what's wrong in education

Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed.

Every time we judge a school on the basis of standardized test score—indeed, every time we permit our children to participate in these mass testing programs—we unwittingly help to make our schools just a little bit worse.

Much of the discussion about education today is arrested at the level of “Test scores are low; make them go up.” All the limits of, and problems with, such testing amount to a serious indictment of the version of school reform that relies on these tests.

Given what we now know about human learning and child/adolescent development, it is morally irresponsible for us to continue with the education system we have.

I was trying to find the most efficient way of giving students the knowledge and skils that I had, I was treating them as interchangeable receptacles.

It may have been acceptable for schools to see themselves primarily as gatekeepers or sorting mechanisms when Canada had less need for well-education citizens, but that time has long past. Canada cannot afford to waste its human resources.

Many existing standards documents do not encourage teaching for understanding… they outline hundreds of bits of information for students to acquire at various grades in each subject area, creating expectations for content coverage that render impossible the in-depth study students need to understand and apply ideas.

A passion for learning isn’t something you have to inspire in kids; it’s something you have to keep from extinguishing.

Basic ways of schooling children have been remarkably durable over the last hundred years.

Measurable outcomes may be the least significant results of learning.