The last hoop I have to jump through to be certified to teach language arts in Ohio is the PRAXIS Principles of Learning and Teaching Test. In Ohio, secondary teachers must pass PRAXIS tests in both their content areas and the PLT, which tests pedagogy. The 2-hour PLT consists of 4 case studies with accompanying questions and 24 multiple-choice questions. Basically, the test covers material from every course in education and psychology that a pre-service teacher has taken as part of his/her certification program, from principles of education to adolescent psychology. The multiple guess questions were pretty straightforward, testing knowledge about educational research and teaching methods and the people associated with them (Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Dewey, Skinner, etc.). But the case studies were something else.
Evidently, the case study questions are graded by how much “pedagogese” we can cram into our responses, which should definitely not be in essay form because there is barely time to think, let alone frame a response to every question. Also, the questions specify what area your response should address (classroom management, adolescent development, etc.); god forbid you should respond with a divergent idea from another area, a higher-order thinking skill known as synthesis. Even though our education professors have beaten it into our heads from day one that we should do everything possible to encourage higher-level thinking in our students, we are proscribed from doing so on this pathetic assessment of our knowledge of pedagogy. A dyed-in-the-wool divergent thinker, I floundered, my attention wavering between the minute hand of the large clock at the front of the room and my earnest scribbling on the test pages. My pencils, sharpened by my 7-year-old niece the night before, wore down to nubs by the time I was through. It was horrendous.
What I object to is the timed, case study format of the exam. For example, how can I respond in five minutes to a question about planning and instruction that asks me to create two writing prompts that address a specific objective? I’ll tell you how: badly. Careful planning takes
time! Certainly, teaching is a profession that requires us to think on our feet, to respond instantaneously to challenges in the classroom—something, by the way, that takes a great deal of practice, probably much more practice than a pre-service teacher can possibly experience—but a test like this asks for just that, an instantaneous response to classroom challenges that require much more serious thought than one can give in a few pressured minutes. What is the purpose of this charade? Is it really an accurate assessment of my knowledge of pedagogy? I don’t think so. What I do know is that there is a high probability that I’ll have to shell out another $150 for the privilege of suffering through another version of this ludicrous test in order to get my teaching certification.
