Alice: I dunno about you, but I spent most of my time in school doing exactly what you mentioned – plugging numbers into formulas.
So what?
Multiple choice questions have also been subject to the ‘shotgun approach’ during my day – just blast away and hope you score some marks.
Again, so what?
Only in the USA are elementary issues such as vaccinations and standardised testing even debated, for crying out loud. Yes, yes,shows how much freedom you have, but seriously, to the rest of the world, it just shows how stupid and ignorant the average American is. As if your game shows don’t show enough of that as it is.
What you learn in school is not necessarily the issue; for example, I couldn’t draw a methane molecule to save my life right now (nor can I remember whether it’s an ionic or covalent bond). Or rather, the *details* are not necessarily the issue. What I did carry away from Chemistry class is the atomic model, the fact of the periodic table, the sense of order underlying the field of study. Same with Biology, Physics, Mathematics (Heaven help me if I had to program a Lagrange Interpolating Polynomial now). Even little bits of History give me a general timeline and attitude that the Western civilisation was overall a good thing.
The tests in and of themselves are not the thing; there are ways and means of getting kids to pay attention in class (and a cane used to be one of the best ways). It’s the structure these lessons give the children that’s important. That’s why testing works; it implants that structure inside your brain. The details you will forget within 5 minutes; I should know. But the underlying structure and sense – that will last forever.
