Reflection On Starr's Mill High School

I am a student at Starr’s Mill High School. I am writing because, like you, I want to see the students, as well as myself, in this school succeed. And in the past few years i reached this place where i began to feel like i was part of a broken system that was causing damage to those very students that i wish to see succeed. I have watched as my requirements as a student have swung away from a focus on my, and many other students’ individual learning styles, emotional needs, and their individual families, interests and strengths to focus on testing, assessing, and scoring young students. Throughout my 12 years of academic training I have seen learning go from hands-on, exploration, investigation to what I would describe as a time of testing,
Do you know how many students relate to that fish? Swimming upstream in class never finding their gift.Curriculums are created by policy makers where most of them haven’t taught a day in their life, just obsessed with standardized tests, because they think bubbling a multiple choice question will determine success. That’s outlandish in fact these tests are too cruel to be used and should be abandoned. But don’t take my word for it. Take fredrick J Keely’s the man who invented standardized testing who said and I quote “These test are too cruel and should be abandoned.” Now I don’t have much faith in school but I do have faith in people. And if we can customize health care, cars, and Facebook pages then it is our duty to do the same for education, to upgrade and change. No more common core instead let’s reach the core of heart in every class. So stop making future engineers sit in English classes reading pointless stories, filling out pointless graphic organizers, and writing pointless papers when the only skill they will take from that class is communication. Let’s give every gift a chance. I know that sounds like a dream but countries like Finland are doing impressive things where they have shorter