Re: Test Secrecy Hurts Children, Schools

["George N. Schmidt" <Csubstance@AOL.COM>]

In a message dated 6/1/00 5:23:22 PM, dmeier@ESSENTIALSCHOOLS.ORG writes:

<< But I'm also saying, George, that we can't understand
the meaning of a test score without doing this with a sample of students.
We should all be doing this to help arm ourselves with a better
understanding of what it is that is happening inside kid's heads.  It also
reveals a lot about the reasons for the social class, as well as race gaps
in test scores--assuming one is not simply interewted in seeing who gets it
right vs wrong, but what and why. >>

Agreed. And it's also fun when you aren't overwhelmed with too many kids in
class and across the school day. We used to be able to laught at the way our
children constructed meaning little by little from analogy to what they
understood. We used to understand how Friere's insights and praxis could be
applied to the same class of children in places like Chicago, Detroit, New
York, and Boston.

In doing so, we gained wisdom ourselves. Some people objected, but I always
found the quickest way to get into the conflict of "Romeo and Juliet" when
teaching in much of Chicago was to ask what would happen if a six-pointed
female fell in love with a five-pointed male. The kids could see the conflict
immediately. Then we'd go back into Shakespeare's brilliant opening scene --
and all of the double entendres.

George

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L
to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU.