Holocaust Memorials & State testing

As the 60th anniversary of Nazi capitulation has been celebrated and Holocaust remembrance day has come and gone I have yet again been impressed with the ability of eighth graders to connect to something outside of their normal realm of experience and appalled at the rigid structure of this states public education system.

With the help of a mass media saturated with Holocaust remembrance coverage and a couple of teachers who have gone beyond our prescribed “core content” students have gained an interest and insight in a part of world history that could be easily lost with the generation that lived it. A couple of students came to the opening of the photo/oral history exhibit I mentioned in a previous post. Another independently e-mailed me a page of audio clips from Survivors recounting their stories. Others brought in current event assignments about the opening of the memorial in Berlin. Many have asked for more information and are reading as much as they can about the Holocaust.

This presents yet another argument against hard core adherence to a rigid curriculum connected to high stakes testing. Without teachers willing to risk going outside the template provided by the state these students would have missed out on connecting to an important part of human history, unless they pursued it independently, and let’s face it most 14-year-olds are not what you would call independent scholars. Teachers need to be given license to leave the core content behind when something like this presents itself. As it is we are so afraid that we won’t cover the material we need to before testing starts that we often overlook real learning opportunities. The almighty test rules our classrooms not teaching and learning.

Hats off to teachers and students who put learning before TESTING.