Standardized English

Like many other education majors, I’ve recently been doing my observations. Now, I’m a secondary education English major. Through the classes I’ve been taking, I’m supposed to be expecting to teach high school kids about writing, literature, and even how to think outside the box. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. Every school district I’ve been too has actual five day a week classes dedicated to the sole purpose of standardized testing. A lot of these teachers are English teachers. Even in the English classes, a good chunk of what these kids do is to prepare them for the PSSAs. So how can you teach anyone about literature and good writing if you have to teach based on a formula? The purpose of Language arts is not to think like a clone, but to branch out and be able to make your own connections. Not every classroom operates this way, but the number is definitely higher than it should be. Needless to say, it’s pretty disappointing to observe and realize that instead of teaching minds to open and embrace the abstract, I’m going to have to teach them to close in on small, logical points.