Monday, September 13, 2010

life is a series of tests anyway -- what a load of nonsense

The New York Times, this time in an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal, their former Beijing bureau chief, has waved the pro-testing flag once again. She describes the constant testing of her children when they attended school in China, and notes that while it was stressful, years later they don't recall it as having been awful. Perhaps this was due to the fact they were learning a different culture and language and remember that much more interesting learning experience more?

Nevertheless she reiterates the New York Times party line by saying:

"But let’s face it, life is filled with all kinds of tests — some you ace and some you flunk — so at some point you have to get used to it."

I beg to differ. Life is full of all kinds of situations that test you. Life is not full of multiple choice memorization tests at all.

She quotes experts who argue how testing is killing our children, but somehow, amazingly, decides testing is good. The real question is why the New York Times is constantly beating the testing drum. There is lots of money to be made in textbook publishing and testing and those who make big money on that are always in favor of testing and have been the ones pushing No Child Left Behind. Time to come clean, New York Times. How much money are you making on testing?

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2 comments:

  1. birdSeptember 21, 2010 at 2:18 PM

    what was it about your 4 steps to innovation? seems like you have 1 and 4 all sewn up.when do the solutions start?

    start a school.
    work in one.
    do something that doesn't present the same ideas over and over in different contexts.

    come on, you'd same the same thing if this was arnie's blog...or anyone else's that said they were serious about school reform. come on roger, get in the game quit yer bitchin.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Morgan EmrichNovember 28, 2010 at 11:32 AM

    Please don't "get in the game" Roger. After reading a few of your books I'm glad to see (via your web site) that you've gotten out of the game. Less fuel for the machine.

    And by all means don't "quit yer bitchin". If school has taught us anything, it is to not complain, not raise our voices, and to put up with all sorts of nonsense. For years.

    I can't imagine anything that would reform the system faster than if millions of people were to get out of the game and start bitchin'.

    Thanks,

    Morgan
    (ex-public school teacher, home school parent of three, and university prof.)

    ReplyDelete