Shoshana: Week 1, Schools need to stop teaching memorization in high school and college.


School doesn’t prepare us for the real world. I know that’s not what teachers want to hear, but it’s the truth. 


Where in the world are you going to find a boss that says, here are some documents, memorize them and then come back and fill out a form without looking at those documents you just read? No where! Are you going to find a workspace where a manager or higher up will proclaim, oh no, you can’t work with your co-worker on that, it won’t benefit your learning? No! It’s ridiculous that in 2022, especially in high school and college, schools are still pushing these ideas that when it comes to tests and quizzes, there shouldn’t be any working together or open notes.


These assessments have an effect on students starting all the way back in Elementary school. We have been told that anyone who didn’t do well on a test or a homework assignment just wasn’t trying hard enough to learn the material. While that may be true in some cases, it means that when students are actively struggling with a hard task, they feel like failures and are ashamed of their inability to do that work. 


New assessments can be written with thought provoking questions and more in depth conversations. The biggest challenge when it comes to this change in how assessments are run, would be requiring teachers to actually read answers from students rather than just glancing over basic questions that force students to be able to spit back information, a skill that normally isn’t needed in the real world.

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