Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
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Well, yeah. But.
Arguably, academic-stream education isn't simply supposed to train one for the comfortable routines in which we may eventually find ourselves; it's supposed to train us in a way that keeps our options
open for further education of many sorts -- including, e.g., technically mathematically demanding fields where the tested elements from the article really will be relevant.
And, yes, success in many fields or careers tends to involve promotion to a level that changes one's job to some variety of HR or other; but it doesn't follow that HR-training is the most relevant training to achieve success in most fields or careers.
And I hate hate hate hate
hate "real-world". Dumbest meme ever. The real world contains schools.
There's a provocative message here about accountability in setting one's teaching and learning accountability metrics. The lack of accountability from those who use "accountability" as a political bludgeon on educators needs a lot more time under the spotlight. My experience is that politicians and civil servants find it expedient to pad curricula beyond the point of teachability, so that they can be seen as standing up for excellence while teachers and students get to take the fall for failing to meet the targets (due to unions and being those goddamned kids today, respectively). But I see red flags, and the prospect for equally cynical politicking, when I see raging against curriculum elements that don't emphasize what works in "the real world".
Finally, the test showing a mismatch between the Caribbean-house-owning rich guy and the Grade 10 student expectations? Well, let's see this guy and hear his personal life story. Because I'm going to bet that some significant unearned privilege plays a serious role in his success; and unless the counter-proposal afoot is to inculcate privilege through the miracle of revised standardized testing, there's going to be a bit of a gap in the reasoning from "Hey, this guy couldn't do the test and he's in the 1%!" to "Nobody needs to be able to pass this test in order to succeed!"