My concern with these tests is not just that teachers must "teach to the test,"- that they need to put creative or critical thinking projects on hold to teach "basic skills."- My concern is not just that these tests take away valuable instruction time--which I have seen first hand. My concern is not just that these tests are not as accurate as Mattimore contends, as New Yorker science writer Malcolm Gladwell deftly concludes in his latest book Outliers. Gladwell found that after a certain IQ threshold had been passed, such tests did a poor job of assessing actual intellectual ability, as they could not take into consideration other important qualities--such as creativity. To demonstrate this point, he provides a list of Nobel Prize winners in Medicine--many of who did not go to "major"- universities.
All of these are good reasons to question the use of the MC test, but in this case, not mine.
Beyond all this, I'm concerned with what the format of the test teaches students about learning. The tests tend to make the world appear much more coherent than it really is, they tend to rob the world of its mystery, providing a mythology of consensus. In other words, the MC tests--with their orderly rows of bubbles, and authoritative, syntactically clear solutions--construct a polished marble façade of truth, convincing students that there are clear, unambiguous answers in the world. And no doubt there are. But, through the overuse of this method of testing, students come to see the world in these black and white terms, they can become intellectually rigid, having difficulty with the grey areas--intellectually and morally--in which we live and work. And further, many have become bored with learning, seeing it more as an act of memorizing than an act of discovery.
Most subject--such as this one--are hotly contested. In science, in history, in literature, in education, there are intense debates by very well-informed people about almost every topic. Many questions are left unanswered in these fields, or answered inadequately. AND THIS IS THE FUN PART. To debate, to question, to explore, to discover--this is the fun part of learning, and where the desire to learn comes from. The complexity of a problem, and our collective ignorance in the face of it, is what learning is really about. And ultimately, this is where curiosity, and the pleasure of learning come from. And by providing students with too many MC tests, we are robbing them of the opportunity to learn about living in the grey area--which is not only fun, but very practical, if our goal is to teach students to function effectively in the world.
I say use the bubble, but go beyond it. And include educators--and even students themselves--in the process of developing a system which engages students to consider complex questions, alongside knowledge of basic facts.
(And by the way. The answer is I.)
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