"Important Skills"

I was digging through the mountain of backpack papers last week when I came across a note from the principal exhorting us to provide opportunities for our children to work on important skills. What important skills? you might ask. High-powered math skills? Sophisticated reading skills? Strong people skills?

Nope. The important skill in question is taking multiple-choice tests. She wants us to tell our kids to spend their free time on a website that lets them practice for the next round of standardized tests.

To which my first response was, Are you HIGH? Are you sitting in your office SMOKING CRACK?

My second response was a little more temperate: I get that she's under pressure here. Our kids' performance on those tests is viewed as a statement about her performance as principal, and who doesn't want to perform well?

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate No Child Left Behind? No? My friends, I hate No Child Left Behind.

Only about 60% of what I want my children to learn before adulthood is something that can be measured on a multiple-choice test. I want them to learn math, yes, but I want them to have fun with numbers -- to be excited about the possibilities and to play with different ways of finding answers. You can do that only if you're not under the gun to finish a certain number of problems in a specified amount of time. Of course I want them to be able to read a passage and parse its meaning, both surface and subtext, but more than that I want them to love reading. I want them to dive undaunted into the Iliad, and be both stirred by the courage they see there and a little put off by the blood-drenched details. The great epics don't lend themselves to multiple-choice testing. ("When Dido realized Aeneas was gone, she was (a) sad (b) relieved (c) indifferent (d) wrathful." Inadequate, much?) In the current climate, that means short shrift for the epics. Kids have to be prepared for the multiple-choice tests, you know, because those are "important skills."

If multiple-choice tests had much to do with the rest of life, my husband and I would rule the world. Or at least be in the Imperial Cabinet -- we're both good at standardized tests. But I am thinking about our recent conversation in the bathroom, where we were grouching about the broken shower valve. I opted to turn my shower into a bath. He said, "If you wait a little while [shivering in the halfhearted trickle] it gets better." Fat lot of good those GRE scores are doing us in the face of a real-world problem.

Complex problem-solving (in whatever domain), nuanced critique of difficult ideas, fearless enthusiasm in the face of new material, lifelong intellectual curiosity -- that's what I hope my kids gain from formal education. NCLB erodes the truly important skills in the name of "tough standards." There isn't time for exploration, because they have to learn to fill in the right Scantron bubbles.

GRE scores notwithstanding, I am not Queen of the World or even her Secretary of Education. I am not optimistic about my ability to make changes in federal law. But I am queen of my castle and here is my ukase: my children will not be visiting the test-prep website.

They have football games to play with the neighbor kids. They have books to read, perhaps curled up on the floor by the heating vent and laughing out loud, or perhaps sprawled on the loveseat, chewing a knuckle in anticipation. They have noodling around on the piano to do, and castles to build and stories to write and Lego Star Wars missions to complete. (BTW, do any kids in this country really need more screen time? I fight that battle often enough -- I don't need the principal telling me to give them more computer time.) The current emphasis on standardized tests has sucked enough real learning and fun from their days. They will not be spending their free time drilling. They have more important things to do. 

Comments

[Stephen]

Express your opinion on multiple-choice tests:

a. Multiple-choice tests are okay.
b. Multiple-choice tests are great!
c. I like your hair.
d. Both b. and c.
e. A one kilobyte essay question is a multiple-choice question with 10^2500 options, which isn't that many more than four, is it?

[Tracy]

I.H.N.C.L.B.*

simple enough right.

but there is something I hate more.

Science Fair.

x2.

Nuff said.

*which means: I Hate No Child Left Behind.

[gina]

This post is why I love you!

You are SO RIGHT!!!

[pnuts mama]

ha, you made me laugh with the "i'd be queen of the world" line- me too! i've always been great at multiple choice- but that's the kind of thinker i am (there is one answer, which i figure out using logic!).

my husband is not great at multiple choice, because he is a totally different kind of thinker (there are many answers/ways to solve the problem, and i currently have a list of four at my disposal to try out!) which baffles me almost every time (how do you know that?), but amazes me as well, because it's just really cool.

most people would probably assume i'm the smarter one, but i'd argue they're wrong- different types of intelligences can absolutely be equal. i just wish our recent theories of education which recognize multiple types of intelligence would start infiltrating mainstream practice and start influencing how we label 'success' in education. NCLB? don't even get me started.

p.s. i think as long as kids are good readers (which your kids clearly seem to be) that is 99% of the game when it comes to multiple choice, anyway. also, don't ever change an answer unless you are a million percent sure you were wrong the first time! (yes, i know a million percent is impossible. just a little stats humor for you. sigh. stomach virus here since thursday. it's been a long day.)

[Maria]

This is exactly why my daughter will be homeschooled. Not necessarily so that she doesn't have a principal who wants her to practice multiple choice testing, but so I don't

(a) have an apoplectic stroke,
(b) commit some major felony,
(c) become reduced to gibbering insanity and get carted away to a rubber room, or
(d) make a scene at a PTA meeting

upon receiving that kind of note in a school backpack.

Signed,
Another Good Tester

[pippi]

Occasionally my husband and I talk about moving to the States to be closer to my family and take advantage of the good real estate prices. This conversation usually ends fast because I'm a teacher and there's no way I want to deal with NCLB on top of all the other craziness I put up with in my school days --and I'd feel guilty subjecting my kids to it. My mom was a teacher until recently, too. One of the few times I saw her livid was when she was describing stressed out kids taking those tests.

All that to say: I totally agree.

[Angela]

This is a great post..and a great site. I'm so glad you sent me the link. I'll certainly be sharing this post with my husband :)