Re: Teaching for tests, was PHYS-L Digest

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

> Hugh Haskell wrote (at the end):
>
> >  .... the teachers are encouraged to "teach to the standardized
> >   tests," thus ensuring high scores because the students have
> >  been prepped well.
>
> That kind of teaching has a bad reputation; many think it is
> sort of cheating. But it does not have to be bad. Here is my
> little story.
>
> Other boys knew how to swim but did not. So I pretended.
> Jumping on one leg I was splashing energetically with another
> while my hands were engaged in the expected kind of motion.
> After a week or so I was really swimming.
>
> Learning to take a test is better than not learning at all. Make
> sure they learn what they must know and be glad they are
> motivated. What is wrong with this?
> Ludwik Kowalski

Sigh. It is a problem, isn't it. We can teach to the test and what
the students will learn is how to take that particular test and
precious little else. Or we can try to "educate" them in the best
sense of that word, and if we succeed, they should be able to do OK
on the standardized test and will know something that may prove
useful later on, but they probably won't, if our past record is any
indication. I guess where I am coming from is that teaching to the
test is a limited goal that expects no more of the students than
that, but which may get it. Education is an unlimited goal, that
seeks to take every student just as far as he or she can go. Many
students don't go very far as we are doing it now, but even so, I
want to have the ambitious goal and work toward that, even though we
probably will never get there. I guess I identify with Don Quixote in
this respect. We may fail, but by god, we tried! What is wrong with
dreaming the impossible dream?

I really want no part of an educational system whose goal is to turn
out a bunch of little test-taking robots who have no clue how to
think about anything, but who can pass a "standardized test."

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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