I just don't know about these kids.

Okay, I spent another week talking about cell parts.  The kids rewrote definitions for each part, watched 2 movies about cells, heard two songs about cells and actually created a "cell" with paper plates and yarn and gumdrops.  ($60 worth).  Had the second cell parts test.  It was better than before, but still had about 10 fail the test.  This was an open notes test, by the way.  I tried to explain that the tests will get harder as we go, but they just don't seem to understand that they are going to have to do some work.  After spending over 30 minutes with them whining about needing a study guide and how the test questions should be worded exactly like the study guide... I felt like screaming.  I  told them that learning how to think is painful when all they've ever done is memorized stuff for a test.  I explained that they were creating their own study guide by taking notes and they chose how much information to put in their study guides.  I told them I would not make the test questions the same as what they wrote down because I wanted to know that they "knew" what they were answering instead of what they memorized.  One student exclaimed that they had memorized the alphabet and still knew it to this day.  I countered with the fact that knowing the alphabet doesn't mean you can read or write. You have to LEARN those things.  And when you read, the words aren't always in the same order.  That shut them up.