Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Or, if the lesson to be learned is, what was the history of the American colonies, and the test then asks about details of the colonies as a sampling method to see if the students learned what they were supposed to learn, where's the harm? Can you give me an example like this that illustrates what you mean?
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I ignored the second aspect, but history is an area where teaching to the test really hems in a lot of the point of the class. History is partially about learning facts, but it's also about learning how to find facts (research) and think critically about those facts. If I'm a history teacher charged with getting my students to pass a test on history that will impact not just there own ability to graduate but also my schools funding, the two week long research project where each student researches a different figure from the American revolution and writes an essay on their contributions is
gone, and I'm replacing it with drills on dates of battles.
You may be okay with that. But the essay assignment is not exactly radical pedagogy.
