Readicide Ch 1

This is my 2nd year being in a Science classroom and so I expected to hear CRCT discussed from day one, but it didn't happen and has yet to happen. My lead teacher is a rare form, one who believes in students learning through inquiry and not just through transmission. It is true that teachers are required to teach an insane number of standards, in fact so many that students are only skimming through the content. What kind of deep thinking or interest does this evoke? Gallagher wrote that students only have "authentic interest" when they are able to really explore an interesting idea. When standards are covered so quickly just to stay on the state's set deadline students are not able to explore any topic at depth. Students will be exposed to differnt literacy forms when able to study more things of interest. In the classroom I'm currently in, the lead teacher really strives for students to have the opportunity to explore their interests. In Science, students can be exposed to reading in many forms, such as lab write-ups and interactive Web Quest. As far as CRCT prep, teachers are forced to teach the content for the test if they expect a contract for the following year. I believe Judith A Langer said it best by this quote, "If students are taught to read and write well, they will do fine on a mandated reading test." We should not focus teaching students test questions, but rather on content areas.