PLN #3 (2nd SM)

For my third PLN I decided to read an article titled "A little chew for thought" by Susan Greene mainly telling how about school across the state are providing minty fresh gum for their kids during CSAP week. Karen Quanbeck, the principal at Golden's Ralston Elementary school spent fifty-two dollars on hopes of boosting student test scores on standardized tests. Some educators say that according to studies chewing gum enhances brain activity and raises concentration during test-taking. J.R. Dunn an eight grade English teacher at Evergreen Middle School said "Gum makes kids happy, and happy kids usually do well on tests." Tim Adams, a Denver pediatrician and dentists says there is no dental downside to chewing gum and sees no health issues with it.

What Matters: I think what matters from this article is two things. One is if this is possibly a way to sort of "cheat"? Two is if this really does help boost students thinking ability should they make it mandatory for students to chew gum during standardized tests? Or maybe even during all tests. I think they should diffidently look into this a lot more and truly find out if this does or doesn't help. If it does help then I think either everyone should use it or no-one should use it because since these tests are supposed to be as fair as possible chewing gum could diffidently be an easy advantage thus making it unfair.

How This Affects Me: I think this affects me as well as every other kid that takes these standardized tests in the country. If a kid at another school is provided with gum and it is helping him and boosting his test score this is extremely wrong because collages are starting to look at CSAP scores and basing kids entries on those as well as grades. So, if me and another student have the same grades but he gets accepted because he has higher CSAP scores because he chews gum then that's wrong and unfair.