Tuesday,
February 10, 2009 at 8:53pm
What
do tests measure? The basic answer is somewhere along the lines of
your aptitude in some subject. They are supposed to show that you can
manage time, pick up new concepts, and retain them long enough to get
your gold star. I've rallied against tests as long as I can remember,
but haven't gone into as much detail for why I hate them so. My
recent bomb of a law test will be prompting my digression for my
arguments.
One of the most obvious problems I have with getting tested on material is the amount you are supposed to "learn." My law class for example has us read maybe ten pages before class. These ten pages have "relevant" information, at least with regards to a question he may pose to us, sometimes in every other line. Not only are we told to be responsible for this information, we're questioned about the cases that arise as stumbling blocks planted within each section. With law, as I'm quickly learning, you may have pretty straightforward definitions and methodologies, but simply knowing, or at least thinking you know, what that word means, does not mean you can apply it to some theoretical case that may or may not lie within some unsound assumptions. I've only watched documentaries and read about people who are able to take in, retain, and recite back this amount of information, and they all had some form of autism. Also, and I've said this before, if the "answers" are truly in our book, or can be found through google, or quoted back from our autistic friends, the test is only showing us how bad or good we can be playing pretend that we won't have resources. Furthermore, at least with law, you find that those "answers" aren't quite readily available regardless.
The next problem I have is with the types of tests were subjected to. It's relatively understood that if you memorize the answers to multiple choice questions, odds of you missing that question again, if it is presented in even remotely the same way, are not very high. Most of the time I find myself testing my ability to guess and deduce bubble patterns the professor may have slipped in to be ironic. The answer can be wrong or right, without any regard as to how the person was thinking or came to their conclusion. Test don't teach you or make an accurate assessment of how you think. For this they have "short-answer" or essay questions which basically test to see if you can fit in subjective key words the teacher is looking for, and refrain from using l33t text or writing "u" instead of you. The subjective nature behind grading those tests is rarely questioned but still riddled with petty favoritism and writing aesthetic preference.
Another huge issue I have with these things is all that they do not show. A test doesn't tell you if the person is an asshole who regardless of his memorizing abilities would never get a job given his demeanor and propensity to doosh-baggery. It doesn't tell you if that person is wildly imaginative, well connected, or has an unassailable motivation to push their potentially revolutionary self as far as it will go. It doesn't show the caliber of each teacher. It doesn't show how or what would convey to that student the information your school is so desperately trying to get you to learn. Tests completely muddy the idea that maybe you did pick up a lot or did in fact learn from your class, and that it is merely unlucky that the concepts you were questioned about were your Achilles heel. Tests don't even imply that there are other ways of going about living "the good life" or getting somewhere, because if they did, they'd test themselves out of existence.
I also disagree with what tests are "supposed" to tell you and your potential employer. Tests imply, at least when not passed, that you did "bad." They imply that your lazy, unmotivated, and slow to learn. The rational for these tests, keeping everyone on equal playing ground, pits you against people on this inadequate system's terms. Your now not as good as the kid next to you. Your not as capable. You just aren't "with it" or "worth it" in the same way as the ones who are "smarter." In my opinion, this isn't a competition that can be won. For those of you who know how strongly I endorse natural selection, particularly with regards to us, I'm not speaking against competition or means of measuring you against your fellow man, I simply think that tests and grades are an abhorrent ways of assessing that measurement.
I get done watching Slumdog Millionaire feeling ever resolved to elaborate in as many details just how badly this bothers me. A show where the "smarter" you are the more money you can make, turned on its ass by a kid who lived a dramatic, interesting, and compelling life relying on personal experience and guessing to win. No, I don't want the life that kid had, but yes I wish I had the freedom or system to work within that allowed me to learn and live in an equally compelling way.
I suppose my biggest problem, and this is intricately tied in with the school system itself and how people think, is that testing contributes to the litany of things distracting us from living productive and happy lives. When your focused on the test your not focused on utilizing what it is you have learned really well, or what may be intricately tied to your personality and potential. Your forced to subject yourself to their rules and their assessment. My P199 class harps endlessly with speakers telling you how to prepare and submit resumes, what it takes to get into grad school, how potential employers want you molded before they get started refining you. You aren't compelled or taught how to identify and resolve what you see as problems. Your given a task, then either padded on the head or given the task over again until the "correct" answer can't escape you. I'm tired of playing by the rules. I've been tired. It's only been relatively easy to ignore when the a pink questionnaire reminder hasn't been residing in my peripherals.
If I could drop out of school I would. If and when Mystik takes off it will be my focus because it will be an extension of me. It will always be relevant, provide excitement, require me to get better and learn more if I want more. I hope to incorporate and assimilate people who can and want to go as far as their ideas will take them, and use that to undermine and hopefully abolish what we currently understand as the education industry. Every doubter, every failed test, and every minute my focus is overwhelmed with the need to rant or worry makes me want to dart from my seat and pursue what the next step is.
I plan on appealing the wording and answer choices of some of these questions, and I fully accept the ones I label as stupid mistakes. I don't like how going to class, taking detailed notes, and reading don't contribute to what I feel my understanding of the concepts are. And frankly, I outright refuse to "put in that extra effort" as it's so unbearably misleadingly labeled, because to me it's actively killing my, for utter lack of a better word, "soul." I can't do it when I don't want what people tell me it leads to. I don't want grad school, I didn't want college after the first few months, and I didn't want high school or middle school either. I don't want to get a job working for some company chasing raises and recognition. I don't want to put myself under yet another thumb. I don't want to forgo my choice as to who I'm working with and why. (This is the point where you would be justified in worrying if I was suicidal) I don't want this life if I'll be ever surrounded by these unsound notions of happiness and success. I barely understand how I've put up with it for this long.
One of the most obvious problems I have with getting tested on material is the amount you are supposed to "learn." My law class for example has us read maybe ten pages before class. These ten pages have "relevant" information, at least with regards to a question he may pose to us, sometimes in every other line. Not only are we told to be responsible for this information, we're questioned about the cases that arise as stumbling blocks planted within each section. With law, as I'm quickly learning, you may have pretty straightforward definitions and methodologies, but simply knowing, or at least thinking you know, what that word means, does not mean you can apply it to some theoretical case that may or may not lie within some unsound assumptions. I've only watched documentaries and read about people who are able to take in, retain, and recite back this amount of information, and they all had some form of autism. Also, and I've said this before, if the "answers" are truly in our book, or can be found through google, or quoted back from our autistic friends, the test is only showing us how bad or good we can be playing pretend that we won't have resources. Furthermore, at least with law, you find that those "answers" aren't quite readily available regardless.
The next problem I have is with the types of tests were subjected to. It's relatively understood that if you memorize the answers to multiple choice questions, odds of you missing that question again, if it is presented in even remotely the same way, are not very high. Most of the time I find myself testing my ability to guess and deduce bubble patterns the professor may have slipped in to be ironic. The answer can be wrong or right, without any regard as to how the person was thinking or came to their conclusion. Test don't teach you or make an accurate assessment of how you think. For this they have "short-answer" or essay questions which basically test to see if you can fit in subjective key words the teacher is looking for, and refrain from using l33t text or writing "u" instead of you. The subjective nature behind grading those tests is rarely questioned but still riddled with petty favoritism and writing aesthetic preference.
Another huge issue I have with these things is all that they do not show. A test doesn't tell you if the person is an asshole who regardless of his memorizing abilities would never get a job given his demeanor and propensity to doosh-baggery. It doesn't tell you if that person is wildly imaginative, well connected, or has an unassailable motivation to push their potentially revolutionary self as far as it will go. It doesn't show the caliber of each teacher. It doesn't show how or what would convey to that student the information your school is so desperately trying to get you to learn. Tests completely muddy the idea that maybe you did pick up a lot or did in fact learn from your class, and that it is merely unlucky that the concepts you were questioned about were your Achilles heel. Tests don't even imply that there are other ways of going about living "the good life" or getting somewhere, because if they did, they'd test themselves out of existence.
I also disagree with what tests are "supposed" to tell you and your potential employer. Tests imply, at least when not passed, that you did "bad." They imply that your lazy, unmotivated, and slow to learn. The rational for these tests, keeping everyone on equal playing ground, pits you against people on this inadequate system's terms. Your now not as good as the kid next to you. Your not as capable. You just aren't "with it" or "worth it" in the same way as the ones who are "smarter." In my opinion, this isn't a competition that can be won. For those of you who know how strongly I endorse natural selection, particularly with regards to us, I'm not speaking against competition or means of measuring you against your fellow man, I simply think that tests and grades are an abhorrent ways of assessing that measurement.
I get done watching Slumdog Millionaire feeling ever resolved to elaborate in as many details just how badly this bothers me. A show where the "smarter" you are the more money you can make, turned on its ass by a kid who lived a dramatic, interesting, and compelling life relying on personal experience and guessing to win. No, I don't want the life that kid had, but yes I wish I had the freedom or system to work within that allowed me to learn and live in an equally compelling way.
I suppose my biggest problem, and this is intricately tied in with the school system itself and how people think, is that testing contributes to the litany of things distracting us from living productive and happy lives. When your focused on the test your not focused on utilizing what it is you have learned really well, or what may be intricately tied to your personality and potential. Your forced to subject yourself to their rules and their assessment. My P199 class harps endlessly with speakers telling you how to prepare and submit resumes, what it takes to get into grad school, how potential employers want you molded before they get started refining you. You aren't compelled or taught how to identify and resolve what you see as problems. Your given a task, then either padded on the head or given the task over again until the "correct" answer can't escape you. I'm tired of playing by the rules. I've been tired. It's only been relatively easy to ignore when the a pink questionnaire reminder hasn't been residing in my peripherals.
If I could drop out of school I would. If and when Mystik takes off it will be my focus because it will be an extension of me. It will always be relevant, provide excitement, require me to get better and learn more if I want more. I hope to incorporate and assimilate people who can and want to go as far as their ideas will take them, and use that to undermine and hopefully abolish what we currently understand as the education industry. Every doubter, every failed test, and every minute my focus is overwhelmed with the need to rant or worry makes me want to dart from my seat and pursue what the next step is.
I plan on appealing the wording and answer choices of some of these questions, and I fully accept the ones I label as stupid mistakes. I don't like how going to class, taking detailed notes, and reading don't contribute to what I feel my understanding of the concepts are. And frankly, I outright refuse to "put in that extra effort" as it's so unbearably misleadingly labeled, because to me it's actively killing my, for utter lack of a better word, "soul." I can't do it when I don't want what people tell me it leads to. I don't want grad school, I didn't want college after the first few months, and I didn't want high school or middle school either. I don't want to get a job working for some company chasing raises and recognition. I don't want to put myself under yet another thumb. I don't want to forgo my choice as to who I'm working with and why. (This is the point where you would be justified in worrying if I was suicidal) I don't want this life if I'll be ever surrounded by these unsound notions of happiness and success. I barely understand how I've put up with it for this long.
Written
about 2 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike
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like this.
Billy
Bowman
at 9:29pm February 10
Yup.
One rant of many, all covering the same idea, and yet some how they never get old. It's all still relevant.
I completely agree with your sentiment against tests, and our current educational system. I empathize with your feelings toward 'the system'. Preparing myself for a job so I can do repetitive meaningless tasks to earn enough money to have all the things I won't have time for because I'll be working 40+ hours a weak at best a disheartening and in reality a completely backwards and fucked up way to look at things. Learning for the sake of knowing, expanding your knowledge, and using it to learn more and better society is what our educational system should be about. It should most certainly not be about how to play (not even how to win) in a broken game.
... Read More
When Mystik gets off the ground, we must put a stop to this game.
One rant of many, all covering the same idea, and yet some how they never get old. It's all still relevant.
I completely agree with your sentiment against tests, and our current educational system. I empathize with your feelings toward 'the system'. Preparing myself for a job so I can do repetitive meaningless tasks to earn enough money to have all the things I won't have time for because I'll be working 40+ hours a weak at best a disheartening and in reality a completely backwards and fucked up way to look at things. Learning for the sake of knowing, expanding your knowledge, and using it to learn more and better society is what our educational system should be about. It should most certainly not be about how to play (not even how to win) in a broken game.
... Read More
When Mystik gets off the ground, we must put a stop to this game.
David
M.L. Jaffe
at 10:53pm February 10
Why
can't all classes be like Schrimer's accounting class?
David
M.L. Jaffe
at 10:53pm February 10
Shrimper,
Schrimper, however it's spelled.
Billy
Bowman
at 10:53pm February 10
Schrimpers
accounting class still has tests. A better 'test' of knowledge would
be a practical problem you had to solve with the knowledge and skills
obtained in a class IE. here's a bunch of business transactions,
account them.
David
M.L. Jaffe
at 10:54pm February 10
Well,
aside from the tests I suppose...
Nick
P.
at 4:11am February 11
More
teachers like Schrimper, but the lives to go with the knowledge he's
imparting on us. Not just following along in book only to relearn
what you need when you actually start taking care of your business.
Chris
Cashel-Cordo
at 1:11am February 13
Man,
Schrimper rocked my world.
