Today’s teachers must do much more than merely ‘teach to the test’

As a former teacher, I feel that not only do middle schools, but in many instances, our elementary schools fail our children. Our schools are no longer allowing teachers to teach and to make learning a memorable and fun experience. Facts are presented to the student, as dictated by some government agency. Study sheets are presented possibly a day later. A day or so later a test is given. Then, on to the next subject in a similar method and pattern.

In the early 50s, I taught third grade in Minnesota. Three years into teaching, I was “asked” to accept 12 second graders and conduct a split second and third grade class. To my already full class of third graders, a dozen overwhelmed and frightened second graders were added. The next year I had the delightful opportunity to keep them as third graders and then again in a third-fourth grade split.

In 1957, I was married. One of our joys now is to watch an old film of these 12 students at our wedding. But in 1963 we moved to Chicago and I lost contact with them.

Over the years, I thought many times of the possible harm I could have done to have these children for three years at their most impressionable time in learning. Did they learn anything? Where are they now? Are they successful? Are they happy?

In 2005 and firmly settled in Georgia, I received a phone call from a man in Arizona inquiring if I was a teacher who taught in Warrington Grade school in the 1950s. He was one of my 12, he told me, and they had been looking for me.

“Oh! What had I done,” I thought to myself. He advised that the remaining eight of the 12 had frequently visited together and discussed how much they wanted to thank me for putting them on the right path for future learning. All were college graduates, and most with advanced degrees.

He arranged a meeting in Minneapolis, and they sat around a table and told me what impressed them about those years. Without exception, they all agreed that learning had been fun. They did not realize that they were learning.

It seems to me that is the answer for many of the dropout problems. School could and should be an exciting place. Some freedom of utilizing the intellect and training of the teachers should be required and allowed. If teachers can’t motivate and make learning fun, than they should consider some other profession.

I was lucky. I loved my job. I loved to teach, I was resourceful enough to use the system allowed to become completely involved in my students’ lives. Field trips for nature study and science, baking cookies for weights, measures, counting, portions, temperatures, and pioneers for making butter and baking corn bread, science and history.

The thrust of today’s teaching is to “teach to the test,” and not teach to educate and to impart understanding and knowledge. I certainly don’t know the answer to the current educational dilemma. Possibly we can learn from the past and start emulating some of the successes of the past.

> Former teacher Patricia Mielke lives in Stone Mountain.