Trivia Lists

[TerryRitchie]

I never finished it because new administration took over and basically outlawed games in the classroom.

I see, plus this assoc memory to effort adds a big neg cloud around the whole project, eeh!

new admin doesn't know much about motivating students
i wonder how long they lasted.

Oh they are still there but it's not entirely their fault. Common core and state testing standards starting really ramping up around then (that no child left behind bullshit). The push toward mandated state testing left very little time for anything except rote memorization of test answers. Administrators were under pressure to see test scores reach a certain level. If that level was not met funding would be affected. Their answer to this was do anything to get students to answer those tests correctly. Seeing things like games being used in the classroom meant the teachers would be evaluated lower for not using time wisely. It was (and still is) a real mess.

Couple this with the state now requiring students to get at least two industry certifications before graduation (like CompTIA A+/Network+, CISCO CCNA, etc..) and you get the final nail in the coffin. There is no real world experience in a high school classroom so these certifications, even if gotten by the student, meant nothing to the IT industry. But parents and students were told this was their ticket to the IT world. The ONLY way for a student to pass a certification like this in a high school setting is rote memorization. Never mind they don't understand what they are memorizing, all that matters was the school could report the certification testing to the state.

It's the reason I finally left teaching. I couldn't tell parents that their child was guaranteed a job in the IT industry even though I was supposed to and the school's literature made it sound like this as well. I even had tenure so I couldn't be fired if I bucked the system but I was so unhappy with everything that it was affecting my mental health.