Each of us has different capacities within ourselves to understand the world from a variety of perspectives, with some perspectives being more dominant than others, Our society may value one perspective more than another, but intrinsically, they are equal. When we accept this concept, we can imagine that these modes of understanding and being in the world evolve through a lifetime. According to the culture of testing, the tests themselves are and should be constructed by distant experts. Dr. Kamii suggests an alternative culture of assessment where, like multiple measures of intelligence, multiple measures of assessment can be employed by teachers and schools. I am curious why, in our contemporary world, we have adhered to an early mode of testing that belies our belief that technology will begin to mediate and blur lines between knowledge areas and who can be an expert.
Technology promotes multiple ways of knowing.
I am curious, too, about why we educators view the strict scrutiny of current educational practices and the external debate as an attack and have not been able to join parents and the general public and to take the leadership in constructing a more humane, holistic and child-centered conversation about educational standards. The question of standards affects educators from preschool and childcare to graduate education. Institutional effectiveness, teacher testing and student achievement are common conversation topics for all educators. Some of us here have entered the conversation with great interest and appreciation for the public interest in educational achievement and standards, but mostly we have ignored the national conversation and, by our silence, indicated a disregard for parents and public interest groups. The standard-setting environment will neither diminish in importance nor go away.