We don't value learning. We value testing.
Read Seymour Papert’s list of 8 Big Ideas for Constructionist Learning and ask yourself seriously how much of that goes on in your school. My guess is not much, and the primary reason is we don’t value that stuff more than we value making sure kids pass the test. We don’t give kids time to go deep, we don’t honor failure, and we’re not about “learning to learn” as much as we are about “learning to know.” So many of our kids are disengaged or simply not interested in learning because they see no benefits past the exam. Are we really surprised that so many adults in our society aren’t learners? ...
Similarly, is anyone surprised that a huge swath of our population can’t speak intelligently about the larger issues that face us?
Will Richardson via http://weblogg-ed.com/2011/the-uncommon-core
