Taken from a primary school teachers' forum, just one example of many that either directly or covertly indicated that in the upcoming INVALSI exams (think SATS), where no external invigilation impeded it, they would be "helping" their students pass the exam.
"Trying in the meantime to respect the rules, but many of our colleagues refuse to even consider it, when the day comes they'll give (dictate ?) the answers. And frankly, I'm beginning to think they might have the right idea."
(cercando nel contempo di rispettare tutte le regole, ma molte nostre colleghe non ci pensano nemmeno, quando verrà il giorno detteranno le risposte e francamente si comincia a fare strada in me l'idea che forse loro fanno bene.)
Kind of unfair to expect the kids to chose to do the right thing if at school somebody is actively INSTRUCTING them to cheat.
Especially if that person is their own teacher.
EDITED TO ADD...apparently if you have doubts about teachers, inserted hidden webcams seem to be not only allowed, but really rather effective.
http://www.corriere.it/cronache/10_aprile_29/catania-schiaffi-ai-bimbi-maestra-arrestata_6546d924-536d-11df-afe0-00144f02aabe.shtml
Seriously???? What is this world coming to?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't surprise me.
ReplyDeleteNope, me neither. It drives me to distraction trying to stop them cheating in tests, but yesterday I was horrified to find myself musing on the wisdom of just letting them do it so that they get good results. Then, when they fail the exam in the summer, at least I'd be able to hold my hands up and say innocently, "but they all did so *well* in the mocks! They must have just been having a bad day ..."
ReplyDeleteItaly is getting to me.
My son is about to sit the Invalsi in the quinta elementare. I have heard many a story saying that the teachers either 'dictate' the answers or that they give the tests to the brightest and then hand these round to the rest to copy from ...we shall see.....
ReplyDelete@Katja -students cheating is one thing but this is TEACHERS cheating... these tests are fundamentally there to check the teaching NOT to test the pupil as much (although I think they are looking at the general level too to make sure that noone is getting left behind) The only people this is benefiting is the teachers who know (mostly) that they are not doing a good job and not teaching what they are supposed to in a way that is accessible to the children.
I am also wondering what MY level of education has to do with anything or what I do for a living or even how many bathrooms my house has.... kicking the parents yet again do you think??!!
Spot on Indie.
ReplyDeleteThere are going to be sanctions for schools and individual teachers that get truly abysmal results across the board (the average results on a national level are that just under half the students fail the INVLASI tests, so I'd imagine that you'd have to have about 4 fifths + of all your classes failing to get a slap in the chops).
The student questionnaire I think has two functions, one to provide a demographic snapshot to provide data for future studies and secondly to stop teacher claiming their entire class is unteachable cos they are all from broken homes/"forrin"/have learning disorders/ do nothing apart from watch telly after school etc etc etc. Something to stop people passing the buck entirely onto the student body maybe.
Well we're alright then... I filled in to say that I was 'laureatata' and a housewife/ teacher and DH is 'laureatata' and is an engineer so no getting out of it is there.... except if they're going to use his 'foreigness' as an excuse...
ReplyDeleteSon's class sat the Italian exam on Thursday. After much probing it seems that there was no 'teacher interference' but we all got a note to say that the children all needed to have studied their verbs better at home as their understanding was not up to scratch! Talk about passing the buck!! He has always done the homework written in the diary but there seems to be sooo much parents are responsible for that they don't even know about. I wrote a terse note back saying that it was very difficult to do all this extra studying when my son is already doing all the homework written down AFTER a full day at school AND when he has come home twice this week with two stories to type out on MY computer for a SCHOOL project for other children who do not have computers of their own at home.... can you tell why we don't get on??!! ;-)
You know, I actually had a student ask me if the invigilators for the Cambridge exams would give him the answers if he didn't know them!! And he was about as shocked as I was for the question when I gave him the obvious answer! I was floored! Then of course when watching Annozero the other night I found out that not only do the teachers give the answers, but the headmasters also let the HS students know that the Caribinieri are coming to do a "random" drug search at the school so they can get rid of their contraband! Mind boggling to me!
ReplyDelete