Chapters 3 and 4 from The Global Achievement Gap

Chapter 3: The Global Achievement Gap
I think that the title of the chapter sums up what this chapter is about. Testing, Testing, Testing. It looks at all the testing that kids go through during their elementary to middle school to high school careers. The teachers are teaching to the test. And schools are looking very closely at the results. The school is know being held accountable for the success and failure of each child. And the sad thing is these kids are not ready to enter college. College teachers had staggering statistics that pretty much stated that these kids entering their freshman year in college are not up to the standards that colleges hold their kids up to. So what did all these years of education lead up to? New freshman still not being able to do things like critical thinking, effective written and oral communication, and good study habits and an inability to think analytically. All these skills are crucial in succeeding in today's world. So I think that as teachers we need to stop teaching to the test and start teaching to each child's ability. We need to teach the skills that our society begs of these kids. We are going to need students who can do all these skills and better then even ourselves. We have to prepare these kids for a job market that is changing every year and a job market that is global. And these changes need to start today to build a stronger foundation of education for each child.

Chapter 4: The Global Achievement Gap
In chapter 4, the author Tony Wagner, looks at reinventing the education process. It starts out by looking at how veteran teachers don't always want to change they teach a course. Even if their style of teaching or their method might be outdated. It is easier to stay in that comfort zone and do things they way you have for the past 5 or maybe even 20 years! He also looked at how educators and administrators are brought up and taught the basics they need to know to do their job. He looked at how the way they are taught can hurt their chances of changing the needs of education in the classroom. They limit what can be done in the classroom to make the child's education better. He talks about how the educators them self need to have a reinvented education and that the styles we are being taught are a thing of the past. Kids are so used to having a million media images thrown at them, that the attention span for most kids is not as long as it used to be. That we as teachers have to find new and inventive ways to engage a classroom of kids, and making sure that our lesson is getting across to these kids.