Instructify

It seems that nothing in the education field is safe from the permeating presence of The Test. We spend hours analyzing data from The Test; We teach lessons to prepare for The Test; We review for The Test; We get funding as a result of The Test; We are praised or put down in the media because of The Test. Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, and PE are ousted from schools in the name of The Test. The latest victims of The Test are museums. In this recent NPR report, a new trend amongst museums is exposed — namely that of tailoring exhibits and school field trips to, you guessed, it, The Test. While making museums more relevant and engaging for today’s youth is a positive thing, forcing museums to bow to The Test is like forcing kids to make sure their imaginative play aligns to the standard course of study. Museums, like free time play, should allow students to gain experiences they can’t attain in the classroom.

I believe that at their hearts, field trips are most valuable for all of the other learning opportunities and experiences they provide aside from their relevance to state standards and curricula. For some kids, a school field trip is the only time they will ever get to go to a museum, an aquarium, or a play. Field trips expose students to a world beyond the classroom, a world where regular people are learning, and where they can focus on their own interests. Field trips inspire students to “wonder and discover,” and isn’t that really why we all became teachers? I know that I didn’t become a teacher in order to have the most “Level 4s” on the End of Grade Test. Especially as a Science teacher, I came to this profession because I wanted to inspire students to develop a curiosity about the natural world. What could be better than a museum exhibit or aquarium to inspire a child to learn more? Imagine the questions students will have and the explorations they could be inspired to undertake after seeing Willo, the dinosaur with a heart, at the NC Museum of Natural History. Or perhaps a visit to the Living Shipwreck exhibit at the Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium will spark an interest in your students.

But while field trips shouldn’t be viewed as test-preparation endeavors, they certainly can improve student test results. Teachers know that activating prior knowledge is an effective reading comprehension strategy. Field trips enhance and reinforce the topics to which students are exposed in the classroom. They widen students’ experiences and provide them with a background of knowledge that they can draw on later. In a testing situation, imagine students having to read a passage about dinosaurs. Which student do you think will do better on the questions about the dinosaur passage, a student who saw the Willo exhibit at the museum, or one who spent the same amount of time doing EOG testlets in the classroom? Whether or not museums actively “teach to the test” with embedded math problems as the NPR article seems to suggest, they will always be helping students prepare for testing.

Museums are one of the last educational bastions of resistance against The Test, and it would be a shame for their exhibits to be forced into the confines of standardized testing. By all means, museums should adapt to the changing characteristics of today’s patrons by incorporating new technologies and inquiry based learning. However, museums should allow themselves to be museums, not test preparation centers. Teachers, administrators, and school districts should continue to value museums and field trips for all of the things they do for students besides prepare them for standardized testing. Museums should help keep students and adults alike wondering and discovering. These photos show it better than I can say how museums can keep students, past and present, inquiring, engaged, and enjoying learning, and that’s the way it should be. -REBECCAH HAINES

Museum Field Trips Tailored To Teach To The Test

Related stuff:

Sound Field Trip Advice from Kidcast

Travel the World with Project Explorer