Education is over…
[la versión en español está en este enlace]
Education is over.
An edifice systematically built on the foundation of F.W. Taylor’s “scientific management,” the misguided application of standardization, and the emphasis on testing and human ‘data’ originally developed during the Second World War has come crashing down under the weight of something so small you can’t even see it: a virus.
Of course, had that edifice been as solid and sturdy as it pretended, it would have taken far more to bring it down. Its solidity was always illusory, and its slipshod construction had been increasingly on display. No one should have been surprised that it all fell to rubble, yet many educators, administrators, parents, and legislators seem to have been blindsided.
Over the past few weeks, schools all over the world have abandoned exams and testing that used to be required — and with them, the pretense that they ever really meant anything in the first place. Next year, teachers, schools, universities, and employers are expected to proceed without questioning their absence and with nothing in their place. Yet the lack of any substantive substitute for the scores these exams once verified is a clear indication of their actual insignificance. And if these exams never really meant anything, then the materials and preparation schools dedicated to focusing on…
