Evidently when Bob Compton screened his "Two Million Minutes" to the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the response was negative. One faculty member remarked, "We have nothing to learn from education systems in Third World countries, much less a Third World country that lacks freedom of speech."
So, Compton decided to make the India profeciancy test available to the public. According to Compton, "[The test] is a shortened and greatly simplified version of the multi-day proficiency test that 10th graders in India must pass to go on to the 11th grade."
Take one of the exams by going here, and tell me what you think.
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I took the chemistry, physics, math and English grammar tests.
The English test was a bit strange; not so much grammar as it was about word choice, connotation, etc. It was fairly obviously intended for students learning English (and there was one question I definitely did not agree with, as more context would have been needed to choose between two of the answers).
The physics test was an odd mixture of basic (knowing formulas and units) and bizarre...out of the 15 questions, there were about 5 or so that were about the physiology of the human eye. It would not be what I would consider a good test of physics...then again, it's for tenth graders, so I'm assuming they do the more advanced material after that; and that whatever physics they learn at this level focuses on optics, and they must study the eye in some detail. But too much emphasis on this sample test, for sure, on eye physiology.
The chemistry test was also a bit strange. There were some questions that were way too simple; and some questions that required specific and rather unnecessary knowledge--like which specific organic acid is found in tomatoes versus ant stings. One question I found was way too vague for any of the answers to be sensible. There were a few decent questions, but I would say that most of them were either so broad as to be too simple, or so specific as to be unreasonable.
Neither the chemistry nor the physics test had any sort of quantitative component. There were no problems requiring solving problems or even doing basic computations.
On the whole, I wasn't too impressed with the physics and chemistry tests; and the English test's issues are fairly self-explanatory. Again, though, I realize that these were just a handful of questions selected from much longer tests, so who knows how representative they are of the whole tests.
The math test, on the other hand, was a bit more consistent. There was one geometry question that seemed sort of nitpicky--at any rate, I couldn't remember how to do it at all, so I decided it was nitpicky. There was one question I thought was worded badly. The rest of it, though, I felt was relatively reasonable, and probably above the abilities of most American tenth graders--but not all. However, I actually had to do a little work on most of the questions. The math test was the only one that I came close to taking 30 minutes to complete; and at that, there were two trig questions that I knew how to do, but they were taking me too much time to piece together, so I just guessed on them so I could finish the rest of the questions. They were both the exact same kind of problem, too...which I thought was a strange emphasis, but not unreasonable.
In any case, the arrogant ignorance of the Harvard Education program doesn't surprise me like it surprised him. One would hope that at one of America's most prestigious universities, the education program there might be better than it is at some of the night schools where some of us got our credentials...but I would not be at all surprised to find out that while it is a lot more expensive and a lot more pretentious, and perhaps requires a lot more work of its victims (I mean...students), it is every bit as valueless in the end.
The complacent ignorance of too many Americans coupled with the totally unjustified self-righteousness of America's "education experts" who build the teacher credentialing systems (or at least California's; I can't speak from personal experience about other states) are just two of the problems that need to be addressed if we have any hope, as a nation, of rising out of the educational quagmire into which we have sunk.
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