“Learning for the pure joy of building the imagination

and honoring students.”

I believe that is what education should be about.  I also believe that the standards can be taught in such a way to honor that statement; however the ridiculous amount of time teaching and assessing to the test voids that statement and makes it impossible to implement. 

I once taught at a school where that was the general philosophy of the school and as such the school was highly successful.  Teachers and students were free to explore the state standards in authentic ways while learning to love the process of choice in learning.  The belief was that the “testing” would take care of itself as long as there was active teaching and active learning in the classroom.  That was the case when test results came back.  Did every child meet or exceed the standards no.  But every single student showed growth over the previous school year’s testing score.  Growth was what we were looking for.  Along with the “official” test scores, teacher assessments were submitted three times during the school year in order to make sure students were on track.  No testing was not done on a weekly basis.  No testing was not done on a monthly basis.  It was believed that teachers had the ability to observe learning and modify teaching in order to meet the needs of each student without a computer test assessing the student in only one way “read the question, pick an answer”.  Imagine that.  The belief that teachers actually had the knowledge to do what they were taught to do; and furthermore were allowed to use that knowledge for the betterment of what was happening in their classrooms.  Nothing was “scripted” because teachers were believed to know what they were doing. 

Take the idea of “scripting” into other professions… do mechanics use a script?  What would that sound like; “after hooking your vehicle up to a computer for cars, your truck has the following issues.  Your vehicle doesn’t meet the weight standards of a car, your vehicle has a too many cylinders for the assessment of the machine.  Recommendations:  your vehicle failed the test for cars.  Your vehicle fails”… keep in mind that your vehicle is a four wheel drive truck that is made as a “work” vehicle.  It is made to carry a ton of hay; pull a livestock trailer.  Yet you get a fail… falls far below the standard.  Therefore as a mechanic I need improvement in order to better assess your vehicle using the same tool… or I lose my job.  Does that make sense on any level?  I know that is a far reaching comparison but I don’t think it is really that far off.