Recently I've slowly been making my way through posts on the blog from previous TOK classes, and today, the one that struck me had to do with school tests. (Thus, I give it credit for my post.) As I look back on my school career since kindergarten, many, if not most, of the tests I have taken were "regurgitation tests", or tests where a student must do nothing more for an A than use the cut and paste method. In my eighth grade history class on a test day, I would sit at my desk with a paper before me consisting of basic questions and answers provided for me- all I had to do was choose the "correct" answer, or the answer my teacher and textbook told me was right. Then there was the matching section that required little to no thought at all; again, answer choices were given with one answer per description leaving me nothing to do but rewrite the answers I easily could have memorized ten minutes before class. Ben Franklin was smart and did a lot of stuff, George Washington was the first president of the U.S., Honest Abe freed the slaves. So what? How does that affect me? Why do I need to know about random guys who have been dead for two hundred years?
It seems as though I was rarely taught about applications and how to have a greater understanding of the information I was slapping onto the page. It wasn't important to me to know WHY, I just wanted the A. I wasn't taught to have an appreciation for what I was learning because I couldn't make connections. Then, suddenly in high school, the teachers expected me to apply, reexplain in my own words, analyze. Yes, Hester in The Scarlet Letter sinned and had an illegitimate child, good for her- now what does that symbolize?
Middle school tests were mostly multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, write-what-we-tell-you-to-get-the-A. Even band and orchestra tests were cut-and-paste: here's a scale, play it at this speed, get loud right there, don't mess up, go. Little room was left for interpretation. If I wanted the grade, I just had to memorize, memorize, memorize until the information basically rolled of the pen on its own. Then, of course, the majority of those facts had to fall out of my brain to make room for the next set of names, dates, and events. No need to keep the info because there isn't a final exam.
My question is, what was the point? Sure, I learned some basic things about the Pilgrims, compound sentence structure, and Colombus sailing the ocean blue, but how much did the regurgitation really help me? I can't tell you how many teachers have said, "yeah, I know they taught you that in middle school, but actually that's wrong and it happened this way."
Of course, this is all in the understanding that there are obviously concepts that middle schoolers can't really grasp at their maturity level, but could it have hurt to put in some application and analysis requirements? I think we would have retained more useful information had we learned to go deeper at an earlier point in our education.
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3 comments:
Ali-
I remember learning during middle school much the same way you do, with two main differences. The first difference was that my tests were never matching, never multiple choice, never fill in the blank. For history and science, especially, the structure of the test was generally: a few days before the test the teacher hands out the study guide with questions, I wrote out answers to the questions, I memorized them, and then on the day of the test the same questions of the study guide (or questions similar enough to warrant the same answers) would appear on the test. The second major difference was yes, we DID have final exams, and yes, they did count for 10 percent of the cumulative grade.
I indeed wondered the same questions as you, "why is this important?". But as the ever-engaged student that I was (cough cough, just kidding), I sized up my teachers, figured out what I had to do to receive an A, got on their good side, and didn't flop the final. .
One issue I have with the school systems is that each year, each class, we always seem to be preparing for "next year". I remember in middle school, we would use high school textbooks because we were "preparing" for our future years. Now that I have reached these future years, I find that we are preparing for college, using college textbooks.
I have always found this frustrating- by the time I understand a concept, it seems that the teacher whirls around and moves on, never to speak of it again. Assuming I don't have to worry about it, I let it fade from my memory until next year rolls along and whaddyaknow, not only must we recollect what we have learned, but we must also be able to apply.
Mr Perkins: as the main adult who reads the blog regularly, I would like to ask: when does all the 'preparation' end? When does the individual realize, "this is it, ready or not, world, here I come"?
Excellent question, Rachel! Mark Twain once said of his father, "When I was 17, I thought my father was the stupidest man on earth. When I turned 21, I couldn't believe how much he had learned in four years." I think as we get older, we realize how much there is to know and there is always a sense of preparing without arriving. The down side is that this can be pushed too far, the perennial student whom Cicero says should be ashamed of himself for always spending his time in books and never doing anything with what he has learned. So there is a tension, and it is a good one. I think even in elementary and middle school, you can begin applying and living out some of what you have learned. The arena for doing this dramatically increases in high school and college, but watch out for the things that sap your time. No matter how much preparation you have done, you will not be able to use it and begin the business of living if you are subjugated by the tyranny of the urgent and the demands of lesser things. What are those lesser things? They are anything that takes us away from the true business of living. From Mark Twain and Cicero, I will move to and conclude with words from Jesus. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?" (Matthew 6:25)
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