remind me of our school systems is the obsession of "testing data". There is no doubt we should use data to guide our educational policy and instruction, but developing students shouldn't be weighted down by their numerical rank at age 13. 

Intelligence should be measured through our students ability to collaborate, problem solve, organize, communicate. More importantly students should reflect on their own unique contributions to their families, classmates, and schools. 

Students shouldn't need a number to categorize themselves as "Smart", the only one that can truly assess our intelligence is ourselves and the only academic standard we need to uphold is the one we establish for ourselves.

The academic standards the history classes uphold are shared standards and not derived from some arbitrary data dashboard that students can't really relate with.