The Evil of Tests, Part 2

Arguably, the pressure of studying for tests serves as an incentive for learning. I believe this is true, but only if the student approaches the task of studying for the test with an open mind. By this, I mean that he does not have the typical bored, distressed, apathetic mindset that the education system seems to have instilled in many — unfortunately, these types of students are few and far between. Many simply do not value school, tests, and education so highly.

Even those students who can tolerate the unfortunate reality of this system are not benefiting as much as they could. A common class-room complaint is, “Okay, I know how to do this for the test, but when am I going to use this outside of the classroom?” An honest answer would be that, for the typical person, very little will be “useful.” Without getting anything meaningful from a course, a student can pass and appeal to others on paper without the result being intellectually beneficial.

I don’t want my view to come across as completely anti-test. In fact, I think that some kind of evaluation is absolutely necessary — otherwise, how would you measure progress, see how well students are learning, and ensure that teaching methods are doing something to enrich students’ minds? Tests are helpful, and, removed from the context of reality, they should be viewed as such.

But the way schools do it now is absolutely wrong. Many students get the impression that in order to succeed in life, they have to subject themselves to all kinds of irrational pains and focus only on what the system wants and finds impressive — high test grades, lots of advanced classes, etc. — no matter how wasteful and stressful it may be. Other students do not value school so highly, because the heavy emphasis on testing is perceived as painful and irrelevant to everyday life, so they simply don’t try. And others try, but cannot possibly succeed in the restricted testing environment, because they deviate from the mold in some important way.

Evidently, problems exist in the system; I’ve laid a few of them out in various ways. Now, what would a better education system look like — possibly from a historical or scientific perspective — and how could we take steps to implement it?