In a class last week, my professor posed a question to the class, "Would you rather have someone who can put a sink together, or someone who can pass a test on how to put a sink together?"
I was irritated by the overall response from the class, which in general the preference was to have someone who can put a sink together.
I simply thought that is not enough. I prefer to have someone who can do both. What this question really means is do you want someone with education or someone with experience? My answer is cheating a little because I did not pick between the two. However, I felt it was a poor question because neither attribute is sufficient without the other.
It is not good enough to be able to do something, even if what you have done looks good. Mike Holmes is a contractor that fixes peoples homes. He has a show on HGTV called Holmes on Homes where he goes in to a home finds problems and then begins to fix them.His show makes me cringe because I will be a buyer in the near future. The homes on his show are many times beautiful homes that look really nice. However, there problems that have been hidden and down the road are causing serious problems for the homeowners.
These homes have been through inspections and passed the test yet the problems are there but have flew under the radar because of a fancy veneer.
Mike Holmes hates these homes because the problems would not exist if the builders did not cut corners in the first place.
How This correlates to education?
What we find in our schools is that there is such a big push for standardized testing that teachers are forced to teach to the test. This is a pretty veneer. The students are not developing any higher order thinking skills, they are able to pass the test but can not use anything they have been taught.
The students are lacking a quality education because even though it may look okay on paper, and it might pass the test, in time it will collapse on it self.
In the schools we see a focus on passing the test with no emphasis on applying the skills assessed. Whereas in my college class, we as a class decided that our focus should be on applying skills and less emphasis placed on passing the test.
The point of this whole article???
Education is useless without experience and experience is useless without an education. These two must go together. Education reformers need to understand this. Do not try to improve one area without improving upon the other.
The problem with a veneer that covers up the problems behind the walls is that those problems are slowly destroying the house. If they are not found and fixed the home will collapse on itself. The same is true in education. Although education looks okay, if the problems are not addressed it could cost serious time and money to repair.
The question to our upcoming teachers should not be which we would rather have, but How can we get our students to receive education along with experience?
