Standards

I think the idea of standards is a good one. Not only for educators, but for parents and students. Educators should be given an idea of what they are supposed to teaching and held accountable. The problem with this is that they also have a lot more on their plates. The standards set by the State on Indiana for Science, and the NCATE for Environmental Educators are great, but I do not know if they are realistic. I don't feel like I got the kind of education that is being described and I went to one of the top public schools in Ohio that had an A rating each year. I feel as though when it came to Science and Math that my education was lacking. I was horrible at science and math, so what did they do? They put me in remedial math and science classes so that I could "catch up". All this really did was remind me that I did not do well in these classes, so the education that I got was not up to standards. In these classes my teachers focused on getting the remedial kids to pass the standardized tests so that our school score didn't go down.

I have not only noticed it in these subjects but in many others. I was in Honors English classes since 7th grade. Funny that I was in remedial math and science and honors english. My english classes were much better than the remedial classes or just regular english classes. I would ask my friends what they did and it didn't even compare to the type of education that we were getting in the honors classes. I assumed this was similar in honors classes for math and science, but i wasn't even close to being allowed in those classes.

So, do I think standards are good? Yes. Can their expectations be realistic? I don't think so. At least not right now. In order for it to be realistic we need much better teacher education. We would also need a way to get every kid engaged in every subject, which is also a very hard thing and I am not sure where you can even start with a solution.