Unknown Unknowns II...

Original link here.

No Child Left Behind mandates that states use standardized tests to determine if schools are succeeding. (Photograph: Image Source/Rex Features)

Having been briefly a high school math/physics teacher, and personally experiencing the Herculean requirements placed on all of my fellow educators, this article by Erika Sanchez (link below) is a poignant observation and quite sad when you read it. I'd often mused about my students at the time “they don’t know WHAT they don’t know,” meaning our nation's youth have only a bottom-line obsession with “is THAT the answer?” (a byproduct of a-b-c-d and "drill baby, drill") rather than falling in love with the process of actually finding the answer, the sheer joy of learning something you pressed hard to discover; presenting proudly to fellow students on what you initially didn't know. From cell phones to Facebook, Twitter, reality TV, fashion web sites, glorified sporting events et al, they are becoming perfect consumers, narcissistic "ditto heads," automatons that will not question the world around them: they’ll just “Google it.”

In my admittedly fanciful utopia, there are no standardized tests and K-12 teachers are allowed free reign to instruct, be creative and be as close to Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” or Denzel Washington in “The Great Debaters” as possible. It only works in Star Trek apparently: post warp drive, world peace, matter replicators, ending world hunger, the dissolution of money (at least in politics) and hierarchical society. Yep, only Star Trek and Friday night mind blitzes with colorful drinks after several bar hops could fantasize this. No wonder there is such turnover in the profession (low pay also a factor). Idealistic enthusiasm smacks hard into the wall of reality.

In reality: teachers are hemmed by state-mandated test regimens; they are chained to performance evaluations based on unrealistic percentage passing rates in both said tests and classrooms. Greater than the unrealistic 10 – 15% failure rate can get you terminated, or in education parlance “contract not renewed,” a fancy way of not having to pay you unemployment benefits; a legal way to lie through your teeth at the next high school, i.e. you can say you weren't “fired.” The passing rate ironically mimics a manufacturing line's “bell curve,” usually more stringent on the floor (about < 5%); a failure rate there is considered and labeled: “waste.” We are Pavlov’s canines, conditioned and salivating writ large for our sensual drugs of pleasure, knowledge mastery not being one of them. A glimmer of hope: some parents are opting out of standardized testing, a "bathwater immersion" I hope gains broader support.

[Meanwhile, back at the ranch]: Apparently, it requires 40 armed gun enthusiasts to thwart 4 moms against gun violence, as every tragic shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing is quickly defined a "false flag" operation designed to "take our freedoms." Neither Sandy Hook nor Chicago, both offered as false equivalencies will sway this addled crowd from infantile attachment to their metallic "binkies." There can be no sensible legislation in an environment like this that protects everyone's 2nd amendment rights and damns all others (like, education for example) because the gun manufacturers would lose profits. Any mental health screen prior to purchase would probably fail a large percentage of the 40 demonstrably low-esteemed (and possibly libido challenged) enthusiasts, but no such passions to educate our citizenry to be good citizens and compete against a global workforce that is so much better prepared than we. For those that pant after “conspiracy theories” and every word of the post-Fairness Doctrine talk radio circuit, this is a huge, in-your-face social engineering experiment – well designed to our national detriment, and largely quite successful – that the screaming numb skulls are missing... 

Whether it be No Child Left Behind or Common Core, the problem lies in manufactured learning. In teaching English at the university level, I have noticed that students are often ill prepared for the demands of higher education. Students who are used to multiple choice tests lack the skills and the confidence to formulate their own complex opinions and interpretations. It is irresponsible to have these students graduate without the proper skills to succeed.

Rigid curriculum's that focus on right and wrong answers teach children to see the world in binaries. These methods don't encourage creativity or innovation. I fear that our deeply flawed education system will produce generations of people who lack critical thinking skills.

What kind of choices will they make in their adult lives when they have never been taught how to look at the nuances and complexities of situations? Who will have the tools to question authority? Who will question the status quo?

Common Dreams:
America's Dumbest Idea: Creating a Multiple-Choice Test Generation