The "Test Trend"

Tirsdagens Rotary møde var endnu et specielt arrangement, denne gang "Lunch with Leaders", hvilket betød at flere af byens ledere, som ikke er rotarianere, deltog i mødet. Der var fuld hus, og der måtte endda findes ekstra borde frem. 

Emnet for mødet var de amerikanske folkeskoler, og hvilke udfordringer de står overfor i dag. Det var et enormt spændende møde, set i lyset af folkeskolereformen derhjemme, og hvilken debat den har startet. 

Det primære budskab var hvordan folkeskolerne i dag får mere og mere ansvar for at opdrage børnene, og lære dem ting, som normalvis ville være forældrenes ansvar. Dette kommer til dels af en kampagne der blev kørt nogle år tilbage ved navn "No Child Left Behind", og mange mener at man med dette program har sænket fællesnævneren til et niveau hvor det ikke længere er muligt for lærerne at gøre deres arbejde, og for eleverne rent faktisk at udvikle sig og være konkurrencedygtige i resten af verden. 

"Test-trenden" blev også diskuteret, herunder hvordan man ikke kan sammenligne forskellige landes folkeskoler med hinanden, da børnene har vidt forskellige vilkår for læring. 

Stort set alle emnerne kunne jeg se værende aktuelle i Danmark, men samtidig gav det mig et godt indblik i de amerikanske folkeskole, og en del af tankegangen bag.

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This Tuesday's Rotary meeting was another special event, this time "Lunch with Leaders", where a great deal of the town's leaders with no relation to Rotary took part of the meeting. The room was completely full, and they even had to take out extra tables. 

The topic was the American public high schools and the challenges they are facing today. It was a super interesting meeting, especially considering that we have just had a reformation of our public schools in Denmark, which has lead to countless debates. 

The primary message was how the public schools today have more and more responsibility for raising the children and teach them things that would normally be the parents' responsibility. One of the reasons for this development, was the "No Child Left Behind" program a few years back, which meant that the bar had been lowered making it hard for the teachers to do their jobs, and for the children to actually develop and be competitive in the rest of the world.

The "Test Trend" was also debated in terms of how you cannot compare results with other countries since it is the children's backgrounds and circumstances for learning are so different. 

I could see all of the points discussed being relevant in Denmark, and at the same time it gave me some insight into the American high schools and the processes and thinking behind it.