Philosophy
I'm reading Strawson's Introduction to Logical Theory and in a footnote in the first chapter, he draws a distinction between a student giving a correct answer and giving a true answer. The point brought to mind a conversation I was a part of over the weekend. It was a party and a student who was a part of my first experience teaching critical thinking to Montessori middle school students was reporting the details of her first year in a normal high school. She said that her English teacher would make fun of her former educational institution calling it "that hippie school." Apparently neither he nor any of her classmates could understand how any learning took place in a school that did not give quizzes, exams, or grades. "Why does anyone do any work?" they all asked quite honestly. She gave as best she could the answer of a fifteen year old about acculturation and learning to learn. But it is truly unbelievable how the reward and punishment regime used to make sure that no one gets away with anything undermines and destroys the will to learn. What became clear is that for them, education was not about finding the true answers to questions, but all about finding the right answers to question. Grades are not markers of progress in an independent learning process, but have become the raison d'etre for the process. We work for a meaningless grade, imbuing it with ultimate meaning so that we can do it again at a "good" college, so that we can get a meaningless job to earn a paycheck that allows us the meaningless material symbols that we imbue with ultimate meaning. We don't need "No Child Left Behind," we need therapy.
- Quizzes And Paternalism
So, at this time of semester I give quizzes every class drilling the rules of inference and equivalences needed to do natural deduction proofs. It is the same quiz day after day after day. When a student asked why I do this, I was honest and said that...
- Is Grade Inflation Really A Problem?
A couple colleagues of mine were wringing their hands a little while back about grade inflation. I don't know whether it really exists or not, but let's grant that grades are higher now than they were 10, 20, 50 years ago. Is it really a problem?...
- The Effects Of Standardized Testing On Students And The Classroom
Jim B.?s perspective from the trenches.New York State has had our Regents program for over a century, so standardized testing has been our norm. Since NCLB was enacted in 2000, however, state testing has become mandatory for all students in grades 5-12....
- How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat: The Effectiveness Of Grades
Thinking about grades for obvious reasons. I am ambivalent about grades. On the one hand, it is certainly true that students rise to expectations and the mechanism by which those expectations are communicated is grading work. If one teacher gives the...
- Do Grades Hurt As Well As Help The Educational Process?
It's early in the semester and grades and grading does not yet have the bite it will have later, so this distance may allow for some more open minded consideration. For the project on Maria Montessori that I've been working, I came across this...
Philosophy
Right and True and the Way We Educate Our Kids
I'm reading Strawson's Introduction to Logical Theory and in a footnote in the first chapter, he draws a distinction between a student giving a correct answer and giving a true answer. The point brought to mind a conversation I was a part of over the weekend. It was a party and a student who was a part of my first experience teaching critical thinking to Montessori middle school students was reporting the details of her first year in a normal high school. She said that her English teacher would make fun of her former educational institution calling it "that hippie school." Apparently neither he nor any of her classmates could understand how any learning took place in a school that did not give quizzes, exams, or grades. "Why does anyone do any work?" they all asked quite honestly. She gave as best she could the answer of a fifteen year old about acculturation and learning to learn. But it is truly unbelievable how the reward and punishment regime used to make sure that no one gets away with anything undermines and destroys the will to learn. What became clear is that for them, education was not about finding the true answers to questions, but all about finding the right answers to question. Grades are not markers of progress in an independent learning process, but have become the raison d'etre for the process. We work for a meaningless grade, imbuing it with ultimate meaning so that we can do it again at a "good" college, so that we can get a meaningless job to earn a paycheck that allows us the meaningless material symbols that we imbue with ultimate meaning. We don't need "No Child Left Behind," we need therapy.
- Quizzes And Paternalism
So, at this time of semester I give quizzes every class drilling the rules of inference and equivalences needed to do natural deduction proofs. It is the same quiz day after day after day. When a student asked why I do this, I was honest and said that...
- Is Grade Inflation Really A Problem?
A couple colleagues of mine were wringing their hands a little while back about grade inflation. I don't know whether it really exists or not, but let's grant that grades are higher now than they were 10, 20, 50 years ago. Is it really a problem?...
- The Effects Of Standardized Testing On Students And The Classroom
Jim B.?s perspective from the trenches.New York State has had our Regents program for over a century, so standardized testing has been our norm. Since NCLB was enacted in 2000, however, state testing has become mandatory for all students in grades 5-12....
- How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat: The Effectiveness Of Grades
Thinking about grades for obvious reasons. I am ambivalent about grades. On the one hand, it is certainly true that students rise to expectations and the mechanism by which those expectations are communicated is grading work. If one teacher gives the...
- Do Grades Hurt As Well As Help The Educational Process?
It's early in the semester and grades and grading does not yet have the bite it will have later, so this distance may allow for some more open minded consideration. For the project on Maria Montessori that I've been working, I came across this...