Daniel's comments highlight serious weaknesses in how we as a society conceptualise and understand the nature of 'learning', 'knowledge','understanding' and 'assessment'.
Cambo

I am of the belief that all tests and exams prove who has the best memory, especially in the early years. Do not politicians cram information on their portfolios for media interviews? I am of the opinion that many do not have an in depth knowledge of what they are saying. Maybe this is the reason they dodge questions outside what they have crammed. They do not understand or know he answers. I find that people who can talk under water have very little to convey.

Flo, you're correct on that one. When people started to write resumés for others & when selection panel questions were standardised, an employer is unable to gauge an applicants ability/suitability for a job. In my organisation we have people who present impressive resumés but are utterly inept & rely extremely heavily on ordinary workers to cover their inefficiencies & by employing more staff than necessary. All of the above comes at great expense to the taxpayer & individual careers. It's not a good thing for our future that's for sure.

Assesment only based on exams is not good.

Now, before I go on, everything I write is aboutt gender differences... on average, typical, by-and-large, trends etc. Yes there are amny individualy who are exceptions to the typical. But I write about what is typical...

However, one of the major developmental differences between boys and girls is that girls are about a year more advanced than boys in verbal skills. Not only that, but they thrive in a collablrative, communicative, continous assesment environment.

Boys can't keep up with girls in this sort of environment... and they have been failed by our schools in huge numbers.

Over two thirds of uni places go to girls now... The average ark boys get in NSW year 12 is 20% below tha average mark girls get. Not only that, but many more girls complete year 12, so the few best of the boys are still 20% below the average girl.

In comparison to girls, boys like facts, not feelings. Competition not collaboration. Exams not continous assesment.

Everything that boys enjoy has been largely removed from modern teaching practice. No wonder boys are failing

No Flo, tests prove who has understood the information on the subject. It is very hard to remember "stuff" & reproduce it, if you have not understood it in the first place.

Assignments only show who is good at rewriting something produced by Google.

That our education system has been bastardised to a ridiculous extent, to favour girls, is obvious when one finds, in a math test the question, "define the word number".

Daniel, it would seem to me you are complaining about the wrong part of the school process. If kids can do the tests successfully, the system is working reasonable well. It would appear to me your complaint is actually with the curriculum, & those who designed it. not the schools.

I don't think teachers can point the finger at too much else.

I have seen report cards coming back with the same words written about a student, but by different teachers. This means that these teachers must have been using some type of standard manual to write exactly the same words in the report card.

And, as was mentioned in another forum, assignment are so often returned by teachers with few or no comments written on the assignments by the teacher. This then gives the student no idea on what was good or bad about the assignment, and gave no guidance to the student on what to do in the future.

The teachers themselves were not adequately expressing themselves or communicating with the student, and so often, they have no communication with anyone else also, other than asking for more and more taxpayer funding.

They ask for more and more, but want to return as little as possible.