Re: Teaching to the test

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

Gary Wrote:

> Rick,
>         You show what I object to in the phrase "teaching to
> the test." It is not
> so much whether it is by itself good or bad, but the values
> it inculcates
> into those involved. It says that life is tests and it is not
> what you know
> as much as how well you can pass the tests that counts. I
> view education as
> a life long process where the process is as important as the results.
> Knowing how to learn is even more important then what you
> know. Whereas
> many of my students view life as a series of tests that must
> be passed and
> little else. They seem to have no knowledge of what was covered in the
> courses they have taken before, or why we think it is
> important to know
> what we are asking them to learn. Just will it be on the test!

I share, more or less, the same philosophy that Gary appears to be
advocating here; but I might point out that the world view his students are
expressing *may* match reality more accurately than the one he and I prefer.

Joel