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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teaching in a college setting is very different from teaching K-12.  [/quote]

Not really. It's all bout the methods of teaching and they are the same. It's about enticing your students and sharing ones love for whatever is being taught with those in the class. Funny thing...quite a few of my students from the FCPS system suggested that I teach at the HS level, and told me how they would have greatly appreciated a teacher who inspires.

Teaching is an art; not everyone who teaches is an artist, though.[/quote]

It is actually very different.  Your syllabus, i.e. what and how you teach, are not affected by the SOLs.  k-12 teachers are seriously hampered by them, due to all of the practice tests imposed that are geared towards students passing the SOLs.  The time involved is incredible...in some settings every week a practice test is given...this takes away quality instructional time, and requires teachers to not be nearly as creative as they are capable of, and want to be. It sucks their passion out...

In this realm (K-12) teaching is no longer viewed as an art; it is viewed as a numbers game with data being king (and data can't be "merely" the teacher's professional judgement based on classroom interactions, observations, formative assessments..for it to be "real" ).

I am thrilled your students are enjoying your class, but you and they would be quite dismayed if you were constricted via teaching in a public HS in FCPS or any other district in this area. [/quote]

At least we are having a civil dialog and perhaps I might have slightly wrong and mildly offensive for say FCPS teacher were part of the Zombie Apocolype; I'm sorry.  However, I still maintain there is far too little enthusiasm in the classroom. One essay is written in about eight pieces and stretches out over an intolerable period of time. It's this painfully slow bleeding process and its one work that is excessisively heavily weighted. This snail's pace of slow grinding progression saps the student's energy, excitement, enthusiasm, creativity, and attention.  The students are no longer working to produce something new and novel in which someone else might have missed in the materials. No, far from it, they are they to figure out what specific details the teacher is looking for. If the student's interpretation doesn't fit precisely within confines of teacher's interpretation no credit is granted. Earlier in this thread I've give examples as to what I am alluding.

It cannot be possible that preparing for the tests so totally eliminates all time for lectures where teachers can teach the content and draw links and parallels with other literature, characters, events, and phenomenon.  Why do FCPS teachers fail to cross reference or create chains of events. Why do FCPS teachers fail to emphasize the nature of cause and effects. Every lesson is taught in isolation from the next.

When I asked days ago to ask you to ask your children what they learned in school today, I was looking for someone to respond with an interesting story about a chain of events which occurred. Something like "Mom and Dad, did you know that "a" happened , which the caused "b" to happen, which caused "c" to happen, which resulted in "d" happening.

Kids love to learn, but they only learn when education makes sense. Education facts need to be connected to other educational facts and the links of that educational chain must be relevant to their own lives. Otherwise the facts being taught are just disconnected nubulous facts independently  floating in space with no particular connection to anything else.

Our kids don't come home from school excited to tell us about the things they've learned in school because they are not being told the complete story about anything. Teachers give them bits and pieces related to today's lesson, but they never fully ties the objectives of the entire unit together. This is because the spend no time lecturing and making those important connections in front of their classes supporting their explanations graphically using the LCD projectors provided to them by the County.

The students spend their lives in groups, but when assessment time comes they are on their own to fend for themselves taking the same tests students took when traditional teaching methods and books were used.

It's sad!  FCPS is grossly overrated, the students are not learning much, the schools are like the workhouses from the age of Dickens and the creative imaginations of our children are being crushed. [/quote]

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