Educating in Education

I was recently reading on Will Richardson’s Blog , where he posted a snippet from:

Deborah Meier on Bridging Differences :

As long as we use test scores as our primary evidence for being poorly educated we reinforce the connection—and the bad teaching to which it leads. If by some course of action we could get everyone’s score the same—even by cheating—I’d be for it, so we could get on to discussing the interactions that matter in classrooms and schools: between “I, Thou, and It.” I’ve spent 45 years trying, unsuccessfully, to shift the discussion to schools as sites for learning. Such a “conversation” might not produce economic miracles, but it would over time connect schooling to the kind of learning that can protect both democracy and our economy. Because that’s where schools are (or are not) powerful.

I was astounded. The acumen of the statement. I truthfully, would support allowing everyone to get the same scores, chopping my class sizes in half and finally getting down to business. I used to say, that if the general public understood what truthfully happened in the classroom we would have an immediate overhaul; a capitalistic system like our own would never tolerate such poor business planning. But then I look at, what poor business planning has received – billions upon billions – and my analogy falls flat. Even with weak analogies, the reality of a misconstrued understanding at the creation of a human mind, in a classroom is still unbelievably askew. Just ask the kids.

The kids offer a vast depth of information on how to educate them; sure you have to wade through their default complaining at the prospect of work, but ask a kid who has had a poor – or easy - teacher, if they enjoyed the boredom: children prefer to learn, and they know when they are not learning.