LA Times op-ed: Critical Thinking, Not Standardized Tests

[DeepModem Mom]

Critical Thinking, Not Standardized Tests
Public schools should teach kids how to think, not how to master multiple choice.
By Jeff Lantos
JEFF LANTOS teaches at Marquez Charter Elementary School in Los Angeles.
September 16, 2006

....Every year, we hear administrators crowing or politicians moaning over student test scores as if these numbers were indisputable indicators of teaching excellence, mediocrity or failure....

***

In fact, test scores (on the annual standardized state test) are like the closing prices on the stock exchange. They fluctuate for any number of reasons. A bad breakfast, a case of the jitters or skipping a line and filling in the wrong bubbles can wreak as much havoc as not knowing the difference between "abjure" and "adjure."

Likewise, teaching to the test can inflate scores but, given no context, all this random information is seldom retained. As a result, evaluating a teacher based solely on student test scores is like evaluating a corporation based solely on just one day's stock price.

If you really want to evaluate a teacher, you have to walk into a classroom, sit down and listen. I'm convinced that when you're listening to good teaching, you hear a familiar refrain. It goes like this: What is the connection between … and … ? So much of good teaching is about taking strands of information and looking for connections and broadening the context.

Endless test preparation has the opposite effect. It shrinks the context....If we can get beyond the notion of schools as testing factories, then teachers will have the freedom to strive for a higher standard of excellence. Part of that higher standard would include the teaching of critical thinking. How does a teacher do that? By creating an academic environment in which students can sift through the mass of facts being hurled at them and begin to perceive pathways of interconnectedness....

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-lantos16sep16,0,5078817.story?track=mostemailedlink

[indepat]

1. Critical thinking might even promote avoidance of war except as the last,

rather than first, resort: it might even lead to assessing the entire agenda of one's political party and ideology instead of just going along in lockstep fashion like lemming rushing to sea.

[Armstead]

2. I've thought that for years -- Glad to see it's being said out loud

[MasonJar]

3. Amen! As a teacher stuck in a whirlwind of constant test practice,

I could not agree more.

[sweetheart]

4. critical thinking leads to political awakening...

there is NO WAY the republicans will support critical thinking, and liekly why they're
behind this standardized testing regimen to undermine education quality.

[Dems Will Win]

5. The GOP is using the education policies of the Nazis in fact:

"I DO NOT THINK READING IS DESIRABLE" - Himmler

To prevent the birth of a new generation of educated Poles, German officials decreed that the schooling of Polish children should end after a few years of elementary education. "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. I do not think that reading is desirable," Himmler wrote in a May 1940 memorandum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_ethnic_Poles

[applegrove]

6. DARN YOU DAM DIRTY ENLIGHTENMENT - YOU!!!.... (sarcasm).

[Dems Will Win]

7. The Dropout Rate, btw, is 30%!! Blacks and Hispanics are 50%!!!!

The current education curriculum was invented in the 1820s by Herbart. 88% of all dropouts had good or passing grades.

#1 REASON FOR DROPPING OUT? BOREDOM

The curriculum is boring them out of the classroom, while teaching to the test makes things even worse.

READ (click by the page)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181646,00.html

[dsc]

8. actually 88% report they have good grades

I can report I am 6 feet, 200 lbs, and dating Tom Cruise, that doesn't make it true.

[Dems Will Win]

9. Are you saying the Gates Foundation survey is incorrect,

fudged or a lie. It is a scientific survey.

[dsc]

16. It accurately reports what the students say

which I contend is likely different than what the truth is.

[erpowers]

12. Agreed

I contend that boredom is a major factor in both kids dropping out of school and kids not doing as well as they could in school. I do not think it is as much the curriculum as much as the way the curriculum is taught. This is not to say that the teachers are not good, some of them are really good. I think there should be a move to stop kids from just sitting in classrooms all day long. There should be a move to get kids to go to muesuems and other places to see things and learn in that way.

[Dems Will Win]

14. Problem is the last time the curriculum really changed was after 1957

and Sputnik. We are training kids to beat the Soviet Union--which no longer exists--in the Space Race. That's why all the algebra and chemistry and physics.

We need to teach ecology and Renewable Energy and Organic Farming...

[erpowers]

10. Both

I contend that schools should teach both critical thinking and how to master multiple choice questions. Each can help the other. Leaarning how to eliminate answers on a multiple choice question can help someone who thinks critically to answer the question correctly.

[aikoaiko]

11. Agreed critical analysis is key but so are "facts"

At the college level you often see young students with good questioning and critical thinking skills, but they know so few historical, cultural, technical "facts" that they don't understand what I'm talking about in class.

[BluePatriot]

13. Employers don't want critical thinkers...

they want little robots who never question the asinine policies of those in power-- robots that are easy to control.

Except now, they may be realizing their wishes in that regard have created an incredibly stupid labor pool...oops...

Everyone go here for more on this topic:

http://www.rit.edu/~cma8660/mirror/www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

"The Underground History of American Education"

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. I'm so glad Jeb gave my kid a McKay scholarship

so that I can send him to a private school that teaches critical thinking instead of how to do well on the FCAT.