George Bartow asked
>And in a public school - or private for that matter - how should
>measuring be approached? And, how should it become motivating?
Dear Jorge,
In line with my thinking, which need not be valid, an outline of an answer
could be as following:
Your first question is the difficult one, the second is somewhat a proof,
whether the first has been answered properly.
First one should make clear, what the purpose of the school is. Before
there is no consensus on this purpose, there is no way to approach
measuring progress towards that purpose. In case of schools, I think this
is the real problem.
We can look at what is measured today in schools. Isn't it the ability to
reproduce knowledge within a short time when asked? (I am thinking of
tests.) Lets assume, that this is what is measured. From such measurement
I would conclude, that the real purpose, the purpose in action (as opposed
to any other stated espoused purpose) is: "Make people able to reproduce
knowledge within a short time when asked." Unforunately (or better:
fortunately), it is difficult to get buy-in on such a purpose from all
those who cannot see the sense in contributing to this purpose, which is
purely individual. Such a purpose just impaires too many essentialities.
In this sense the measurement is illogical, for it does not reflect the
full complexity of the pupils development. And uncountable different types
of illogical behavior is the result as a consequence. You will know best
yourself, that pupils which do not fulfill the test-writing requirement do
not learn nothing but thousand other things, many of which they should
better not learn.
But I didn't answer your question "how should measuring be approached?"
Your question shows that you are very aware of these problems. My approach
would be to set a target, that requires the full creativity of the whole
class, for example within a project. If done correctly, such a target is
usually met by all pupils (they even teach themselves). This of course
answer also the question regarding motivation. I guess that the pupils
will be eager to measure their progress themselves - not to cheat, but to
know how far they got. (But here, it is your turn to add what works and
what not - I am not a specialist at all.)
This is what I meant, when I wrote, that reaching the targets tells more
about whether the system, created by purpose, target and measurements, is
consistent and coherent, than about learning. Just take care of the
creativity of the children and learning will emerge. Help them on their
way from experiental to tacit and later formal knowledge. How lovely. Not
so difficult, if you have walked this path before yourself.
But when you try to do this you will get in a massive conflict. Not with
the pupils who are lucky to have you as a teacher. But with the
institution school if not with society. I don't know how it is elsewhere,
but in Germany, school is definitely not prepared to handle a classes,
where all pupils reach their targets. And this is simply due to the fact,
that reaching the target is more assigned to some "learning ability of
pupils" than on the way teachers teach (which would reflect the teaching
system).
Can you imagine the problems you will get? School will tell you: "The
learning ability of pupils follows a normal distribution. The pupils in
your class reach in average a much higher score than the normal
distribution allow for. You must do something ... wrong! What will the
parents of the pupils in other classes say? Your pupils get an unfair
chance on the market for higher education. There is need to rank the
pupils after the school period. How should we know otherwise, whom to send
to Harvard..." Under your way of teaching, the measure "rank the pupils"
became worse!
If such reasoning does not allow for taking the right measures, because
you would become a martyr in the existing system, Goldratt speaks of
"political constraints".
I have started with a somewhat obvious purpose of school, based on the
measurements used today. One may question such measurements and suggest
others as in project groups. Then, by asking, why such better measurements
are not in effect, I found a deeper purpose of school: "Rank pupils
according to one simple linear measure." According to this purpose,
schools work perfectly today. No need for any change - if not on the level
of purpose. That's where I started. And there, the need for ranking must
be addressed, before you can think of an alternative.
In writing this, I learned, that my somewhat simple approach to measuring
learning may be simple as an approach, but not at all in its consequences.
Thank you for asking. I am really looking forward to your opinion on my
effort here. But take your time. I won't be in the office before 12. April
and than I first will have to catch up with my work.
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>