Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Purpose of Education

MSA. HSA. Quarterly Assessments. Stanford-Binet. Test after test. Year after year. I often wonder, are we teaching kids to pass a test or are we teaching kids to think and problem solve by APPLYING things that they have learned? Good test scores are a good thing. Please do not misunderstand that. However, I'd bet a month's salary that if you asked HR folks at Toyota, Ford, IBM or any other multi-million dollar company/industry that they would tell you that test scores might get a candidate an interview, but thinking on their feet and problem solving lands them the job and helps them to keep it.

So I ask, are we doing kids a disservice? Are we churning out test takers and not thought makers? If there is a middle ground, where is it and how do we get there?

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