hw 39

list of questions and ideas:

why do we have certain hours that we need to be at school for?
why do we get grades determining what we know?
why is a school year so long?
tests are threats that keep us in check and force us to do good


i really like this idea of how we are given tests throughout our learning years. How some tests have more power over others. I thought about how in elementary school i had math tests on about 320 questions that we had to solve. i was always the last kid to finish. I felt like i could never finish all these questions especially in 3 minutes. These tests scared me and sort of made me seem dumber. I felt like since i couldnt finish in the time that was give, i was below everyone else. soon enough i finished the test and felt great about myself. This test scared me, i felt like i had to learn this stuff even if it took me forever to learn. These weekely tests were ways for teachers to moniter the pace of your learning and how you work under pressure.

I Think that these quizzes are meant to intimidte kids and foce them to learn. Tests are ways for teachers to specifically see what you know. It is a way that we learn. its tough for some people because they get nervous and sometimes forget a lot of things that they studied. Now it;s even tougher and more stressful because now we have to take SAT's and a bunch of tests that can determine the next steps in our lives. In psycology class though, we spoke about how these tests such as the SAT can be major flaws in the ways that we learn. It is sort of impossible to study for the SAT, becuase all you know is that there is math and english, we know nothing specifically like what equations to use.This is a test that tests your cleverness and the ways that you can work around something. This is the only ways you are able to actually study, this is maybe one reason why im not stressing the SAT so much, because maybe studying wouldn't help me. So by taking 300 dollar SAT courses when i can buy a 20 dollar SAT book, and scoring about the same or below average, can show me that those 300 dollars maybe wasn't a good investment. This idea of tests intimidating kids, is no longer intimidating to me, i know that im smart in my own categories, and a bookelt with a score on it is sort of labeling to me, so even if i fail 30 tests this year, its all good, because i personally dont like taking test. So this idea of tests as threats to learn and intimdate kids, doesn't really bother me too much