The only thing that matters is the test, and doing well on the test is a matter of memorizing a number of decontextualized facts. The worst affect by far of the exam system is that it creates a distorted and poverty stricken idea of what education is and how to engage in it. These students hunger for real engagement, real knowledge, real education, but they don’t know what it is or how to look for it.

The thing that bothers me more than anything else, though, is that the educational system in the U.S. is being pushed down the same road. The increasing emphasis on standardized testing, something which teachers almost universally deplore, is leading to the Sinification of American education. If things continue in the direction they are going, the U.S. will soon have a system that is just as rigid and anti-creative as China. From having taught in both places, I think the U.S. is already well on its way.

From that point, my mind can go a hundred directions.

For some reason, today, it went to national security. Our educational system has already failed us, with catastrophic consequences for national security. Somehow we were presented with a pastiche of fact about Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, and threats to our national security and neither average Americans, nor elite-educated Americans, were able to shift fact from fiction in any significant numbers.

How many facts does one have to memorize in order to develop the discernment to note that the “facts” one is being presented, have no basis in fact? Or perhaps more correctly, how many “facts” does one have to memorize in order to lose the discernment that those facts have no basis in fact?

Asked for his reaction to Bush’s decision [not to pardon Scooter Libby] Cheney said: “Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and honorable men I’ve ever known. He’s been an outstanding public servant throughout his career. He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush’s decision.”

via Cheney Speaks Out on Libby.

Let’s see, who has Dick Cheney known in his life? Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, David Addington, Lynne Cheney, The American Enterprise Institute, Halliburton, William Kristol, the Project for the New American Century.

Yeah, I guess compared to that lot, being a convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements is “capable and honorable”.

I’m not quite one of a kind, but getting there.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m a Lifelong Learning Self-Knowing Health Nut

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.

Ronald Reagan

40th president of US (1911 – 2004)

The Quotations Page.

Sample fact: The time American’s spend watching television commercials every weekend is approximately equal to the entire time spent in creating Wikipedia to date.

Rule of thumb: “Doing anything is better than doing nothing.” “It’s better to do something than to do nothing.”

Via Jason Sutter who lives in New Zealand but shows up in my feed of blogs local to my zip code.

Update – 28 April 2008 Here (via Gruber) is a link to the text of the talk. Also, the quoted rule of thumb is corrected.

Her version of the story:

R: I thought of something else you should get at the store.

L: Ok.

R. Hum.

L: I’m getting a pad.

L: What was it?

R: What was it?

L: What was what?

L: What you wanted to me to get?

R: I thought you wrote it down?

L: Wrote what down?

R: Gum

My side:

R: I thought of something else you should get at the store.

L: Ok.

R: Gum.

L: I’m writing it down.

L: What was it?

R: What was what?

L: What you wanted to me to get?

R: I thought you wrote it down?

L: Wrote what down?

R: Gum

Reasoning, when we do it, is mostly to find justification for what we already believe.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, in here.

If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.

I heartily approve this strategy in principle. If more candidates would tell voters to vote for their opponents we would have a substantially elevated national discourse. Voters should be able to make electoral decisions based on the candidates’ policies and beliefs not on a pandering spin. Candidates attempt to be all things to all people, confusing the decisions that need to be made at every level.

In addition to approving of the strategy on principle Senator Clinton’s announcement makes it easy for me. There is no way that I’ll be supporting her in the primaries and very little chance that I will support her in the general election. The most important thing to me is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or who has said that that vote was a mistake. This is part of the deepest and most important issues facing the country today. How did we get into this fiasco in Iraq? How was did we go so far astray? Clinton’s refusal to take responsibility for her vote is part of the answer, but she has not learned from her mistake.

She has it exactly backwards. “As a candidate, Mrs. Clinton likes to think and formulate ideas as if she were president — her ‘responsibility gene,’ she has called it.” Failing to say that she was wrong is the opposite of taking responsibility. “She believes it’s self-evident that the Senate Iraq resolution was based on false intelligence and never should’ve come to a vote,” said Richard C. Holbrooke.

She’s not taking responsibility for her vote in 2002. She’s blaming Bush or the intelligence community for her vote. Yes, it is self-evident that the Senate Iraq resolution was based on false intelligence. It is self-evident today. It was self-evident to many people in 2002.

Clinton lacked either the discernment to notice that the intelligence was false or the courage to make the argument that the intelligence false. I don’t hold either the lack of discernment or the lack of courage against Clinton, or any other candidate. There was a notable lack of courage and discernment in American political life in 2002.

By refusing to take responsibility for her mistakes Clinton will not be able to learn from them. She is no more able to discern false intelligence today than she was in 2002 because her failure was not her fault. When false intelligence comes before her as President, how will she react? “It’s not my fault that I accepted false intelligence.” She is no more able to be courageous today than she was in 2002 because she doesn’t see that there were any other possibilities in 2002 and she doesn’t see that there are any other possibilities for a President than to “stay the course” and “don’t admit mistakes.”

Clinton is making the cynical bet that Americans are no more able to admit their mistakes than she is. I hope and believe she is wrong.