November 04, 2006
Kathy Sierra nails it
and not just for Engineering/Math/Science Education:
I got to this (as I often get to stuff...) via Stephen Downes. The original Typepad posting is really worth a look for more detail.
Juxtapose this with the NCLB mantra of high-stakes testing. What is being taught both to students and to teachers/administrators about what is valued in education. Clearly the we're talking about right answers. Forget the intution and making sense of the world.
NCLB isn't just a US trend, but can be seen in the UK only slightly diluted and in Canada a bit more diluted.
The "accountability" assault on public schools is the discourse through which the options that Sierra presents are thwarted. It's not that the public school system is perfect. Far from it. However, the approach to addressing those problems is guaranteed to fail and make the system worse in the process.
Posted by: Ron Brunton at November 7, 2006 05:14 PM