Education, Tests And Learning
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
I really don’t like the idea of standardized tests.
Ostensibly, they’re designed to be a pure measure of talent and intellect - a way to measure our depth of understanding of the specific subject matter in question.
But the fact is, they’re not - well, not in the way we’d like to think anyway.
Certainly, there’s a level of knowledge that’s needed to navigate and understand the material and, in that sense, the test will measure your grasp of the topic. But it’s also a fact that a modicum of that knowledge coupled with a solid understanding of test taking strategies can garner a far better score than someone who has a far better sense of the content but is not as good at taking those tests (or hasn’t had sufficient test practice).
I’ve had plenty of debates with friends about this topic and they’ve argued that that simply isn’t the case. I obviously don’t agree, and a cursory look at the sheer amount of money that test-practice companies and platforms make helping students (tangibly) improve their scores is evidence enough of this. Their emphasis is less on the content and more on the strategies that really do make a difference.
The thing is, this is all part of this game we call education these days. It’s become a high stakes race and one can understand why in many respects. You need only look at the divide between the haves and the have-nots, the income disparity of the more versus less educated, etc., to see what the practical implications are of not being part of the ‘educated’ populace.
The implication is that we need to play to the rules of that game: accumulating credentials, working on your positioning, nailing standardized tests and more to simply have a chance at bat. If you get that chance, well, then the world is your oyster.
The problem, of course, is that, for many, the focus shifts. The emphasis isn’t so much on the education and the learning and the improvement of the self, as much as it is on the accumulation of credentials. Symbols that show we’re good enough versus the surety of our own personal knowledge that we certainly are.
Again, I get this is part of the game and that I probably sound like an idealist - which I most certainly am. I also get that the system is so well entrenched that one doesn’t have a great deal of leeway here.
But the least we can do is be conscious in our choices.
We should remember that we are most certainly playing the game.
We should remember that - even as we play the game - we need to separate out the idea of learning from the collection of credentials.
We should understand that our sense of self and our confidence needs to come from our understanding, our knowledge and our intelligence - not from a piece of paper with numbers or letters on it.
We should, in other words, remember that who we are, comes from us and the work we’ve put in, not what someone else designates us to be.
