My 9th grader has mid-terms this week. She and her best friend have been studying their butts off for the last month and a half. I'm trying to remember if we had mid-terms when I was in high school and I don't think we did. I remember we had end of the year exams, but I think that was it.

I'm looking at my daughter and all of her friends and man, they look totally burned out. I feel for them.

On one hand I think, ok, this will help prep them for college and all the exams they'll have to take and on the other hand I think it's way too much emphasis on testing and not enough on actual learning.

We already see a pattern where teachers are forced to rush through the classroom curriculum because of scheduled testing dates.

Have we gotten to a place where kids are only taught to retain information specifically for taking tests? Has the focus changed from learning the material to just remembering certain information required to pass a test? What are your thoughts?

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile