Educational Crankiness Part 2
So today it has been announced by some bright spark (yes, I am being immensely sarcastic) also known as the Centre for Policy Studies, that essay questions in Sats tests are "stressful to mark" and "essays written by students in England these days are often virtually unintelligible with even basic errors not being corrected".
Now, I would have to agree about essay questions being stressful to mark precisely because they are virtually unintelligible. I have 18 year olds who are writing at a standard I'd surpassed by the age of 8. I received an essay recently where one sentence was eight lines long (typed, in Times New Roman 12 point) with absolutely no punctuation at all. I only knew it hand ended because they started a new paragraph with a capital letter.
And what, I hear you ask, is the remedy to this situation? Teach them how to spell? How to use punctuation?(Any punctuation would be nice, to be honest, but proper punctuation would be lovely). How about getting really drastic and teaching the lazy little buggers to take some pride in their work?
No. The answer is, apparently, to remove essay questions altogether and give them more multiple guess questions.
Please insert your fingers in your ears now while I scream incoherently and put navvies to shame.
(Addendum: the Department for Children, Schools and Families have at least said that it is important to test writing skills. Shame they don't actually believe in teaching them as well)
Now, I would have to agree about essay questions being stressful to mark precisely because they are virtually unintelligible. I have 18 year olds who are writing at a standard I'd surpassed by the age of 8. I received an essay recently where one sentence was eight lines long (typed, in Times New Roman 12 point) with absolutely no punctuation at all. I only knew it hand ended because they started a new paragraph with a capital letter.
And what, I hear you ask, is the remedy to this situation? Teach them how to spell? How to use punctuation?(Any punctuation would be nice, to be honest, but proper punctuation would be lovely). How about getting really drastic and teaching the lazy little buggers to take some pride in their work?
No. The answer is, apparently, to remove essay questions altogether and give them more multiple guess questions.
Please insert your fingers in your ears now while I scream incoherently and put navvies to shame.
(Addendum: the Department for Children, Schools and Families have at least said that it is important to test writing skills. Shame they don't actually believe in teaching them as well)