Pass the salt.

So I can rub it into my wounds.

Or, more accurately, rub it into the wounds of my students, since that's what the test prep curriculum seems to be doing. 

I am beginning to get burnt out at work, since all I do is test prep. Even though this is what the students ask for (since their goal is to pass the GED; they don't really care if they attain knowledge. I cannot blame this for this, as their long-term goal is to find a job with a living wage, which they need a GED to get, and most of the information on the GED they do not really need to know to be successful in these jobs. I felt the same way in high school; I wanted to pass chemistry but knew I would never use what I had learned in that class.), it is really tedious and boring teaching it (and probably learning it).

What's more: If students don't pass the test the first time, it is incredibly difficult for me as an educator to help them improve for next time, which I touched upon in my last post, in which I stated that the GED Testing Service does not let the students see which questions they missed, only which skills they need to work on. (By the way, this is especially frustrating with the writing portion, in which I cannot see what the students wrote, only what their grade is, so I cannot tell them why they received the score they did. I am consistently baffled by students -- strong writers in my class -- who end up scoring a zero on the writing section. I'm not just teaching these students "my way" of writing: I am using the writing curriculum published by the GED Testing Service.)

This blog post likens passing the bar to the test prep culture in public schools. That may seem like an obvious analogy, but the author makes a great point that her classes in law school far better prepared her for life as a lawyer than the bar exam did, stating that "ten years into private practice, I don’t draw on my two months of intensive bar test prep to advise my clients or manage my work.... My two months of bar test prep taught me that mass-produced bar prep can successfully raise scores: my MBE score skyrocketed when I left my inquisitiveness, curiosity, and thoughtfulness at the door, and instead immersed myself completely in the test-makers’ logic."

This is exactly what I tell my students: think like a test-maker. I hate doing this for the exact reason stated above: It severely limits their curiosity and thoughtfulness, which will serve them much better in the long run.

Furthermore, students who take the GED have different goals than many students in high school: Get a job. While many students in high school want this too, eventually, they also wish to pursue more education first, which is the population the GED is written for. (It is based on CCSS, which preps students for higher education. This is not a terrible goal, but it does not serve the particular population of students I work with.) 

Lecester Johnson, a brilliant woman who runs the adult education program at Academy of Hope (whom I have had the pleasure of meeting personally), speaks to this point in a PBS Newshour, against President of the GED Testing Service, Randy Trask. I urge you to read this transcript and see who has the purer motive for helping students succeed.