A while back, I watched this video by Dr. Tae, aka "Your skateboarding and physics professor". This video is worth watching!
Dr. Tae — Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning from Dr. Tae on Vimeo.
One idea he speaks about is how testing and grades can provide false certification or false mastery. He emphasizes that getting an A in a science course isn't indicative of subject mastery. Mastery of anything takes large amounts of time and work, and the ability to memorize and test well has nothing to do with subject mastery.
I am disturbed by what follows here. No Child Left Behind is very much centered around testing and when school districts do well on tests, we assume mastery. We assume that the school is doing a good job educating our students. That's false mastery nationwide!
Think about that......
