On Jan 27, 2014, at 11:29 AM, "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Let's have some class solidarity on this list. Teachers are workers.
To be sure. But so are policemen and prison guards. So it's not clear how much light we can derive from this observation.
That said, I agree with Carrol about defending teachers *qua* workers (in a way that I might not be inclined to defend cops and prison guards; to that extent the analogy fails).
What I can't see doing is defending the institutions that employ teachers. Here I think the analogy is perfect. Let's 'defend' (pro virili) the workers at Wal-Mart; but let's not defend Wal-Mart.
On the narrower question of tests, I personally don't necessarily despise them. Even multiple-choice ones (though the inexplicable torrent of bonehead questions Charles Brown has been treating us to lately do the genre very little honor).
We ought to despise *grades*, but perhaps there's some usefulness in purely pass-fail tests. Like a driver's test, that sort of thing. Something that shows a given level of mastery of some particular topic.
Apart from that -- away with grades, away with curricula after, say, age 12, and away with homework, most of all, at least before the age of 18.
Oh, and away with degrees. And admissions committees. Admission by lot!
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
I am one of those that are willing to be pleased. -- Dr J