Commented on Brittany and Danie’s Blogs.
“Teachers Only Teach to SOL’s”
Being a private school attendee, I have always heard from my mother the evils of the SOL’s.
“Teacher’s only teach to the SOL’S, and I want you to be able to think more broadly. I don’t want you to only know how to answer multiple choice questions”.
My mother has repeated statements like these for years, and now that I am entering the teaching profession her distaste for the SOL’s frequently pop-up in dinner table conversation.
“You don’t want to teach at a public school, you will hate it, you won’t be able to teach anything that interests you, or your students.”
Unfortunately, my mother is one of many who believe that the SOL’s are the reason for bad teaching.
I understand where parents–like my own– get the misconception that the standards of learning automatically equal a full school year of tedious multiple choice questions aimed at gauging little needed facts of information to score on a state test. I also understand first hand as a student the need for such tests.
Why use the SOL’s?
Since I attended a private school for the entirety of my education, I was never taught the SOL’s, and many of my teachers did not follow the curriculum framework (or any curriculum for that matter), and as a result, we were learning only what the teachers wanted to teach. Some of the teachers were wonderful, particularly in English, but other subjects such as Math and Science fell short. It did not seem like a big deal at the time and being a 10th and 11th grader I was excited that I could goof around all class and there was never a set goal of things we needed to do by the year’s end. However, as the SAT and ACT date approached, my approval of this teaching practice diminished. My ACT scores in Math and Science were way below average because these tests which decided my future were based on the standard knowledge everyone in public schools had learned. My parents paid for my education, expecting the standards to be higher, but with no standards to work with what were they actually paying for?
What Can We do To Change the Negativity Around the SOL’S?
Even though many people view the SOL’s as negative, we as teachers can change this view for both parent and student. The idea of the SOL’s, particularly the framework is a wonderful idea. It allows teachers to know what other schools are teaching so everyone stays on track. Additionally, it means that students have a set amount of goals they need to complete before the end of the year, so teachers aren’t tempted to stray too far away from what needs to be covered in a school year.
English teachers in particular have the ability to cover several of the standards with one lesson. For example, the 8th Grade SOL 8.4 says students will:
a) Identify and analyze an author’s use of figurative language.
b) Use context, structure, and connotations to determine meaning and differentiate among multiple meanings of words and phrases. (VDOE).
There are poems, books, articles, plays, etc. that students could read to accomplish these standards. They are focused enough for the teacher to stay on track, while still allowing for movement within a particular classroom community. Additionally, there are many ways to make lessons for these standards which are engaging, thoughtful, and applicable to the students life outside of the SOL test.
The SOL’s, in my opinion, are not responsible for bad or lazy teaching–bad and lazy teachers are. Not every teacher who uses the SOL’s will spend the entire year using multiple choice tests, or spend countless hours teaching a 2005 version of the SOL. I certainly know I will not.
I really appreciate your perspective as a private school student. I went to public school for most of my life (with a small foray into private military schools when I was in middle school) and so have always been plagued by standardized tests. I always thought of them as a frustrating hindrance, so it’s valuable to understand how they can be useful to gauging student learning.
As a future teacher I now completely agree with you. The SOL’s aren’t an evil, but instead a base line for necessary knowledge. They are not a limit, but a starting point.
Danielle,
I love the layout of your blog! The quotes you have in the white blocks really stand out and make your point loud and clear. Besides that, your perspective on SOLs is really eye-opening because I went through public school and the standards are the only thing I am familiar with. I didn’t really realize that not following some kind of curriculum framework would also affect ACT scores, like you said. I think that your last section about how to change the view on SOLs is very well put and doable for future teachers.
I completely agree with your interpretation of how SOLs should be imcorporated into classrooms. Your post makes me think of when our Education 473 professor said that we should aim to “teach through, not to, the SOLs.” I think that SOLs are a great way to gauge the minimum skills that students in each grade should be able to perform, but that does not mean that they should be the only content covered, nor should they drive the way that material is caught. By “teaching through” the SOLs, teachers can cover the material necessary to pass the SOL, while also going beyond the basic memorization and rigid formatting associated with SOL tests. I’m thinking about the writing SOL test in particular, which tends to make some teachers feel restricted to overemphasizing the five paragraph essay in order for students to pass. If teachers teach through the five paragraph essay, just presenting it as one genre of writing and also exposing students to other genres of writing, they will be familiar enough with the format of the five paragraph essay to perform well on the test and will be able to gain the writing skills they need to perform well from a variety of genres. Not only would this enable students to be able to pass in a much more pedagogically-sound way, but it would also teach students to write in genres that they will actually use in writing beyond the SOL test without inhibiting their ability to perform well.