Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:09:15 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Learning by Making
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
American kids should be building rockets and robots, not taking
standardized tests.

On a morning visit to a Northern California middle school, I saw not a
single student. The principal showed me around campus, but I didn't see
or hear students talking, playing, or moving about. The science lab was
empty, as were the library and the playground. It was not a school
holiday: It was a state-mandated STAR testing day. The school was in an
academic lockdown. A volunteer manned a table filled with cupcakes, a
small reward for students at day's end.

This is what the American public school looks like in 2012, driven by
obsessive adherence to standardized testing. The fate of children, their
schools, and their teachers are based on these school test scores. I
wondered what kind of tests the students were taking. The California
Department of Education's STAR website  has sample test questions, and I
started looking through them randomly. Soon, I came across the following
reading comprehension question about the proper use of a microscope,
shown in the illustration below.
Proper Care and Use of a Microscope diagram
<...>
As I examined the test question, two things became apparent.

     The test has become a teaching tool. Since students weren't expected
to know from experience what a microscope is, the test must explain
what a microscope does, what the parts are named, and how to use it.
     It failed to convey that the whole purpose of having a microscope is
to see things that you can't see with the naked eye.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/06/maker_faire_and_science_education_american_kids_should_be_building_rockets_and_robots_not_taking_standardized_tests_.html>

          mark