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Abbie Jury's avatar

As a former teacher, I have throughts about this. Firstly, what are the tests actually measuring? Are they measuring educational targets from 40 years ago or are they measuring what is important now? To be fair, rote learning of times tables and mental arithmetic in schools stopped here maybe 45 years ago. Yes, some of us have retained all that but I would be hard pushed to remember how to use the slide rule and log tables that preceded the advent of the calculator - then seen as the devil's invention for lazy children. Is anybody younger than middle-aged disadvantaged by not having instant recall of 11x 12 or 9x6? Yes, I can out-perform my adult children in this area but they run rings around me in other areas like technology, scientific understanding, the ability to absorb huge amounts of new information and they are easily my equal in critical thinking. The need to know how to write letters has changed (some will recall the rules about indents on addresses). What is needed now is some grasp of appropriate language and which technologies are appropriate to different situations. Nobody writes much by hand any longer, certainly nothing important, and even with my former near-perfect spelling, I will use a spellcheck not a dictionary. Are we even measuring the skills people need in today's world? Also, there are other forms of assessment than damn tests or exams and many of these are more appropriate to learning.

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Andrew Robertson's avatar

Excellent summary of the real issues around education thanks. I hate that his sloganising got so much coverage.

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