Eisner Article

I really enjoyed reading this article. One of the main reasons I was so pleased with it was because it helped me in my Philosophy of Education paper, so that was awesome! Otherwise though, I really liked what Eisner had to say about nearly everything. One of the main things I liked was that he commented that not all children are developmentally the same, and to have the same expectations of them is ludicrous. Some children are better in math, some in art, others in reading & writing, etc. These differences don't make any one student better than the other, it is just a difference in talents and passions.
Another topic that I agreed with, was that pointing out that tests aren't the only way to measure a student’s progress. There are countless students who are intelligent and motivated, yet simply are not good test takers. So why is it that these students get labeled negatively just because they don’t take standardized tests well. It doesn’t make sense. That being said, I liked how he made it known that just because a school has higher test scores does not mean it is a better school. There are lots of good schools with good teachers, who genuinely care about the students. They shouldn’t be judged as a bad school or bad teachers, just because there students didn’t meet a certain standard. It makes the teacher motivated to teach for a test, as opposed to teaching the students so they become more educated.
This Eisner article has been my favorite thing I’ve read so far in the class. He really seems to encompass all the assumptions about teaching, and clears them up for those who would not know better. I really wish that the creators of NCLB read this article.