Calls to Action: Noam Chomsky on the dangers of standardized testing
Summary
TLDRThe speaker critiques the current educational system's focus on standardized testing, arguing it undermines creative and individualized learning. Teachers are pressured to 'teach to the test,' neglecting students' diverse interests and needs. The ranking system is deemed artificial and harmful, fostering a competitive mindset over valuable education. The speaker also discusses the broader societal impact, including the creation of 'economic man,' driven by wealth and status, and the role of industries like advertising in perpetuating consumerism from an early age.
Takeaways
- 📚 The current educational system has a strong tendency to require assessments, leading to teaching to tests and a focus on test outcomes rather than meaningful education.
- 👨🏫 Teachers are unable to be imaginative and pay attention to individual students' needs due to the pressure of assessments and tests.
- 👶 Students are not allowed to pursue their interests because they have to memorize for tests, which hinders their overall development.
- 📉 The focus on ranking and assessment is artificial and does not truly measure a teacher's ability to help children reach their potential or explore their creativity.
- 🚫 Constant assessment is not necessary and can be harmful, as it turns education into a competition for rank rather than a pursuit of valuable and important activities.
- 🏫 The ranking system in schools, such as tracking students as 'dumb' or 'smart', is damaging to children's self-esteem and has nothing to do with real education.
- 🎨 Education should be about developing potential and creativity, not just academic success, as there are various paths to a fulfilling and significant life.
- 💼 The concept of 'economic man', which prioritizes rational calculation for self-improvement and wealth, is being instilled through education and societal structures.
- 📊 The industries of public relations, advertising, and marketing contribute to creating a certain type of consumer-driven individual, disregarding the impact on others.
- 👶 The influence of advertising starts from a young age, with strategies developed to make children nag their parents for products, shaping consumerist behavior from infancy.
Q & A
What is the main issue discussed in the transcript regarding education?
-The main issue discussed is the strong tendency to require assessment of children and teachers, which leads to teaching to the test and can destroy meaningful educational processes.
How does the focus on testing affect teachers' ability to teach?
-The focus on testing prevents teachers from being creative and attentive to individual students' needs, as they are pressured to ensure students perform well on standardized tests.
What impact does the testing culture have on students' interests and pursuits?
-Students are unable to pursue their interests and explore their creativity due to the pressure to memorize and perform well on tests.
Why is constant assessment considered harmful according to the speaker?
-Constant assessment is seen as harmful because it creates an artificial ranking system that does not accurately reflect a teacher's ability to help children reach their potential or a student's true interests and abilities.
What is the concept of 'economic man' as mentioned in the transcript?
-The concept of 'economic man' refers to an individual who rationally calculates how to improve their status, primarily through wealth accumulation, disregarding other aspects of life that cannot be measured.
How does the speaker describe the effect of tracking students into 'dumb' and 'smart' categories?
-The speaker describes the effect as extremely harmful, as it can lead to early division among children and negative self-perceptions based on their perceived academic abilities.
What is the speaker's view on the purpose of education?
-The speaker believes that education should be about developing individual potential, creativity, and allowing students to explore their interests, rather than just academic performance.
How does the speaker connect the testing culture to the creation of a certain type of human being?
-The speaker connects the testing culture to the creation of 'economic man,' a type of individual who is focused on maximizing consumption and wealth, rather than personal fulfillment or the impact on others.
What role does the speaker attribute to the public relations and advertising industry in shaping human behavior?
-The speaker attributes a significant role to the public relations and advertising industry in shaping human behavior, as they are part of a massive propaganda industry designed to create consumers who can disregard the impact of their actions on others.
What historical context does the speaker provide about the origins of the public relations industry?
-The speaker provides historical context by mentioning that the public relations industry was called propaganda in the 1920s, with Edward Bernays being one of its early figures, and that it has evolved into a massive industry that influences human behavior.
