By Steven W. Simpson, Ph.D.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the
proportion of elementary and secondary school students using computers
at school rose from 70 percent in 1997 to 84 percent in 2001. In 2001,
66 percent of elementary and secondary school students used computers at
home.
Given those statistics, typical of life in the information age, one can
only wonder why students are being tested on how well they use a pencil.
All of the tenth grade students in Washington State will be taking the
Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test beginning April
18. They will be required to write essays as part of the writing test.
They will be tested on how well they write their essays using pencils.
And Washington State is not alone testing students on how well they use
an obsolete technology. That's right, the new Scholastic Aptitude Test
includes a required essay, to be written in 25 minutes . . . in pencil.
I have been teaching public high school students to write for 12 years.
I stopped teaching them to write using pencils as soon as our school got
computers. Silly me. I thought I was helping my students learn to write
using the same technology they would need to use in college or the
business world. In fact, by spending so much time teaching them to use
computers, I was hurting them.
I should have been spending class time helping them develop small motor
skills and strength needed to write multi-paragraph, timed essays using
pencils. After all, their WASL scores go on their transcripts. Starting
with the class of 2008, passing the pencil-writing test will be required
for graduation from high school. Scoring well on the SAT pencil-writing
test will help them get admitted to college.
Perhaps we should call Bill Gates and tell him to take back all of the
computer technology the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has so
generously provided for our schools. Come get these new-fangled computer
machines and provide us with something really useful- boxes and boxes of
pencils.
There is an old teachers' story about the "Saber Tooth Tiger"
curriculum. Several versions of this, attributed to different sources,
are floating around. The story is about a Stone Age society that
developed a curriculum to teach students the skills they would need
after school. Hunting saber tooth tigers, of course, was very important.
But as time passed, and saber tooth tigers became extinct, students did
not need to learn the old skills. However, the elders in society
demanded that students continue learning the spear building, tiger
stalking, and hunting skills. They argued that students needed to learn
these "timeless" skills in order to develop patience, creativity, and
discipline.
Students in the new tiger-less society continued to be tested on the
saber tooth tiger curriculum. And our students continue to be tested
using pencils.
If society needs young people skilled in the use of computer technology,
teachers will know it and use their class time teaching those needed
skills. They will teach computer skills and test computer skills.
However, if our students are going to be tested using pencils, if their
future depends on how well they use the pencils; teachers will spend
class time teaching them how to use pencils while the expensive computer
technology gathers dust.
Students are being judged based on WASL and SAT timed, pencil-writing
tests. They are not being tested on use of word processing software and
computer technology. There is a virtual absence of any college or
business need for people who can write well in very short periods of
time using pencils. Despite that fact, students are being tested on
their ability to formulate complex ideas, organize them, write them,
edit them, and rewrite them, in 25 minutes. Using a pencil. Why?
Millions of dollars are being spent to test students on a skill
virtually no college or work environment requires. While you try to
figure out why, put some wood on the campfire and set a good watch in
case those saber tooth tigers come after us in the night.
_______________________________________________________________
Copyright April 11, 2005, Dr. Steven W. Simpson, Simpson Communications.
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