🚀 go-pugleaf

bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey) writes:
> Carol.Hooper@f64.n381.z1.fidonet.org (Carol Hooper) writes:
> >Hi, All.  I'm here to ask advice from experienced teachers concerning 
> >the state testing which we will be giving in May.  Our school system 
> 
> I say, teach the test.  It's the *only* honest solution to this dilemma.
> 
> What you do is, you tell the kids, "Look, kids, a bunch of idiot politicians
> who don't know mathematics from a hole in the ground and couldn't care less
> about you or your education have decided to impose these tests, and on the

In general, I agree.  I've done extensive study upon my own guinea... I
mean, students....over several years, and I've found that in any testing
situation, the form of the questions affects the final scores just as much
as the questions themselves.  The younger the student, the more true this is.

I think that there are some developmental reasons for this, by the way.
(I'm a student of Piagetian Psychology, even though I know
information-processing theory and Howard Gardner are more hip, these days)

As far as the comment about politicians, goes, I generally think that most
politicians are as well-meaning towards education as any other random
sampling of the population.  The problem is that they simply are ignorant
about what education is and what the realities of teaching are.  (So does
that mean that "ignoramus" is more appropriate than "idiot?").  Anyway,
all you have to do is look at any McNeil/Lehrer roundtable on education to
know that there are a lot of very well meaning folks in high political
places who, unfortunately, have no idea of what they're talking about.

Finally, I wonder what state that Carol is preparing her students for. 
Can we all try to include location information in our signature?  We in
California are currently about to embark on an entirely new style of
testing - a complete break from the multiple-choices of the past. 
Actually, if the economy had not pulled the rug out from under our state
funding, we'd be already trying it out.

Paul MacFarlane
Danville, California
pmacfar@eis.calstate.edu