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TEACHING_THE_TEST
September 15, 2004
The New York State Regents
exam in English had some As I understand it,
required essay writing... something like this
is going to be added
to the SAT.
I did pretty well on it
because I happened to
have a rather hard-nosed
obnoxious English
teacher who decided that
his job was to get us to
score high on this test,
so he *told us how the
test was graded*.
He explained that what the graders
wanted to see was three paragraphs:
(1) a one sentence introduction
that explained what you were going
to say, (2) a three sentence main
body that said it, and (3) a one
sentence conclusion that
re-iterated the introduction.
I turned in a completely inane
"essay" (theme: "Jack Kerouac
Was Into Freedom", or
something like that) that was
in fact completely brain dead, For me, this success
but fit this form exactly. of form-over-substance
was something of a
If I'd really been prepared, breakthrough.
I could have written a half
dozen generic "essays" in THE_QUESTION_OF_ESSAYS
advance, and walked in the
door with them memorized,
ready to deal one out in
response to whatever silly In this essay, I intend to
questions we were given to state that brevity is good.
choose from.
Brevity is good. It is
really, really, good. I
I've since learned that some highly recommend brevity.
people regard "teaching the
test" as some sort of dirty In conclusion, I submit
trick; or perhaps caving into that it is self-evident
the silly "standardized testing" I have stated that
routine letting it corrupt the brevity is good.
educational process.
I was once talking to a
university professor at a
technical conference who said
"Do you know what engineering
school has the highest rate
of graduates who pass the
Professional Engineer exam?
Idaho State University!
Because they *teach the
test*!"
This was supposed to be a
reducto ad absurdum, but
it was a bit lost on me Idaho State University, was
because by an odd fluke located in Pocatello which was the
I was someone who had town I was living in while working
actually taken the class at the Westinghouse site. Wimpy
that he was talking about. reputation or no, that was where I
took some classes (while working a
And it actually wasn't full time Engineering job... I was
a bad class at all. It pretty crazed in those days).
was only worth a single
unit (a third or a fourth There's a paradox about Higher
of a regular class), so Education that you don't often
it's not like there was hear discussed: there isn't that
a lot of academic much difference between the Good
incentive for the degree Schools and the Bad Schools, and
oriented students (of which in fact sometimes the Good are
I certainly wasn't one, bad and the Bad are good.
I was taking classes to
learn stuff). I took some classes in digital
electronics at ISU, which were
From the point of view of taught by a design engineer who
learning stuff, mostly it worked at the local American
was about doing the sample Microsystems plant.
questions in the published
review book (that anyone It isn't conceivable
could study from in theory). that I would've learned
There was a little bit of more from classes at MIT.
review/instruction, a little
bit about test strategy, but At places like Stanford, while
not that much. there are certainly many great
professors there are also many
To the extent that the test was that aren't.
well designed, the class had to
be well designed... why *not* Successful academics
teach the material on the test? bring in funding and
If that's a *bad* thing to do, crank out publications,
doesn't that mean you should and they know that
drop the test? education is way down
the list of priorities.
And some of them got where they
Sometimes you hear a are by being good at sucking up
rationale from "professors" and looking good in suits.
at the Top of the Line
schools that runs like:
Really the students
teach each other, and
Good Schools are good
because they attract GROUNDER
the best students.
I don't know about you,
but that smells like a
really lame excuse to me.
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