Outlines
📚 The Perils of Standardized Testing in Education
The speaker critiques the current trend in education towards standardized testing and assessment, arguing that it undermines the educational process by forcing teachers to 'teach to the test.' This approach, according to the speaker, stifles creativity and individual attention to students' needs. It also pressures students to memorize for tests rather than fostering a love for learning. The speaker suggests that constant assessment is unnecessary and artificial, and that it leads to a harmful ranking system that prioritizes status over genuine educational development. The speaker shares personal experiences with how tracking in schools can negatively impact children's self-perception and peer relationships. The critique extends to the broader societal implications, warning against creating an 'economic man' focused solely on wealth and status, at the expense of creativity and personal fulfillment.
📈 The Propaganda Machine: Shaping Consumer Behavior
The second paragraph delves into the influence of industries like public relations, advertising, and marketing, which the speaker refers to as a 'propaganda industry.' This industry, the speaker argues, is designed to instill consumerist values and maximize consumption, starting from a young age. The speaker mentions a study that highlights advertisers' efforts to target children, even though they have no income, by encouraging them to nag their parents for purchases. The speaker criticizes the early 20th-century origins of the PR industry, which was more openly acknowledged as propaganda, and laments the current pervasive and subtle nature of this influence, which shapes individuals to disregard the impact of their consumer choices on others.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Assessment
💡Educational Process
💡Bureaucrats
💡Ranking
💡Creativity
💡Economic Man
💡Human Capital
💡Propaganda
💡Track
💡Advertising
💡Psychology of Nagging
Highlights
The current educational system's emphasis on testing and assessment is detrimental to meaningful learning.
Teaching to tests limits teachers' creativity and ability to address individual students' needs.
Students are pressured to memorize for tests rather than pursuing personal interests.
Assessment systems can destroy the educational process by prioritizing test scores over development.
Continuous assessment is not necessary for all individuals, especially in educational settings.
Artificial assessment measures do not accurately reflect teachers' abilities to help children reach their potential.
Ranking systems in education are harmful as they focus on status rather than valuable achievements.
Education should foster creativity and individual potential, not just academic performance.
Early tracking in schools can lead to harmful labeling of students as 'dumb' or 'smart'.
The concept of 'economic man' drives people to focus on wealth and status over personal fulfillment.
Assessment and evaluation mechanisms force individuals to develop characteristics that prioritize wealth accumulation.
The idea of maximizing human capital for market sale is a flawed approach to human development.
The educational system's focus on testing and assessment creates a harmful cycle of economic man ideology.
There are significant industries devoted to instilling consumerist values from an early age.
Advertising and marketing industries are designed to create consumers who prioritize material possessions.
The psychological manipulation of children to nag parents is a tactic used by advertisers.
The culture of consumption is propagated through media and advertising, impacting children's values.
The historical shift from 'propaganda' to public relations and marketing maintains the same manipulative intent.
Transcripts
take what's happening in education uh
right now last recent years there's a
strong tendency to uh require assessment
of children and teachers so that you
have to teach to tests and the test
determines what happens to the child and
what happens to the teacher that's
guaranteed to destroy any meaningful
educational process it means a teacher
cannot be created
imaginative pay attention to individual
students needs the student can't pursue
things that maybe some kid is interested
in something you can't do it because you
got to memorize something for this test
tomorrow and the teachers's future
depends on it as well as the students
these are all ways of uh you know the
people who sitting in the offices the
bureaucrats and designing this like you
say they're not evil people but uh
they're working within a system of
ideology and do Rines which turns what
they're doing into something extremely
harmful first of all you don't have to
assess people all the time I mean if a
person's kind of doing their job kids
are getting along and things that's fine
then go ahead I mean people don't have
to be ranked in terms of some
artificial the the assessment itself is
completely artificial it's not ranking
teachers in accordance with their
ability to help develop children who
reach their potential explore their
creative interests and so on those
things can you're not testing so you're
giving some kind of a rank but it's a
rank that's mostly meaningless and the
