TechIntersect

A while back, my kids receive a new Wii game console. If you are not familiar with the Wii, it is the first motion-based video game system to appear on the market. The unique  motion sensing capabilities of the Wii Remote offers some new possibilities with video games, including exercise themed games. In jogging, the idea is that you will either hold the Wii Remote in your hand or put it in your pocket as you jog in place and the game sensors will measure the pace of your running and make a little virtual you run through a virtual world. However, the kids have figured out how to “game” the system. They have discovered that the game does not actually measure jogging, but instead it measures slight movements detected by accelerometers in the Wii remote. By simply shaking the remote back and forth, they can fool the system into thinking they are running, and the little virtual character will run his or her little virtual heart out. Here’s a kid I found on YouTube who demonstrates the process:

I’m sharing this little “cheat” with you because it reminds me of how schools so often approach high-stakes testing. Hey kid, don’t worry about actually developing your ability to think critically and independently. Don’t bother to strengthen your reasoning skills. Here is what will be on the test. Study this and you will be successful.

To me, this approach is the tail wagging the dog. The purpose of the test is to measure the learning that has occurred, but we behave as though success on the test is the desired end result. The testing is affecting the way classes are taught and even what topics are emphasized.

Education is not about an assembly line approach. Each child is hand-crafted. It’s about respect; respect for the learner and respect for the teacher. A formulaic, limited, strict interpretation that becomes simply teaching to the test doesn’t respect either.

In this wonderful article, Vicki Cobb calls for using great literature as a tool for reaching the desired learning outcomes. She says “teaching to the test” respects neither teachers or students. Instead of reading formulaic texts that are written for the purposes of boosting test scores, she encourages a more proper approach of reading great books that will naturally teach these desired learning outcomes.

But we are to the point where we have the tests driving the content, rather than the other way around. When I was learning basic electricity concepts early in my Navy training, I learned that the Ammeter, a piece of test equipment used to measure current in a circuit, actually influences the system being tested. The ammeter must actually break the circuit and become a part of the system to measure the current in the system. In other words, an ammeter is unable to measure the conditions of the system without changing those conditions. I believe the standardized tests are much like ammeters in how they alter the reality of education. They have become an end in themselves, rather than simply a tool of measurement.

I have to wonder. Is it even possible for a teacher to do a great job teaching and not “teach to the test” as Vicki Cobb suggests, and still have their students perform successfully on the high stakes testing? I have to wonder in today’s climate, where teachers are reduced to a value-added measurement, why any teacher would elect not to “teach to the test” as this seems the safest course. What’s in it for a teacher to buck the system, take a risk, do a good job teaching, and hope for the best on the state assessments? I guess there’s always the desire to avoid creating a generation of intellectual couch potatoes, well versed in gaming the testing system, but ill equipped to face the realities of the world.

Tags: standardized tests, wii