Recently someone expressed an opinion to me that went along these lines: education today isn’t about learning, but rather about scheming and finding a way to make it past the tests. As a former student and teacher, I can agree with that to a point, but disagree on another level.
The education system in America today seems to reward the people that can make it past the test. The question I have is whether that is a good thing. Does passing a test really indicate that you have learned? I suspect the answer to that is, “it depends.”
I have had to take standardized tests and I have had to administer standardized tests. In general I hate them, though I tend to perform well when taking them. Most of my time taking a test (standardized or not) usually comes down to wondering why I am being asked these inane questions.
I remember a test I took as part of an interview with Federal Express. One of the questions was something like, “Describe three positive features of the programming language C++.” Later, while reviewing my answers with the hiring managers, one of them commented that I must really like C++. I didn’t see how he came to that conclusion, so I asked. He pointed to that question and my answers to it. I had to explain to him that I was answering the question as asked, and that by doing so he shouldn’t read any preference for the language from my answers. It seemed to me at that point that the people evaluating my answers might very well have no idea what the questions were actually asking.
The other night I saw some ad on TV, and it described education as a gift. It occurred to me that there was something fundamentally wrong with that statement. Education is not a gift. A gift is something given to you. Education must be earned. It requires hard work and intent. Thinking back over my years as both a student and teacher, I came to realize that this idea of being given education was what was wrong with so many students.
Many people that I have known considered education as something that they deserved, regardless of any effort they put into learning. As a student I saw this attitude and thought, “Yea! Who needs this crap?” As a teacher I saw this attitude and thought, “What a sorry waste.”
My first semester as a Lecturer was a real eye-opener. I still remember grading the first test and having to stop, go down to the faculty lounge, and lay down on the couch to try to banish the depression I was feeling. I had thought I was doing this great service by sharing my experience and knowledge with these kids, but the test results showed that many of them had no retention of the material. One of the older professors was there and told me that most people feel the same way when they start lecturing.
I had never been a big fan of tests, so I started hoping that their performance on the lab assignments would indicate a better absorption of knowledge. Well, I was again to be disappointed. Many of the student’s could not (or would not) follow instructions less complicated than a simple recipe. Many others turned in work identical to the work of other students. It was obvious that these students were making no effort to learn, and little effort to even fake it.
I was lucky enough to have had some very good relationships with many of my students. These were almost always the ones that put in a solid effort (though some of them still performed not so great). I asked many of them why their fellow students were not doing the work, and the common response was that they just didn’t care. Those kids felt no responsibility towards learning or achieving much of anything.
The question I see is “Whose responsibility is it for a person to learn?”