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Well, contrary to intentions, I ended up writing an independent essay as my first “education post,” instead of writing the easier post I had seen as a nice “warm-up” to the subject. But I still want to note a few responses to this Atlantic interview with Cathy N. Davidson. I realize that “Fisking” seems to be looked down on as a bit of a cheap tactic, these days, and fairly so. I acknowledge that, but I still want to pull out a few of Davidson’s remarks; on the whole she has a lot of thoughtful and nuanced comments, and indeed my responses are not even entirely critical ones. So:

All the methods of assessment we use for “quality” are actually metrics for standardization analogous to the punch clock, not about interactive, synthetic, and analytical thinking and problem solving. You cannot reform the content or the method of teaching without radically changing the terms of assessment. That means ending the end-of-grade tests required by No Child Left Behind. It means going beyond so many of the quite simplistic quantitative measures that ostensibly test learning but really test the ability to take tests.

I’ll get this one out of the way first because it’s my most visceral reaction. Kill standardized tests? No no no no no no no no no no, noooooooooo, that’s what I excelled at most in school, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo unfair unfair unfair aaaaaaah!! Okay, had to get that off my chest. Thank you. Having done so, I admit that 1) I’ve graduated, 2) I was good at more than just standardized tests, and 3) fact is, per my own experience the systems of measurement and assessment used throughout the education system are all in all more than a bit misleading when it comes to learning skills which will be actually useful outside of school, so in a way I have as much reason as anyone to cheer her argument, here.

Games are integral in human society, from ancient times to the present. Games are based on strategy and on challenge. If you do well at a game, your reward isn’t “recess” or a “time out”; it’s a greater challenge. When you beat a tough opponent, you seek out a tougher one. That is learning.

Standardized testing seems to fit this description perfectly, though; the big problem I see with std. testing is that it was a game. In fairness, she does qualify her objections to testing methods (again, nuance, how refreshing): (more…)

I’ve noted a time or two how some sites and personalities I follow, online, prove themselves consistently, while others are much more like Terry Crowley. That is, I may read regularly but find most of the material silly, disastrously wrongheaded or just plain dull, or I may only look occasionally when I happen to remember that the site exists, and yet… eventually something always comes along that’s not only good, but so good that I never manage to completely drift away from the source.

So it is with NPR.org’s cosmology blog, 13.7.

A lot of what ends up on 13.7 is just bafflingly abstract. The same could very possibly be said of a lot of what I write, but I can understand my own digressions into angels-on-pins ephemera, at least, even if no one else can.

Every now and then, though, 13.7 and particularly Astrophysics professor Adam Frank comes up with something which manages to speak to me while still being so high-flown and unusual as to be memorably thought-provoking. Frank’s post of yesterday, “How to Save the World by Saving Yourself,” falls into this category.

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