All tests should be open book. It’s not like your future boss is going to say, “I need those tax returns finished by noon, but don’t look at any of the financial statements. Do it all from memory.”
Exactly! You should be tested on application of a concept not memory
I’ve told this story before but idc I’m doing it again.
My dad once taught some class at a conference. He gave everyone a worksheet and after watching them flounder for a few minutes on their own he said, “You guys know you can talk to each other and work together, right?” These were industry professionals who suddenly reverted back to that must-not-collaborate mentality when put in a classroom setting.
school fucks us up soo bad
It becomes more and more obvious every year that public school as it exists was designed to prepare people to enter the factory system in the 1930s.
In case anyone didn’t know, the above is literally true. The modern public school system was designed a little over a hundred years ago by captains of industry to train people to do the dehumanizing labor needed on assembly lines.
Human beings crave meaningful work that makes them feel accomplished and resourceful. Humans like to feel like they’re part of a community, and see the results of a job well done. These desires are incompatible with industrial and post-industrial economies, so people have to be brought up in a system that crushes as much of this desire as possible and convinces them that any remaining scrap of yearning for dignified labor is not worth acknowledging or pursuing.
Class periods that aren’t long enough to devote serious thought to a subject; the bells that tell you when it’s time to eat, regardless of when you’re actually hungry; the alienating tedium of standardized testing; these things didn’t develop organically. They were designed by the people who stood to derive the greatest benefit from them.
schools also actively hinder learning by intentionally crushing creativity, curiousity and self-organised learning or experimentation and fun
As a teacher, I’d love to have more free-form classes. Teaching students to collaborate is the most important thing as far as preparing them for college or the work force. I never had time to collaborate with my peers until college, and I was terrified every time I had to. Think about how much more confident they could be if they had experience working together with EVERYTHING!
Case in point: exams. Exams are BULLSHIT. You’re testing memorization without taking into account actual bridges in their learning. Unfortunately, I am required to give exams. I wish I wasn’t. I’d much rather have my students work on a lab project together and present results and discuss those results than rely on rote memorization for anything.
And yes, the teacher can make a difference in how well a student remembers a fact, but pretty much every exam is multiple choice, which is rote memorization or guessing. Short answer questions are less so.
But here’s the thing: in my class, we have to have a lab every couple of weeks MINIMUM in order for it to still be considered applicable to the UC/CSU standards for entry requirements. If the focus there is labs, why the fuck do we have exams? Why can’t I spend more time and effort with labs instead of stressing out about how my students are going to perform on an exam and how that’s going to reflect on me.
I’d rather have my students able to understand science through real-world applications of concepts than through bubbles on a page.
Valuable information if some of your prized books were affected by recent flooding. The video even shows you what to do if you can’t dry the book out right away.
The Archery Range 