Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms

by Frank Smith

Book Overview

Common sense tells us that drilling, testing, and grading have nothing to do with how babies, children, and adults really learn. And research backs this up. Students who had been asked to write regularly without being taught to punctuate, for instance, ended a term not only writing but punctuating much better than students in a neighboring class who had been regularly drilled, tested, and graded solely on punctuation. This must be the most tedious,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 043508478X
• ISBN13: 9780435084783
• Release Date: May 1988
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 10 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 5

Customer Reviews

A Critique of Dunderheaded Bureaucrats

Teachers are the gasket between two opposing forces. On one side, crushing teachers into pressure performance situations, is the top-down reform that has jinxed State Legislative bodies, pressing for accountability from teachers(when were teachers NOT accountable? I want to know) and giving them the tests to measure it, and on the otherside are the parents in the community who want the best for less. Everyone is fighting over the heads and minds of students, a large, mostly voiceless class.Smith's book provides an excellent account of the step-by-step disintegration of our schools from the integration of organized testing. Take note of the chapter on SAT testing, and the new arsenal of state sponsored testing. The new discrimination comes from white-collared bureaucrats using statistics and bell curves to establish their own Meritocracy. Now the chapter on computers is already a little dated, but don't let that dissuade you. Read it and then pass in on to someone else. This is a must read for anyone who cares even a little about education today. It should be on the same shelf with Neil Postman and Alfie Kohn's books.