ABSTRACT
The desire for credible evidence that one’s teaching is good and effective, perhaps even more effective than some other way, is understandable and very human. But to believe that we need “data” before we can know if we are succeeding is dangerous. The residual “traditional” teacher in me was delighted with the willing acceptance by the highly motivated Acquisition through Creative Teaching students of nearly any amount of homework–for a while. The pressure for test results is no less destructive for teachers and administrators. It blinds us to our true mission of liberating and encouraging the wondrous potential each individual possesses. The testing pressure reaches beyond the teacher’s anxiety about his/her students’ comparative scores. A colleague recently shared with me the story of an elementary school principal who had actually been falsi-fying students’ scores on the state’s standardized test over a period of years in an attempt to avoid a supervisor’s critical scrutiny.
