What on Earth are We Testing?

For the last few days, I've been consolidating the myriad reflections of one facet of my life in education. I've been thinking and rethinking my views on assessment and evaluation, simply because there is so much stuff in my head.

What kind of jobs do people want to do? You don't study math so that you can become a mathematician, mostly — you study it because it is foundational material for many other possible careers. You can't do many things without basic math, and the interesting jobs normally need intermediate math or the equivalent in some aspect of it (geometry, data structures, topology etc). You can't be an art historian without knowing some math.

Likewise, unless you can understand physics and chemistry, you can't earn a diploma in gemology. And without understanding of chemistry and some biology, you'll never be a Master of Wine. The good life is closed to those without the sciences and mathematics. Or so it seems.

See, the problem is that we have made people think that you need qualifications in math and science to understand math and science. But every child has the seeds of this understanding, and the paper compost of secondary-school qualifications does not necessarily provide the impetus for them to sprout and bloom into the garden of a wonderful career.

No, no. I have a brother who has long claimed mathematical and scientific illiteracy. But he breeds orchids. He is a gemologist. He could have done neither without studying some math and science. But he has a paucity of such qualifications; his academic highlights are in the arts and humanities! You could have bowled me over with a feather when he started discussing circular dichroism the other day — and I have long taken his encyclopaedic knowledge of gardening for granted.

You see, testing one thing does not guarantee that you are testing capacity, only ability at the point of testing. And that is so poor, so pathetic, so weak! In this world, though, it is seen as necessary, by social convention.

What on earth are we testing? We are testing our capacity for constructive self-delusion as the edifice (what an interesting word) of education is educted from around us. End of rant.

Misstatement

Can you imagine if my mission statement was this?

"To be a very large tree under which all kinds of nuts could be developed in all kinds of ways."

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That's just the amusing part of my day though. What came to mind as the day progressed was the second chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel. Slowly, I saw it in my mind's eye, that exposition of the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. I am not ashamed to say that I was terrified. The clues are all there: a king of kings who is a head of gold, and the subsequent unfolding history of the world.

You, O king, are a king of kings: for the God of Heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

And wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven has He given into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold.

And after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: for as much as iron breaks in pieces and subdus all things: and as iron that breaks all these, so shall it break in pieces and bruise.

And whereas you saw the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, for as much as you saw the iron mixed with miry clay.

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

And whereas you saw iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

And in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

For as much as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God has made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof is sure.

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I have been told that I have a small part of the gift of prophecy. Whatever it is that makes people say that, I often wish it would stop. And I am sure that all these things will go away, and that only love will abide.

Despair?

Despair is the emptiest of feasts. It is one which most of us have tasted; some of us have tried every dish on its malignant buffet. Some of its offerings include despondency, gloom and depression in all their various flavours. The word itself is, like 'desperation', descriptive of hopelessness and bears that meaning.

Twenty-five years ago, I cut a deal with despair. The documentation of that deal was based on the terrifying and logical contract first conceived in poetic form by that greatest of poetical Jesuits, Gerard Manley Hopkins. His 1918 poem, 'Carrion Comfort' is reproduced below. It is my fond hope that my friends who grapple with that Giant, Despair, will take comfort of a true kind from the reading of this poem.

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

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Dum spiro, spero, say the old texts. While there's life, there's hope is the equivalent in English. Always. For Hope was the last of the things to fly out of Pandora's Box. Some say it was the most final of evils, but I prefer not to embrace such pessimism.