0130: Testocracy: Beauty is Test; Test is Beauty
#testing #SOSchat #satire #occupyedu #edchat
When referring to the Test it is important to make it a proper noun. The first ‘T’ in Test shall always be capitalized as we reside, teach, and learn in a Standardized Testocracy. Failing to use the name of the Test properly shall result in “swift and just discipline”. The Test is all knowing. The Test is all giving. The Test is just and true. Test is beauty; beauty is Test. Test with a capital ‘T’. Great is thy Testiness, Test Unto Me. These are the hymns of our fathers, the custodians of this great Testocracy. Test Save the Test. We teach the Test for the sake of the Test. We must be thankful for the Test, for it provides us with our station in life. It is giver of remediation, and dictator of pace. The Test embodies time and space. It tames our evil minds. Thank you Test for all you’ve provided. Thank you Test for pacing guides. Thank you Test, for I had no clue what to teach before You.
Wake up and drink the Koolaid, or be Remediated.
0086: Thank God for Standardized Tests, They Help Us Know Our Place
#revolution #fascism #satire #edchat
The best thing about standardized tests is they take the guess work out of teaching. I know exactly what to teach and to what extent. I don’t have to worry about teaching in wasteful creative ways, nor do I have to worry about inspiring my students. All I have to do is repeat facts over and over, and give them four choices. It’s brilliant. I can even make it fun. I can use games that get them to choose the right answer. But, even if I don’t make it fun they’ll still get it. I just have to be repetitive and forceful enough. Some kids try to resist, but I have an array of Pavlovian mechanisms to prevent this. I just use classical conditioning, I call them procedures, but once they’re conditioned all I have to do is deposit the information and they’ll spit it back out onto bubble sheets. Some students try to ask questions, but I just tell them we don’t have time. Eventually they quit asking them all together. Thank goodness. Learning not to ask questions is probably one of the best outcomes of testing. It makes for compliant citizens. Think how much better out world will be when there are no more questions. The politicians who are smarter can just do what’s best for us. Testing and standardization helps end the search for answers. Students learn, they’re really trained, but learn sounds more educational, to accept facts from teachers. I’m right because I’m in power. It’s all so amazing the way students learn these days. As a teacher, even I’m learning not to ask questions. They’ll only get me fired. Questions are not for anything but tests. Companies are put together, benevolently, to ask the questions. All we have to do is recall the already supplied answer.
The best part of it all is we learn that all our hard work is futile. I can teach and teach and teach, and my students can work and work and work, and we’re always going to fall just short of success. It helps us understand that the wealthy kids across town deserve success, and we deserve strife. Classes are meant to be solid. All is futile. Hooray for standardization— not just in school, but society too!
I fear without tests and training a pesky revolution might boil up among the proletariat (what’s that mean?).
0079: #SOPA to Close the Achievement Gap in Public Schools
#BlackoutSOPA #education #J18 #satire
Finally a piece of legislation that has our students in mind! I have no doubt that SOPA will level the playing field. You see the kids at my school don’t consistently have access to the internet at home, and at school it’s already heavily censored. The kids across town do. So SOPA will make everyone even. It will also make me a better teacher. In the past I’ve used YouTube and other Internet material to supplement my lessons, maybe create or show an experience my kids otherwise wouldn’t have access to. But, with YouTube not always being allowed in schools I sometimes pull it up on my phone. Teachers having cellphones out in class is strictly against policy so if there’s nothing there, I’ll have no reason I break the rules. You see the Internet is a dangerous and wasteful things. It spawns all these questions. I need to rely more on Prentice-Hall and McGraw-Hill anyway. They always tell just as much as we need to know. I mentioned earlier that the Internet was dangerous. It stimulates unnecessary curiosity, which distracts from the test. That shouldn’t happen. These tests have all the information we need.
Additionally, with the Internet so full of information I, as a teacher, have to spend valuable time talking about critical consumption of information. Why? We really only need to see one side to every story. I’m confused. The kids are confused. Streamlining the Internet would certainly take a lot of the guess work out. Fewer behavior problems with a more streamlined world.
