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Re: OT-ish: txt - Could it replace Standard Written English?

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Thursday, March 6, 2003, 23:04
H. S. Teoh scripsit:

> But I think in N. America, people are overreacting to it and have gone to > the other extreme, which is what Tom Lehrer is making fun of in that > quote. The correct answer *is* important in that sense: in the real world, > nobody cares about whether you correctly apply your methods; they want to > see the final results, and the final results better be darned right.
The pendulum is in the last few years swinging back even more violently the other way, to high-stakes testing. "Get enough answers right, get your diploma: get them wrong, lose forever." This cure is worse than the disease, because it actually makes more sensible teaching methods impossible. In my daughter's former high school, the (egomaniac) principal decided to have everyone in Grade 9 take the Biology exam, which is not usually taken in New York State until the end of grade 10. Because he is evaluated on how his students do on these high-stakes tests, he had *every teacher* in every Grade 9 class teach biology. The English teacher taught biology. The history teacher taught biology. For all I know, the physical-education teacher taught biology. This, I submit, is no way to run a school. Her new school is based on "portfolio evaluation", and has a waiver from the high-stakes tests. Students graduate or not depending on the quality of the total body of their work (placing of course more emphasis on the more recent material). -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --_The Hobbit_

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H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>