Jessica Wynn

So pragmatically...

Yeah, students need to learn how to take them.

But teaching to the test, it means you're optimizing just for test performance, not for actual learning or understanding.

You're teaching students tricks and strategies instead of critical thinking and deep knowledge.

In the short term, no.

But long term, those skills might not transfer.

You've learned how to game the SAT, but you haven't learned how to write clearly or think analytically.

That'll probably come to bite you.

Those are the skills you actually need in college and life.

In many cases, yes.

And students, they pick up on this.

They learn that school isn't about curiosity or understanding.

It's just about performing well on tests.

Yeah, it is.

And it kills intrinsic motivation.

So students who might have loved learning, they become focused on grades and scores instead.

Ideally, we'd have assessments that actually measure critical thinking, creativity, problem solving.

But those are hard to standardize and expensive to grade.

So we default to these multiple choice tests that are easy to score, but limited in what they can measure.

Pretty much.