Conflicting Concerns; Or, Tests Versus Education

Our new Q&A is on the morality of grading by test results, so a blog post to preface our discussion:

What is the goal of academic testing?

It seems likely that the goal is to assess retention. Supposedly, a student spends his time within a classroom learning various tidbits of information, largely irrelevant factoids. The goal of a test is then to assess how many of these facts he can remember and adequately regurgitate.

What is the goal of education?

The goal of education is to help students become more autonomous and intelligent individuals by instilling within them a passion for learning knowledge and acquiring skills.

Question: How, if they do, with the above teloi or goals, do tests aid in education?

Crafting Creativity; Or, a Response to Shelby

Shelby asked: What obstacles may hinder a student's creativity, and how can students overcome them in the classroom?

Before I answer her question...

In her response to Barry (the post that birthed this question) Shelby contended that creativity is not something you have or don't have. Instead, she said, "creativity can come in degrees, and be cultivated or taught." I am not entirely sure that is as contradictory as you may think. I agree that creativity can be cultivated, can be taught, but I am not certain that everyone begins at the same level, with the same slate. Perhaps we have a unique capacity for creativity that can be accessed to various degrees.

To the question:

Creativity will be hindered as long as we remain entrenched within the mires of tradition and unpliable practices. The greatest killer and gravest threat is, depressingly, the very machine that ought to foster that very creativity: school. We do not currently have a primary and secondary educational system that is so organized as to engender the growth of creativity. Quite the contrary: we are taught to assimilate and homogenize into specimens best fit to pass tests.

Unfortunately, to the second aspect of the question, there is not much a particular student can do in face of the overwhelming plague of bureaucratic tradition. We are moving in the right direction, and soon, hopefully this will change. What can a student do? Graduate and help change it.

Question: Am I mistaken, are there ways for current students to impact and change the oppressive nature of the classroom and of the system of education?

Incorrect Inanity; Or, a Response to Mary Marcil

Mary Asked: "Are schools becoming too sensitive?"

This was a question arrived at after Mary responded to the question concerning the use of red pens. I agree with Mary's contention that it is ridiculous to forbid teachers to correct with red ink.

However, I do not think that schools are becoming too sensitive. It is not a matter of degree and it is not a matter of quantity of sensitivity. Schools are being too sensitive about the wrong issues and not sensitive enough about the right ones. Schools are sensitive about anything that will garner press. So if bullying is in the news one particular week, they will care about bullying for a while. And, of course, they are always hypersensitive about standardized test performance.

Red Pens have psychological import? Do we think changing to blue will not then cause blue to have similar issues? These are superficial, largely irrelevant issues that should not be focused upon. We have failing students, crumbling schools, too few teachers, too few textbooks...but don't worry...we'll be correcting papers in blue now.

Question: How can the primacy of education be returned to the educational system?

Ostensibly Obvious

Improvisation: Concrete application of creativity.

Are we to discuss whether or not improvisation has a place within a classroom? It seems that an affirmative response to this question is not only appropriate, but necessary to a degree in which any other response could reasonably be viewed as palpably ridiculous.

Allow us to paint this pallid portraiture of a classroom completely devoid of improvisation. The average day consists of listening to a lecture, of completing repetitive exercises, usually taking some sort of standardized exam, and leaving. There is no discussion, no questions, but of the most simple nature are tolerated.

Obviously, this is not the ideal situation. Activities that necessitate the ability to improvise are required. Discussion, which is innately, by virtue of the unknown, improvisational, is one of the most important and potent tools of an instructor on any level. Is improvisation laudable? Of course it is.

Questions: It is possible I am misjudging this debate then. Are there positions that seriously maintain a lack of improvisation is necessary. Are the pro-improvisation proponents positing a greater level than I am characterizing?

Psychological Savior; or, a Response to Edward

Edward Asked: "To end with a question (or two): What role should the arts play in education? And does music education actually improve academic success, or does it merely coincide with a higher quality education within a district that can afford such luxuries?"

I shall begin with the latter which will, I think, segue nicely to an answer for the former.

I think, obviously, that the answer to your question is neither exclusively one nor the other. Yes, there is more to this coincidence than proponents of music education like to admit, but I think there is legitimate, though I know not to what degree, benefits to students who are receiving or did receive, a musical education. Although, this is not restricted to music and applies, I think, to nigh all the arts.

Queue Segue

While I do not think the arts are strictly necessary to education, they are beneficial enough to demand attention within a quality system of education. The benefits of music (I shall speak of music as my example but I mean, for the remainder of this post, all arts) are twofold:

As a stand alone subject in its own right, music offers rare insights into subjects such as mathematics and allows for unique experiences with patterns and different scientific principles.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, music can provide mental solace. Too often, I think, do schools forgo consideration of psychological health and of pleasure. An unhappy student is rarely a good student. It may be worth the time to have a segment of a day devoted to something that makes the students happy, provides them with a reprieve. Music may serve as just such a reprieve.

Question: Neglecting, for the sake of this hypothetical, the numerous and potent direct education merits of music, are its mental ramifications enough to render it a practical and worthy endeavor of schools?

Requisite Rhythmn; Or, A Response to Mike

Mike asked, after a thoughtful blog post about musical education: "...should students be required to take music education? Or should it be an elective to those that are interested?"

It is, of course, an interesting question and the answer is, unfortunately albeit inevitably, it depends. But upon what does it depend, well that is answered rather simply: it depends upon the grade level of the student in question.

If Elisha never encountered musical education in her earlier years, how then could we expect her to select it as an elective when the opportunity finally arose. It would be prudent, then, to force, or require students such as Elisha to take musical education, along with all other practical types, during the early stages of education, so that when electives arrive, she understands which classes will benefit her more than others.

So the answer to your question would be, I think, most effective if we did both. We require it when student are young and discovering interests and disciplines, and then we offer it as an elective when they are older and have some idea of their own educational requirements and preferences.

Question: Is music helpful enough for it to be required along with the time honored traditions of Science, Math, English, and History?

Organized Sound versus Organized Movement; or, A Matter of Degree

In class, the question as raised of a misplaced emphasis on music. Why are sports not treated with the same veneration? You work within diversity to formulate, from discord, a harmonious whole...but that happens when you play a team sport. There is deep emotional impact, but that too can occur within the realm of sports. Is there that one distinguishing factor?

While this is true, that the benefits of playing music may be found to some degree within other disciplines as well, and no matter the stretch, it is possible to find the majority of musical merits within sports, the operative phrase here is "to some degree." The degree to which cooperation is required is relatively similar, that's true. However, the degree to which emotions are impacted by participating or beholding music is not similar to the degree to which they are impacted by sports. I may have little more than empirical evidence to support this claim, and I shall not bother with all the anecdotal evidence, as it proves nothing, but I think it a very small leap to claim that the emotional impact of music is both stronger and more frequent. Music also teaches easily and uniquely the player and listener about natural laws that govern the universe, about science, and about math. Can such lessons be learned from sports? They certainly can, but again, it is less frequent and less potent of an experience when it happens.

There may be other factors I have not here enumerated, but I would reckon they would fit well enough into the pattern I have developed here...yes sports may contain that quality, but not to the same degree.

Question: Is there a laudable quality to music that cannot be found to any degree in sports?