Peg in the Machine

This is perhaps one of the worst things in history, and one of the worst things politicians could ever get behind. Standardized tests, or even so-called intelligence tests (or even “real” intelligence tests for that matter [but what is "intelligence"?]).

As soon as people start to classify people into neat little groups based on their abilities, they’ve guaranteed that the people will be in those groups. Many years ago, as taught when I was in college, there was a study. They took a class and gave them an intelligence test. They then divided the class into four groups. Two groups scored in the top 50%, two in the bottom 50%, with an equal distribution of test scores within (so both top 50% groups had kids scoring from 50-100, same for bottom 50%). They then put a top 50% and bottom 50% group together and told the teacher “these scored highest”, and took another top 50% and bottom 50% and said “these scored lowest”. At the end of the year a student that was at the top of the class intelligence wise was scoring in the bottom 50%, and the bottom of the class was scoring in the top 50%. Why? The teachers figured there was no point in teaching them (on a subconscious level at least) so they didn’t treat the students equally.

But even that isn’t the problem I’m talking about here. Politicians with the “no child left behind (NCLB)” have done something that’s even worse: they’re making different states and schools dumb down the standardized tests so all students pass — or just teach for the test and not actual information as would be needed. Music, arts, and other “not tested for” items aren’t taught and end up with funding being cut. They need to spend time teaching even more standardized test information to make sure the students can pass.

It’s just an example of how politicians want something good — but don’t think of the consequences. All the kids are losing out on valuable information — some aren’t even being taught how to spell! There’s stories of teachers that don’t teach reading problems (“a train leaves station A heading east at 40mph….”). Kids aren’t taught that life isn’t about multiple choices. Class upon class uses scantron based tests (so everything’s multiple choice) — granted there’s many teachers and schools actually, well, teaching. It’s a sad state of a country to say that the progress and abilities of a person can be fit into a multiple choice test. And I bet that everyone has taken a “guess” on those before. Let’s be honest… ask a person what 9*9 is and you’ll probably have a lot of wrong answers. Phrase it like:

9 * 9 = ?

1. 18
2. 27
3. 9.9
4. 81

And you k now, you do, that you’ll have a lot more people getting the answer “right” even if they don’t know what the answer is. Just by thinking “9*9 is 9+9+9+9+9+9+9+9+9, and that’s gotta be larger than 27….”

Ok, while this is a large topic, and I don’t really feel like writing up anything big right now — let’s just say that if I remember I’ll have a large post for the first time in a while about these.  Might even span two days….

So stay tuned.