One of the biggest criticisms of the US education policy is success in the “No Child Left Behind” testing program does not necessarily improve that school’s performance in preparing future college students. There is a huge financial incentive for teachers and principals to raise test scores by teaching to the test. Essentially the instructor feels good when their students can “cram” all kinds of facts and figures in long enough to recall them on then exam. Then all of the “crammed” material is forgotten. Another strategy has been to commit fraud or cheat to obtain the federal funds.
What is the difference from gaining real knowledge and memorization for a day or two?Humans have two types of memory: spatial and rote. We understand best when facts are embedded in natural, spatial memory. Most educators fall into the trap of teaching to the test since accounting instructors are evaluated by their ability to help a greater percentage of their students pass the certified Public Accounting Exam or law programs are evaluated by the percentage of graduates that pass the bar exam.
Rote memorization is practiced more often than educators will admit. I spent three years living in Japan. During my stay in Tokyo, I became intimately involved in the Japanese education system both as a teacher on the undergraduate level, and as a parent with three children in Japanese public schools.
The Japanese put great emphasis on preparing high school and junior high students for the entrance exams for top universities such as Tokyo, Waseda, and Keio Universities. To the degree that a high percentage of its students pass the entrance exam, that high school will be praised as an excellent institution. The institutions that continually send a higher percentage of their graduates to these schools are able to raise tuition–the sky is the limit!
Overall, Japanese students excel in many areas because of their strong motivation to succeed and ability to transfer facts memorized in a rote fashion to spatial memory. The best students apply the knowledge and can understand how it fits into a larger scope of disciplines. That is how students can successfully tackle complex problems. They integrate the knowledge and lessons from say marketing and art to create appealing advertising. Or the drug company makes a compelling video about how their anti-depressent can change your life. They combined good science with marketing and communication techniques to create a campaign that moves doctors to prescribe the drug and those suffering with depression to request it.
Traditional schooling in Japan, however, appears to inhibit many student’s learning by discouraging, ignoring, or punishing the brain’s natural learning processes. This weakness is most evident in English instruction. Japanese students have more difficulty than their Asian neighbors in China and South Korea despite spending more time and resources on English curriculum. In order to improve education, we must address policies and ideas such as teaching to the test. Teaching to the test is often a shortcut for real knowledge and deep learning.
It is a shame our government places so much emphasis on the exam scores rather than looking at the number of graduates who successully tackle college assignments or graduate in science, math or business related subjects. This approach would allow schools to take a more holistic approach and stop teaching to the test.
