I ran across these two videos on Youtube and it struck me as interesting two movies are out there regarding  the American philosophy of teaching. If you take a look around this blog, you will see I have written comparatively much about striving for the test and teaching with the goal of the test in mind. This year, I started with a different perspective. I still value the test as a motivator but I value giving my students a better quality of life more than the test. I even shared that with my colleagues this year. Testing must be at the forefront of my mind to keep my class scores high. When high test scores result, good things follow there is no doubt. Testing has definite benefits but in my humble opinion our focus has grown polarized at the expense of the whole child. I wouldn’t go out on a limb and say that unless I felt most teachers agreed with it.

The situation with the test has gotten a bit out of control. Parents have little more to hope for in their child’s education than an annual letter with bar graphs on it. I’m old fashioned in that I will always teach the way my employer wants me to. Having said that, my new goal is still driving me this year. I find it remarkable that these two movies are coming out. One seems to assault the test while the other takes on bad teachers. Waiting for Superman indeed. I really really liked hearing the words in these trailers. They were like the healing that I feel so many students parents and teachers have been longing to hear. Take a look at these trailers and let me know what you think.

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