Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Octavian Discussion Question 1
When Mr. Sharpe takes over, the nature of Octavian's education changes drastically. He is no longer given whole pieces of books or information to learn from. Instead he is tested over fragments. Do you see any connections between this situation and testing in today's education?
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Yes, When Octavian is being tested over fragments of what he has learned relates to standardized testing today. This is not reliable or valid measures of what students know, and that tests are being used to rate schools, teachers, and students in ways that aren’t fair since not every student learns the same way.
ReplyDeleteI agree and many people have also raised a valid question about how such standardized tests may be biased against certain socio-economic groups.
DeleteI agree with Earnie in that Octavian's education loosely resembles the dilemma we face now with standardized testing. We give all of our students the same information and then they all take the same examinations to test their knowledge. Octavian was given bits and pieces of a "bigger picture" that weren't enough to allow any learning like achieved before with Dr. Trefusis. Octavian was set up to fail by Mr. Sharpe, but I wouldn't necessarily say that we are setting up our students for complete failure.
ReplyDeleteI can see these changes in a couple different ways. We as students are often only given bits of information, usually what the teacher feels will be the most beneficial from a much bigger idea. For instance, utilizing power points that break apart the most important information that is needed to be retained. Mr. Sharpe did what he did for a much different reason. He wanted to ensure that Octavian not be a success story. I also feel that they teach a lengthy amount of information before testing over it, and then you never know what to expect or how to prepare for the tests. This can often be a disadvantage to some because like Earnie stated, not every student learns the same.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if it just depends on the class. For example when it is a short lesson like math, then just as long as they cover that and mostly everyone understands then they move on. If it is something more thorough, chemistry for example, then each experiment or section may take more than one class period and there is a lot of content it deals with. At the end everything you learned before continues or ties to next sections.
ReplyDeleteMr. Sharpe wanted Octavian to fail so he would only give him bits of information that he would never be able to get the answers, but could still say that they tried to teach him. The world today is growing and going at such a fast pace that we often times only get bits and pieces of information and have to fill in the blanks ourselves. Schools teach this way many times to save on time. They just teach what is the most essential to what is needed to be taught, and if the students want to learn more they can do that on their own.
ReplyDeleteI believe the author is critiquing modern education and standardized testing. Recall Richard Sharpe works for a group of colonial businessmen, who take over funding the house where Octavian is held. These businessmen own slaves, and it is strongly implied that Sharpe is attempting to bias the experiment with Octavian in order to prove that Africans are inferior. He does this by drastically altering and fragmenting Octavian's education. Mr. Sharpe’s technique of giving him boring technical passages in Greek and Latin to transcribe rather than the whole stories his previous teachers used certainly compares a classic education to the one we find in schools today. Octavian’s minder’s emphasis on weighing and measuring and recording such seemingly insignificant details about Octavian (e.g. feces output), while completely ignoring his basic humanity might represent standardized test scores themselves.
ReplyDeleteYes it compares... Personal experiences ... Tons of information you are to learn alone...and then your tested on a small percentage of that material... How do you choose what's learning worthy or important to the cause...
ReplyDeleteThis type of testing is seen today. The school systems have specific points that teachers need to educate there students over and some things are completely ignored. I think it is normal in the school system but in Octavian's case he was being deprived. He wanted to keep learning in the fashion that he had done with his previous teacher but was denied the chance to keep learning.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is seen in today's education system. Instructors focus on what will be important to learn for future classes or solely on test material. An entire subject is not taught in its entirety. Given resources and time, it would be unrealistic to expect every single thing on a subject to be discussed in one class.
ReplyDeleteI’m unsure of how to relate Octavian’s education with education practice today, but the author of the book describes 03-01 taking Octavian’s food and holding it in ‘suspense’ as an advantage and ability to force Octavian to answer his “three part proof”. I feel that in today’s society we learn on a reward based system. It is true in some cases that no education equals not only no reward, but in Octavian’s situation he is a young boy being denied nutrition, basic needs of survival. Even in todays society this is considered abuse if it occurs even once. This would not be considered a ‘practice’ or ‘form’ of teaching. It is more common in today’s society for Americans to make accommodations socially and financially for the population directed to the less intellectually inclined than it is for us to advance the intellectually significant.
ReplyDeleteToday, students are taught only what information they need to succeed at the moment. The current philosophy is to teach the test, as in ISTEP. Teach the state standards yet the students are missing out on learning comprehensive thinking.
ReplyDelete