Lately, it seems like we test, with a little teaching in between. It has so overwhelmed education that it keeps popping up in children’s and young adult literature I have been reading/listening to lately, so I needed to share a few examples I have come across lately.
Let me just say I LOVED listening to this a few weeks ago on my way to school. It is about this boy who moves into a purple mansion when his dad remarried. He starts having these horrible nightmares and travels into this “Netherworld” where nightmares live.
So one of his friends has this reoccurring nightmare where he can’t pass a test. And so he gets a reminder…
“Most tests don’t measure how smart you are,” he proclaimed. “They just measure how good you are at taking tests.”
So in the fourth book of the series, the demigods are talking to a Sphinx. They need to answer ‘riddles’ to pass through unharmed,but it turns out that the “riddles” are actually questions about random facts.
“This test material is specially designed.”
“Think? How am I supposed to test whether you can think? That’s ridiculous!”
Once the grading machine is broken by a member of group, the Sphinx is infuriated:
“I can’t be exemplary without my test scores!”
I disagree Sphinx – we can be exemplary without constant assessments!
jenniebblog 