On Wednesday September 6, my lead teacher had a conference/meeting with the director of CUNY Start and the dean of CLIP at Hostos.
Apparently the dean asked her:
"How many students in the classes do you think will pass the CATW test in December?"
"About 50-60%"
"What can we do to get that to 95-100%?"
"...Maybe some training for this new test?!"
Cross over to Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm, in the Writing Center Theory and Practice class at City College with Professor Barbara Gleason. The discussion is about the history of writing centers and how when they were first made official, the administrative was already becoming anxious and impatient that why aren't the students getting any better? How come there's no immediate improvement just yet? And they were quickly concluding that there should really be no respect for writing centers and deciding that only the really "weakest" students should make a trip there.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting down trying to decide: are these expectations by the administration great or just unrealistic? Sure, everybody would like "fast" results and they don't want to give their money (funding) unless they are guarenteed improvement. I know writing centers and teachers alike have been troubled with this dilemma for years, but I still wonder how do we get past that? How do we, as teachers, reassure the administration, that though not as quick as they are expecting, progress is being made? How do we reassure students that with time and diligent practice, they can become better writers? And most importantly, how do we reassure ourselves that it's all worth it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Lots of questions, Mahla. I wonder these things myself. Unfortunately, we live in a McDonald's world, where everything is better only if it's faster and super sized. Good scores NOW! Forget the fact that McDonald's is pure trash and bad for your health in the long run - just like most things that give you quick results. Teaching for tests does not work. God knows I got an A in Global Studies once upon a time ago and I don't remember jack squat.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I'm seeing this go on in the library too, where they are giving these people TABE tests and not teaching them any test taking strategies. My first test taking experience with my group was the first ever for a few of my students. They didn't even understand the whole circle in the circle thing on their answer sheets.
So hard to find a perfect balance that makes the student, teacher and administration happy :-/
And the whole circle thing is making ME nervous, with a big election coming up and the new ballots in NYC. How many people will neglect to color in the whole circle and thus not have their votes counted? Oy!
ReplyDelete