Play and Paradox

Play: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112002391.html

Favorite quote: "That proficiency is measured on tests, but the far-reaching effects of play don't show up in answers to multiple-choice questions. They show up in life."

I'm quite critical of systems of evaluation that make test taking high-stakes to the point where they determine school funding. Where the test ought to be a suitable evaluation of a student's skills from which a teacher can determine whether they need to change their teaching habits, they become an end in themselves, as teachers teach to the test. They are forced to teach in an even more rigid fashion if they do not improve the students. There is no room for variation. The better ones hope that a student learns something incidentally through the process, but learning as an activity takes a sideline to the demonstration of it in a single number.

Cheating, in such a field, actually seems natural. If a teacher is already teaching to the test, why not just teach the test and cut out the last little room for substantial skill-building. No, it does not quite make sense in the long-term, since if you want to train a generation of good test-makers, better to teach them strategies for taking such tests, so that they can adapt without the added effort.

Play seems like one way out of the narrowing attention in the classrooms. Montessori goes to public school. I could write more, but I still have the paradox part to get to.

I post the most when I have the least time to post. ;)

Back to work!