Edward Cherlin <[email protected]> writes:
> Ask about teaching children to work together, as with collaboration in
> Sugar, rather than individual achievement alone. How will the
> government test that?
>
> Ask about solving problems that may have no single right answer, and
> certainly don't have a known right answer. How will the government
> test that?
>
> Ask about what citizens need to understand to participate in
> politics--Finance, statistics, history, geography, civics... How will
> the government test that?
>
> In order to employ all of the qualified graduates from these schools,
> the economy must be prepared to support a massive expansion of
> entrepreneurship. How will the government pass that test?
This is a very common line of reasoning, at least among the
constructionist crowd:
(1) "the world is changing so fast that your tests are already obsolete
(as your instructionist method).
(2) We are promoting a method that prepares children for a rapidly
changing world.
>From these premisses, they often draw the conclusion that "testing
constructionism" is irrelevant. Does anyone can explain me why?
I think the effect of constructionism can and should be assessed, as
any educational method. Maybe assessing constructionism is a specific
challenge, but we should not escape it. At least, the fact that the
world is "changing so fast"* calls for more guarantees in our teaching
methods, not for more blind experimentation. Teachers understand this
very well, that are often accused of being too conservative.
* When hearing this, I always wonder how it feels to live in a world
that is _not_ changing very fast. My imagination is just mute.
--
Bastien
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