Chasing testsandgrades and calling it learning

Grade books are merely an efficient way of cataloging a student's mistakes. By reducing something as magnificently messy as learning to a number or letter, grade books are a great way of ranking and sorting children in an effort to provide the system what it wants without ever providing anything the children need.

The problem is we are enamoured with trying to answer the question "What's this worth?", so we call this assessment. When we encourage students and teachers to chase testsandgrades and call it learning the best intentioned teachers can become indistinguishable from some of the worst.

Socrates once said that "the beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms", and until we properly define assessment as a process where the teacher and student work together to nurture a desire to go on learning, then little good will come from this thing we call school.

**Thanks to Jared Nichol for the title of this post.