observation

The first school that I observe was a first grade class at North Laurinburg Elementary School in Laurinburg N.C. When I walked in the classroom, the teacher and the students gave me a warm welcome. The teacher introduces herself to me and then she introduces me to the classroom. She begins to fill me in on the activity the children were doing. They just finish reading a story and they children were writing their own story and draw pictures. One of the things that I learned was the pressure that the first grade teachers are receiving from the state to make sure that the children pass their quarterly test. I thought that the third through eight grade teachers were the only one who had to worry about their students passing a standardize test. Although the test that the first graders are taking is not the End of Grade Test, the pressure is all the same. Every three months the children have to take that test and that will determine their grade for that period of time. The teacher allowed me to get a look at the test to show me what kind of material that will be on the test. Talking about push down academics, those children are doing things on that test that I did not do until I was in the second grade. I can tell that the teacher did not really agree with some of the things she had to teach. For example, she spent a lot of time teaching the test instead of doing hands on activity where the children can learn different concepts of the material that she was teaching. I think that it is hard to learn certain things without first grasping the concepts. I can see the frustration in some of those children face because they did not understand the material. It seems to me that passing the test is more important than actually learning concepts. How can teachers build up a child self-esteem when the children are pressure to perform on a test that is to difficult for most of them?