With fifth-grade test now revealed, New York's tougher new reading exams set students up to fail

[jeff47]

130. How 'bout a history example

A test will show that the kid knows Columbus's first voyage was in 1492.

That's not learning. That's wrote memorization. Learning is being able to come up with reasons why it wasn't 1392 or 1592. And there aren't going to be neat, short, multiple choice reasons for that.

Being able to pass those tests has nothing to do with education and learning. It's all about memorization.

And if our lives revolved around filling out tests, that might be worthwhile. But no job I've ever had involved taking tests every day. Instead, they involved taking the knowledge I had learned and synthesizing it together into making new stuff. Which are the kinds of jobs we keep being told are important in the "New Economy".

And instead of preparing kids for that, we're shoving test booklets in front of them.