I’m glad to see our loving government finally take an interest
in closing the achievement gap permanently. We’ll all be safer.
And, with less freedom of information, I’ll never have to bother teaching satire.
0066: Third Party Mercenaries to Save Our Schools
#education #testing #bullshit #SOS
There is a new hope! There are educational mercenaries for hire who will rescue our schools from the idiot teachers who wrongfully subject students to activities specifically designed to teach kids thinking skills and innovation. What are they trying to do? Create a critically thinking citizenry? Why? But, don’t worry. We have people to quell these pinko teachers. They will come in and enforce the Glorious Testocracy that we have. All Hail the mighty Standards! As one we will bubble. As one we will thrive.
For a small price several organizations can come in and tell what your teachers are doing wrong, and might can even give a few tips to the administration. The first thing they may do is set up a triage unit. They’ll help you pick out the students who are worth saving and find something to tide the others over. You we as a society must understand that there is no one in your school system who knows what they’re doing. No teacher, no principal. It’s a mystery to everyone. “What am I supposed to do with all these kids,” a teacher might ask himself. Or worse. the teacher might think it’s important to build thinking skills that would help them better understand texts and their worlds alike. That is ridiculous. Every kid needs to be a better test taker. Our Glorious Testing Company needs our offering. Think of it as a tithe to them who have our true interest at heart. I mean look at all the jobs that have been created. Now we can put more students in a classroom with one teacher. Fire the ones that are old and get paid too much. And hire mercenaries to come in and let the solitary teacher know what she’s doing wrong. Surely it’s classroom management and the inability to differentiate. Consultants need jobs, and consulting firms need contracts. Testing is so important to our education. I didn’t learn to bubble tests as a kid, and now I’m lost. A fool hearted teacher trying to teach. How foolish of me. I am a blasphemer and a heretic, but I’m getting better. Soon the rebellious spirit of free-thinking will be dead in my heart and then I will be able to bubble peacefully.
0041: An Educator’s Guide: Learning to consume together! (Hey, what about creating together?)
#teaching #edchat #rebellion #consumer
Each day students awaken from their sweet dreams in their rich and peaceful 3 car garage homes in white neighborhoods and come to schools where their reveries can continue. Because of their natural privilege they are allowed to enter classrooms that have a marvelous curriculum of consumption. Fortunate students are blessed to “sit-and-get” knowledge each day that will allow them to perform well on their standardized tests. These standardized tests allow them to be given numeric values as human beings. Note: there is nothing more humanizing than a numeric value. These numeric values allow them to be properly sorted for better processing. It helps the schools decide how much remediation material to purchase. Luckily, almost everyone needs remediation materials of some sort. Numbered people need remediation. Usually these remedial people have strange behavior patterns that must be managed. They often squirm around and try to force their teacher-depositor to chase rabbits. The chasing of rabbits is strictly prohibited, as it distracts from what is truly important. If these remedial humans continue to chase rabbits, they can be remediated with medication. Then they will no long distract from what is important. Sometimes the teachers need remediation, especially if they insist on wasting time with discussing and reteaching material that was already consumed at its determined time on the pacing guide. These teachers usually learn to behave with a simple reprimand, but many of them need to be put on improvement plans. We must accept that the curriculum is designed and scheduled by someone who is an absolute expert. They specialize in curriculum mapping. They know the curriculum. That’s their only job. They don’t have time to waste with students and pesky misbehaving teachers. Sometimes, too, principals try to interfere with the process of organizing the numbered individuals, by defending certain practices that rebellious teachers implement. These rogue principals can usually be reprimanded, or relocated, or terminated. So, there’s no need to worry there.
It’s of the utmost importance that we as educator-depositors remember to avoid collaboration and discussion with our peers. We have consumers to groom. We must model, by properly swallowing each pill we are given. Lead by example, they say. And, we shall! Be a leader. Lead by following. We have consumers to groom.
Finally, we must remember that the task of creation should always go to someone else. This could also be said for collaboration. Education should not concern itself with creation or collaboration. Consumption is the goal. Otherwise, our economy will fail and we will have to rely on one another. How awful.
Really?
