*Regents Editorial for Literary Club*
Regents exams to high school students in the state of New York do not exactly have the best reputation. It is not surprising that most young adults do not enjoy the grueling tests at the end of each year that last for hours and account for twenty percent of their overall grade. Regents finals are meant to ensure that children across the state are being taught the correct things in the correct ways, but I believe these tests inhibit more learning than they provide.
The problem with Regents testing is that it creates a strict framework for teachers to teach within. For example, social studies teachers study the exam given to their students each year very closely. Then, to help their students score as best as they can on the test the following year, they only teach things that will appear on the Regents, since there is far too little time to teach anything extra. Eventually, past exams become the syllabus for that class.
There is nothing the teachers can do. Schools need their students to produce high scores on tests so they are considered a better school. Teaching only the things that are regularly on state tests is the most efficient way to raise scores. Teachers, then, are bound to their syllabus, rendering them powerless and forced to teach the same things in the same way year after year.
I personally think that teachers should be given more freedom to teach what they want. After all, these teachers attended college for more than four years and spent tens of thousands of dollars on their education in teaching their respective subjects. If our society does not trust teachers to pass down their knowledge to their students, why are they given licenses to teach?
It is not only students that hate Regents tests; teachers generally are not a fan of them either. When forced to teach to the state tests each year, their input is drastically decreased, their creativity limited, and any excitement they may have gotten from teaching would surely not return for more than a year or two, as each year would only get more redundant for them. The teacher’s increasing boredom through the years leads to an impassionate classroom, creating an atmosphere that makes it difficult for any student to be excited to learn. The state may believe that children wouldn’t be taught correctly without the protection of the Regents, but most teachers at Leroy agree that they could teach students more effectively if given the freedom to do so.
I will admit that, in theory, it sounds like a good idea to have a standard for everyone in the state to be compared to. So, I am not so much disappointed in the fact that there are Regents exams. I am more disappointed in the areas the tests cover, as there is a lot that is left out. Even after receiving a perfect score on this year’s eleventh grade English Regents, I feel lost when, now that the Regents is over, I am not forced to write everything in the way I would have written it on the state test. For example, in the same English class we have recently started learning about creative writing, such as poems and short stories. It is shocking to most of the junior class how different it is from anything we have ever written, and how unexposed we have all previously been due to the incredibly limited material covered on the English Regents.
Is creative writing less important than the listening and reading comprehension that is currently on the English Regents each year? Are things that are left off of the social studies Regents tests not still a part of history? Simply put, I doubt it. I believe that it’s possible that students may be inspired by and choose to further their education in an area that they aren’t taught due to the restrictions the Regents places on teaching. And so, I cannot help but think that I’m being short-changed and only learning half of what’s out there in the real world. If education opens doors to our futures, a certain number of them will be locked, our entrance through them is prohibited because the things we learn in high school are confined to what the state deems valuable to high school students.
The problem with Regents testing is that it creates a strict framework for teachers to teach within. For example, social studies teachers study the exam given to their students each year very closely. Then, to help their students score as best as they can on the test the following year, they only teach things that will appear on the Regents, since there is far too little time to teach anything extra. Eventually, past exams become the syllabus for that class.
There is nothing the teachers can do. Schools need their students to produce high scores on tests so they are considered a better school. Teaching only the things that are regularly on state tests is the most efficient way to raise scores. Teachers, then, are bound to their syllabus, rendering them powerless and forced to teach the same things in the same way year after year.
I personally think that teachers should be given more freedom to teach what they want. After all, these teachers attended college for more than four years and spent tens of thousands of dollars on their education in teaching their respective subjects. If our society does not trust teachers to pass down their knowledge to their students, why are they given licenses to teach?
It is not only students that hate Regents tests; teachers generally are not a fan of them either. When forced to teach to the state tests each year, their input is drastically decreased, their creativity limited, and any excitement they may have gotten from teaching would surely not return for more than a year or two, as each year would only get more redundant for them. The teacher’s increasing boredom through the years leads to an impassionate classroom, creating an atmosphere that makes it difficult for any student to be excited to learn. The state may believe that children wouldn’t be taught correctly without the protection of the Regents, but most teachers at Leroy agree that they could teach students more effectively if given the freedom to do so.
I will admit that, in theory, it sounds like a good idea to have a standard for everyone in the state to be compared to. So, I am not so much disappointed in the fact that there are Regents exams. I am more disappointed in the areas the tests cover, as there is a lot that is left out. Even after receiving a perfect score on this year’s eleventh grade English Regents, I feel lost when, now that the Regents is over, I am not forced to write everything in the way I would have written it on the state test. For example, in the same English class we have recently started learning about creative writing, such as poems and short stories. It is shocking to most of the junior class how different it is from anything we have ever written, and how unexposed we have all previously been due to the incredibly limited material covered on the English Regents.
Is creative writing less important than the listening and reading comprehension that is currently on the English Regents each year? Are things that are left off of the social studies Regents tests not still a part of history? Simply put, I doubt it. I believe that it’s possible that students may be inspired by and choose to further their education in an area that they aren’t taught due to the restrictions the Regents places on teaching. And so, I cannot help but think that I’m being short-changed and only learning half of what’s out there in the real world. If education opens doors to our futures, a certain number of them will be locked, our entrance through them is prohibited because the things we learn in high school are confined to what the state deems valuable to high school students.
2 comments:
Jimothy,
Did you write this? Your thoughts, while not revolutionary, are valid. I know similar sentiments have been expressed for years which would seem to indicate NYS either 1) does not care or 2) cannot figure out an alternative.
From experience I can tell you that I absolutely did not learn a thing in high school. All creativity was stifled and even at SUNY Geneseo it was rare to have a professor that knew how to access that potential in student's minds. The best way to teach is to make students think -- force them to think, and not cater to things like standardized tests or really any sort of grading system at all.
In your essay you admit that standardized testing is not necessarily a bad idea. So the question I pose to you is, how do you balance standardized testing without limiting a teacher's ability to teach creatively and in a more encompassing manner?
Also, I wonder: do your teachers HAVE to include the Regents score as part of student grades or is that a personal choice? I would simply the regents score out of final grades and treat it as a completely separate entity.
PostScriptum:
Someone once told me that, "It is good to have an opinion, but it is better to have a solution."
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