Very ranking itself is harmful it's
turning us into individuals who try who
devote Our Lives to achieving a rank not
into doing things that are valuable and
important it's uh
it's highly destructive at the lower at
you know this is say Elementary
education so you're training kids this
way and it's very harmful I could see
with my own children when my own kids
were in elementary school a what's
called a good school you know good
quality suburban school by the time they
were in third grade they were dividing
up their friends at the dumb and
smart uh you're dumb if you're lower
track you're smart if you're upper
tracked I mean think what that does to
the children doesn't matter where
they're track the children who take it
seriously like we could kind of you know
help them not take it seriously but uh
if you're caught up in that it's just
extremely harmful and it has nothing to
do with
education education is uh developing
your own potential and creativity I mean
maybe you're not going to do well in
school and you'll do great in art that's
fine you know what's what's wrong with
that that's another way to be a live a
fulfilling uh Wonderful Life and a one
that's significant for other people as
well as yourself people and but so the
whole idea is is first of all wrong in
itself and it's harming the it's
creating a kind of it's kind of a system
of creating something that's called
economic man there's a concept of
economic man which is you know economics
literature and so on and economic man is
somebody who rationally calculates how
to improve his own status and Status
means basically wealth so you rationally
calculate uh how what kinds of choices
you should make to increase your wealth
and you don't pay any attention to
anything else and or maybe maximize the
number of goods you have because that's
what you can measure those are things
you can measure so those we that and if
you do that properly you know you're
kind of a rational person making
informed judgments you can improve your
what's called your human capital you
know what you can sell on the
market what kind of a human being is
that I mean is that the kind of human
human being you want to create and the
all of these mechanisms that you're
describing like uh you know testing
assessing evaluating measuring they
force people to have to develop those
character characteristics the ones who
don't do it are considered maybe
behavior problems or some some other
deviant maybe something goes wrong then
they drop out and maybe try to survive
on drugs or something that's uh or take
if it's in Mexico they become what are
called illegal immigrants because you've
driven them off the land uh that's uh
these things
have these ideas and Concepts have come
consequences and it's not just that
they're ideas there are huge Industries
devoted to trying to instill them uh the
public relations industry advertising
and marketing and so on it's a huge
industry it's maybe a sixth of gross
domestic product and it's a propaganda
industry it's a propaganda industry
designed to create a certain type of
human being the one who can maximize
consumption and can disregard uh the his
actions on others U it's massive it
starts with H infants you know in fact
there was a I remember a study recently
which made some publicity about uh the
advertisers discovered you know realized
that there's a segment of the population
that they're not reaching you have to
reach everyone but there was a segment
they weren't reaching children uh
because children don't have incomes so
the advertisers had sort of not targeted
them but some smart guy realized that
you can get the children to be consumers
by inducing them to nag their parents so
a branch of psychology developed
literally in the universities and
applied psychology psychology of nagging
how you can nag this way if you want
that thing and you can nag the other way
if you don't want the other and so on
and you take a look at um remember
watching television with my little my
grandchildren when they were little
they're Deluge with
uh propaganda that tells them you've got
to have this uh you know $400 uh
mechanical uh something or other so make
your get your parents to do it you know
get them to understand that you're just
not going to you're going to be
miserable and your friends will hate you
and your life won't be worthwhile unless
you get this thing that's what our
culture is designed to do and it's a
huge industry actually in the early back
in the 1920s it was called
propaganda uh the major text of the pr
industry by one of its gurus Edward
bernai back in the 20s was called
propaganda and that's what it was we
don't call it that anymore the word
propaganda has a kind of a bad
connotation so it's called I don't know
what but but it's exactly the same thing
浏览更多相关视频
Sir Ken Robinson - RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms VOST FRENCH
How should we measure intelligence? | Mary-Helen Immordino Yang
- O REMÉDIO PARA CAPITALISMO (não pra cabeçudos) https://www.youtube.com/@WorldBeyondCapitalism
Social Justice Belongs In Our Schools | Sydney Chaffee | TEDxBeaconStreet
RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms
Why AI Won't Replace Teachers
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)