Slow And Steady Wins The Race

The tale of "The Tortoise and The Hare" has been a childhood classic for generations, and the lesson that we take from Aesop's fable is "slow and steady wins the race." However, the federal government begs to differ with its Race to the Top Initiative. The federal government is willing to offer bold incentives for states that succeed in meeting certain standards based on standardized test scores and teacher evaluations. Now this might seem like a good thing, and in some ways it is, but the fact of the matter is that these tests pressure the teachers, undermine effective instruction, and worst of all, create a society in which "quality education" is just learning quick tricks to get good grades on tests. An article in The Atlantic makes an interesting analogy between food production and getting good grades, and discusses a remedy that could help America's flawed education system.

Here's the analogy: just as a cow's health suffers from being fed corn instead of grass in order to grow more quickly, so does a student's education suffer from being taught quick tricks that will help raise test scores instead of actually taking the time to understand the material. In author Elizabeth Green's book, Building a Better Teacher, she describes how some schools and teachers have adopted these industrial methods to not only raise test scores, but also add to the quality of student education. Green reports that schools in Japan approach learning by having entire class periods dedicated to slowly working through one problem, rather than solving numerous problems in a short period, which I am sure that all American students are familiar with. This method emphasizes the process of learning more than the results, which allows for more free-thinking, and creates a better environment that provides a better learning experience for students.

Cramming for tests, as I can attest to, is neither a sustainable, nor efficient system of learning, and the federal government's awarding of this type of learning is hideous to me . If America's system of education would move away from standardized tests and adopt this "Slow School" movement, the quality of education would be much better off, and American students would be a lot smarter.