Interesantes reacciones al art'iculo de Thomas Friedman
Letters
Published: November 27, 2010
To the Editor:
Re “Teaching for America” (column, Nov. 21): 
As a former teacher and the parent of two teenagers in a top-rated public high school, I agree with Thomas L. Friedman: We need to reinvent teaching, learning and assessment in the 21st century so that our students can thrive in a knowledge economy.
But, as Mr. Friedman states, citing Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert, thriving requires the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving, to communicate effectively and to collaborate.
Right now, unfortunately, we are “teaching to the test” (partly thanks to No Child Left Behind), requiring rote learning and formulaic responses. Children go through the motions, disengaging from the learning process.
For successful education reform, our challenge will be how to measure standards of achievement, on the part of students and teachers, without killing the love of learning, creative thinking and innovation that have always proved America’s strong suit.
Susan P. Stone
New Canaan, Conn., Nov. 21, 2010
•
To the Editor:
If students need to develop their abilities to think critically, communicate effectively and collaborate to thrive in the knowledge economy, then Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top is racing in the wrong direction.
Mr. Duncan’s emphasis on teacher accountability is quickly being translated into teachers being held accountable for raising math or reading scores, not for raising a student’s ability to think, solve problems or collaborate.
Students who are driven to value their own test scores over all else are motivated to act selfishly, not collaboratively. They are encouraged to look for the one right answer, not to take intellectual risks or to entertain alternative solutions.
The best and the brightest college students will not go into teaching and remain in the profession if they are treated as assembly-line managers, evaluated solely by their ability to produce identical, high-testing students.
If we want students to be able to think, then their teachers need to be able to think as well.
David Getz
Michael Goldspiel
New York, Nov. 21, 2010
The writers are, respectively, principal and assistant principal of East Side Middle School.
•
To the Editor:
I agree with Thomas L. Friedman that we need to elevate the status of teaching in our country in order to recruit quality teachers consistently.
All the talk about merit pay misses what motivates the best teachers. We — including those of us who teach at the college level — care about support for our work, some of which is pay, but also facilities, resources, equipment, reasonable class sizes and so on.
If Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, wants to recruit the best teachers, he needs to make schools better places to work. He needs to convince anti-education and antigovernment conservatives that school budgets and curriculums aren’t appropriate places to fight the culture wars.
And he needs to stop antagonizing teachers’ unions just to show that he is willing to.
Seth Kahn
West Chester, Pa., Nov. 21, 2010
The writer is an associate professor of English at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
•
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman notes that in countries like Denmark and Finland that outperform the United States in education, teachers graduate in the top one-third of their classes.
But there is another explanation for why the United States lags behind: poverty. The percentage of children living in poverty in Denmark and Finland is under 3 percent. In the United States the percentage is 21.
Poverty means poor nutrition, substandard health care, environmental toxins and little access to books, all of which have a strong negative effect on school success.
Middle-class American children attending well-financed schools outscore nearly all other countries. But our overall scores are unspectacular because we have such a high percentage of children living in poverty.
Increasing pressure on teachers and parents will not significantly improve achievement, but if we can protect children from the effects of poverty, American tests scores will be at the top of the world.
Stephen Krashen
Los Angeles, Nov. 22, 2010
The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário