What to teach?

I just came across an interesting post that really got me thinking. This parent addressed teachers asking them to spend their time wisely with the children in their class and to teach them for life, not just for tests.

This brings me back to my last prac. I attended the school during the NAPLAN. I have heard arguments between teachers who believed that they should really focus on the content of the test so that their students could gain the best results possible. Others argued that the students should not be probed into what to write in these tests.

The blog therefore really inspired me. Yes, I agree, teachers are there to provide students with knowledge and skills to enable them to become competent members of our community. And that is exactly what I would like to do and achieve when I become a teacher and it should be our main focus.

But how can we do this? The society is putting more and more pressure on schools and teacher for students to perform well and sites such as Myschool creates even more pressure. Are we not losing site of what is really important in education?

How can we combine these two outcomes?

thanks to this flickr'r