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Fri Feb 24 11:55:10 PST 2006

routinely sounded by quick-fix school reformers, Jay Mathews joins in 
with his Feb. 20 op-ed column, "Let's Teach to the Test." In 
well-crafted prose, he reports that "in 23 years of visiting classrooms 
I have yet to see any teacher preparing kids for exams in ways that were 
not careful, sensible and likely to produce more learning."

On Mathews's visit to my classroom four years ago -- at School Without 
Walls, where I have been volunteering since 1982 -- he must not have 
noticed that not only was I not preparing my 28 students for tests but 
that I regard tests as educational insults. At School Without Walls and 
two other high schools where I am a guest teacher -- Wilson High School 
in the District and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in lower Montgomery 
County -- I have never given a test. I respect my students too much to 
demean them with exercises in fake knowledge.

Tests represent fear-based learning, the opposite of learning based on 
desire. Frightened and fretting with pre-test jitters, students stuff 
their minds with information they disgorge on exam sheets and sweat out 
the results. I know of no meaningful evidence that acing tests has 
anything to do with students' character development or whether their 
natural instincts for idealism or altruism are nurtured.

I have large amounts of evidence that tests promote the opposite: 
character defects. After having two of my high school classes read 
Mathews's column, I asked the students: If during a test the opportunity 
came to cheat, with no fear of being caught, would you? A majority of 
hands went up. A few students dismissed the question as naive. Not cheat 
if you could get away with it? Get real. When speaking at high school 
assemblies, I ask students how many can raise their hands and say with 
total honesty that they never cheated in school. Few hands go up. If 
some brave souls do confess to honesty, they are greeted with jeers or 
calls of "yeah, right."

Standardized tests measure braininess and memory skills. American 
society has plenty of people who were academic whizzes in high school 
but were so driven by the lure of a high grade-point average that their 
spiritual lives remained stunted. I worry about students who make too 
many A's. What parts of their inner lives are they sacrificing to 
conform to someone else's notion that doing well in tests means doing 
well in life? Is any time left over from mastering theoretical knowledge 
for gaining the kind of experiential knowledge found in community 
service or volunteering in programs such as Special Olympics or DC Reads?

Desire-based learning happens when teachers deal in combustibles, when 
fires are lit and students burn to explore ideas that have nothing to do 
with what testocrats require. Quality teachers who are fire-lighters 
often find themselves trapped in schools that have been seduced by the 
Advanced Placement fad. Teachers whose students can't hack the AP final 
are regarded as failures.

School principals get hammerlocked also. They watch teachers' 
performance the way teachers watch students' performance. A hierarchy 
results. Most everyone is fearful of someone in power right above. 
Students worry about teachers, teachers worry about principals, 
principals worry about school boards, school boards worry about 
politicians and politicians worry about the voters.

Before riskily breaking ranks with an innovation or two that might 
actually eliminate fear in the classroom, a deviator must ask: Will I be 
whacked by that power-wielder just above me? Caution reigns.

To compensate for my no-testing policy, I assign tons of homework. The 
assignments? Tell someone you love him or her. Do a favor for someone 
who won't know you did it. Say a kind word to the workers at the school: 
the people who clean the toilets, cook the food, drive the buses and 
heat the buildings. And a warning: If you don't do the homework, you'll 
fail. You'll fail your better self, you'll fail to make the world 
better, you'll fail at being a peacemaker.

For 25 years of testing the waters by not testing, I've been telling my 
students not to worry about answering questions. Be braver and bolder: 
Question the answers. Which answers? To start, the ones from anyone who 
champions classroom get-aheadism based on test scores. Throw off your 
chains, students. You have nothing to lose but your backpacks.

The writer, a former Post columnist, directs the Center for Teaching 
Peace and teaches nonviolence at three high schools and four universities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701711.html?nav=hcmodule

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'Teach to the Test'? What Test? 
 
By Colman McCarthy 
The Washington Post 
Saturday, March 18, 2006; A21 

From
the academic sidelines, where calls to Leave No Child Untested are
routinely sounded by quick-fix school reformers, Jay Mathews joins in
with his Feb. 20 op-ed column, "Let's Teach to the Test." In
well-crafted prose, he reports that "in 23 years of visiting classrooms
I have yet to see any teacher preparing kids for exams in ways that
were not careful, sensible and likely to produce more learning."
On
Mathews's visit to my classroom four years ago -- at School Without
Walls, where I have been volunteering since 1982 -- he must not have
noticed that not only was I not preparing my 28 students for tests but
that I regard tests as educational insults. At School Without Walls and
two other high schools where I am a guest teacher -- Wilson High School
in the District and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in lower
Montgomery County -- I have never given a test. I respect my students
too much to demean them with exercises in fake knowledge.
Tests
represent fear-based learning, the opposite of learning based on
desire. Frightened and fretting with pre-test jitters, students stuff
their minds with information they disgorge on exam sheets and sweat out
the results. I know of no meaningful evidence that acing tests has
anything to do with students' character development or whether their
natural instincts for idealism or altruism are nurtured.
I have
large amounts of evidence that tests promote the opposite: character
defects. After having two of my high school classes read Mathews's
column, I asked the students: If during a test the opportunity came to
cheat, with no fear of being caught, would you? A majority of hands
went up. A few students dismissed the question as naive. Not cheat if
you could get away with it? Get real. When speaking at high school
assemblies, I ask students how many can raise their hands and say with
total honesty that they never cheated in school. Few hands go up. If
some brave souls do confess to honesty, they are greeted with jeers or
calls of "yeah, right."
Standardized tests measure braininess and
memory skills. American society has plenty of people who were academic
whizzes in high school but were so driven by the lure of a high
grade-point average that their spiritual lives remained stunted. I
worry about students who make too many A's. What parts of their inner
lives are they sacrificing to conform to someone else's notion that
doing well in tests means doing well in life? Is any time left over
from mastering theoretical knowledge for gaining the kind of
experiential knowledge found in community service or volunteering in
programs such as Special Olympics or DC Reads?
Desire-based
learning happens when teachers deal in combustibles, when fires are lit
and students burn to explore ideas that have nothing to do with what
testocrats require. Quality teachers who are fire-lighters often find
themselves trapped in schools that have been seduced by the Advanced
Placement fad. Teachers whose students can't hack the AP final are
regarded as failures.
School principals get hammerlocked also.
They watch teachers' performance the way teachers watch students'
performance. A hierarchy results. Most everyone is fearful of someone
in power right above. Students worry about teachers, teachers worry
about principals, principals worry about school boards, school boards
worry about politicians and politicians worry about the voters.
Before
riskily breaking ranks with an innovation or two that might actually
eliminate fear in the classroom, a deviator must ask: Will I be whacked
by that power-wielder just above me? Caution reigns.
To
compensate for my no-testing policy, I assign tons of homework. The
assignments? Tell someone you love him or her. Do a favor for someone
who won't know you did it. Say a kind word to the workers at the
school: the people who clean the toilets, cook the food, drive the
buses and heat the buildings. And a warning: If you don't do the
homework, you'll fail. You'll fail your better self, you'll fail to
make the world better, you'll fail at being a peacemaker.
For 25
years of testing the waters by not testing, I've been telling my
students not to worry about answering questions. Be braver and bolder:
Question the answers. Which answers? To start, the ones from anyone who
champions classroom get-aheadism based on test scores. Throw off your
chains, students. You have nothing to lose but your backpacks.
The
writer, a former Post columnist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace
and teaches nonviolence at three high schools and four universities.
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 href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701711.html?nav=hcmodule">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701711.html?nav=hcmodule</a> 
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