Seth Godin asks if something is important because it's measured, or is measured because it's important?
It's one of those chicken/egg type of questions.
He continues, are we giving weight to things merely because we've measured them?
I fell asleep last night thinking about how much of this applies to education reform (especially those with business minds like Mayor Bloomberg), student's performance, the potential of children, teachers' ability to not just educate but leave their students with their curiosity intact and a love of learning.
How do we measure artistic ability? By how realistic the art is? But some studies show the more realistic the art, the less imaginative the mind. Picasso mastered realistic art by his teen years, but spent the rest of his life trying to attain the level of creativity he had as a three year old.
How do we measure ability in math? By how many problems you get right in a specific period of time? What if a student attempts the more difficult problems and gets fewer done? What if a student gets problems wrong, but understands how to apply the problem solving skills in the world at large?
Or English? By the ability to say something predictable well (which can be boring. As a former English Prof let me tell you...)? Or the student that says something that's well reasoned, intelligent, a new perspective on an old topic, but with atrocious grammar?
And how do we measure the student's ability to make connections between all the various subjects in addition to the aspects of knowledge we expect people to know out in the world but don't include in any school curriculum?
And because we can measure some things, does that make them more important? And the things we can't measure not important? Can we measure how much that limits the potential of what's possible in the world?
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Hi Tara!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny I just picked your blog today to read. I am struggling with the same things as I study to become a teacher. They teach us that understanding has multiple meanings and that the fundamental idea as a teacher is to have students be able to understand the lessons and apply them to the world at large. Because ultimately if your valedictorian comes out of school without being able to apply a thing they learned, haven't we failed?
But yet as this may be the objective, our measurements don't match the goal. State standards dictate that we teach students to repeat and pass. Our current "measurements" of effectiveness would say we failed if a student cannot come up with the correct answer, never mind if they completely understood the process of getting there.
How do we bridge this gap?
Sincerely,
Still Educating Myself
I have no idea how to bridge the gap - and I was the student who got wrong answers but understood the process and the one who skipped the easy questions to do the harder ones that I found interesting.
ReplyDeleteOur measurements don't match the goal and I think a good chunk of the problem with education reform is people aren't really clear what they want out of education. Studies show students (especially boys) learn more when they get Cs in Honor classes instead of As in regular classes, but most parents aren't ashamed to admit they'd rather their kid get As even if it means shortchanging their education in the long run.
Sadly, I think people are interested in reforming education, but only as long as it stays simple. And with 80% of our schools about to be judged as failing, I'm curious to see what changes happen.