Returning Sanity to the Classroom: Eliminating the Testing Mania

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For nearly fifteen years students and teachers have suffocated under the oppressive regime of high-stakes testing spawned by the No Child Left Behind Act. Returning Sanity to the Classroom: Eliminating the Testing Mania uses the engaging pedagogy of Forgiving Learning to give new life and hope to the education landscape. Over the millennia humans have employed a natural method of learning from their mistakes to achieve success. They address these faulted situations repeatedly, making appropriate changes along the way. This practice is the heart and soul of our creativity and inventiveness. Returning Sanity to the Classroom presents a classroom method of codifying this natural process of student learning centered on their freedom to readdress academic mistakes without penalty. It includes techniques in developing a relational classroom complete with the intensive use of oral and written language as well as academic coaching. Returning Sanity to the Classroom employs brain compatible strategies advanced by Leslie Hart, Paul Maclean, Karl Jung, Katherine Briggs, Isabel Myers, and Abraham Maslow. It is an answer to the question of how to appropriately stimulate and evaluate student learning.

Reviews

"Forgiving Learning as described in Returning Sanity to the Classroom-Eliminating the Testing Mania is the template for the way education should be in every classroom. Rog utilizes information/research that is complete in describing what needs to happen to finally end the plague that so many students are exposed to. I should know as I was an educator during the same time Rog began questioning his role in the classroom. His conclusions are urgently in need of implementation!" --Linda Caffejian, MA, classroom teacher, University student-teacher supervisor

"As a culture, don't we always say that "we learn from our mistakes" Yet in this test-centric, pacing chart-obsessed world of education, students are rarely given the opportunity to learn from their mistakes or misunderstandings. In the pedagogy of FORGIVING LEARNING, students can safely err in a non-threatening classroom setting. From their misunderstandings, students can proceed to construct meaningful knowledge of the subject matter concepts being taught." --Helen Pitton, MA, Supervisor of Teacher Candidates, Cal Poly State University (San Luis Obispo), educator since 1972, founding member of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse

""Seor, you are always doing everything . . . the design, the drawings, the welding . . . why
don't you teach us how to do those things" This was the question asked of me by a young
laborer on a Colombian water project just a few weeks before I returned to the U.S. Searching
for how I might respond to this question in my future work, I was able, fortunately, to begin
teaching under the mentorship, and then along side of Roger Lucido. 'Coach' Lucido
introduced both myself and our students to the classroom environment of student teaming,
assessment conferencing, and forgiving learning. The quantity and quality of student
engagement and interaction in our classes were greatly increased by these methodologies, all
clearly explained in detail in this fine book. If you desire enhanced integration of learning
facility with academic, social and follow-through skills for your students, this book is a valuable
resource for your teaching endeavors." --Gordon Wiens, M.S., Mechanical Engineer, retired physics instructor

"Returning Sanity to the Classroom-Eliminating the Testing Mania traces and shares lessons learned by a caring, introspective, enthusiastic "learning coach" who doesn't lose sight of good schooling's aim--helping the young make the best-possible sense of real-world experiences." --Marion Brady, Retired teacher, district level administrator, college professor, author of texts and professional books, many journal articles, and nationally distributed newspaper columns, consultant to publishers and foundations

Author Bio

Horace 'Rog' B. Lucido has taught physics and mathematics for over 38 years. He is the California Central Valley Coordinator for the Assessment Reform Network, and co-founder of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse.