Teach to Test

I have some very strong views about education and teaching.  First off, I think it's important to point out that I'm not an education professional; I a parent with school aged kids first and foremost. Secondly I'm a recent import to the USA, I was educated in the UK originally, so I probably have a different set of benchmarks to work within than perhaps other parents in a similar situation to me.  This should prove to be an excellent starting point for professional educators to question my validity of my personal opinions on the subject.

I called this blog "Teach to Test" because it's one of the frustrations I currently experience as a parent and a great example of many of the things that are wrong with education today.   I don't believe the title is as important as the content, so I'm not that concerned about it.

When I was looking at schools to teach my children, one of the most important things for me, was that they taught critical thinking and creative thinking, both of these things are extremely important to me. In my professional life I've found that having the ability to create mental models, apply those models to different situations and thereby solve the problems has proven to be key in some of the most successful people I've met (and I've met a lot).  Success doesn't mean monetary success, although admittedly many of the successful people I've met have also been wealthy; what I actually mean is becoming extremely adept at anything you choose to pursue, and to stand out amongst others in the same field.   Creativity plays a huge role in this.

My disappointment is that despite searching extensively and finding a school for my kids which said all of the right things and made all of the right noises, I find after placement that they still teach to test, and testing is the most important thing for them.  Now I don't agree with this, but I do understand why they do it.  Obviously the better the grades that are achieved by the school, the better the quality of students they attract, they become "the school to get your kids into" because they're the best test scores in town, and with that recognition (I'm assuming) it becomes easier to secure better teachers and more budget, etc.  I'd opine that the knock-on effects are manifold.

All of this is wonderful, assuming you want your little one to grow up being able to pass tests, and regurgitate information on queue, to go on and become a 4.0 student with awesome test scores that is potentially useless to future employers.  For them to go to a great university and gain an awesome degree packed full of information they'll never use, and carry a student debt for a large chunk of their adult lives.  To be a carbon copy of their parents, perhaps?

I understand that this is a very contentious and inflammatory remark and will ruffle many feathers. That's kind of what I'm hoping for, since nobody ever paid a second thought to a point of view that they agreed with, they simply nod politely and go on their merry way.  I have many opinions (and that's exactly what they are, my opinions), that I will assert here, and my hope is to, maybe, make people think and challenge their comfortable cotton-wool-wrapped-reality with some things that maybe they don't agree with.

You be the judge.  Watch this space.