Hagen Road Elementary school principal is asking parents to tell kids they will be getting a "special snack" before the test that will boost brain power. (Handout, Sun Sentinel / February 27, 2012)
Posted on 02/29/2012 12:28:45 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Hagen Road Elementary school principal is asking parents to tell kids they will be getting a "special snack" before the test that will boost brain power. (Handout, Sun Sentinel / February 27, 2012)
At least one South Florida campus is hoping that feeding students a "special brain snack" will trick them into thinking it will boost their FCAT performance.
From skydiving to mohawk hair cuts, school principals have tried various stunts to pump up test scores. The latest? Administrators at Hagen Road Elementary want kids to think eating an "FCAT power bar" will guarantee great results on the exams — starting Tuesday — in the same way the "placebo effect" allows medical patients to swallow sugar pills as fake treatments to spark healing.
Robert De Gennaro, a teacher and lead union representative, said he expects plenty of "dirty tricks" to be forced on teachers whose paychecks increasingly depend on student test scores.
"If you were given a choice between your salary and hoodwinking kids, which would you choose?" he asked.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Would it be legal to hand those out to voters before polling places?
The power of optimism.
With all the FDA has done trying to suppress vitamins and supplements, they should have a field day with this.
Problem is, it most likely will work for a while. Young children are very suggestible and function in a sort of hypnotic trance most of the time. While a placebo will remove inhibitions and barriers to creativity, it will never replace input of knowledge. It can however make it easier to learn.
If it is used incorrectly, it creates a dependency upon the placebo as a crutch instead of creating confidence in one’s individual ability. The let down when the child learns they have been lied to can cause more damage than the benefit of the short term increase in ability.
There may be a third option, but I just can't think of it. What is it that teachers and professional educators could do with kids, besides tricking them, that would make it look like the kids had learned? I know most of my teachers used to do it with me when I was young, and my parents did it with me all the time. Even my professors must have done it - frequently - and I know it was not just hoodwinking.
What happens when the test scores go down?
Sorry, this is just terribly wrong.
Plus ohhh....what happens when their best friend hands them a “special snack” laced with something else.
This is just riddled with dangerous hazards being instilled in the mind of the young.
where is the zero drug tolerance policy now...
As a kid, I always had a Sundrop before a big test....to get pumped up on lots of sugar and caffeine.
Ugh! That would make me just have to go pee in the middle of a test!.../sarc
Sure but half of the voters wouldn't be able to unwrap it.
One may trick the brain into a chemical rebalance to then fight disease, but you can't trick the brain into remembering something it never learned like "what is 2 + 2".
Pollster, the third solution is to sleep with school books under the pillow. Psst. Pass it on. lol.
THE TEST!
That is the only thing our public indoctrination centers teach...the test. Everything revolves around the “test” scores and everything else in life’s importance is pushed to the side so that they can teach the “test.”
How bad has it become. The only important curriculum is the “test,” political indoctrination and correctness and nothing else. No wonder graduates of public indoctrination centers can’t reason, analyze, do rational thinking or independent thought when they graduate.
Get your kids out of these demonic schools, people. For the sake of your kids' soul.
Gadzooks! If those principals knew what was what, they'd... 
pass out booze before the test--
I always score better when... 
I'm all liquored up!
You’re on a roll Bender! LOL
You have no idea, Missy... 
No idea at all!
I know anything I say will be a straight line ready for your Robot canvas!
Ha! Glad to see someone is happy today.
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